Category Archives: pre reading

Touristy Tuesday – ely

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

whilst dad started with the diy – thanks dad! decorating our downstairs loo, and chris got sorted to do some windowing, mum said she fancied going to ely. again the girls raced through home ed stuff, violin prac with mum, maths, handwriting, and wizard whimstaff spelling books that i had got and SB loves and is racing through. Also some french story and conversation, and reading of a castle book.

so off to ely, and the girls got strict instructions on how to behave in a cathedral. so we were totally shocked to open the door and find 800 screaming primary schoolers!!! at least it was free entry. they were having a day on the victorian restoration – which was interesting. SB had a bit of a wobble [well, it was a wobbly day for her] because the children had worksheets and she didn’t – and they were the most boring worksheets imaginable!! oh well, on walking around, whilst the kids had their lunch break and were like wild animals chasing around, we noticed all the brass rubbings out and about, so the girls spent a happy 30 mins brass rubbing, whilst mum looked about more. we went and had lunch at pizza express and wandered about, including cromwells house.

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home in time to take SB swimming – she is getting really good, particularly at backstroke.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, DIY/ house renovation, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Out and About, pre reading, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

Appley Monday

Posted on October 18, 2008 by | Leave a comment

my parents arrived on monday, much anticipated and looked forward too! due to their likely early arrival we were up, and the girls v eager to see them! lots of cuddles and getting settled in. SB and BB showed the maths they had done, and SB did a piano practice with mum. Actually, all week they have been keen to do a lot of the HE ‘normals’ which i hope reassures my parents a bit!

in the afternoon we went to a local tour of an apple orchard with the owner. it was delightful. we were near the front of the tractor, so SB, mum and i plied him with questions between stops, and he told us the history of farm and family, planting and varietal changes, beekeeping etc etc and was charming. SB took a lot in, and both girls and adults enjoyed sampling the fruit!! he has planted lots of apricots, and is hoping potentially for a small crop next year…

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back by skin of teeth to ballet and then brownies – what a busy day!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, early maths skills, General, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Out and About, photos, pre reading, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

i should be doing my tax return!

Posted on October 12, 2008 by | 11 comments

but i hate doing the buggers, can’t use their website – i used it when first set up, forgot password, and somehow can’t be re-entered… and i have never filled out the self emplyed bit before, and it has all sorts of questions i can’t answer! i earnt about £1500 self employed over a year, and spent about £800. but the form has all sorts of weird bits in it!!

so i’ll blog instead. got up late, girls watching monsters inc, had shower [took ages to brush hair], did violin practice with SB – haven’t practiced for ages so lots of wails and gnashing of teeth there. read some books with BB, then lunch, and both girls did some maths and SB handwriting whilst BB did some french story with me. SB then did french conversation. i realsied what she actually got upset with on wed [or so she says] is that she couldn’t spell to write car experiment on the paper and thought j and chloe would laugh at her. no idea why, and chloe had j spell experiment for her. i will print it next time though. She does have entirely dire spelling though, and absolutely no way of working it out. since her reading is so fab, i am a bit of a loss as to why she can’t spell car… but we will make an effort to do diolch words spellings, as we let them slide a bit. i’m not overwhelmed by the fact her spelling is so bad if it doesn’t bother her, but if its going to make her wail and be miserable, then she has to learn!!

lots of running abour wildy, playing with kids k’nex and bb doing counting buddy blocks with the maths manipulatives and they wanted to go out roller skating. we got about 20 m and had to return for a wee stop :roll: but the next attempt far more successful. beautiful day for it too, and the churchyard has lots of slopy pavements to practice on. also a bit of gravestone investigation as well. should have taken the camera, as the light on the church was gorgeous, oh well! its not as if we don’t have a few photos tucked away!

returned when girls worn out, snuggled and read books – including a bit of SOTW as we have slipped a bit in it – it only takes a few seconds, but somehow… and a quickie recorder practice as well. watched a quite dire spanish lyrical video – bought ages and ages ago. but girls liked it, so i face booked!! yummy tea, and then bedtime. i am enjoying the pirates of pompeii reading to sb at the mo, and she read me some arthur in return.

PS, i am bolding again. i really miss it when i don’t do it!
:smile: oh, and BB bought me flowers :smile:

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Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Ponderings, pre reading, Stringbean's HE, writing

messy party part 2

Posted on October 6, 2008 by | 3 comments

we obviously weren’t too dreadful guests, as we went back to the second messy party at the deependers yesterday. i was at work in the morning, and being called in the afternoon, but luckilly didn’t have to go in. a bonus babs and family were there too, lovely to see them again as well! also some local HE. this time the messy stuff was in the tent [lucky as the day started off v rainy, but it did improve] babs had got some geli baff – weird stuff. i couldn’t get at all messy in case needed to troubleshoot at work. SB got messy eno0ugh for the both of us, in fact she prob was The Most Messy! thats my girl!! certainly was great fun, and nice to have opportunities to sit and chat while children have fun.

[btw chris's thunder is blogging about team read, there are some photos on flickr. girls will be in newspaper etc]

Home and i finally finished fantastic contraptions – woohoo!! read more pirates of pompeii to the girls.

today i was knackered as called at night. but came back from work in tieme to say a quick hello to sb before her ballet and brownies. BB and i read books, leappadded, looked at a dog book and a dinosaur book [her favourite things!!] before picking more sweetcorn, beans and broccoli from the garden for tea. [have offered spare broccoli seeds to Nic...] we have rousted about and snuggled under duvet with the clangers. sb should be back soon, and we must do a quick bit of latin and i need to sort and resource session 2 on forces[a page in sidebar] for wed.

chris might add the things he has done with girls to his blog post – if we are lucky!!

the totally grr bit of today :cry: and :rant: was that some old chap was in a dizz whilst parking car at work and forgot to put his handbrake on :evil: – rolled back into my back bumper, all bent and scraped. havce only had the car for 11 daYS :cry: However, it being NCP, the people there had seen it, and couldn’t move his car so bollarde etc, and put warnings on his and mine and did an incident form. he went and fessed up [though otherwise i would still have had numberplate] so will get chris to chase up tomorrow. still sobbing!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, gardening, General, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, socialisation

chris may not blog?

Posted on October 5, 2008 by | 4 comments

he says he might tomorrow! so i won’t steal his thunder!!

whilst not at work for a short patch, the girls were keen to ‘do’ things. my mum had brought up some 70′s craft books i had got one xmas [from aunty doris and uncle ralph, i know this, because the tag is still sellotaped inside] and BB chose to make tissue paper flowers with me, which we enjoyed lots, though i actually did most of it! one thing i like in this book is there is a making paper bag masks bit, and the illustrated page of kids wearing them has a toddler running away wailing!! SB wanted to do science, so she did the volcano thing, and got through half a bottle of sarsons! we need to source cheap vinegar!!

also today, after measuring the temp in the kitchen at 13, the heating went on. sb and i went round the whole house measuring the temp in each room – highest 15. def cold! we had a chat about what might make rooms colder – number of outside walls, windows without double glazing etc. once the heating has got going, we will remeasure.

bB and i played no-rules draughts [i lost due to non understanding of the rules, and penalties of my pieces being randomly removed] SB read LOADS of books [including a horrid henry joke book, and we had to listen to them - groan!!]. we picked our own sweetcorn for tea, and also raspberries, blackberries and apples.

i did lots of reading. we read our emilie books [en francais] – 3 of them, and then i read loads of the goblin and ghoul stories too. SB escaped SOTW and Latin, and also music practice – though i did some piano practice.

they had toasted marshmellows on open fire for pudding – though SB burnt tongue and finger despite many warnings to be careful. bless her, she is most accident prone.

And i worked – sigh

edited to add – i forgot to add that i mended one of bb’s stretchy dinodoors with copydex and then sutures. seems to be holding firm at present, and not leaking any more little rubber balls! successful surgery

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, gardening, General, language, literacy, little languages, Out and About, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE

nice car

Posted on September 26, 2008 by | 1 comment

yep, thanks v much! need to work out what some of the buttons do, obviously.

had an early finish from work, which was much needed after a dreadful night sleep! SB had a nightmare and came in to chat at 3am!!

she obviously got a lie in, which i didn’t. but she was probably more productive, doing maths, handwriting and a maths experiment in the morning. when i got home she did a really lovely violin practice, and she is getting to have a really comfortable looking posture.

we were then going to do a science kit. i suggested trying out one of the young scientist club ones from the egg booklet sarah sent up with steve [thanks v much sarah - i will def use the ideas in them for the science group and am v v greatful!], but she decided to do a build a robot kit we have, got it all out and then had a strop and put it away again. fair enough. she still wanted to do science, and bb now also desperate, so she went to get an enviroment kit, and got it all out, realised some of it has to be done outside, had a strop, put it away. then got a much used physics kit out and… had a strop because half the pieces must be scattered round the house, and she couldn’t do any of the experiments she wanted to – sigh! however, she found a game and was quite happy sorting it out. then she did lots of building with our fun blox sets. BB and i did a pompom craft, as she was in a fever to do something!

we finished the afternoon with a slump infront of muzzy. i def think its improving my german comprehension anyway!!

our camera seems to have disapparated. we can’t find it anywhere. chris said he took a photo with it this morning, i am fairly convinced that i saw it beside the cooker when i came in from work. but there is no sign of it anywhere at all. humph!! SB won’t let me borrow hers either.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

ok, today is the day!

Posted on September 21, 2008 by | 2 comments

we usually get back from holiday at the last minute, and i really struggle at work for the first week recovering [maybe something to do with the type of holiday we take!]. so it was rather nice to have a relaxing day today and a return tomorrow instead.

we unwound in the morning, watching downloads, then playing castle games. SB had a total usborne lift the flap fest. the see inside science, the earth, the brain and maths. She is quite keen to have more of them, so if and when i do another book order [some time from now, as we are on the stony side at the mo] i might consider the acquisition of the under ground one. and also perhaps the usborne crusader reading book [i can always think of lots of books – will perhaps get chris to go to the big library and see if any there. there should be really?

together we did SOTW as she wanted to get to the battle of hastings – having read all about william the conqueror on hols. however, we did also go to richard lion heart’s castle at les andeleys, so she is muddling the 2 up a bit. we looked at our map book at the vikings.

we went outside and all picked veg – lots of apples are ready, a second crop of raspberries, loads of tomatoes [particularly the ilidi], runner and french beans, some courgettes and spouting brocolli. lots of running about, bb loves eating the ilidi yellow mini toms [they are gorgeous]

back in to play more games with the castle. practice makes perfect, and we played altogether quite happily whilst chris sorted photos of the holidays. the girls then had a bath, whilst i did some catching up with the internet. SB and BB back down, and we watched how things work, and then bb fell asleep and SB and i made some more of her viking brooches - painting and fimo beads. we have refound her science book, and so we stuck in the chromatography.

SHe has also done alot of reading of the arthurian legends, so whilst watching tea, we watched the new merlin from bbc1. now obviously i have a HUGE E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S problem with the basic plot premise, i will let you find that out elsewhere!! but actually, it is an enjoyable romp. i think it is even less true to the basic premise than the tudors is. but i guess the tudors is supposed to be history, and this is a myth, so… i am going to try and forget about the actual plot premise, and enjoy the series, as i think it is going to be v enjoyable. SB and BB quite transfixed.

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, gardening, General, geography, history, literacy, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

busy bees

Posted on September 10, 2008 by | 8 comments

we have had a mostly screech free day here today. BB is *very* piercing! when I got up, BB had been watching magic school bus – and I found another one i hadn’t seen – the microbe one! [yes, chris is going to get round to it!!] SB started off with doing a jigsaw book on ancient egyptian sites. We then read together a story about ramadan and eid, and she went on to look at a the what I believe book. Then did some self directed recorder practice – getting better at hole covering so not so many shrill bits. BB and I did maths at this point. she is starting to add 1 onto things, and subtract 1′s. BB and I then did some alphabet stuff, as she doesn’t know it at all yet.

SB then looked at our usbourne picture french dictionary [after me telling Katy that we weren't doing french reading - of course SB LOVES reading] so we did the a’s and b’s [she complained that only the english words were always a's and b's :roll: ] SO we did it together with my pronunciation :oops: and thinking of sentences to put it in.

SB did singapore maths – must buy the 3 series – whilst BB did starfall and i hemmed the Gi thingy for judo – so at least now she can walk without flappy arms and legs!

And then we had breakfast :wink:

OK, it was a late breakfast at 11! BB had already had breakfast earlier and SB and I had brunch. SB did violin whilst I still hemmed, and we are being inventive at the moment, with the majority of the time she is finding sounds, or making up tunes for me or playing scales – she likes scales. At this time an amazon bookseller order arrived from way back – one of the 3rd grade detective books, which she loves, so she tucked herself on the sofa and had finished it within 1/2 an hour. hmm! We also had a parcel from the manor borns, so SB moved onto melrose and croc, [most impressed with inscription from Clo] and BB spent most of the rest of the day in lizard related activities – very enthusiastic! [chris went shopping for gas canisters - so that was his day - rofl!]. SB made up some choc angel delight on her own – though BB sahred the task of eating it.

The girls are really in to playing with the castle and stuff at the moment, i was in charge of dragons, SB had romans and courtiers, and BB assorted lizards and dinodoors [as you do] and they had tea parties, swimming parties and hama bead diving competitions [i need to get out the hoover]. I in the end drifted away [i think I did VERY well to carry on for that long] and SB fancied knitting – so she brought back some yellow moon first cross stitch kits, she did the flower [well, at least she started it and did the centre]. BB played with the kit, but didn’t actually DO any.

They then did some convoluted liz game, I went out into the veg patch and picked loads of greenbeans, toms, brocolli and courgettes. they came out and did whizzing about the garden with lizards, but when i went in to cook the curry for tea they came in too. SB hama beaded, BB did liz dives into hama beads games, and i read them a book about remainder of one.

SB has gone off to Judo [first time since broken foot so fingers crossed] and BB watching the ways things work. I am pondering cars and how much i can stretch too.

edited to add: when SB came back, with free choice to watch whatever she wanted, and BB asleep, she chose Muzzy german level 2. and then we discussed protons and dark matter :smile: She has been a happy bean all day.

also, any recommendations on good balanced books – pref story related and good for 8 year old who has good vocab skills – about the crusades?

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, gardening, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

odin’s day

Posted on September 3, 2008 by | 6 comments

we are being reasonably productive at the moment. yesterday the girls had a library morning, making owls and listening to owl stories, and SB has read loads of her library books. she also did some piano and handwriting. She learnt she had got a place at gym – woohoo, and also went to the first swimming of term, she is now at level 7, so v happy.

today SB did some violin and piano. we are trying to do 15 minutes more regularly, but this is v variable! SHe has done maths and spellings as well. from the box books she chose some of the viking stories [we have viking fact and fiction, volcano fact and fiction and weather fact in there at the mo]. We also did the first chapter of minimus, realising we have forgotten too much of our sketchy latin!

BB has also done lots of letterland books [ iread them and we play search for the main letter of the book] as well as counting and jigsaws. She also played on starfall.

we all made castles and other creations out of wooden bricks for a while, and played outside for a bit too, and i read a french book with them both.

SB has done some education city science, and bB loads of the jump ahead starting maths. i was desperate to do something crafty, so eventually enticed them away with air drying clay. BB made snowmen and SB the start of the viking badges in the hundred history projects book. They both wanted to be facepainted, so i did that, but soon they wanted it off as they said it was itchy.

SB did a chromatography experiment with felt tips to see what hidden colours were there after initially identifying the pen that had made the ‘test’ chromatogram. she really loved doing this, and i think plans to do loads more. i think we might then have a go with 2 way chromatography on the ones that didn’t split well and use alcohol as the other solvent [though we don't have pure ethanol!] and perhaps see what might happen with other solvents.

a quiet time with ‘how things work’ and ‘magic school bus’ and then a castle/fairy game before tea and bed. I have started shortening SB’s judo suit.

chris has had fun with a blocked drain, and sorting camping stuff for the weekend. i love camping!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

getting excited!

Posted on August 28, 2008 by | 2 comments

i like parties, even if they are a bit hard work to organise – and a bit worrying when one essential piece of craft equipment hasn’t arrived yet!

felt lurgified but better, so went to work, and realised i had used up all my energy by lunchtime. luckilly it was a front loaded day, and i rearranged the pm things for next week, came home and snuggled on sofa with girls to read books. SB has a sort of tick box timetable again – she was nagging me! we then had to go through the blog to see what she could tick off for the week. it is simpler than the last one anyway. She had done maths and handwriting in the morning, and lots of reading. we did some recorder together.

then, having perked a bit, we did some baking – shortbread, and i also whizzed up some black cupcakes to decorate. cue mess everywhere. girls played alot with the castle.

so another rest, and i have done a bit more tidying, and plan to do a bit more baking tonight, and a bit more wood polishing [beeswax]

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, history, literacy, music, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE, writing