Category Archives: General

SB’s sats results

as determined by me, looking lazily at the relevant pages!

English

speaking and listening – v mood dependent ? 3(- )

reading – level 3-4

writing – level 1

Maths

number and algebra -  we’ve done this obviously in a different order, as she can do bits in 4, but not all the bits in 3, but i’m going to say 3 anyway

shape, space and measures – prob 2-3

Art and Design [honestly! i can understand tha english and maths are assessable, but art and design??]

prob a 2+

Citizenship ?perlease

actually, there are no attainments here, but i think we have this fairly well covered.

Design and technology

prob a 2 , but i don’t think we have done much of the stuff they are talking about! when the summer comes, we tend to more junk building outside.

geography – a wild a woolly set of attainments

so I’m going to say 3 [-], as i think we do a fair bit of whats on there at different times

history

3 again, primarily because we do lots of reading and talking and visiting places. and i don’t know how they would assess her! the difference between 2 and 3 not so clear!

modern foreign languages

are not statutory, so our sketchy attempts are not bad eh!

ICT

TBH, we haven’t done a lot of this 2

music

i have quite a prob with this one as i understand their wordage, and disagree. many kids don’t get to sing in tune, and doesn’t mean any less for their musicianship. i have a non-singing cousin with a grade 8 piano. so is he only level 2 then?? anyway i guess 2.

 PE [cough]

2

RE – which has v overt christian symbolism!
2

science

2-3

SATS, that wasn’t so bad was it!! but since she scores 1 for writing, how on earth would anyone external have assessed half of this? think it is pretty meaningless! It seems that ‘most children should be at level 2′ so having wasted all that time, its bedtime

latin, science and haircuts

we got up in good time, and then looked likely to get there on time, however at the last moment, BB threw sugar all over SB, so a shower in order, and… we were late! luckilly, our hostess is v accommodating. latin commenced, SB said on the way home that we need to remember to do more at home. since katy had had a chat about possibly accelerating the older few, i might see if sb can do the pace they may set as she seems keen. at least i have bought another copy of minimus. we did science on magnets, i tried to have a mixture of more complex for the bigger ones, and easy for the littlies, but BB was really not in the mood to let me continue on. however, we struggled on, and think it went ok, i might try electromagnets next time.

so then some yummy soup and general play and chit chat with adults. so very nice. SB had a number of accidents :roll: and BB perked up :smile: . Dressing up went particularly well. bB then totally lost it, we were about an hour later than i thought [body clock not adapted ] and in the end swept mine out when i should have helped a bit with tidying, as thought more prolonged BB howls might be less welcome than the tidying up would have been welcome. BB fell asleep on the way home [and has therefore taken for ever to get to bed tonight] and SB also had an early night due to the wailies once we got home.

we had an ebay parcel when we got home, so i thought it might perk bB up, but no, it didn’t work! aaarghhhhhhh. anyway, the seller will replace the pen.

a blog filled day

we are awaiting the ending of an ebay auction which we would have liked to have won. we have placed a max which is low, but reasonable, but is obviously lower than the reserve. i hate reserve auctions. i refuse to ‘bid up’ to see where the reserve is. And I think in this case it was obviously at something unrealistic, as we are nowhere near our max bid yet. grumble grumble moan moan!!

we had a playdate today with rainbows friend [RR for short]. she was obviously in a bit of a weird mood from the start, dropped off by her mum early in a tearing hurry [our girls stilll in pj's!] (Note From Chris: Early here was 10.20 :-) )they started playing ok, but after a bit our girls keen to go outside and enjoy sun, couldn’t understand why RR not so keen. but apparently she had watched a film on volcanoes. we prob live in one of the least likely areas for a surprise volcano in the world! it was oK if she wore S’s clothes though, and I went out too. fair enough, i sowed some seeds and interacted in minimalistic reassuring fashion. [a tsunami would be much more of a worry really]. SHe’s a lovely girl really though, just caught on an ‘unusual’ day – and no more off planet than SB can be. However, she did graze herself on slide, so i carried her in and settled her in front of magic school bus, and upset mine by insisting they watch it with her. pizza decorate yourself for lunch perked things up, and then after lunch i did an ad hoc weaving with scoobido fish dreamcatcher thing – which sort of went ok, BB and RR both gave up, and i finished theirs, but they tod me which colours and when to put pony beads on. SB did hers beautifully, but with a fair tension on it, so it is more of a tube fish!

BB showed RR her magnets, and a long discussion about magnets ensued, and a bit of iron detectiving. am planning to do some magnet stuff tomorrow. wish i had sorted out stuff to make an electromagnet, maybe next time. the older ones prob know it all already. hmmm

they went off and played happily for a bit, then a something or other, and I ended up hugging RR and chris SB whilst watching magic tree house and eating apricot scones [lovely] . so peace and happiness returned, chris and sb walked her home, and played for a bit there, as she was much happier back on home turf [obviously being about 200m away, no risk of volcanoes!]

BB and I did other bits and pieces together during the day. she was still wailing about lost dinodoors [if anyone goes to magna, or anywhere else that sells them, could we pay you for a 50p stretchy lizard?] so we made some about of fimo – a t -rex and 2 babies, that could also be eaten! we then went on to make the yummy apricot scones. mmmmm. We read alot of books together, and did some counting and guessing starts of words, and lots of singing. we also made a fish out of airdrying clay, whcih she insisted had a sad mouth [like prunella scales in that supermarket advert!]
Chris picked up BB from the floor at some point in the afternoon, and she really hurt her arm. not a dramatic pick up or anything, but she was really tearful, and held it as if broken. i checked all over and it seemed fine, so calpoled. after an hour of no mvt i decided we should go to have it xrayed, and she wailed and stormed she wasn’t going, and suddenly it was fine to push me away with it etc. yep, it isn’t broken!

anyway, relaxed bed time. chris has started on peter pan with SB, and we played battleships for our evening game.

explorer books for kirsty!

we have a very good library, so these are books from there, ones we have had for ages, and some new ones :smile:. Anyway, this is why they are a bit of an odd mix. the usborne and DK readers ones v accessible, as is the jigsaw book and the story of explorers. the marco polo a reading book. the others a bit more of a read with me dipping thing at the mo, mostly due to the small type I think !
DK antarctic adventure

columbus

story of explorers

captian cook

christopher columbus

inside the beagle with charles darwin

exploration of north america

explorers news

Marco polo – a sonlight reader

explorers jigsaw

99 red balloons – a late edition to musical mondays?

I am reading 21 balloons to SB at the moment, leading chris to warble 21 red balloons to a vague representation of the nena song. so he decided to utube it for SB, and first came up with this rather amazingly bad video, before ending up with the german version. It rather took me back to my youth! SB enjoyed headbanging to it anyway

bored blogging

though will no doubt get back into the flow. SB did some maths and handwriting first thing, watched magic school bus and raven, bB wailed about her lost dinodoors [she has only had them 2 seconds!], did a bit of earlybird maths and watched the same things. was going to do some music practice, but my parents arrived after my mothers hosp appt. chatted, sb played games, bb wailed about lost dinodoors, and wanting to paint her volcano.

so we started to paint her volcano, and SB started to do some brainbox electronics. 5 mins later, bb wailing as wants to do the electronics – do you see a pattern? anyway, i negotiated a settlement and we did lots of the whirring one until the batteries ran out, then a wild run about outside. read about the rainforest to BB. most of the rest of the day was spent outside, but we did do some messing about with a science kit on magnets and compasses. have left it out to have a bit more of a look at tomorrow. SB has changed all her box books to ones about explorers, and a couple of the new books.

we did actually have a lot of fun running about in the garden, and rescued the day really. BB and SB ‘helped’ chris by making manure cupcastles :roll: but ots of swinging, dipping feet into v green pond water etc. We refilled the bird feeders, and played games.

I took SB to swimming – her new speedo goggles far better [thanks all], and also i can see a v definite improvement in her stroke, she doesn’t appear to be drowning half so often.

Musical monday – Saint saens symphony number 3

well i had too, this was our marriage music! I love the whole symphony. it was also the piece i played a couple of years back with the High Wycombe Symphonia – with my mum and sister also in the orchestra. prob the last time we will all play together properly like that. It will always give me good memories. this is not the best recording obviously, as it is youtube!

still contemplating painting!

added more to the set, including a fair number of SB. aargh, just so not sure!

My girls

a working weekend

but its not been to bad as i have been home by mid-aft. today was so sunny, we had a lot of fun outside. the girls were making friends again with our playhouse.

i pruned and trained the fruit trees, played a few games with them in the house, and we all sowed some peas in trays that were so cheap they are already falling apart without being used once – humph!

thats about it i think? bb fractious today, then sick at tea, hopefully not coming down with anything. she was quite surprised by it.

ISQ

well, SB reading loads- we got given some animal arks, and she has loved them, and read loads of them. also she has read the sonlight third grade detectives, all the magic tree houses, and all the magic school bus chapter books i had so far, and also horrid henry. these are all nice easy reading books for her. she has stretched herself with reading ballet shoes again, but 21 balloons was a bit difficult [well, its language is quite ornate!]. so i have bought some more 3rd grade detectives and magic school bus from amazon, as well as a couple of other things…

SB has done an enchanted learning booklet about african animals, [nearly a lapbook!!] and continued to read the ‘box books‘ about them [she chooses something to be interested in and we together find books around that and stick in the box for her to find and read as and when she fancies] she also wanted some explorer stuff, so a couple of explorer books threw themselves into the amazon basket too [all that disappointment from non-tent buying as we can't find a khyam ridgipod porch, and geting the rest without doesn't make sense for us]. She has regularly done her maths, still a fair bit of webkinz. oh, and although short we have done a lot of violin practice together, and she has done piano independently, and some with today. i think she prefers the piano at the mo, well, there is no setting up to do.

BB has continued her dinodor fest, and with chris has started to make a papier mache landscape for them to live in, she got 2 more from Merry as part of my bonus spending. SB bought herself castle keep, so we have played that every evening, and she is getting very good at it. in fact, if you click on the links, you can see my order at the mo! SB and BB have obviously got a bit more of a surprise coming! BB also been entirely fixated by watching magic school bus, though have persuaded her to let me read her lots of dinosaur themed books [katie and dinosaurs, picturepedia dinosaurs, various dinosaur fact books]

they went on an egg hunt today – as chris twittered, it wasn’t entirely successful…