Category Archives: Stringbean

Arrr beee chur be durrp

And so says Butterbean, or some such thing anyway, endlessy throughout the day. I love toddler pre-speech (well more than the odd real word) babble, it seems so full of meaning for them – as they point and wave at something, or give you something and then chatter away. No doubt about when she want’s you to read a book as she plonks it on your lap and says ‘book’ repeatedly :-) Her fave as the moment is Ten Little Ladybirds which she seems to BE endlessy dragging around, followed by That’s not my dinosaur . We were reading this earlier this morning and she was rather cutely getting my hand and putting it onto the textured bits to feel them :-)

Monday we went to the monthly sports session for one of the Home Ed groups, which Stringbean seems to enjoy. It’s only an hour, and starts at 9.30, which given it’s a fair journey for us, means a prompt start, but just about made it in time. We never leave in hurry though, SB likes to have play afterwards with other children, and i’m happy to sit and drink tea and natter so it makes the journey sem more worthwile anyway. So by the time we got back home, stopping for a bit of shopping) and had lunch and BB had settled down for her nap it was well into the afternoon.

Can’t really remember what else we did then – SB did some of the old DK World Explorer CDROM we have ‘New Version two – fully updated for 1998…….’, She needs a bit of help with where the places she needs to look for are, so it is probbaly helping her learn the continents etc.

Sspent some time in the garden, SB investigated the pond with a net we found – she was trying to catch the ‘pond monster’,

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but when Helen got home from work she came bearing gifts of a couple of water pistols, so we all had good fun trying them out in the garden in the sun.

Licensed to Squirt? IMG 5138

Had the Panner that SB and Helen made for tea in a curry. It wasn’t quite firm enough to fry, as it just melted and started to stick tot he pan, but was nice pooped intot he curry at the end, though did start to fall part then. Probably need to be pressed with a lot more pressure to make it firmer.
Yesterday was an long one for all concerned, SB was awake, waking up Helen before 5 am, BB was awake again (after waking at 3 ish) at about 5.30, neither really went back to sleep and me and the girls were all up early. Not good start when you are going to have a long day and possibly night at work :-(

Did mean i had two lots of washing on the line by about 8 though.

Library day/storytime today, so morning passed in breakfast, some reading of the library books some tidying up, watching a bit of the kiddies Springwatch on CBeebies. Off to the library – they both took Teddies there for soem reason, so both looked cute/funny carrying these teddies up the road, nice that BB is giood enough at walking places now that she can just trot along with us and doesn’t need a carry (to short a journey for the pushchair). Tried to get soem books out for Helen, but not sure how successful that was really, at the same time BB was going round pulling books of shelves (just such a handy height you know…) and re-arranging them. SB wanted to choose a couple of books, so not quite sure what she choose or on what criterion.

After that, lunch – including more Little Toe Radio Show, napping BB, some Explode the Code, some more of the World Explorer CD, I’d cooked loads of beans earlier, so made some up into a nice Bean Salad to go with dinner later. finally managed to get the playroom back into some sort of order, havng been a mess for days, read some of the library books, played out side for a bit, went to swimming lessons

(via a shop, got to the checkout and didn’t ahve my cards, so could only pay for little bit of what I’d got….. Very grumpy woman had to take all my stuff off and put in a trolley to put back on the shelves- yeah like I really wanted to waste my time getting a load of stuff and then not being able to buy it….)

- SB insisted that we watch the circuit trainers for bit afterwards – not sure why they are so interesting, home again, dinner finshed and eaten. I dozed off when putting each of the children to bed, and was dozing off again when H finally got home at about 10.30 :-(. so evening was a bit of right off.

So of course we went to bed at about 1am….

Simple Pleasures

sitting in garden with laughing children running about – ahhhhhhh.

thats mostly what we did. SB did some computer games and the whole of the new webland as well. She helped me plant out the runner beans – as did BB. Hands off to those of you who regularly garden with two such avid helpers! mostly she climbed, swinged and jumped. we played a lot of hide and seek together – BB usually gives my hiding place away though! Chris found the very old pop up tent and tunnel – so a lot of fun with that. Oh, and we read half of the usbourne greek myths book.


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SB and I had a practice run at our Kessingland craft – see below and leave feedback.


IMG 5180Our paneer has worked well, and plan to eat it tomorrow – we were too tired to cook anything inventive this evening.


IMG 5176BB is singing and doing the actions – she likes twinkle twinkle, wind the bobbin and peter perkins
We have a ‘pond monster’ It was flailing in the shallow muddy bit, and I went to investigate – i could only see the tail end, which seemed long for a fish, and wrong shaped – @ small eelish? broen coloured. disappeared fairly sharpish, but don’t think long enough for eel – I wonder what it is? Maybe its the culprit for the declining goldfish numbers?

Tuesday Catchup

Been all wonk this week as it was bank holiday on Monday, And Helen is off as well today, and being half term all teh various usual classes etc. aren’t running, so I’ve lost track of the days somewhat.

Tuesday didn’t get blogged, so here is what I remember – they were both up and at it pretty early I think, lots of clothes got washed and dried (including some that a had been up a couple of days…….), some more clothes got put away with children helping ;-) It’s ashame that Butterbean’s idea of helping to hang up usually involves drioping them all over the garden path though. Reading of library books – including SB reading a bit to me, we spent some time looking at her science encylopedia. Looked at/talked about matter, atoms, everything being made of atoms, how small they are, John Dalton , atomic structure, Neils Bohr and Ernest Rutherford and their model of the atom. what an element is, about Sulphur, different forms of Carbon, neon lights, looked at the periodoc table, she went through reading about half the symbols and I had to tell her the names of the elements. Touched on radioactivity as the radio active elements were labled with the radioactive symbol.

Ok, all this is at her level (sort of, she seems to happily listen to stuff that is way above her head I’m am sure, but then seems to remember a couple of salient bits) but I don like to use the correct words, so such as atom, element, proton, electron, neutron etc.

Some playing in the sun when it came out, we sowed her Seed Bunny seeds, I managed to plant a the Broccoli plants, out – but we are so far behind, and the weeds in the veg patch are mounting an effective counter attack.

SB did some more to her Solar System poster,

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stuck on the printed out planets in the right order, typed up (to my dictation) labels for the planets and other things, cut them out and stuck them on.

IMG 4832 typing the labels

Family Gatherings

i like the 4 generational thing. Mum and Dad brought Little Nanny to visit. I was really happy to see her since it has been a while. Work has been so crazy that I have been derelict in my duties on visiting.

Anyway, I was at work in the morning, but on call since then [and amazingly didn't get called back either - well yet!] so I got to enjoy the whole visit.

SB put on a dance show to start with [surprise!] and BB joined in. We then had some yummy home made sweet potato soup, and some home made bread rolls that Chris and SB? had made in the morning.

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then just a happy family afternoon, some reminiscing, some looking to the future, and a lot of giggling at my girls. SB slightly green tinged which was a shame – a bit like she was overtired actually. She enjoyed dancing on my dad’s feet- just like i did as a girl, and read to my mum. Some dance mat craziness went on, and BB showed her circus skills – almost head over heels and climbing.

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Rather cutely, as they were leaving [after an excellent curry for tea] BB demonstrated a new today skill of blowing kisses – majorly cute! SB and I read some fly on the wall egypt and they are both now asleep. Aah, quiet.

Drumming

This morning saw us head off to a local HE group meeting (arriving late due to 20 minute wait in traffic jam getting onto A1….) for an African Drumming Workshop which was great fun, and rather noisy Stringbean enjoyed the drumming, BB enjoyed the poddling about, saw Merry and Tammy and relevant children, though didn’t have that much time to chat. I was amused by Sam’s dislike of the drumming – standing there with his hands over his ears – and the desire to go off to the palyground :-)

Enjoy !? IMG 4677

The groups singing at the end was good as well. SB also made shaker and helped out cutting up fruit for the fruit salad, though she didn’t like eating it for some reason.

Shaker making Communal Fruit Salad Making
Afterwards we went down to the playground for a bit. There are a couple of older girls, 11yo twins who seem to have taken a shine to SB and vice versa and they have taken her under their wing abit, so she spent some time playing with them. They went into the woods at the back of the playground for bit, building a bridge across a stream and generally getting muddy and wet feet. BB just went paddling in puddles to get wet feet…. I at and chatted with couple of other parents, until we got fed up getting damp as it had started to rain.

Once home later on, not much happened. Both ahd dozed off in the car and were a bit sleepy, so we sat and watched a bit of TV – SB watched a bit of videoed CBeebies followded by variosu schools programs on geography, something about Egypt.Soem sort of potted histroy programme was showing ‘highlights of the 1980′s – had? bit about Live Aid, the Ethiopian famine etc.? so that prompted various questions about that, don’t think she could grasp the idea that the people couldn’t just go somehere there was food, or just buy some more, or possibly even the whole concept of not having food to eat at all may? have ben beyond her, seing as it is totally outside her experince.SB did a bit of Jump Ahead Maths later before and after dinner.

Poor Helen has been very tired (we did both go to bed post 2 am last night for no good reason) and has been asleep since she gave BB her bedtime feed.

Ooops, forgot the title….

Nice day, though as so often time seemed to disappear in the middle with things left undone.

Girls were up with Helen before she went to work, and by 8 am they ahd both had their breakfast, which is a bit unusal. SB often faffs about doing ‘stuff’ before getting round to eating Then she collected some thing together on the stairs and so I had to go shopping there and buy some things from them. A bit more random playing and then SB settled down to a bit of Education city, which we have yet another trial extension for. Seems to work well – she does it for a little bit, then forgets about it, then EC send us a trial extension sometime later and she has another go. She does seem to enjoy it. Seemed to be moslty doing Science stuff and getting it moslty right AFAICS.

Education city

BB pottered about, doing a bit of ‘drawing’, playing with the cooker and other toys.

? Reading Drawing

so I sneaked off and had my breakfast in peace, which is also pretty unusal. And looked up a few Space things on the web for SB
Then we sat and read few books, and then i showed SB how to get some bread going in the breadmaker.

Bread Ready to go

Though she did rather make a mess with the flour :roll: BB played with bowls and measuring spooions on the floor. A bit later on she sneaked up onto the table and was caught measuring out water using the spoons and cups :-)

Measuring

Some washing got hung out (BB helped by taking them out of the basket and dropping them…) i puled up soem of the 5 billion weeds that are gorwing madly in the blink of an eye in the garden, the girls finally got into soem clothes from their PJ’s some of the endless pile of clothes waiting to be put away was put away. SB played with Happy Street which seems to be living on her floor recently and wailed when BB (aka Godzilla) came along to join in – which basically means wrecking it most of the time. I do see SB’s point.

Some how it made itself to lunchtime, so we finfished off the sausage bake from the other day – BB managed to cover her face in it and then fell asleep in her high chair. Whilst BB slept me and SB looked and some photos and video clips from the Apollo program, and much conversation about going to the moon, the moon, why the rocket ‘comes apart’, all that sort of stuff. I do remember being absolutley fascinated by all this as a kid, as of course it was all happening then.

Made a rather delicious Asparagus (from the garden) flan for dinner,

Homegrown Asparagus Flan

SB did some Explode the Code (almost finished book 2 now) and helped roll out pastry
and then she (moslty herself) made some little jam turnovers with the scrap pastry. something I can rember doing with my mum as well.

IMG 4644 SB's Jam turnovers

and before you know it it’s time for ballet class (BB enjoyed chasing around the room with the ballet girls who were wating for their class to start), tidying up a bit, getting dinner ready, bed time stuff etc. SB finished off the day with a bit of Muzzy with Mum.

but I didn’t get to plant out any of the plants I wanted to plant out, nor to clear a bit of the veg bed area for more things to go out, everything is sooooo behind now :-(

The New House visit

well, I needed a lightening of my mood, and when I saw Merry’s kind invitation on a previous posting, I jumped at the chance. BB can now say shoes btw.
it is a lovely house, all there things fit – and with some room [though for how much longer, knowing the home-educators skill at filling all available space?] i had the grand tour and loved it.

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The girls all played together – Josie and BB get on well, and Josie was impressive in calling BB by name. lots of role playing, girliness and barbies by the others. SB was introduced to the joys of a playstation with a Shrek game with Amelie. Chris and I kept having to play for a bit [neither of us have played before] as Amelie always uses her big sisters to help her out – and they wre swimming!]SWhe picked it up quickly, though we all got frustrated with the gingerbreadman, as he wasn’t very good throwing his cane!

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Merry cooked 3 times – a muffinicity award there! And all meals eaten in entirety – BB in particular was ravenous.

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SB enjoyed the wooden pattern tiles Merry has got, eventually moving to the table, as josie and BB were keen to rearrange them.

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merry and I gossiped. realsised neither of us has booked for Kessingland still, and it is really soon. Also need to sort out the craft thing that i have thought no more about. Max, bless him, brought wine back from tescos, so we stayed a bit longer [well, it would have been rude not to!] Girls fell asleep in car.

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Tooth’s gone.


No tooth!

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

Here is the essential piccie :-)

We have the Seed Bunny, rather than the tooth fairy, since we had a book called The Seed Bunny? (abvout the rabbit equivalent of the tooth fairy) – which is rather nice, since she was excited to get a pack of seeds. And of course it’s just about in tiem for us to sow them
She did wonder today what happens to the teeth it colects, again she email was the asnwer, as we could email him to ask what he does with them.

Of course the tooth did come out in the middle of a car journey – ‘I’m bleeding’. Did we have any tissues etc. in the car….?

Another little milestone passed.

new tooth

I hav a new tooth. its just come in.

quick catchup

Main computer has had a major wobbley, so have spent much fruitles time trying to sort that, as well as only (!) having one computer around for essential tasks like reading blogs. Also Helen has been in London for two days this week and not getting back until late-ish. so lack of blogs, lack of new photos on Flickr (we have them, but have to get the external drive and connect it to the laptop) – what’s the world coming too…..

That and? certain lack of blogging enthusiasm from me this week….

Main theme of the week has been enjoying the sun outside quite a lot, there has been Explode the Code happening most days, bits of Singapore maths, lots of reading. SB is reading soemthing to me most days now, she is gradually spotting more and more words straight off.

Anway, Tuesday was Library day, so went along to that, SB had found the book that I claimed last week that I had claimed not to have ever seen – so had to take that back and admit to incompetence. But ti’s a nice friendly volunteer run library and they are used to us…… Meant for under 5′s so Sb is much the biggest there now – older under 5′s must presumably be at playgroup or something. But she likes going, so we still go. I do the occasioanl session to keep in the good books :-)

I picked up a book that SB has really enjoyed. Incredible Everything?? about have various things? (bridges, doughnuts, CD’s Beoing 777 for example) are made and work, lots of detailed drawings etc. SB loves things like this and every day me or Helen have sat down with here and looked at it. she likes you to tell here what is going on in each bit.

Much of ther afternoon was probably spent outside, a lot of librbary book reading went on. We finshed sorting out the bed for the strawberry pants.

SB finally learnt how to get herself swinging on the swing, went outside and realised she was whizzing back and forth. she was Soooo pleased with herselfshe spent most of the next hour swinging, Swimming lesson later on, home to dinner, and Mummy getting home just as we sat down to watch Wallace and Grommet – Curse of the Were Rabbit.

Wednesday we went to my parents for most of the day. SB played some games, read, did some tracing (very well) in a trace the picture book mum had bought. BB poddled about, and scared Nanna by climbing up piles of old paving stones, up on top of the wall. etc. (they are redoing the garden). They have Sat TV, so SB gets a treat of watching CBeebies in the middle of the day :-) Lots of reading with Mum, looking at various books – she has been looking at some of the Picturepedia books as well – ‘Waht’s this, what’s that..’
Thursday ???? We planted out the stawberry plants, as in SB did two and then went of to play. BB randomly came up picked up plants and dropped then around the bed…, they seem happy enough though. Ballet lesson in afternoon, some time in the playground afterwards where SB found hitched up with another little girl, Sb kept trying to climb up everything, managed to whizz up the slide, then fell down it…. :-(. I tried to do a ‘A day in the life of BB’ series of piccies which will hopefully get posted.
Friday A day when we didn’t have to go anywhere at all which was nice. Should have gone to the shops probably though. SB and BB played for ages in the morning in SB’s bedroom with Happy Street, Cindy whatever, which gave me the chance to do interesting things like changing beds ‘unaided’.Can’t remeber much, but SB did some good reading from one of the Letts Active Readers (Ratman and the Big Cat or somesuch), we looked a lots of the Incredible Things book – wandered into a conversation about how people used to make things themselves or on a small scale and now things moslty get made in factories now.? did some basic stuff about Graphs from Singapore maths.? Did some stuff from the book, then did some of own – how many different coloured flowers etc. use the little plastic blocks (name? – forgot) to ake the graps which worked well. SB got the hang of it, and interpreting it/extracting info easily.