Category Archives: pre reading

ahh, hmm, ohhhhhhhhhh

Posted on May 19, 2008 by | Leave a comment

yes well, sunday.

i was at work for a lot of the day [and lets gloss over that shall we!], but did get to spend the afternoon and early evening at home with the girls. Although it was yesterday, my brain a bit weak on what we did! i know there was a lot of geomagging, kids k’nex and pattern blocks. SB did an excellent violin practice. we read some books together – and did some french simple words and a lucy chat. i think she had done some maths earlier? not sure!!

Anyay, we bailed out into the garden and played in the tent, and hama beaded. i watered some of the potted veggies. ermm, i think there was more, but the day at work proved stressful, and i guess i have just got a poor memory! i do know that when i got home at nearly midnight both girls were back up again, so i went to bed with sb, and chris with bb. i do believe i would have had no sleep at all without the reassuring presence of a child.

today i have been told SB has done maths and piano. she also has hama beaded, pompom crafted and made ams a t shirt, and we promised not to blog what she wrote on the back [bless her spelling mistakes] but i believe chris alluded to it in a twitter. since that bit wasn’t ironed [fabric pen] might it come out in the wash??

BB also did her t shirt and hama-ed, and happily geomaged and k’nexed. oh, and starfalled some alphabet stuff.
when i got home we played dinosaur ludo, SB to ballet, then to swimming. me and BB just pottered and played on the swings mostly, and collapsed in front of pingu and magic school bus. i must go to bed now as shattered!!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, daubing and making, General, language, literacy, music, noises and sounds, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE

Spooky Spoon Bread

Posted on May 15, 2008 by | 2 comments

Thursday.

Off to Tots and Nots groups in the morning. Just in time for SB to take part in a French game with Katy. I sat with BB and did a picture with her made from different shapes cut out of paper. Bit of general playing and snack eating. SB did a picture as well. Drew a portrait of Helen. Gina whose does various music teaching there brought along some flutes. so they got to have a go with those. BB was interested, but didn’t want to try. SB managed to get some sound out of it without to much effort. Bit of singing of songs, then SB had her first recorders session with Gina. said she enjoyed it and wants to do some more. It should be becoming a regular thing.

By now BB was pretty grumpy – she wanted to go and watch SB playing, said she was hungry but didn’t want to eat any of the things  I had in the bag. Didn’t want to do anything I suggested etc. – probably tired (had woke me up before 5 am, though went back to sleep later) and hungry (only had eaten half a slice of toast and a modicum of yoghurt ).

Headed off home via Tesco’s for a few things – which was a bad idea – it’s a big Tesco Extra store and buying just a few things seems to involve walking miles. BB was amusing by the bakery counter. I was with SB a bit further along whilst she chose her bread, BB was sat in the trolley shouting out ‘ I want Spooky Spoon bread’ ! :-)  Spooky spoon (from the character in Numberjacks) bread being her name for a French stick – ever since we had one that was vaguely spoon shaped at the end and they kids dubbed it Spooky Spoon.

They both amused a mother at the veg bit. They were both begging me to buy a bag of Peas in their pods because they love eating them straight from the pods – but they were imported and rather expensive so I didn’t. Good to have kids who like consider buying bread and vegetables a treat though :-)

Escaped  Tesco and got home to a late lunch of mostly Spooky spoon bread accompanied by a dose of Magic School Bus. SB did piano practice, and handwriting. BB got out her violin and played with that, couldn’t find her maths book which she wanted, so did some leap-padding. then they both got out the Geomags. BB got upset because they kept on sticking to each other :roll: and they bickered and argued over which Geomags they each had, could do with more really. I cooked some soup, which neither of the kids seem to like much – probably a tad too spicy for them. Helen came home and read some books with them – I caught one about Alexander Graham Bell.

Then off to bed.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, language, music, Out and About, pre reading, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

hmm an atypical home ed day.

Posted on May 14, 2008 by | 8 comments

i am going to nominate today as the home-ed day in photos meme [please see previous in sidebar!], and will hopefully get the photos up! it is atypical, because i was at home, because i bailed out of a group today and declared duvet, and rainbows was cancelled. maybe chris will do one as well! thing is, i prob need the photos to remember what we did :smile:
8:00 they were both up with chris, so they prob watched something! had breakfast

9:00 I’m up! BB is doing alphabetting [using alphabet stencils to write the letters] SB is colouring in a rainbows picture, and then looking at the difference between the roman alphabet and ours. i read some dinodoor books with BB, we all do family members in french.
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10:00 getting dressed and cleaning teeth. i look round at house and decided to spend the day in the garden! [ in fact t-bird gave me the idea with her tent-ed] SB makes a great go at putting up mini-tent [with BB being not too unhelpful, and even nearly helping on occasion!] . I shew them my bag of selected options [not exclusive, they could have gone and got somethig else], and both started with colouring. BB with crayons in a bible book [bought by chris's parents] and SB in pencil on nice paper. She drew the garden first, and then started drawing my portrait.BB did some before the code.

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11:00 sees us discussing the weather in french – well, learning some of the weather words and popping them into saying it is hot and sunny. we read part of a book about food chains, and then had a fruit break. SB chose the ladybird book about the spanish armada [no I'm arder!] for me to read to her. BB liked the guns, and then went off to play in the garden. [I am concerned about her!]

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12:00 sees SB doing singapore maths 2B [halfway through] and BB and i looking at the extremely greedy starlings eating all the fat balls, and deciding to have a go at making our own. with a break for a who has the silliest face competition. SB finishes her maths and does it with us.

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13:00 mostly lunchtime. SB made lunch whilst i put lard [yuk what a truly awful smell, but the birds have never eaten them when made with veggie fat] over our nut, fruit, seed and mealworm mix. SB made peanut butter sarnies for BB, avocado sandwiches for me [using same knife, so slightly unusual!] and cheese for her [fresh knife!] and we watched some nina and the neurons. About now i thought, ooh, we have done alot today, lets make it our photoblog day! luckily i always take a lot of photo when i am at home to prove i was there. BB did some fab geomags – she wanted to make a square [cube]

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14:00 BB did a short violin practice – mostly just enjoying making noise. chris and BB went off to get some pallets from the orchard down the road to use to make an ad hoc empty compost bin [we have filled all of ours] . SB was going to do violin, but took rather a long time getting organised about it! we did do a violin practice too.

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15:00 has us back out in the garden. BB in the sandpit and SB drawing with fabric pens on a white t-shirt. both then did lots of playing in sandpit, with water, on slide etc. chris made compost bin, i played hide and seek, and took some flower photos.

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16:00 children happily playing, SB did some pot watering and had an icecream. i potted up the yard long beans and put into greenhouse [oops, forgot to say that in the garden blog - must put that right!]

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17:00 no more photos. both girls in desperate need of a bath!! after that some tidying up in the garden by me, whilst they watched pingu. a recap on french words we have looked at today.
18:30 judo for SB, i read bob the builder books to BB, we had tea and I put BB to bed.

19:30 SB home and fed, a short look at zoo tycoon for DS and then also to bed [by chris] whilst i potted up toms and cucurbits.

21:00 with the binging of the church bells, the tv switched on and we watch the apprentice and blog. the end of atypical home ed day. with thanks to katy for being understanding of me need to duvet, as we should have been doing science and latin in the morning, which we do all really enjoy. i just needed some home time.

photos to be sourced and added [of course, to make it actually a photoblog!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, history, language, music, noises and sounds, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

summer is here – now official!

Posted on May 10, 2008 by | 1 comment

well here anyway, as SB and BB had a row about it!

before i start, why is it that as soon as i friends ans family flickr due to an overly persistant re-contacter, chris links to our blog from an everone view photo!! sigh!

anyway, it was another hot one today! started off in the cool with piano practice with SB. she wants to do more piano than violin at the moment, so i am hoping to facilitate that, but keep the violin ticking over. certainly her piano playing is coming on in leaps and bounds at the moment, and i guess this increases the enthusiasm. i’m going to try and find an easy duet book as well for that. [actually if i did more violin duets with her that would prob be a good thing too!]

SB then got on with some maths and handwriting whilst BB and I made some cheese scones [had to hide some so we would have some for tomorrows picnic!!]. we then did some lucy chat books at the beach – v helpful i now know the word for shark! and BB did some alphabet recognition.

All piled out into the garden under the gazebo to do some more crocodile making. SB has embellished hers so much with papier mache that hers is more of a thorny devil. bB’s was more minimalistic, and then she wailed because it was too wet to play with :roll: general outside play. chris and i both did bits of hoeing fruit bed, chris weeded some veg patch, i planted and SB watered. we have started hacking at the yew trees as well.

had some camping pancake mix left, so added cocoa powder to it for a chocolate pancake treat [bB's idea] we all prefer plain! Then put up one of our tents in the garden for the girls to play with [the cheapy 2 person 'festival tent']

cooling down now – phew!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, daubing and making, gardening, General, language, literacy, music, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE, writing

must reclaim my wednesdays!!

Posted on May 7, 2008 by | Leave a comment

SB loves the drama group, but she leaves by 9.30 and returns at 12.30. at 15.20 she goes to rainbows and returns at 17.00, at 18.20 she goes to judo and returns at 19.40. ie, I get to see v little of her on my day free, and I MISS HER! especially today when crappy with migraine, and the heat really hit me just as she was about. we played castle keep and did violin practice, but that was about it. bleurgh. at bedtime we have nearly finished the orchard book of arthur and the round table [a good book, but it couldn't really follow on to michael morpurgo's fab gawain and seem fab]

BB and I have had plenty of time together, and BB is also a delight more often than a tantrum throwing stroppy 3 year old! today we sowed loads of seeds together, watered and potted on [some things might not survive!], she then chose to play with pattern blocks with me for ages [and i had to be careful to only do the allowed bits!] and then we made towers and walls with the wooden bricks. being still dirty from the seeds, we had a bath.
She started getting a bit, well, 3 so we went outside for a run, and read a book all about tigers. i made lunch in time for SB’s return home, but i think the outside bit was the last straw for the migraine i was desperately pretending wasn;t there, so i had to lie down for a bit – grr – in a cool room. cue much wailing and jumping on me to see if better yet. however, chris got out paddling pool and as the temp in the shade became more bearable, i sat out and we narrated stories for each other – BB mostly being a crocodile!

sorted tea and BB then watched a MSB and to bed, SB returned and watched MSB and to bed, and chris has gone out. SB not settling v well, as not used to daddy out.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, early maths skills, gardening, General, music, Out and About, pre reading, socialisation

what a beauuutiifullllll day!

Posted on April 26, 2008 by | Leave a comment

it is rather fabulous to be at le weekend at last. its also rather typical that where we wanted really brill weather – last weekend and next, it was cold and will be [don't tell michelle!!] and this weekend of doing nothing it is so fabulous we have even put on suncream!

got up nice and early. merry had stayed over last night, which was also lovely, so we had got to do some gossiping and general chatting. she left pretty early this morning [well for us anyway!] so we were at least up with the larks. BB was anyway, SB stayed asleep and was much put out to find our guest gone.

no time for slacking though! a quick whizz through maths on her part, and BB doing dots to dots on poisson rouge. then piano and violin practice, then some crafting outside. we seem to have rather a lot of unfinished crafts, so will perhaps attempt to finish some before we start new ones!! There are the crocodiles still in progress. today we used 4pt milk to decorate up as animals – gleefully nicked idea from the pig at the manor borns. BB has done [drumroll please] a dinodoor!! SB is in the process of making liz the lizard from MSB. we sat outside on a rug. oh, i do like the outdoor HE!
a picnic lunch outside – woohoo!! then to the church where they were doing a bit of history of the village. more interesting for me and chris, moderately so initially for sb, and minimally for bb. they all liked the aerial shots, and spotting our house in photos though. on return we did a bit more french words – this time la maison book. TBH, these are v basic, with little context, but we pop a sentence around them and think the french sounds, so i am sure they are going to help! BB did some alphabet work as well. We also looked at a DK 4 book about dinosaur bone hunters.
Back and chris sorted out the paddling pool for the girls and they had a splash around for a bit. rather cold water though, so not enthusiastic for a great length of time! then a bit of tv whilst they warmed up – charlie and lola made a comeback! when I went outside, the pool seemed to have half emptied, and yess, huge hole!! it is the first time it has been used. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

we had tea infront of dinotopia, which both girls really enjoy. i think it is confusing the extinct thing for BB, oh well! she has been pretending to be a meeteater dinosaur and grring from behind furniture – rofl!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, music, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

blogchen

Posted on April 24, 2008 by | Leave a comment

just a little one as i am seriously on edge – management meetings. i am just not the right type!

Anyway, the girls had a busy day, going to nots and tots, with a bit of french and a bit of latin amongst other things. SB did a piano practice as well.

when i got home they both wanted to do a craft, so some cards for fran are half made! Sb has used a stamping kit, and bB and i have done wax splodges so far. we had candles out for a bit of demonstrating that there was air and you can use it up.[bb is particularly keen on speriments] SB also did some maths. we all read a bit more of these baby french books [they are v much for 2's but they are quick, and we try and do a sentence with the words, today we were eating or not eating various foods!] SB and BB watched some how things work based on the DK books, which they both enjoyed [and yes, some MSB] . Sb playd some chess, and read some 3rd grade detectives books.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, literacy, music, numeracy, Out and About, pre reading, science, socialisation

aargh, bb awake only 90 mins after SB to bed

Posted on April 23, 2008 by | Leave a comment

hmm, i am trying to back flickr, blog, think about important meeting tomorrow at work etc etc, and multitasking is not compatible with BB awake. gorgeous though she is.

Anyway, we all got up, CHris to SB to drama, unfortunately he was running late and they went to the wrong venue. it is far enough away that there was much sighing! she got to half of it anyway.

meanwhile BB and I were having a much more satisfactory time. we started off playing silly games – hide and seek frog etc, then did some seed sowing. BB quite keen to do more experiments with seeds, so we have put some different ones to chit and we will see which one germinates first. [more details on gardening blog] after we had done that we did some ‘match and sort’ with singapore 1a. she enjoys this as v easy!! [though she did say she wanted to do SB's book...] and we read one of the very starter french books on colours again.

Still desperately keen to do ‘speriments, i got out an air book, so we saw how we could blow air on each other [degenerated a bit!] and then [b******, FORGOT ABOUT THE LINK THING AND JUST PUBLISHED. THIS IS WHERE I LAST SAVED!] i impressed myself with making some really good aeroplanes.

lunch and SB home. she wanted me to show her her piano hands afterwards, so we did a piano practce, then a violin. BB joined in the violin practice – always tricky! Both girls did afrench book with me on clothes and then ordered crystal experiments, so we set them up – very brave of me to handle chemicals with BB! SB read all the safety warnings v carefully. she remembered that we had hung the rock from string before, and wanted to repeat that, so we did.

Rainbows for SB – feels that there is no time for me in her current wed timetable, so will have to change that. A surprise visit by chris parents, so i made tea and dinner at the same time [grin] and got them to read [and i won't link this time!] Katie and the dinosaurs and Digging up dinosaurs. we then read a red nose reader together before she wanted to bake pink cupcakes with smarty eyes. so we did. SB returned in time for the lickings, and we said goodbye to grandparents.

Bath, tea, BB bed, SB playing in garden, me potting up seedlings. SB bed. Apprentice, apprentice you’re fired and BB awake. playing drawing birds and dinosaurs with BB and looking at flickr pics of her as a baby. the end!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Cooking, Dance/drama, early maths skills, General, language, music, Out and About, pre reading, science, socialisation

today [quickly]

Posted on April 21, 2008 by | Leave a comment

chris had minor op this am – all well

his parents came and supervised. SB quickly rattled off maths, handwriting and piano. lots of games then with nana and grandad.

when i came home she got out a fossil find kit we had picked up from a museum, and enjoyed doing that. BB separated sand and iron filings using a magnet [maganet] and v much enjoyed that. she suprised me by using the word evaporated correctly. she also used her maganet [maginfying glass this time!] to look at plastic spider in more detail. SB off to ballet, BB and i read books and played games, and then stuc straws together to make panpipes. SB off to swimming [where her stroke has gone back to 'unusual'!] came home to find nina and neurons in progress.

At SB request, box books have swapped from explorers to science books with experiments in.

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wondrous weekend

Posted on April 21, 2008 by | 1 comment

its the musical monday thing, it makes me feel all alliterative!

we did have a wonderful weekend though, as we went and stayed with the manor borns, went to st georges day at wrest park on the sat and geocaching and bird walk on the sun. i would link, but blog being awkward on those kind of things! so thanks to our host family
so, st georges day [actually don't even dare a bold!]. we were eonly 30 mins behind schedule, and although later than the manorborns, we were still one of the first arrivals. and no surprise because it was COLD. I felt v sorry for re-enactors and EH, as they must have made a massive loss. we still had fun though. SB and Chloe were actors in all 3 performances from rosie bottom and the variously named male actor [will ilink to their company eventually!]. they were excellent as usual, and the children all had great fun. SB giggled her way being lots of diff roles, and Chloe was a v proud horatio. I think they were the best bit of the day! Though actually the fire jugglers were great. SB had some fun dancing with some re-enactors, and also messing about with pikes etc. We watched some displays, and did some sheltering from cold and wet in the orangery. EH did a roaring trade in gloves and hats, and sold out! BB not so enthusiastic, so we spent quite a bit of time playing races around the rather beautiful gardens. kept me nice and warm anyway!

went back for dinner, cheffed in style by marcus. the girls played loads of games, and mostly kept themselves happy. following their bedtime, we played carcasonne with river, and really enjoyed that until 2!

so we were all rather subdued the next day! but did geocache walk – and found it! so our faith in marcus’s gadget using is undimmed. we then were going to do a customary walk around bird place, but decided to make it a bit shorter, like parental tempers! [i improved after flapjack]. lovely walk though, bluebells nearly out, lots of discussion on growing things etc, lots of bird sounds and some nice photos. we also eventually figured how to do that one game 2 ds thing [shame they have such hopeless parents, we did twitter, but none of the obvious experts twittered back, and we eventually had to be resourceful!]
home our separate ways, so we collapsed into a little chef as thought girls would keel over, and met the deependers having a similar thought following their warmer version of st georges day. car games there and back were in french – shouting out colours of cars!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, Out and About, pre reading, socialisation, Stringbean's HE