Category Archives: Dance/drama

not a snowy winter walk

Posted on November 23, 2008 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

we woke up to snow, and were really hopeful that our monthly RSPB walk would be snowy, but then it rained and was just v cold! Whilst michelle and i did half empty glass brightkites, marcus was much more positive. and you know, he was right! apart from some setting out rain it was fine, and sunny in parts! by the end, my toes were a bit on the cold side though! BB had a walking crisis, but managed in the end!

i am getting ahead, we fitted in HE on the sly! we did a v short piano practice – for each girl, and did some french conversation for at least 30 mins in the car and french games. And, when we were at M and M’s SB did ballet practice.

AHA! i did nearly forget to blog that bB and SB had a delightful conversation about greenhouse gases in the car. currently, when sb grows up she is going to be a research scientist and sort out the problem with greenhouse gases. mms says bb, because they are naughty – yes says sb and does a bit of greenhouse gas talk and melting things. mm says bb, so it is good it has snowed because that sucks up the greenhouse gases, eerrrr, well not quite! v cute together anyway. bb is going to be a dinodoor bone finder btw! later bb decided the problem with greenhouse gases were that they were smelly! err, well, i guess some of them!

So we had a lovely fresh walk, with some coffee to warm up on the way. SB and C climbed trees – something they are rather keen on! well, one tree in particular, and then ran about a bit before going back to the car.

we went to M and M’s house for dinner, chat, world righting and the kids played well together, and lots of games. very nice evening, thanks v much!

now i just need to get flickring!!

Black dog on my shoulder

Posted on November 22, 2008 by HHaricot | 11 comments

and its being a bit resistant to shaking off. i am reasonably confident i can pinpoint the problem, but would like it to move off a bit.
anyway, to today. i find in a black dog kind of day, a bit of organised activity and lots of book cuddling helps, so thats what we went for.
Anyway, SB had agreed to a last violin practice for piccies and video ‘to see where she had got’ and she still appears to enjoy doing it when she’s doing it! but is absolutely definite that the only string instrument she wants to play is the piano.

so there we go. we played christmas carols, she then decided to move on in the book and play the spiccato section. we then had a jolly christmas carol concert with me on the violin and she and BB on bells/tambourines and singing. SO there, i don’t understand, and I hope one day she doesn’t turn around and wished she had gone ahead, but she is clear for now she doesn’t want to play.

We then moved into ballet practice. I don’t know how good they need to be, but if the teacher thought the others in the class would pass, then i think SB might now as well. SHe has really worked hard at it. the videoing has been the best thing, and i am from now on always going to sneakilly video the term before the exam!

we went off to do some arts and crafts, which will feature in Helmsley secret santas, but it is only kiddie to kiddie! [nic, we changed slightly who we are doing between us to save WW6091] SB confused herself with starting the painting with the glass upside down, and then said it was ok, because she meant the zebra to be standing on its head…

and they only have 3 legs because the other one is hidden behind one of the other legs, oK?? such is life on the savannah.

whilst the black outer was drying, we then all snuggled up and i read various story books and some french books to the girls. i made a dreadful mistake of suggesting we could have soup in mugs with straws watching raven in the playroom [as there was drying painting stuff all over the table] the rug paid for that with BB’s tomato soup! i was going to do some violin prac, but am temporarily a string less [and g string ] so am having to wait until wed – em, i am a little rusty!!

SB then did her arm drawing for sketch tuesday. i think it might be supposed to be real life ish, but ours isn’t! it is a multiarmed rainbow bug. BB did her glass painting – v carefully – and i finished what my secret santa thingy is! chris is the only one so far not to do it. SB was using watercolour pencils, and had a go at washing them over – which did work until she had had enough.

He, however, was busy elsewhere, and has bought an xmas tree [for the village lights on the outside of our house] and has also put a shelf up in the room of doom cupboard. our new years resolution is that it should become the room of resources instead!

SB and BB both did piano practice with me. BB was insistant to do it properly as well. so she has started gbdf and ace. SB does also play the piano nicely and sight read some new music today.

we finished with dinner infront of tv as well [sounds a bit scandalous, 2 meals infront of the tv] and although we were going to watch Harry Potter, SB decided on wizard of oz instead! both girls storied and bedded, and i have spent some of my christmas money on games! contemplating shelving.

oh, and i have wasted tme making an amazon astore.

11 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, daubing and making, DIY/ house renovation, General, language, little languages, music, noises and sounds, photos, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

happy top post

Posted on November 21, 2008 by HHaricot | 4 comments

i don’t like the blog to look sad for long! today has been productive for the beans. SB has really got the hang of pas de basques and cifras, and done some tidying up of a number of other steps. feeling more positive! so thats good. she also has judo grading weekend following helmsley so stop over plans curtailed unfortunately. she has done some piano practice and finally has finished singapore maths 2b – woohoo! done spelling and handwriting. we have together read a book about castles all snuggled up [as i needed a hug!] and both girls have been to gym. BB has been mostly investigating all her presents happily.
and tonight i did some christmas shopping courtesy of M and S online 3 for 2 and 20% off. i only bought items that i would have bought anyway, as it is so easy to get sucked in [so i halved the amount of stuff initially in the basket!] i am hoping amazon does a similar sale at some point!!

4 Comments

Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, early maths skills, geography, history, literacy, music, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

penguins dropping from the sky

Posted on November 19, 2008 by HHaricot | 3 comments

today was busy busy! after such a late bedtime, i am surprised we all got up, as sb also had v late bedtime, and bb woke up as we went to our v late bedtime! but, a fianl tidying push, stuff set out for science and sort of party food! BB opened her presents, and was particularly ecstatic but the sylvanian stuff from both sets of grandparents was a clear winner [as anticipated], and the mp3 from my sister. however, she is now working though the pepa pig set with great keenness! SB and i did some MORE pas de basques, cifras and clappy dance practice – and she has really got the pas de basque thing. just the rest to go! SB’s my pals are here 3 and 4 arrived from singapore and she was very happy!

the latinetc group arrived and we kicked off with science. i thought a fun session of dropping and consolidating the things we had learnt was in order, so we dropped crumpled vs tightly packed paper, and then made parachutes with different size and weight material squares. the children are getting better at making a hypothesis and thinking why they chose that, even if wrong! they certainly enjoyed all the dropping, and were confident with the concepts. then we made paper aeroplanes, which stretched me some, as the origami instructions were complicated! at this point merry arrived, so hers also had aeroplanes which whizzed about a bit. SLight mayhem and chaos later, and a latin session. i was v giggly to here amo amas amat [amamus, amatis amant] from the living room!

finally the ravening children were fed – we had missed out snack time – oops! and fully satiated went on to head shed loads of cake. though my pingu cake looked good, most children ate icing only. i tasted it and thought it was a lovely sponge! BB v keen on the full dark room and lit candeld cake being brought in and all, so we duly did this.

so mostly an afternoon of playing for children – inside and out – and chatting for adults. thankyou to Anne and A who also attended, and chris’s parents. we had a lovely chilled day. BB fell asleep pretty much as guests left, SB did some maths and the judo. BB is awake and playing again

3 Comments

Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, Dance/drama, General, language, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

Sketch tuesday

Posted on November 11, 2008 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

well, its monday here, preparing for sketch tuesday there.

SO today i went to work, and found that for some unknown reason clinic was cancelled, so i decided to agree to a day off [well, sort of, because i am doing tonight!]. ANyway, i came home and surprised the family and we did a whirlwind of catching up with HE! infact, we did so much so that i am lost for starting points!! Well, i think we started with reading BORN WITH A BANG: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story (Sharing Nature With Children Book), having recommended it on the EYHE forum. And yes, it is totally fab, and it does have fab illustrations. we had a read of the scientific bits at the back. SB is developing an enquiring mind, as she wanted to know how people knew that was true, so we discussed physics and maths experiments that pointed to the likelihood, and rediscussed the particle accelerator at CERN, in particular the hadron collider. we then looked into a book about the sun and black holes, Space, Stars, Planets, and Spacecraft (See & Explore)
, and we both got quickly lost with considering string theory – well, it is a bit to advanced, but she liked the idea that it was called a string, and TBH we didn’t do much more than a brief skid across the surface of an idea [i am not sure i could go particularly deep in it!]

SB did a fab violin practice. She practiced slurring, and then saw how many notes she could slur and string cross, so in fact most of the violin practice was having fun with this new skill! the practice was more than double our usual because of it!

in this time BB was happily jigsawing away, with me giving her the odd hand, but after the violin practice was sure it was her HE time!! SO SB settled herself with singapore 2B [last few pages] and BB did earlibird 1B, and then did some before the code whilst SB did Magical Skills: Ages 7-8: Spelling: Ages 7-8 (Magic Skills)
. She is really enjoying this series, so we might buy her the odd one or two more on other subjects! bB then did some pattern blocks and playing with little things making stories, whilst i read SOTW to SB on the subject of knights.

And then we had lunch very late!

After lunch we thought we would do some art, BB was v keen to make a rocket, and SB to do sketch tuesday [though a bit late!]. SO SB and i first investigated watercolour washes. [i must buy some more nice watercolours for us to do this properly!] and then over the arctic colour she hummed and hawed deciding which icy creature she wanted, initially thinking plankton, and working her way up to penguins. it meant she read a fair bit of Polar Wildlife (Usborne World Wildlife)whilst her wash dried! She did 2 versions of her drawing, and we emailed her favourite version off to be added [hopefully] to the group! We did a short bit of french altogether Bonne Nuit a Tous: Goodnight Everyone (I Can Read French) showing that SB does actually know more vocab than i thought she might!!

Gah, can’t get flickr pics to come here! will try again

BB meanwhile was doing some fab painting of her own, of a v colourful house, and then multicoloured butterfly prints. finally we made and painted her rocket whilst SB was at ballet [see below!] and then BB watched some 6 zoo lane whilst SB was at brownies, and we read books together, snuggled and tickled. oh, and she did a recorder practice – a couple of a’s and b’s!!

tea was curry in front of saturday’s merlin. A nice and full day i think! Keeping it so full, gave less chance for post weekend fallout day! 2 more chapters of pirates of pompeii to go!

Aaargh RAD ballet level 2

Posted on November 10, 2008 by HHaricot | 3 comments

SB has to practice her pas de basques and ‘seefers’

i can find pas de bassque on youtube PAS de Basque

But can i find out waht seefers might be??? NOOOOOOOO

PLEASE any ideas??

am buying this book as an emergency to help!!

and linking some youtube videos, they might be helpful???.

RAD 2 steps

RAD 2 character dance

basic allegro moves

argh really. I am not bothered whether she does exams or not, but she is crying [predictably i guess] that she can’t do it – which is different really. I have asked chris to ring the ballet teacher, she can have an extra lesson or 2 if ballet teacher happy to do.

oh, and glossary of ballet terms [thanks em for reminding me about wikipedia!]

3 Comments

Posted in Dance/drama

bloglet

Posted on November 4, 2008 by HHaricot | 1 comment

city1 not so local home ed sports session for the girls this morning, SB had ballet and brownies pm. bB and i did glittery cards when i got home from work, made dahl together, read a book or 2 and watched numberjacks, as well as a fair amount of tickling and cuddling – she is such a gorgeously cuddly child. SB returned, told me about her day, did my farm n facebook, gave me a cuddle and read me a book, before settling to do a bit of felting before bed.

ps, i loved BB’s B for Bitamin [this is what she calls vitamins] chris persuaded her it is a v for vitamin, and i think he has confused her forever, because she now happily says it is v for bitamin!

1 Comment

Posted in Dance/drama, daubing and making, early maths skills, General, literacy, pre reading, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

martyr to migraine

Posted on October 23, 2008 by HHaricot | 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.

6 Comments

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

Appley Monday

Posted on October 18, 2008 by HHaricot | 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…

back by skin of teeth to ballet and then brownies – what a busy day!!

messy party part 2

Posted on October 6, 2008 by HHaricot | 3 comments

we obviously weren’t too dreadful guests, as we went back to the second messy party at the deependers yesterday. i was at work in the morning, and being called in the afternoon, but luckilly didn’t have to go in. a bonus babs and family were there too, lovely to see them again as well! also some local HE. this time the messy stuff was in the tent [lucky as the day started off v rainy, but it did improve] babs had got some geli baff – weird stuff. i couldn’t get at all messy in case needed to troubleshoot at work. SB got messy eno0ugh for the both of us, in fact she prob was The Most Messy! thats my girl!! certainly was great fun, and nice to have opportunities to sit and chat while children have fun.

[btw chris's thunder is blogging about team read, there are some photos on flickr. girls will be in newspaper etc]

Home and i finally finished fantastic contraptions – woohoo!! read more pirates of pompeii to the girls.

today i was knackered as called at night. but came back from work in tieme to say a quick hello to sb before her ballet and brownies. BB and i read books, leappadded, looked at a dog book and a dinosaur book [her favourite things!!] before picking more sweetcorn, beans and broccoli from the garden for tea. [have offered spare broccoli seeds to Nic...] we have rousted about and snuggled under duvet with the clangers. sb should be back soon, and we must do a quick bit of latin and i need to sort and resource session 2 on forces[a page in sidebar] for wed.

chris might add the things he has done with girls to his blog post – if we are lucky!!

the totally grr bit of today and :rant: was that some old chap was in a dizz whilst parking car at work and forgot to put his handbrake on – rolled back into my back bumper, all bent and scraped. havce only had the car for 11 daYS However, it being NCP, the people there had seen it, and couldn’t move his car so bollarde etc, and put warnings on his and mine and did an incident form. he went and fessed up [though otherwise i would still have had numberplate] so will get chris to chase up tomorrow. still sobbing!!

3 Comments

Posted in Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, gardening, General, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, socialisation

Category Archives: Dance/drama

not a snowy winter walk

Black dog on my shoulder

happy top post

penguins dropping from the sky

Sketch tuesday

Aaargh RAD ballet level 2

bloglet

martyr to migraine

Appley Monday

messy party part 2

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