Category Archives: Out and About

Growing up?

Posted on November 1, 2008 by | 7 comments

 

Dead Spirit

 

SB being a ‘Dead Spirit’, lacks a certain cuteness compared to last years Witch and the Angellina Ballerina Firefly from a couple of years ago.

The mask has a heart you can squeeze which squirts blood over the face :roll:

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BB was cute though as a ‘Little Ghost’ :-)

 

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This morning SB faffed about quite a bit, whilst doing some maths, handwriting and some of the Wizard Whimstaff spelling book she seems to be enjoying at the moment. Various phonecalls and people came and went dropping off  the repaired Yaris and collecting the hired A Class (slightly bemused that the vagaries of insurance company contract arrnagements meant  that the car was reapired 40 miles away and the hire car came from 70 miles away, but there you go). The A class was a nice enough drive, though seemed to be a lot of body roll. But the Yaris was much the better buy for the requirements we had. So H can rest easy there :-)

After lunch we sorted out the Halloween outfits, carved Pumpkins, walked to the chemists, made the well loved here, Pumpkin and Toasted Sweetcorn Soup for dinner, and waited for H to come home. She had abit of a long and slow journey home, so once she was in it was pretty much straight out the door for Trick or Treating. A bit nippy, not so many Pumpkins out as last year (maybe ‘cos half term and holidays?), but some people make a real effort, and round here, everyone seems to repect the ‘only call at houses with Pumpkins’ thing annad it’s all good natured.

One house had some wonderfully carved Pumpkins:

 

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We were pretty cold by the time we got back, so nice hot bowls of soup were welcome, prised childrens hands off of bags of sweets and packed them off to bed. Tired parenst of course still haven’t gone to bed yet ;-)

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Posted in Butterbean, Cooking, cute, literacy, numeracy, Out and About, photos, Stringbean, writing

martyr to migraine

Posted on October 23, 2008 by | 6 comments

well, i am trying hard not to be, but i really do think migraines are a blight on my life. in the last 7 days, only in 2have in not had a migraine – but i had a sort of lurky head. these were obviously the days at work! So instead of the planned outing to little nanny – who i really do have to see – i felt crap at home. so i went to the doctor, who was a new one, asked me if i had tried simpler analgesics. i explained that i had had migraines since 12, yes i did know the triggers, the initial for this one was prob gloss paint, and the yesterday i worked from 8am to 8pm without a drop of food or drink. and yes, if i had a hip flask i could have slurped something, but i was doing 2 jobs in 1 time slot for the whole day, and thought i had done well to survive it. she suggested i saw occy health!!!! and then said my migraines might be due to high BP [i have had them since 12!!!] i told her i knew my BP ok, but i guess i am at the age to measure it for a QAF point, so she did, and was surprised to find it so low. hurrumph. at my look of raised eyebrows she rapidly qualified, tried to teach me to suck eggs and suggested amitryptiline might help [antidepressant - bad one - but also chronic pain med, you have to take it every day] i politely told her that i preferred the treatment to be less bad than the thing it aimed to treat, and could i have MY REPEAT PRESCRIPTION since i was here as 5 days migraine used up ALL the tablets i was given. AT LEAST I persuaded her to give me 6 more tablets- like blood from stones!! grrrr. feel a bit better now.

Ah yes, rantlet over. yesterday chris took the girls to the library for book exchanging and crafts, and then went round to another HE family in the village, where they looked at the chickens with desire, BB scootered and nearly rode C-J’s stabiliser free pedal bike – garden not long enough to really get going. BB is too small for the bike that SB had as a present from BB at her birth [she is significantly shorter! - still in 2-3 clothes], so we are contemplating getting her a bike for birthday or xmas – it seems birthday a better timing! SB has done maths and spelling- she likes the 6-7 whimstaff book both yesterday and today. She also swam.

SO to today [minus wittering on about migraines] the girls were self sorting for most of the morning, lego-ing, colouring and reading. SB is reading some really REALLY scary books called goosebumps. they are a bit too scary for me, but if she can read these, i think she is ready for harry potter!! i have to say that I have a 0 tolerance for horror – it is a genre i just can’t do in book or film, so i am quite surprised by SB! She did more spelling and maths, and BB did some before the code with me, as chris had found it, and we read lots of red nose readers together as well. i was slightly more perked and did piano practice with SB, which she did beautifully [couldn't quite face the violin!] can’t find our minimus AGAIN! i am not buying a third one though, as am sure it will turn up.

luckilly, what did turn up after lunch was our fimo order. I really should have ordered more than one black though. didn’t think of spiders!! Anyway, we all spent most of the afternoon twiddling fimo into pumpkins and pumpkin snowmen [BB!]. We did a bit of french conversation as well, but mostly chattered and followed the flow of conversation. the girls lead it all over the place – i need a computer implant into my head though scifi like, so that i can google in real time! i have often forgotten what i should be googling for when back near a puter.

SB had a brownies trip roller skating, and took along her roller blades. chris says the practice has really improved her previous straight leg look. and then judo – where they have started throws. bb and i read books, cut her fringe and went to bed.

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, daubing and making, General, language, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, Out and About, pre reading, SB-PE, socialisation, writing

thoroughly lost thursday

Posted on October 19, 2008 by | 3 comments

which is what i was trying to find the venue for the snakes session on thursday! a slight disagreement with DH, and we made it! by the time we made it, i was feeling harassed plus plus!! but we were just in time for the littlies session, and i went down with BB whilst mum vaguely supervised craft with SB. we really liked the snakeman. and BB loved the opportunity to hold the snake and lizard, and said it was the best thing ever!! [we do know she has a thing about reptiles though!! both current and the extinct - well, i know dinosauria aren't strictly reptiles, but...] Any way, we really enjoyed our session. i think SB’s with mum was harder work as more people in the session, but she still really enjoyed the opportunity to touch and hold the snake and lizard, and would like to have had ore time. they both did get the chance to go back and meet some more of the reptiles, and also do some lovely lizard based crafts. Thanks to the organisers and enablers.

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i left early as still in somewhat of a dither from contretemps with DH, and parked in a short time only spot etc etc. when we came home, we did science – always soothes me!! SB and BB did some of the horrible science explosives kit, and i loved the lava lamp take on the volcano favourite!! Mum did more curtaining, and dad was still painting away [bless]

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we also did LOADS more HE, as the girls have been in a v productive mood! SB has loved her wizard whimstaff workbook – the first spellings one, and raced through. she is also enjoying the maths section on shapes and areas, and found chris’s tangram book, and had a lot of fun making the shapes with that. bB joined in with her maths and also pattern blocking. in fact, BB has been so keen on maths, she has taken the book to bed several times to do ‘bedmaths’ and is now on earlybird 1B. She has a much better pencil grip and easier writing effort than SB at a simialr age. most of SB’s maths was oral, but BB likes doing a certain amount of the number writing [within limits of course!] BB has also had something of a letter sound moment, and is more and more reliable in identifying the sounds at the start of words, and realising words are made up of sound sequences. she can’t recognise many letters yet, so we are still doing a bit of that, but she loves to hold books and look at pictures and say she is reading, and I have read countless books to her.

ANother thing we have done a lot of this week is french. we have done french conversations and read a lot of stories in french. i am not sure this is the best way in the world, but it suits us. it seems to mimic how we might pick up our native language, gets us comfortable with a foreign language all together, and doesn’t frighten me – who finshed with o-level only! SB and BB do it together. SInce SB only just getting comfortable with writing in english, i am obviously not going for writing and reading in another language yet! SB did piano with mum and then read loads of books, including stories to BB.

SB had gymnastics – which i haven’t got to watch before, so happy to do that! [and also chill]. i was impressed by the amount they work out, and clear to see what sb’s strengths and weaknesses are. we will work perhaps on headstands and poised balance!! [BB missed her session - oops]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, DIY/ house renovation, General, history, language, literacy, music, numeracy, Out and About, photos, pre reading, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

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

In the paper.

Posted on October 11, 2008 by | 4 comments

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Well, I’ve been meaning to blog on and off, but some how haven’t.

Last Saturday I took the girls round to the library to get medals and certificates for the Team Read summer reading thing.  Quite a few there, as well as a couple of bods from the Library and the Parish council there was Fran Williamson, who won Bronze and silver medals for swimming in the Paralympics this year. So kids got to handle proper Olympic medals as well. It was combined with a gather to celebrate 5 years of the library (it used to be a county library, now it is run by volunteers). So there was cake and stuff as well.

Real Olympic MedalsCakeTeam 'Team Read'

Presentation was fine, except that once  they started to call out the children to collect their certificates a lot of adults there started chattering. So much so that you couldn’t really hear the names being called out clearly at all. It also seemed to show lack of respect to the children, I though it was very rude. If the tables had been turned and the children where seeing adults being presented……

As always with our library, they manage to mess up the simplest of things :roll: :-) They had some bits and bobs (hats, bags, T shirts) to give out to some children, so they drew some names out. They had 2 T shirts to give away to teenagers who had completed it. There were 3 teenagers who had done so, they had 3 cards with names on, one teenager was actually there. They managed of course to select the two cards for the two who weren’t there…

SB and BB managed to get picked to be 2 of 5 kids photographed (above) with Fran Williamsonand the cake and where in one of the local papers this week, which SB was excited about seeing. BB managed not to pull maniac photo face which was good.

The youngest boy in the photo has a 4 yo sister (children of the Homedad who had the occasional mention on the blog a few years ago) who has just started school (August born, so only just 4 at that) seems very little, I can’t for one moment imagine BB at school in a couple of months time. It just seems much too young. It seems that the girl isn’t actually liking it much and would much rather be at home with mummy, to which of course I responded that that seemed perfectly I understandable.  Of course someone did say that ‘well, they’ve got to get used to it’ etc. So that of course had to have an ‘Oh no they don’t’ response. Mostly I only really mention HE if someone brings it up, but sometimes you just need to challenge assumptions and remind people there are other ways.

School just seems like such an odd thing really.

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Posted in Butterbean, Out and About, photos

blogging early to go to bed early

Posted on October 8, 2008 by | 1 comment

we are having a run of dreadful nights with the girls, and its not doing their mood much good either. cue exaggerated behaviours from us all! And having negligible sleep, i also had a migraine – grrr. luckilly i caught it so early that by mid morning the meds were in full working order.

wed group at deependers we were slightly late due to migraine, but not bad, and the big’uns got started with their latin, and the middlies with science. they were wild but happy making cars race about. snacks and then middlies french and big’uns science. i was really pleased with how the science went today. they had so much fun making a force meter that TBH it took up most of the session. they were v good at doing it, and appeard to have much fun! then we looked at making an experiment up to look at friction, and rather than using a slope, they decided to blow the cars – and we measured how far they went on sandpaper, carpet and table. next time we will make our antigravity devices and have fun with slopes.

lunch came just in time, as SB was emotionally flagging, and remained a bit up and down for the session. she had baked cookies all by herself for the meeting, and they had all been eaten up. Some french was looked at, and then free play before coming home [all wailing!] i decided some r and r was required, so BB chose german muzzy after i veto-ed mr men, and then toy story 2 after tea whilst SB and judo – which she still loves. she now has her head in a book and soon bedtime for her, as i think todays upsets related to disturbed nights.

busy day tomorrow. beans have group, then BB has a gym session, the after short gap, sb has a gym session. BB is ecstatic at having gym again after this break. we decided whilst singing loudly all the way home in the car that we need to do more family fun swimming, and SB would like to try perhaps the odd horseriding – something i think chris has been planning to organise.

BB is being a doggie a lot of the time at the moment. she is often either a dalmation called spotty, or a little red dog called… clifford!!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Cooking, early maths skills, General, language, literacy, little languages, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

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

And that’s what i call music

Posted on October 1, 2008 by | 15 comments

we tootled [or chuggered - to use Bb'S moving verb of choice] down to london for the day to see/hear/participate in a lecture at the royal institute for science. it was on sound, and by these guys. we were pleased to be making our inaugeral venture with friends – meeting up with Nic, monster and teeny, em, E and R, the deependers and a local home ed family. As it happened, we had failed to assess which session Nic was going to make! so she took the early showing, but we did all meet up at the park for an hourish of running about wildly greeting friends. chris and i now have oyster cards, which feels v londony!! i am going into london 2ce more this week for work, so will prob use mine up – i wonder how you recharge the things?? Em having driven quite a way then parked and tubed, i wonder whether that would be cheaper for us – as there are 2 adults?

i really enjoyed it. i think the presenter was excellent. even if the regional accent threw me once :blush: it was the herrs in the ear! in the warm up, there were q and a’s on the wall, and i was totally appalling at them! the kids all had a go though – we had them all sitting in a row together with adults behind. they loved it. K and SB both got to go down and interact. we were slightly concerned that sb had been given scissors and an instruction not to cut his nose off, and she said that when she got close, she did consider it! :lol: bB managed really well too. she liked putting her arm up to answer questions and volunteer slightly releived he had more sense than to choose her. she did some remarkably loud yawns, but it was only after her loo break at 40 mins that she lost concentration, and insisting on scrambling over people for a mummy cuddle, rather than the next to her daddy :roll: but i was really impressed with her staying power. both girls would def like to go again. i did think he had a lot left to do, and rushed the last 10 mins or so, but it was good. and he didn’t mind the home ed third of the audience shouting answers rather than hands upping! but yes, SB was enthralled by the whole thing, and lovely yo meet up with friends, however briefly, so def worth the price of travelling.

afterwards we went down to the not opened museum in the basement, and alll the children really REALLY loved the singing periodic table, where you had to bash the elements found at the RI [all 10] as the appeared in the song. most of the rest doesn’t look particularly interactive, but worth another look another time! we think we will try out the am heart one, and pop to a museum pm in Nov – hopefully limiting the pain of travelling costs by the 2 for 1 thing! Any friends doing the same also a bonus!!

all the kids were fantastic on the journey back. we had a really crowded train, and a lovely chap gave up his seat for me, and also someone gave up theirs for Katy [who needed it more with A, but 'mine' was backwards facing] the children had books read to them, and the SB carried on reading books out loud for the rest of the journey, and BB fell asleep on my lap. [due to sleep bB is STILL awake, and show us how she balances things. i am going to bed soon, and will try for a second time with BB then - SB asleep though] SB made it back in time for judo, which she v much loves.

otherwise this week maths and handwriting and piano practices have happened, lots of reading, and some violin. BB is so into sounding out syllables and what words might begin with that we are doing more before the code with her again.

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Posted in General, history, literacy, music, numeracy, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation, writing

messy sunday

Posted on September 28, 2008 by | Leave a comment

we had a fab time at the deependers trashing their garden. i am hoping it recovers. i personally didn’t trash anything you understand, but pretty much all the children took a starring role. there was mess aplenty, lots of spaghetti, soap suds, etc etc. then a huge water pistol fight. SB was happy in the thick of things, but BB not so keen, and mostly had hugs and snuggles and book reading. i stayed unmessy, and had a good chat with the adults!

thanks katy and bob for arranging such a fabulous day.

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Posted in General, Out and About, socialisation