Because the meeting I am supposed to be having I’m not [this afternoon in birmingham] though i do need to be there for the evening!
SO having a realxed morning at home, catching a later train.
Joanna and girls here. Merry expected. All the girls [bar BB!!] had a VERY late night. they have poisson rouged a lot, and I think BB has shown Jade zoombinis.
Joanna brought with her the usbourne science book [will find a link] and its fab, and SB loves it – it was bedtime book last night.
Back to work tomorrow, so a bit of gloom – hence sherry! [ex christmas stock!]
i had a lie in today and breakfast in bed – lovely. The came down to the playzone! SB was roller skating, and BB using the xylophone as a skateboard [v quiet!] SB very excitedly said she could do a handstand, so we put cushions on the floor [well, she's bound to hurt herself otherwise] and SB and BB take turns to do tumbles, headover heels and something vaguely looking like a handstand. i remember crying in a gym lesson being made to do a handstand, so not the best person to demonstrate to SB. Should have asked at camp last week! I took out her ‘hair’ but was amazed by how wavy it is – we have been thinking she was someone else all day!
We then made cards for my dad – usual glueing pompoms, stickers, sparkles, feathers etc. I bet he’ll be pleased though! The girls then did an even messier gluing stuff picture with some bits and pieces merry left here before. SB finished varnishing the fimo, and BB and I have been wearing the thumb rings she made us.
BB helped me make Spanish omelette [I hep youuuuuuuu], and it seemed a lunch she could do – keeping all the ohter ingredients stirring while the potatoes cooked. It was yummy scrummy too. SB thinks she can make that for us in the future – I have promised to teach her to cook this Summer. [she had 3 helpings btw!]. We ate in the conservatory as the table was covered in gluey things.
We all went outside after lunch to enjoy the good weather. the girls raced about playing games, SB made a potion with flowers, and BB watered things. our fruit trees are coming into flower – the merryweather damson is covered in flowers. Our broad beans outside are getting going, as is the radish. no sign yet of carrots though.
SB did a violin lesson - of the pulling teeth variety! However, though she was slouchy, she did better bowing, and it didn’t sound quite so much like we were torturing the cats!
Seed sowing – cauliflower, autumn giant leek, mangetout and peas. [must reinstate gardening blog!] the aubergines, peppers and toms all have at least a few seedlings – unsure at present which are which as only seed leaves! The peas from before are coming up [1 week since sown]. Both girls ‘helped’ me – which is why there is a variable number of seeds in each module, and by the end I have no idea what is where! luckily, they become obvious as they grow.
The worm world has compacted down a bit, so need to add some more compost [task for this eve!] . We studied a dead bumble bee, which then buzzed briefly in BB’s hand – not so dead after all then. She didn’t like that, and called it a naughty bee, but we gave it some sugar water [and I think it has now expired in it!]. Oh well, we got to look at all its various anatomical features before it briefly recovered!
SB has done some more zoombinis – run through a whole level, but only ‘saved’ 7 this time. Thanks Kirsty. BB watched Bob the Builder. BB fell asleep over dinner, and is now being unsettled, SB had a shower and Brittania and the pirate book for bed, and is now listening to 5 children and it – a firm favourite!
Thanks for the reading suggestions from below. Will save my pennies at the moment then!
Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, gardening, General, IT, literacy, music, numeracy, SB-PE, science, Stringbean's HE
Bead Merrily… [as in that pearl and dean thing or whatever!]
But anyway, a lovely relaxing day! SB, as mentioned before, tore into some new books and is romping through the last one [sigh!] in the set I have got. The morning was mostly playing and an eternity getting dressed [I think the 2 girls were mostly playing then too!]
After lunch we did some fimo, We were going to do Easter eggs, but SB saw the girly flower jewellery kit she had got for her birthday so we did that instead, but with different colours. She found cutting out the flowers slightly tricky – as she wanted them to look perfect – so we had a small flower cutter in the playdough box. BB mimicked all the cutting and rolling with her playdough. We both loved the rollup rainbow for the flower middle. [yes will flickr!]
After tidying that up and setting the oven going, she was then keen to do hama eggs – you’ve guessed it, another bead merrily kit [therefore the title! But obviously an old pattern as couldn't find it on the website]. She did a beautiful egg with butterfly, but decided we should put it on our hama window, so we filled in between the butterfly and egg a little bit with clear [worked out by SB]. BB was asleep at this point, having done lots of skipping about, making me food to eat, and playing with the castle.
I tried and failed to get the zoombini’s maths journey started, so while Chris did that, SB and I read up about the universe. [a DK one through the book people, so failure to find a link!]. SB does like the space topic, and we return a fair amount. We looked at our broad beans in jars – roots and the start of a shoot. Chris did get the zoombini’s to work, so she has been round it on its easiest setting, and realised it wasn’t impossible [she had read the age suggestion, so had to be persuaded it was possible!] Next time we will start putting it up! I enjoyed the bubble bit. Both girls did a violin lesson as well.
BB woke up very clingy, but moved onto Poisson Rouge and then watching The Snowman DVD [she has a rotten cold poor thing].
Curry for tea, with yummy lentils. SB finished the zoombinis, and we went to bed. More Britannia [we are at king Malcolm and Qeen margaret] She read me a chapter of an Usborne Young reader [pirates], and we discussed finances, salaries, saving for rainy days, and why I go out to work, even though I would like to stay at home, and why we don’t both work part time any more. Hopefully that won’t make her brain whizz too much to fall asleep!
Em’s hairstyle will have to come out tomorrow, as only just in place – I’m not sure I can replicate!
Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, General, history, IT, literacy, music, numeracy, science, Stringbean's HE
I’ll get the hang of bloggin every day…….
But as Michelle has been nagging me in Merry’s comments 
I’d better write something – can’t be doing with more extra women nagging me.
OK, Monday was our mothly HE group sports session, so we went along to that and SB ran around and did sporting things, BB pottered and I drunk tea and chatted :-). Followed by a trip to the park with the Katy and the crew from In at the Deep End. After that the plan was to head off get some lunch and go show shopping, plus a few other things. Went to the shopping centre where there is a decent sized Clarks, only to find that it was shut for refitting or something and wasn’t going to be open for 3 more days – so waste of car parking there then. Since we were there we got lunch and a few things, got back to carpark – it’s one of those get a ticket on the way in, pay on foot places. Realised I had no cash and it didn’t take cards, so had to traipse off to find cash machine etc. which meant of course we were welll over the hour, so that cost even more…. sigh.
So eventually escaped from the car park, headed off to the independent shoe shop we got SB’s last ones from – it’s out of the city centre and easy to park by. Got SB some shoes – a bit boring as she is now well into school age shoes, though they had better options last time, but SB really likes them so that’s fine. BB didn’t need any, though did discover that she has had a sock stuck in the end of one of them for who knows how long – it was squashing back here toes a bit and made it seems as if one fooot had loads more toe room…. 
By now needed more tea – so took up an invite by Katy to pop round to theirs which is just down the road. Enjoyed Earl Grey (but no tea pot….. 
) and admired the birthing pool masquerading as a family size birthing pool filling up the dining room.
home to, well not sure really – ISTR some computing stuff goign on with the girls.
Tuesday went round to my parents house for most of the day, did do bit of HE stuff here before we went – moslty more of the Singapore maths – still the money bit, and some reading.
Wednesday
Helen was doing job interviews today, so not at home as per usual. Helen got a Learning Resources book about using Cuisenaire rods to explore Area/Volume and Perimeter from Sonlight last week, so Sb wanted to have a go at that. She spent ages with it, not so much on the book activities as with all the pattern making and general playing around with them that ensues. also got to practice drawing straight lines with the ruler (in the right place…) . Funny how simple thing like that isn’t a simple as it looks – getting the pencil at the right angle, holding the ruler firmly, in the right place, lining it up etc.
We sat and read a couple of the Anholt Artists books – Picasso and Van Gogh ones, and then spent some time looking for different pictures of their on the internet. There was some more Webland-ing and a bit of Ed City.
We finaly got some new swings seats (Ebay) to go on the swings, so we put one of those on so SB was happy to be able to swing again and spent some time on there. and generally playing outside – harvested some of the Purple Sprouting Broccoli which we have lots of right now.
Never understood the whole ‘kids don’t like green veg ‘ thing, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, whatever it is out love them all.
Watched a bit of the Life of Plants DVD before bed.
Thursday
BB’s toddler gym thing, so that’s a 9.30 start. SB took her camera with her and snapped some photos, haven’t had a look at them yet and sat and moslty read some Letterland books she found in the cupboard this morning. She is such a good advertisment for a HE-ed childthere, sits quietly with her bag, reading, or drawing, or writing etc. 
Went into town after to do some shopping of various sorts. Noticed the stationers shop in town is closing, which is a shame – it was always useful for various bits, and very helpful in there as well. It’s our nearest town, and has survived pretty well with a range of indpendent shops as well as the normal high street places. But gradually the independents seem to be going.
There is a shop which sells gists etc. that has lots of stuff from different parts of the world – they tend to have little changing displys of stuff in one window. It was Chinese stuff for chinese New year last time. This week they had some Native American stuff on display, so looked and talked about some of those things, the photos they had etc. bought a few things in a charity shop, including a kit to make a worm observatory thing, so will hopefully be putting that together soon.
Once home had lunch, together me and SB read through a set of Quentin Blake books she got for Xmas and then Hellen got home early from work. There was somejigsawing – BB really getting into them now, head over heels practise, Sb did soem more of the Area etc. book before ballet class.
Posted in Butterbean, IT, literacy, numeracy, photos, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE
we’re not really doing a good job of blogging in order are we?
I guess wed was really a game of 2 halves, but i didn’t balance them well. Sb def losing out to BB. Must do better really. we did get a fair bit of home ed done -sb mostly confident with the subtractions [54-28 type] now, and did a fair bit of maths on edu city – multiplying. Also her reading is nicely moving along. she is really enjoying reading, and a while back i bought a set of usborne young readers from the book people, and now she is racing through them, they are pretty much dead right for what she wants to read. must give back merry her ORT 8 as well as read well now.
She has done some more of the chinese books from enchanted learning, and liked the numbers. She is finding it particularly amusing that 2 looks like=. it is making the maths slightly tedious as we have ‘the joke’ about all the 2′s each time. But lets face it, its a good joke, and she is really happy saying it.
We read random pages out of an encyclopaedia – insects, industrial revolution, volcanos, and talked quite a lot about evolution.
BB and i did a lot of playing, cuddling and messing about. we built towers and boats out of blocks, and knocked them down again, read books, danced and messed about.
After lunch we piled outside to enjoy the sunshine, sowed some carrots and make a makeshift cloche/polytunnel affair to put over the row. I did a fair bit of weeding, and the girls did lots of playhouse and climbing frame play as well. They did help chris with pruning the grapevine, and i popped the babyswing seat on the tri-swing [just as BB growing too big!] She did love it, and SB pushed her as she giggled. Lovely.
When we came in, all girls [including me] turned into grumpalumps for some unknown reason. BB screeching like a banshee over who knows what, SB wailing and me stroppy. so we divvied up, and SB had piano and violin lesson and Daddy kept BB occupied. The peace restored, we read, played games [spot the animal!] and the day back on track.
Every evening this week, SB and I have had an extra 30 mins of games or reading – whatever she wants – before her bed following the departure of BB. SB is really appreciating this.
Today I got home earlier to have a bit more time, and we mostly played and did some tidying up. We made a chocolate brownies – didn’t get the timing right – they were in and out of the oven like yoyo’s! more games and reading and a nice bedtime.
SB’s birthday this sunday. have the castle, no wrapping paper, and family arriving tomorrow to house of chaos!
oh, and i forgot to say, that BB is quite insistant she is a boy ladybird!
Stringbean has had this Jump Ahead Starting Maths CD-ROM for ages – 3 years? dunno, but she was doing it in our old house anyway. She’s done it on and off in spurts, probably redone it at least a couple of times, so? a little bit of a fan fare when she finally completed the last bit tonight tonight, had got the 100 candles and had the party
Posted in IT, numeracy, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE
Chris, hopefully, is going to blog the science experiments and so forth going on here, so I am going to do a BB update.
She doesn’t want to wear nappies any more, and is potty training – at her insistance. On the whole she is quite good at it. She is naked, and clutches her bottom doing a funny wiggle saying she needs a wee. She is rather proud of this too. Her speech is coming on in leaps and bounds. I do like that she loves to emphasis things. ‘I like hadding bikbik, I dooo’ ‘I did ‘tar, i diiiiiid’ ‘ I like mugger doose, I doooooo’ etc. She really loves the apple tree farm books, and when she wins the lap battle outright [I usually try and have one on each knee], this is the guaranteed book choice. She does lots of cutie dances to music, and has special skips and jumps routines. Her and SB play together a lot, really well most of the time – though usually with great wildness. She loves joining up toys – doing things ie kid k’nex, gears, building etc and just getting into jigsaws. She is weaned, though periodically sees whether there is a milkie option – no. She really is quite babylicious.
I was late home from work today, as the registrar was a no show. for a while I thought I would have to stay forever, but we got a locum. I got home to the tree undecorating in the playroom, and the end of while the bear sleeps. I read to SB more usborne cut away roman book, and we finished her M and S body book too. She does read some of it too – and rather well. She is gradually stopping the happit of sounding out all words however easy [I was a bit bored with the t-h-e = the routine! She said she had read a yellow nose reader to Nana earlier. She told me all about her day, the new webland she has [the older magazine] and we looked at some of the puzzles.
Chris has set up a freecycled old ‘pute where the xmas tree was, so that SB can be on ours and BB on the new-old one. of course, they both battled for the new-old one!!! Mostly SB showed BB cbeebies. Also more kleine hippos watching – a firm favourite with BB. We are listening to German so often, I think we must restart Muzzy, as SB def picking up a few words and accents – mostly names and titles and politenesses – such as grossvater [no funny s on my keyboard] and es tut mir leid [no idea of spelling!].
more little house on the prairie – entailing SB’s request to know more around that time.
Posted in Butterbean, General, history, IT, language, literacy, science, Stringbean's HE
when they flick screens for some unknown reason and you lose your whole blog post! It will consequently be very short.
Edu – SB very into Education City, on a trial, but will finally convert to the realy think this time – if anyone has a code they wish us to use, let us know. she is level 1+ for the english as 2 is a bit hard, and level 2+ for the maths. at least this time you are allowed to have different levels as this has been something that has put me off in the past.
we have played with the nursery bit with BB too, though won’t be buying it as a lot for nursery rhymes.
BB has been desperately under the weather for past few days, and last night and today def ill – nurofen/calpol the works. I weaned her this weak – actually without much trauma in the end – so suffering pangs of my faultiness about it as she no longer has my antibodies.
Other than that she has enjoyed playing with her birthday presents a lot, and playdough [which she does whilst SB fimos] SB fimo-ed today a lovely angel. i forgot to add any holes to hang on xmas tree so it may be a cake decoration
SB and i did lots of reading today with BB semi flaked on my lap [wanting to watch her bring me back on a loop - so we need to video her doing something else!], we story of the worlded the romans, read some ORT and usbourne farmyard books, she did lots of colouring and EC.
We were going to make a pegdoll fairy/angel, but BB wasn’t well enough to let us do it without her, and not sick enough to ignore us doing it with her IYSWIM
SB has enjoyed playing with my mum this weekend as well, and they enjoyed wathcing strictly come dancing together, amd planet earth. what a good mix! SB has been doing a lot of ‘interpretive dance’ about the place, and suddenly informed me their ballet uniform has changed to a lilac one with a ribbon belt? Why don’t the teachers let us know these things, as she saysd she is the only one still in the old uniform. and we need a character skirt as they no longer wear the blue polka dot one – sigh!
oh well, she has enjoyed some ‘trials of life’ as well today. SO although I feel I have mostly held a grumpy sick 2 year old, I guess we have done HE as well. SB has been very good at fetching things so i don’t have to jiggle bb too much. what a fantastic older sister she is.
Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, IT, literacy, numeracy, online resources, science, Stringbean's HE
Tabblo = Tableau (I guess), geddit? Helen thinks it’s a bit chav
I came across this site in the summer – probably when it launched properly, but never got into it. Was reminded about it again the other day, and have whiled away some time there today. Basically it’s a way to create collages of photos and text that tell a story or just look good, or whatever. Potentially a nice little adjunct to Flickr. You can get the finished products printed asprints and posters – unfortunately they ship from the US at the moment with rather high Fed-Ex shipping charges. Maybe it will change. Works prety well, and is all simple enough, but interface is sluggish at times and has some rough edges , but it integrates nicley with Flickr, though you need to give it a little time to pull in the photos.
I made a couple of simple ones to start with:
Posted in Butterbean, gardening, IT, photos
No we haven’t all suddenly turned into rabid carnivores. Been doing some Dinosaury stuff this afternoon and it finished off before bedtime with a lot of chasing around upstairs with everyone being Dinosaurs.? SB and BB were baby T-Rex, we had to go and get meat for them to eat :-). BB loves being chased so that was very noisy.
Morning was domestic stuff – washing and stuff. then once we were eventually organised off to do some shopping. Sb had been inspired by something on Smart – or whatever the older version of Smarteenies (SB was quite excited to see Kirsten O’Brien from the Little Toe Show on there) is called which reminded us we needed to buy some more tissue paper, so we went to the stationery/art shop. Got said tissue paper – though they had? miriad colours so getting SB to choose which ones, rather than just one of each was time consuming, until the lady showed us the mixed pack.? Bought a couple of packs of Berol felt tips. We have the nremains of various cheap and free felt tip packs around the house in various places, but of course half don’t work, have lost lids, can’t find the colour you want etc. , weedy colour when it does work, and generally just a waste of time.And BB is? total pain with felt tips at the moment. So have been meaning to get some decent ones for a while. I know from school use that Berol last ages, even with lids left off, and have decent colour etc. So found some at a reduced price, so got some. SB is charged with keeping them in their packs and away from BB.
Must now try to colect all the pens/pencils/crayons etc. together and to try and rationalise them a bit and remove anything not BB proof from the general pool.
Continued via the fair trade shop in a local church – where BB entertained the woman behind the counter by singing various songs to herself – such as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Row, Row Row Your Boat – words not exactly intelliligible, but the tune is clear. BB seems amazingly good and picking up such tunes, I don’t remember SB being like that, -? their cafe for a snack stop – where I explained what Fair Trade was all about? and then went to see upstairs where there was an Art Exhibition by a local Art Group. Didn’t get to look at much as SB went to touch one of them, and the man who asked here not to (quite mildly) scared her apparently, so we left. She likes the stained glass windows though.
Next via the market stalls for some fruit and veg, where BB (again…) entertained the woman behind the stall by spotting the Strawberries and shouting ‘Strawb, Strawb, Strawb!’ (or somesuch) at the top of her voice :-), finished off with picking up some things in the supermarket.
Once home it was a lateish lunch with Little Toe Radio Show on listen again. Some Maths – Singapore Maths Weekly Revision book some bits about completeing number sequences. Then we looked a bit at some books/web pages about Dinosaurs as SB has been into them recently from watching the Walking With Dinosaurs series on DVD. Printed off a? few things from Enchanted Learning, while SB went off to draw a picture of a wobbly house made of Jelly with her new felt tips…… Then it was time for a bit of Explode the Code followed by colouring in a Dinosaur maths puzzle – T-Rex, her favourite, of course, which Helen joined in with as she got home about now.
BB’s milestone of the day was to ask for something on the TV. Doing her shouting, push/pull you thing she got me into the living room, pointed at the TV, pointed at the ‘on’ button, pointed at the DVD box :-). So I settled her down with the Clangers DVD. I went toff to get one with dinner, but she evidently wanted me in there becuase she kept coming after me shouting ‘Back, Back’. so in the end, I put it on the laptop in the kitchen. Which was ok until she started hitting keys and buttons…….
Which is where we came in really.
Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, IT, literacy, numeracy, Out and About, science, Stringbean, writing
