Category Archives: art and crafts

A weeks beginning.

Suffering ‘Blogger’s brain’ again re yesterday.

Monday

Both Stringbean and Butterbean slept a bit longer after Helen went to work -Stringbean hadn?t got to sleep until gone 12 (or was it 1 am?) as she’d slept on the way home and unfortunately woke up when i put her to bed . She did spend a long time in bed but just didn’t get to sleep so she caught up a bit. Both woke up all perky soon enough though. BB is such a total wiggler when it comes to getting changed, as so a you let go she rolls over and is off across the bed. She loves it so much – she does this thing where she sort of flops her head down on the bed while sticking her bottom up and then chuckles away. That and making beeline for the end of the bed so she can stand up holding the top of the frame. So with her and SB generally messing about and ?helping? it can take a while to get her changed.

SB seemed a little out of sorts after the weekend, as she often is after seeing people, And didn?t want to settle down to anything that I suggested in the ?worky? nature so after her breakfast while I finished BB and mine she pottered about in the playroom. She found some more pens and pencils in a small draw in the cupboard so dragged them out and sat herself down with some paper quietly to do some drawing. She did a great picture of a rabbit. It is apparently jumping up into the sky so the grass isn?t too long. She spent a fair while on this so me and BB got a little while to play little peep-bo, hiding games, taking and passing games etc. Bit of a blank spot here, though I do remember some reading of stories, though I got SB to try reading some of the words out as well.

Did go outside after BB went down for her nap. We filled up the bird feeders ? talked about why we put different food in them, why some goes on the bird table or the ground, what different birds eat, why small ones need to eat often, why fat useful as a food for them in the winter, the names of some of the birds we see. And then spent ages poking around outside. Found a couple of big sticks and played a few ?big stick games? , balancing them on end. trying to find the point of balance (talked about why it is roughly in the middle), a bit of sword fighting. Various other things which I now forget came up as well.

After our lunch, BB then woke up, so SB settled down to play a few games, listen to stories etc. on the Cbeebies website while I fed BB. Tried to listen to a couple of the record BBC Schools Radio programs with her, she was half into it ? particularly the one where we had to act out a little drama ? making noises, being an elephant etc. but not really into it. A little bit later at some point Helen came home. Not sure exactly what was done there but they did some good lego Pyramid building at some point before dinner. There were plans to make some lemon curd, we even went and bought the eggs, but somehow didn?t get round to it.

Helen here – we actually did quite a bit, but can’t remeber so much either – oops. did do some explode the code, 3 pages, SB helped me write the numbers in the Kakuro game – she has grasped it is an adding game, so that made us do a bit of mental maths. I also read 3 or 4 stories from the usborne around the world, and therefore she had to read me a red nose reader [for every 3 I read, she has to read 1!!!] lots of squiggling about with BB as well. lego was fun though. We even put the characters in the pyramids with the lego animals to keep them company in the underworld.

Tuesday

Well girls esp. SB awake early enough this morning BB had a pretty poor night ? she is doing this thing where she will wake up and have a feed, then when I try to take her, she will scream madly as she wants to go back to mum, so bad night.

After her breakie, SB went back to some more Lego. This time making a train and some ?sofa?s for all the people to sit on apparently. Once me a SB had finished up we got dressed etc. and sorted out the library books she wanted to take back and which she wanted to renew ? She uses hers and BB?s card and has various books taken out on different weeks, so we have fair pile of books to sort out, check etc. Still wondering what has happened to two Mr Men books that disappeared in the house ages ago. Did I hide them is despair and my dislike of then I wonder?

Got sorted, time to go out. First stop baby clinic. Have only been once since we moved here, no real need to go, but BB weighed and got HV to try and get the endless requests for SB to have jabs she has already had stopped (various people not doing/telling who they should it would seem) Missed SB 8 month check as GP does it ? but she seems ok ? Sb had an hearing test but don?t do that now, and we missed the birth one. But she seems to hear ok.

To library, where for once we managed not to cause delays and confusion as we normally seem to manage to do. Read few books ? found some Red Nose Readers, so we read those in the library. Got out some more books and headed home. BB to snooze, me and SB to eat toast, drink coffee and read all the books at least once. My Mum rang asking if we could go over to help sort out some problems with wiring the TV, video etc. so once we ?d finished and sorted out stuff to take we headed over there.

We played a bit of game that my parents got when I was around 10 called Hare and Tortoise . It?s a fairly cleaver race type game, but it?s not dice based, so there is much more strategy to it than chance. A bit to old for SB, but she saw it and wanted to try it .She got the hang of the general gist of the game – collecting and then ?spending? carrots to move around the board. And it gave us excuse to practice working out how to make up the right number of carrots from various denomination cards, talked about the idea of counting in tens again. Didn?t finish the game as I had to pop out and then she wanted to stop. Also impressed Nanna a bit later by slicing up the potatoes to make nice chips. Spent basically all afternoon there, not as planned. Was a nice afternoon and had had an idea to get out again and maybe do something like bark rubbings.

Managed to get home with out SB falling asleep. Tea, a bit of reading of library books again. SB made some pictures for me and Helen ? I liked the ?love to Babby? Bit on mine :-)

Butterbean note. She is so much into everything at the moment, put her down and she is off investigating, nosing about, getting stuck in places. She loves the dishwasher. As soon as it is open she is in there. Almost literally – I found her on the open door, head inide the machine….. :-)

A Family Weekend

we visited my parents for the weekend. Such a nice time. put the worlds to right, wailed over children growing so quickly. Hopefully allayed some fears about home ed. Felt loved.

Friday:That was the short version! We wet down on the Friday and had a hideous journey due to a major smash on the M25 which we were luckilly not involved in. SB so excited to be visiting my parents, and BB, well being BB. lots of reading books and investigating the toys went on, and a very late SB bedtime.

Saturday: The next day SB cycled with my Dad to the swings. She was very proud that grandad was taking her, and had begged for us to take her bike with us for this very reason. Grandad proud to be so wanted too. SB ‘read’ a book to Nanny – well, at least sounded out some of the words, did a bit of explode the code, and also Mum had bought a colour in book, so that done too.

In the afternoon we went for a wallk along the river at Marlow – always something I enjoy. I played many concerts at the church, and spent a lot of my childhood walking there! SB likes the rather nice childrens play area. there were loads of swans and geese to be fed – but Chris had not remembered the bread [my mum and I travelled in a diferent car as we went to homebase first. hummed and hawed about a fantastic deal bunkbeds – abit like Ernest and Buttercups, which I thought were a great idea when we visited. Sense prevailed. After all, if we are too broke for a halloween party, then I cant buy bunkbeds. mum bought us paint as an early Xmas present!] Anyway, back to Marlow. A nice walk along the river. Some georgeous houses – how many home eds would have to live together to club for them??? SB running along the bank spotting things.

Nice family evening [though Chris doing the computer guru thing with my Dad, it was me that saved the day with the laptop on trial!!]. Played scrabble – I love it, so sad!

Sunday SB did some explode the code, and told Mum about Elizabeth the first. good girl! We also did sweetie maths. My sister Vivien and her 2 children came over, so basically lots of fun and merriment. I love my family! SB and my nephew M play together realy well, and my niece E is now a happy thing – playing with both SB and BB. BB went into adorable baby mode. She needed to make up for the horrendous night we had had! lots of photos I need to put on Flickr

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Archaeology Day

Oh what fun. Let me say now, before you all switch off, it was fantastic. I loved it, just my cup of tea. the children loved it, and it was great fun!!

The background was that we [Merry, Tammy and I] had enjoyed reading archaeologists dig for clues with our children, and the children of the families thought it a great book. On meeting up for the Roman re-enactment thing a few weeks back, the children enjoyed scrabbling in the sand being archaeologists, so we thought, well why not?? And Tammy being an archaeologist……

So Merry and Tammy and families came for the day to have fun. First we covered arts and crafts, as the children painted their pots using red yellow and black [OK, real paints rather than natural glazes and dyes, but they were garden centre terracotta pots. When they are teenagers, they can make the pots as well!] this done, they hared around playing with each other on the bikes, climbing frame and indoors whilst they dried. SB, Sam and Fran also went looking for flints in the veg beds – and found loads. The ceremonial pot breakage came next – Amelie took a few goes – bless.

At this point all the children were supposed to disappear whilst I buried the pots, but SB and Sam helped out. we all helped mark out the squares – 2 test plots each. I dug the holes and they put in the broken pots, plus some hama beads grave goods [these were pre-christian!]. Some competition between Sam and SB ensured that there was plentiful grave goods!!

Lunch time – phew. Minimal trauma as pasta with help yourself toppings, so all eaten up. Second sitting for adults [after Tammy had read copiously to thechildren, the archaeologists book and moved on to fairies - Merry and I did contemplate leaving the building surreptitiously at this point, but it seemed unfair!] I got the recording things and the glue ready for the afternoon fun. Cheesecakes from Tammy [yummy] set us up for the archaeology.

As this is arable land, luckilly, artefacts are usually near the surface, and our dig was no exception [it was bad enough digging filling up 10 test pits without going too deep!]. A handy field walker [LOL] had left a clue as to which pot was buried underneath, so the children all found their pots, and started digigng. less adult help was required, and they all had a go at recording on the chart the places they had found things. Fran was the first real find – some pottery not buried by me, and also Amelie had some extraneous pottery. When each child thought all was found, we had a quick over dig and brought up a few more pieces and went to the glueing.

Glueing the pots with 5 children is much more hard work than glueing with 1!! Especially since they were tricky things to glue. I think to anyone else contemplating this bit of fun, I would suggest terracotta saucers instead. Easy to paint, and much easier to glue! Bearing with me, Fran and SB nearly completed their 2 pots. I had to admit to Amelie that half her pot seemed to be missing – and we couldn’t find it in the hole either! Tammy and Sam nearly completed theirs. Sam went to do a bit of sieving – since I had found 3 garden sieves. The others gradually went off to play. They all played together really well. [usual minor sharing traumas, but nothing major] We decided that the incompleteness of our pots [due to missing pieces and glueing trauma] was very realistic.

During this time, Josie practised her escapology tricks [rofl], and interacted with BB. They did seem to be having a game of pass the item at one point. BB asleep on sofa, and I don’t think her nappy has been changed since before lunch – Aargh terrible mother! They have both seemingly enjoyed the whirlwind of activity around them, and the interaction between them is cute.

Some chilling out and then the parting of the ways. Sb is at Ballet – having cycled there with Chris on the tandem, and BB is asleep. Peace – how wonderful!

Yep, I am flickring – its getting its own set!!!!

oh, the village lights committee came round to confirm our willingness to buy a christmas tree for over the front door, and pay for the yearly decorations. OK i said, when should I get the tree – well by the end of the month – what??? Where do you get an Xmas tree from in October???

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Jinxed!!

Obviously saying BB was finally getting better on Joanna’s blog gave her the wrong idea – aaarrghhh. SB also had a rare accident! So today harder work really. I was going to try and get us into the pattern of ‘normals’ but have failed totally on this. Feeling typically middle class on this issue, as feel we need to get this to be an easy habit to follow.

Anyway, lets concentrate on what we did do. Hmmm?? Well, we did some more train track, and SB went off to have her haircut – she told the hairdresser that it was to be like a princess, and then to the library with chris. unfortunately the normal storytime wasn’t on. I did get to spend a whole hour with undivided BB attention – which is unusual! She just blossoms with the attention, wreathed in smiles. She is letting go and standing unaided at them moment – so a number of falls! We destroyed the train track of course!

When SB returned we read some of her new library books. I am gradually persuading her that the ones in big print are for her to try and work out the words and read. It would help if they weren’t all the wierd ones!! We then did some more glass painting – so 4 bottles finished for pressies. I made the elderberry and blackcurrent jelly at this time [that the juice has been stored for ages in the freezer]. The usual setting crisis, and Chris went on an emergency pectin hunt. Honestly, they are supposed to have moderate to high pectin content, and I had included some apples.

Beans on toast for lunch, and made a play for some ‘normals’ – some monster maths book that chris couldn’t resist [its bad news that he is getting to be a resource collector as well!!!]. we did half a page! I did my normals too – the adding up one – bah what is it called! – in the Guardian. SB does prefer Sudoku, but I fancied a bit more brain stimulation. BB finally had a nap.

We moved on – she chose which terracotta pot to break, and we went outside and ceremonially dropped. it. it shattered on second drop into6 big pieces with 4 smaller – so fairly ideal. We then glued them back together. It didn’t feel too sharp, and some tiny fragments were lost – adding to the authentic look of the glued together result. I helped obviously since it was UHU. We did get some maths in, as it worked best if tacky on sticking together, so SB had to keep counting to 60 after I had applied glue before she was allowed to stick the pieces together. She was fine to 49, and now to 60!!

archaeology update – in case we forget, has anyone some more UHU they could bring- as that was the best gluer upper! We have half a tube, and will try and remember some more, but as loads of children prob need more tubes.

Poor Chris was sorting out the pantry crisis as I had a strop since with so much stuff around, I had knocked over some eggs I coudn’t see, and then preserving sugar on top, so a nightmare! Its all beautiful now though!

SB helped me with the final Jelly – Christmas Quince Jelly by measuring the juice from yesterday, and also the sugar to add and lemon juice. Even though quinces are high pectin, this was also reluctant to set. I must be going wrong somewhere? So more pectin added and voila! We plan for SB to decorate the jamjars, so trying to decided whether to do glass paint transfers, or paint direct. SB will prob choose to paint direct. [yep, more xmas presents]. OOh completely forgot till looked at piccies that we got SB to do our shredding – she loves this, and the she and BB had fun playing with the bits in a box. [Merry, do you need shredded paper for rabbits??]

Whilst I put the jelly in jars, SB went back to the train track, and made up a rather complicated story about what was going on.

We then played games with BB – more Ta, and jiggledy on lap games. It is nice when SB joins in nicely too. Whilst BB went off to wreck the traintrack, SB and I had read aloud time – 3 stories from the usborne stories from around the world, and the Sonlight Maps and Globes. Both encompassing geography. i then read one of Muzzy accompanying books in German and English, so we practised some phrases about ourselves. We tidyied up [hallelujah!] and had tea.

After tea, SB read me a red nose reader, and has gone to bed. So although no normals, I do think we covered reading OK. When Chris comes down, we need to discuss finances- in Alvin mode as well. [panic - panic - panic!]

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Back to today… edited

Early start to the day, as SB really still not well, and both beans were unsettled last night.
We therefore started gently with some DVD’s ‘christmas Nemo – AKA ‘the Gift’ from the alpha – omega bunch [so thats religion then] and kleine hippo. A german TV programme for approx her age [and languages!]. we don’t understand many words, but the cartoon gives you the gist. I played ‘Ta’ games with BB – she’s getting good at handing over, and then waiting to be given back and things this is a great game. sometimes even saying ‘da’. though not convinced that it is language as opposed to copying at this stage.

I had taken in Story of the World and a dot to dot book, that is both numerical and alphabetical. I then read mummification [and thought both of Tammy, and also the crocodile experiment of the yorkshire group] and pyramids. SB keen on visiting Egypt. She was sad though that all Cheops jewels were stolen. She chose to do the alphabetical dot to dots. unfortunately, although she can relate the ABC song on the whole to abc, the fast LMNOP she doesn’t keep up with with her pen, so gets annoyed and lost!!

We were all more perky, and keen to include BB regualrly in SB’s games, we decided to make our brio/tesco/elc hybrid train track. SB likes convoluted patterns, so it is a bit stretching for me as well – as I get the job of finally making it meet. She is rather annoyed that since we have an even number of points, and an engine shed, that that means there will always be a branch line if we use all the pieces. She wants them all to join up [apart from the shed of course] but I’m not allowed to leave out one of the points, so there is always a sulk about the branch line. BB also not so helpful, as rather a puller aparter, but the buildings and one carriage usually please her.

When we had finished it, SB decided to finsih the glass bottle painting, so we have done ever more complicated designs. Whilst she was doing that, I started the Quince Jelly – what a lovely aroma!

We popped back to the trains for a bit, and listened to one of the schools singing radio programmes on native north americans. AHA SB remembered her violin, so we got hers and mine out, rejigged the way she holds it a bit, and did open strings. Not for long, but a good thing to do, as the violin now the right size [1/10]

What else? oh we practiced painting the terracotta pots to see how long they take to dry. SB did 2 – 5 secs each, so not great works of art!! We did have a look at ancient greek terracotta and black pots in the DK book.

She then went outside with Chris and got cold, as she only had a t shirt on and refused a coat.
Edit from Chris – well didn’t complain about the cold when outside :-) it wasn’t actually cold anyway. She helped a bit hoeing some of the weeds on the ‘fruit bed to be’. She was keenly looking at all the stones to see if they are flints as she is keenly taken by the idea that people used them (and ‘it tells us people used to live here ‘ so likes to colect bits of flint. Talked little bit about why people used stones not metal tools, why it is called the Stone Age etc. Convinced that the little bit of glass bottle she found was Roman :-) Pottered around watering some things in the greenhouse with her watering can before heading back indors.

i had a bit more of a play with BB with the trains. The when SB came in, we played a pass the parcel game between the 3 of us saying ta with rattles. Seemed to be enjoyed. Pasta for tea, and SB and I then did a Sudoku puzzle together [today's guardian]. SB has grasped the rules very well, and i usually say – we can now put the 1 in this box [of 9] and she can generally work out where it must go. [is this logic now, since she knows her numbers?]

Anyway, she is supposed to be eating supper, and then another installment of the magic faraway tree. instead she is trying to get me to provve the underworld doesn’t really exist. Blogging may save my sanity, as I think she is far to advanced on comparative religion now for me to keep up. [I have previously been asked to prove evolution and disprove the adam and eve versiosn - aargh] I do firmly believe that the evidence towards evolutionary theory is the strongest hypothesis there is, but i haven’t yet managed to work out how to tell it to a 4 year old so it doesn’t sound far more fanciful that the god created line [no offence to creationists out there, but I'm not one. I do, however, tell SB that some people do believe in creationism].

At last, milk drunk. Bedtime!!!!!!

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Sleep…? how quaint an idea

Edit – Ahh, like buses, two blogs have come along at once – my take and Helen’s take below :-) Ah well leave as they are I think

11 pm, SB still awake upstairs – and she’d had bit of late night last night as well. Fell asleep on the way back from the puddlers group and when we got back I just couldn’t get her to wake up. Ah well, means that she was full of energy for when Helen came back from work.

Morning disappeared soon enough, with a trip to Tesco’s, Staples, sorting out an activity for the puddlers group (and then leaving the materials behind…..Grrrr…..), a few house chores. Group was good, as Merry has blogged elsewhere, it’s turning into nice little group (or even not so little), Shame we don’t live little bit nearer when it comes to travelling to it. SB always enjoys it, she spent ages today cutting colouring etc. to make T-Rex stand up model. She took great care in carefully cutting it all out. Taken by Tammy’s comments re recent evidence that some dinosaurs had some sort of feathery covering rather than scales she stuck feathers on it -Fluffy T-Rex any one :-)

She also enjoyed the ‘make a skeleton in the ground thing with bits of pasta’ activity, as well as making, and more importantly, noisly throwing around paper Pterosaur. I’ll get some piccies of them tomorrow, (forgot the camera again, but Merry has some nice ones)

Once home whilst SB snoozed, BB woke up, so me and here played for bit without interupption, she is getting gradually better at standing, and is happier about holding onto things other than people, and almost lost the lopsided crawl she had. Just starting to cruise the furniture a little bit. She had dinner while I had a cuppa, and then Helen came home just as I was starting dinner. Work seems to have been a crap last couple of days, and she is on call all weekend :-( Does have next week off though, and no plans for us to go away anywhere until the weekend)

SB seems to have got into Story of the World, I was looking at it last night and she wanted me to read her a bit, so we did the first chapter, and I heard them reading the next bit about the Ancient Egyptians earlier. She’s been resistant to books with lots of words and not many pictures until now, so maybe we’ve reached another little milestone, she even let Helen read her a bit of the Faraway Tree at bed tiome last night. Might get hold of Winnie the Pooh and try that now, before she get’s too corrupted by Disneys efforts ;-) anyway, been looking at the SOTW Activity book and itching to ahve ago at some of those things – by the time we’ve finished hacking the garden some more should be plenty of long wooden bits and stuff – just right for building a nomads hut . What say you Merry and Tammy – maybe next week?

Chose a little Usbourne Pocket Science book about how cars work or somesuch as her bedtime reading – fascinates me how she loves to sit and listen to this sort of thing, even though some of it must go over her head. didn’t blog it on Tuesday, but we sat and I read her a Ladybird book about Aeroplanes. It was not at all simple stuff, and I didn’t read the text verbatim, but we did look at the diagrams and pictures whilst I talked about Aeroplanes, the shape of wings, lift and other forces on the plane, different types of engines, controls etc.

SB bedtime update 00.22 – still awake……….. Time for our bedtime though

fridays child is …

…finding work hard.I’ve had a bad 2 days really. Feeling trammelled by forseeable work constraints, and not sure how to resolve any of these issues without having to move at some point – sigh. feel I have therefore made a crap choice for my family, as we are all settling here really nicely. hmm. Also been in terms of actual work a difficult 2 days. sigh. Also working this weekend. groan!!

Some things OK though – although been home very late at night, the girls have been up and enthusiastic. And tonight that has been really valuable for me, as I came home feeling hopeless and uncomfortably dejected, but just doing normal things with them has enabled me to relax.

SB very taken by the story of the world. Chris started reading it last night, and she asked me to read some more tonight. We are discussing writing – she actually seems to remember a lot – where the nile is, flooding and farming, and egypt, pharoahs, heiroglyphics etc. Anyway, we discussed the sumerian cuneiform writing, and she would like to do some. must but some clay, but playdough to start with! She also laughed at the hippopotamus being a water horse. these books are written nicely aren’t they.

We also read the usborne pocket science books what is the earth made of without prompting she named all the planets and that they were in the solar system. she even told me why we could only live on earth. not bad really. Each time we read the books, she picks up a little bit more, and asks a few more questions. The other one was how do cars work and she was quite taken with the idea of how the pistons worked, and naming car parts.

At bedtime I read a few more chapters of the faraway tree. She has finally decided she doesn’t need pictures for a read aloud as long as she likes the story. She’s still not really aleep though and keeps coming downstairs.

this is mainly as she fell asleep after the puddlers group. They did dinosaurs, and I’ve seen her t rex, pteranodon and muddy dinousar pasta bones!!

BB’s black eye is improving. She is starting to walk more around furniture – oh help!

Wednesday’s child is full of…

.. beans and energy and enthusiasm! We have had a great day [rather full-on]. i might even have to dash backwards and forwards re-editing, as I think its going to be hard to remember it all. i had thought that since I fell asleep with the beans last night and then woke up at 11, stayed up till 2, and at 3 had to leave to sleep in spare room as chris snoring so loudly it woke me up [I kid you not!] that I would feel lousy, but somehow no.

We started with reading. In a rather countdown style when SB asked me to read, I asked for 1 from the top, 3 from the middle for her to read and 2 from the bottom [rofl!!!] i sort of got them. So I started with the story books - the twelve princesses orchard books [v nice] and something a bit mawkish about baby snow fairies from the library which she really liked. In fact liked it so much she then read it to herself. She then read – with varying degrees of success, but at last really trying – 3 red nose reader books. Both she and I were really proud of this. I then read a fair wodge of the rest of the Usborne Greek Myths [bellorophon and the flying horse, king midas, the chariot of the sun, pygmalion and his wife, eros and psyche]. She has got the hang of quite a few of the ancient greek gods – and goes ‘oh no’ in advance whenever a character says they are better than one of the gods! Whilst I played with BB for a bit, she then got out the Happy Street and made a huge track.

just before lunch we went for the chosen craft of the day – glass bottle painting. I had got some half price glass paints from lakeland last christmas sale, and chris had gots some Ikea bottles, so SB set too. the isntructions were limited, so it has been a bit trial and error. For some of them I drew the demanded shapes with the black outliner for her to colour in, and others are coloured without/spotted/splodged. We have done this on and off then all day, as you have to wait a fair while for side to dry enough to turn and do next side [oops for the drippy sides]. We haven’t quite finished any yet – 4 on the go and a window transfer. Both of us have really enjoyed this!

Between sides I finished off some of the mammoth greek myths session [as above] and suggested we get a greek history book to look at things in more detail. Nope said SB, I want this one – Usborne beginners Elizabeth 1. We read the book and discussed bits and pieces of it. She was much taken by the idea, and remebered some of the names from before. We – for once – dd the internet linked bit as well, and printed off the pages to colour in as well as looking at the various games and linked sites. She particularly liked a link to some Elizabethan music. so we stuck on a CD of roughly right music while we then read most of The history of britain – the Tudors. This book is aimed older, but still reasonable as a read aloud, with snipping if the page doesn’t seem to be as attention grabbing. the first thing SB noticed about henry the 7th was that he didn’t have many jewels, so we discussed fiscal reponsibility, and the fact that wars had made the country nigh on bankrupt. how much she takes in I don’t know, but I go round things until she indicates we move on – or I run out of knowledge! When we got to Mary Queen of Scots, it shows her being beheaded – but she was in prision shouted SB, so we wenty back to first book and re-read it, pointing out she was beheaded in the text, even if the picture was prison. I guess that means it is mostly going in. Not that I actually mind. i think of this as foundation stuff – learning to love listening, finding out, and working out how things are ordered – for example king and queen numbering is understood now, and that there are many year gaps, asn she is happy our queen is Elizabeth 2.

Half way through the book and BB woke up. As agreed with SB, this was BB special time, and she sat down to colour in the Elizabethan pictures. BB and I played with cars, rolling them to each other. We put the happy street people in and out of the cars. We did a bit more peeboo games and walking practice. BB then meandered over to where SB colouring,a nd did her best to see what was going on! SB decided to join in – so heavily moderated happy street play. [No SB, you can't take all of BB's cars to the far end! - we have at least 20 of the things!!] SB played peeboo too, and then pushed BB around in the happy street box, until decided it looked fun, so daddy roped in to push them both! A final bit of glass painitng and curry for tea. Aaargh to SB eating speed!!

After tea and bath SB insistant on Joe the Dragon maths website. She did the non-carry over addition and subtraction pages – though I scaffolded quite heavily some of the subtraction as she was being odd about it. [7-3=7 type thing??] however, soon got the hang and I could be less gritted teeth.

Just as I thought she would go to bed, she spotted the newly arrived rainbow resources box [yippee!!!!] We pulled out the story of the worlds and their activity books. the main text is apparently for when she is 9 [her arbitrary age!] and the activity books for now. And then she saw the Latin!!!! So, massively excited to be learning Roman language, and we have done the first 3 sounds. It is really nicely done, and suitable for her age [though I do have to do the reading] So thankyou really v much Jan for that tip. Dare I open up the massive doorstopper of a rainbow resources catalogue though????

I think that might be it – I was childed out as it were though by this stage!!

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Other old news

well, I went onmy course on Sunday, and it was actually very good. All about negotiation skills in a very sensible, pragmatic no-nonsense kind of way – my ideal!
I missed my family, but was glad to have done the course.
The venue was decked out like a changing rooms special – which was slightly odd. The food was absolutely fantastic – even for veggies!

Also, just had to say that the Hama glow in the dark is absolutely FAB!! And in particular, the moon, where we have a circle in daytime, and it is a crescent at night. i love it!

edit: I have back flickred. possibly only of interest to myself!! Some really pretty BB ones and the hama creations
OK OK, loved the hama so much it has its own badge!

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today part one

well, I am going to swindon this eve, so won’t blog, so thought I should do it in stages!

Today I had a lie in due to BB being an execrable sleeper and feedaholic. Whilst doing that, it seems that SB and Chris read through all the red and yellow letterland books. I really dislike the letterland books actually. I think it would have suited me best, once we had done letter sounds and common sh and th things to go onto see and read rather than phonics. this is what we seem to be doing now, though using letter sounds to work out words. Hmm!!

When I got downstairs, SB was ready for another Hama session. today we finished off the flower, and then concentrated on glow in the dark sun, moon, jupiter and stars. i did the glow in the dark bit, and SB then filled in with whatever pattern she wanted. My glow in the dark bit for the sun and moon was as directed by her. The moon is quite cool actually, as in the day, it will appear a full moon, but at night, only a crescent is glow in the dark. This has essentially taken all morning. While doing this, we read the ‘I wonder why stars twinkle…’ book, and discussed that our sun is a star, but ours is closer so bigger and we have given it the name sol. We also did the path of lights through different media experiment [straw in glass of water!]

to be continued…..

Have had a very nice time playing with BB. We have done stacking toy, played with sensory things – like the feather boa, done some walking, and now on pressing buttons annoying tunes toys! SB playing upstiars on her won – so don’t feel quite so comfortable about that, though when I enquired she was happy with Sindy’s/Barbies. Am persuading chris to make a house for my sindy things so they don’t get trashed! He is hoefully sorting veg bed – it does need it!!

Have read 3 greek myths stories from the usborne book [arachne, echo and narcissus, daedalus and icarus] her winnie the pooh book. She has helped chris in the garden and found 3 flints - and told him about chapping [aka knapping!]. We have reseeded the fairy garden and will hope something grows,

Now for tea and then I’m off. Aargh – the first time without my baby, not back until Tues. How crap do I feel?

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