Category Archives: Stringbean

Migraine Monday

I am having a lot of them again aren’t i. must be something to sort out. Actually have had all weekend, and as working it has been really difficult. I would have gone off sick Sunday it was so bad, but my backup rang in to say he was too unwell to cover, and I didn’t have the heart to ruin the only option available’s weekend. SO when I couldn’t open eyes or lift head off pillow this am without wanting to shoot myself, I took today off – and feeling guilty still. got out of bed after lunch though. Not sure what the girls had been doing in the morning – lots of screaming anyway! Chris had been tidying, and BTB was on the vid.

the ebay oogly googly arrived – wahey. [btw, there seem to be a fair number of wacky wigglers on there atm] so although an eyeball missing, still a bargain! we set to making an oogly googly – well, as I was still very rough I observed and enhanced/scaffolded from the semi recumbent position on the sofa! SB and BB both very happy to get on with it, and loved having weird eyeballs. I mainly got it as the cheapest way to have another motor so the girls didn’t argue. rofl.

blank mind – o yes, a late lunch. read BB some more apple tree farm – which she loves – and did jigsaws, then she went for a lap. SB and I then did roman sotw, with other roman book on the go and colouring in. She loves story of the world – she said today anyway. oh, before, she had started the getty and dubay how to form letters, as hers are a mishmash. she chose to do i, and then wrote as other i words, ivee and iys, with suitable pictures. She then read some ORT book to herself – rather well. BB came down and we did some blocks and building, and mostly jumping on mummy – very helpful for head! So then SB was detailed maths – argh 3/4 through MPH 1B, so have to buy some more! and BB insisted on doing her maffs too. So cutesy homeschool picture of them both at table doing workbooks. [if i ever get round to flickring them!].

we then all looked at our model heart and discussed the arteries and veins – I wonder if she will remember their names – she certainly remembers [atm] that the pulmonary ones are odd as the vein is red and the artery blue, and even why. we matched it up to all of us, and decided it probably was a 10 year old heart!! BB enjoyed wiggling her fingers down the holes. SB wants a body shlef – so far we have a heart and eye. I think i have been watching too much bones [yep Jax, it does get much better when you stick with it!] and a body bits shelf just sounded a bit, well…..

We did a fair bit of dancing around, talking about little house on the prairie [firmly identified with laura there!] making sure her plaits were like lauras!! We also did our french conversation, and have added how old are you, I am 5 to it.

more obligate kleine hippo watching for BB as room tidied [very very slowly by SB with many accompanying wails, but this is her LHOTP task - evil grin]. They both watch this, and SB has started asking me what some of the words are – eek, as if I know!! Promised SB I would pay for education city. she really likes the next stage webland too. story tonight was the lion witch and wardrobe, and they are both is SB’s bedroom. SB took some ORT books to bed to read though – rofl.

I looked on Gill’s blog about compulsory NC , and it gives me the shivers. I don’t think I could pretend we follow it, as we don’t do it in the ‘right order’. I could write an ed phil that should satisfy anyone, and I’m sure if we ever allowed a home visit that it would be hard not to show we were providing an education. However I realise that is the stated not actual goalpost. After all, I don’t have lots of evidence of work or progression, as it is practical based or verbal as SB not keen on writing. I am sure they would say ‘behind’ too. I would just say she has only recently shown an interest in it, and so it is appropriate for a starter position. I used to do a list of what NC areas I thought we had covered, and maybe will start that again, but I just don’t want too! I guess I have the tags. So here’s what it might look like [though TBH, I couldn't bear to look at the national curriculum for actual places on it!] and it doesn’t account for the actual time on any item [think bite-sized!].

PS, Chris has just checked on SB, and she is very proud of the fact she is reading her ORT book to herself. Is this an official reading milestone - reading in bed!!!!

maths [mph adding 10's and units]; literacy [ORT, LWW]; geography [SOTW] history [SOTW, roman flap book, LHOTP], design and technology [gears], science [gears, heart, carrot experiment [ongoing]], modern language [KH, conversational french], writing [GD], ICT [KH], arts [SOTW, photography]

OK, OK, linking to years 1 and 2 [SB in year 1] it is all really waffly, and I guess if I was BOVVERED, I could stuff lots of it in little category boxes of waffle. but it would still be pointless. At a push, I could change the categories to the NC ones. Still not BOVVERED. I still think the great thing about HE is the FREEDOM to follow SB’s interest at the time she is interested. I list and tag because I am weird like that [see below] rather than because I think its required.

oh, and as for citizenship, isn’t that what PARENTS and FAMILIES are good for. I don’t need to TEACH this, she just needs to live it – I quote the goals

  1. to recognise what they like and dislike, what is fair and unfair, and what is right and wrong
  2. to share their opinions on things that matter to them and explain their views
  3. to recognise, name and deal with their feelings in a positive way
  4. to think about themselves, learn from their experiences and recognise what they are good at
  5. how to set simple goals.

etc etc!!!

All down.

Well, almost, there is still? some tinsel lurking on the stair banister….. But having done by now is pretty promptly for us ;-)
Took down the trees over the weekend – I hate it, all the faffing about with having to put breakable things in boxes.

Down comes the fairy :-( Bit over-rated this xmas tree lark

Well, suppose we really have to get back to normal now.

Getting back to normal.

With Helen being off all the week before xmas, and only having two days at work last week and then the Bank Holiday it seems like we’ve al been at home for a long time we’ve had together, which has been good. So yesterday we started getting back to normal, in a fairly gentle way. Starting off with SB having a much needed bit of sleep catch up and not getting up until past 10.30 am. -Not sure exactly as she’d come down stairs before 11 and the TV had been left on, so she’d sidled into there and was watching Toms Midnight Garden on the TV :-)

It did mean that I had a nice time playing with BB, with the animals, lego, books, playdoh and stuff. as well as exciting things like sorting out washing. Got SB moving when i mentioned the Library and she realised it was ‘Bic-bic day’ – they have a fund raising stall on the first Tues of the month – with drinks, biscuits etc. So we went round to the library, had biccies, coffee, chatted about xmas, the girls did their usual we are cute and lovely thing, and even got some books just before it closed :-)

Home to lunch with Littletoe show, and then enforce nap tiem for BB – she just isn’t making it through. So I basically give her an enforced cuddle on the bed until she gives up making? big fuss about it and falls asleep. Seemed to work ok though. She was asleep by 1.30, we got her up before 3 and she went to sleep ok at about 8.30, which was rather better.

SB sat and spent ages looking at her library books, then me and SB did a fair bit of reading of them. She did a bit My Pals are Here, felt ages since we had done any so did it in gentle-ish sort of way. There was bit of something happening when BB got up, but I forget what exactly. Made a pasta bake for tea and then we sat down with tea/hot choc and toasted teacakes (BB – ‘I need choc-choc cup’) to watch the rest of Toms Midnight Garden. Then? a bit of tidying up before dinner. One of the targets for this year is to be tidier in general through the day, worked ok yesterday, kitchen ended the day pretty tidy, playroom was tidy (the main chaos areas).

Need to have a bit of think about where we are going with/approaching HE though. SB mentioned Education City again, so time to sign up to that I think.
Visitors due any minute now (M and family, a girl from a local HE group, almost the same age as Sb, and they hit it off from the first meeting) so time to be organized – at least the lunch soup is cooking

Happy New Year

Merry, Max and the girls came over to share New Years Eve with us, which was lovely.

I gave the children a not quite cooked dinner, the girls have run around doing all that girly play stuff, parents have chatted, drunk (plenty of Baileys…). Butterbean saw in the New Year (she came to bed with the grownups at 2.45 am…) We initiated their girls into party poppers, Merry initiated BB into the delights of the DS. Joise entertained her parents in the middle of the night. We had panckaes for brunch.

We all had great time. Heres to spending time with good friends :-)

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On the 7th day of christmas

We fell off schedule [rough as it is], as my parents arrived at lunchtime, and I though they were coming eve, and a text at their halfway point had me scurrying around!

SO Chris took SB to shop for my pressie, and a few other things, and BB and I made some more scones at home together. It was really nice to have the chance to do that 1:1, and we both enjoyed it.

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We then played games with little tykes people [unfortunate name] until my parents arrived, and BB went into a paroxysm of mad joy! lovely having Mum and Dad here, and Christmas now upon us. Did mean that i didn’t take SB to see a film this pm, which had been the plan. But as I hadn’t said that to SB, there was no harm done, and she and BB went suitably loopy for my parents approval!

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We took a bit of redirection, and made chocolate icing and iced and decorated a lovely yule log. I cheated and bought the roll inside from the bakery. It is an arctic yule log – though as SB pointed out, it has polar bears and penguins. I then tipped too much icing sugar on it to my Mum and Chris’s merriment – so I growled at them. Its snowy in the arctic!
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SB read a level 7 ORT book to my mum, a bit of stumbling as we haven’t read much for a fortnight, and this was a new [to us] book. But still, was happy to do it, and Mum a good encourager. We did some positive home-ed discussion.

BB was flagging at 4, so had a bath, and then made it until 8, even cuddled up watching beauty and the beast [free from the mail].

I have finished wrapping presents – always a good moment! Though SB crept down the stairs just at the point we were discussing the bits you don’t want overheard about the machinery of Christmas, so I am hoping that either not heard, or doesn’t make a difference. I went up to explain she needed to tell us she was moving, as she might overhear Christmas secrets, so the next time she told us. [insomnia again poor thing]

Anyway, with visitors – especially ones that don’t understand the lure of the blog!, blogging service may be interrupted . So Happy Christmas everyone.

Thankyou to the local Chinese takeaway.

We had a Chinese takeaway the other day, and got given a free calendar – it rolls up like table mat, and has the different animal years on it. – in normal tasteful Chinese kitsch style :-)

It’s been a great hit. Yesterday SB spent sges playing with it – she was selling the different animals off of it (pigs were on special offer…)? to us. This morning it is? map, and they have spent ages now on some sort of expedition using it. BB happily going along with her and doing what she is told.
Great stuff. :-)

On the 4th day of Christmas

we remembered much loved older relatives, and went to visit Little Nanny.

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Not really the best day to be on fen roads, as freezing fog and icy ground – very beautiful but moderately stressful drive there. Pulled over to get camera out of boot, as SB took pictures along the route of how little we could see! We imagined we were going through swirling mists of time, and had vignettes of mediaeval, roman and Iceni life, interspersed with a brief cavaliers vs roundhead battle with sound effects from SB [made me laugh anyway as the all went plop when they died!] rahter cool view of the ecocentre wind turbines, as the fog cleared a bit, so you could see just the very tips but nothing else – wierd. SB missed that picture though!

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Little Nanny was pleased to see us, and though a fairly massive limp, is moving about in the house OK, but hasn’t left it. The girls were delightful – possibly because I packed the toy bag as well this time – noahs ark, paper fold away palace, colouring pads and crayon, etch a sketch, dolly and a few boks [for future reference!] They played with each other and with Nanny, being a good advert for near perfect children! SB having more of a go at Upwords [a scrabble a like game, where you can build up as well as off a word] putting ram, car, pig [going up!] and pen before stopping. BB made towers.

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Always sad to leave, and Little Nanny was sad she won’t be seeing us over christmas – however she and aunty margaret and family were all invited!But i knew it was likely to be a dreadful drive home, and it was. Pitch black and dense fog. at one point going at best 5 miles an hour, looking out of an instantly etched appearance to the windscreen [it wasn't as I checked!] totally blinded by oncoming traffic. nearly pulled over, but after 10 mins, as I was losing nerve [but with no idea where i was on the road] a car pulled out in front, and although still going 5 miles an hour, at least could see they were on the road, so much better for me!

So, totally hideous drive home in the end, though the bad bit was only about 30 mins altogether. Chris’s parents were here when I got in, and bought us curry for tea – lovely! And chose a nice digital camera online as a replacement for the one that is awful. Our camera working well – though some getting used to settings to do.

I am knackered now, just put SB to bed but BB awake, and Chris has just given her to me! I love her, but after 10pm, I would rather love an asleep version TBH.

Getting back to normal

 

Just realised that there was a draft I started last Monday morning, but never really any further than that blogging last week….. Mostly after the disaster that was the week before with BB being ill, it was nice to be back to normal, though I think it has taken a while for BB to get back to her normal sleep patterns.  It’s slightly awkward at the moment though as she finds it hard to get through the day without  nap (yesterday, she fell asleep while we were reading on the sofa at 4.30 and didn’t go to sleep until we went to bed.) Even if I get her to take nap earlier in the day she still takes  awhile to get to sleep at night. If you wake her up in the middle of her daytime nap to stop her sleeping to long then she is just grumpy for about an hour until she wakes up properly.

The girls spent ages this morning putting glitter onto the cards they had made with Helen last week. Well, SB mostly, BB spent ages spreading glue over the sheets of newspaper. (BTW, those upside down squeezing ketchup bottles make good PVA bottles). This seemed to take up much of the morning.  Other than that, in the afternoon, spent a good while on the sofa with SB reading and looking through one of those cutaway type books about modes of transport. So much talk about motorbikes, engines, the Orient Express, ships, why the Titanic sunk

In between there has been lots of playing – esp. the animals and the toy shop stuff, though there do tend to be arguments over the till, they are both playing together very nicely a lot of the time now, and SB has spent ages playing with various decorations from the playroom Xmas tree, standing by the tree whilst long impenetrable stories are enacted

ahh, first outing of fairy wings

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Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

isn’t she lovely!

oh, and I am SO missing a camera. PLEASE can anyone with any photos please flickr them. I’m sure you ahve a spare second!! [and If you have nic, I couldn't find any in all the halloween ones!]

Sister Ed and Little Firefly

A couple of days ago, Stringbean was sitting at the table, with Butterbean. SB was teaching BB about numbers. She wrote down the numbers on a piece of paper, and showed them to BB and went through them telling her they were numbers. Oddly BB seemed to take it in, when I pointed to words and numbers in a book, she said yes and no when asked if they were numbers at the appropriate points. Or was it just a fluke?

Other than that, what else, some more maths – she has done some MPH stuff on weighing and mass, and multiplication. We have eased off on Explode the Code, as it seems to be going ahead of her a bit now, so we are concentrating more on a bit more reading, seeing as she seems to have moved on to actually reading things. She picks up (very) simple books and can read them, and is reading all sorts of other things, so we think she might appriciate a bit more focus on it – we do have some books we have stashed away for her to read herself, so time probably to break out some of those.

Spent rather to much time yesterday morning watching kiddy TV, I got bogged down it fiddling with the wireless network. The wireless AP fell onto the floor and something inside got dislodged. Tracked that down and sorted that, but then got bogged down with getting it all up and running again. I hate wireless networking – it can work fine for ages, and then it decides to not work. And the AP struggles at times with all our solid walls etc. to give coverage over our house, at the moment it has been relocated until I can rejig the network wiring feeding the old box currently in the sitting room feeding downloaded stuff to the TV. so now if you wear the wrong shirt or something the wireless just gives up. Pah! And (while I’m at it) our ISP is giving us a pants ADSL service at the moment…..

She watched some of the Walking with Beasts DVD as well yesterday.

Today was library/storytime day. BB insistent that she take her Muddlepuddle bookbag with her – dragging it along behind her :-) Afterwards, coffe, some reading of library books, lunch, BB and SB played for bit mostly making patterns with cuisenaire rods. My mum and dad came round, SB showed off her firefly costume, did some maths and then we headed off to the Puddle, where a very excited BB is going out Trick or Treating with Merry and the girls, followed by a sleepover – first time at someone else’s other than my parents. We are going over to pick her up tomorrow. All the girls were so excited, we were engulfed by a gaggle of noisy excited children (including an unsurprisingly naked Josie :roll:) as soon as we got there, and they seemed to spend the next hour crashing noisly about the place :-)

I got in touble for saying I was coming home and then spending and hour (oops…) drinking tea and chatting with Max though….

And here is our little Firefly. Would probably been better if we’d cleared the wooden train track out of the way first…..

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