Anyway, I was up, BB was happily playing with happy street [they've been playing with it all week since it was about to be consigned to loft!] and SB was still asleep. chris roused her, and she did music theory whilst i cut out tissue paper circles for a craft in homage to harmony art mum. Luckilly, when i was thinking of doing this, i accounted from the differences in artistic temperament between her own offspring [guessed and hinted at on her blog] and my two! SO we had much smaller areas to fill, no particular design/plan/ rules, just a desire to stick something at the end on the window that might liven it up through the winter. So we did it, BB just did one, and returned to happy street. SB did 3 and i did one. we decided to string them together and hang off the window, and decided that we liked them, and SB has plans to vary it a bit. it was a bit fiddley, even massively simplified, to get the 2 bits of plastic to stick nicely. If i was going to be a bit more expensive about it, i think using laminating pouches would give a much neater look!

oh yes, before craft, SB had a second ever clarinet practice. I think chris is going to blog their fantastic trip yesterday, but also her part-christmas-present-early of a new clarinet arriving yesterday has heralded the sound of a very novice clarinetist. yesterday, sans migraine, i was enthusiastic. somewhat less so today, so suggested playing it to chris in the kitchen…

Erm, and a bit more ermmming!! well anyway, at some point we did some french - acombination of walking through the jungle with The Usborne First Thousand Words in French. they make a lovely combo, with a lovely story book with few words, but then all the names of the animals in the other one, so we can look and see if we want.

i was going to say we did some story of the world, but we did that yesterday, christopher columbus, magellan, amerigo vespucci. both girls were gripped with the idea they didn’t know the rest of the world and just sailing straight from spain, so we followed it on the globe, imagining we didn’t know what was there. SB and BB both did a bit of maths, we snuggled, I sowed on brownie badges, dozed a bit, repepped with medication etc etc. i didn’t move much from the sofa! played games with both girls, rummy, snap, monopoly. oh, i did piano prac with SB too, and she did some recorder.

Chris’s parents arrived after their hospital appointment, so we had a nice chat, SB and BB played snap etc with them whilst i rehydrate them and then nanna got suckered into an enormously long game of monopoly. chris’s dad has a few further tests to get through…

then it was mad ferring around - BB had rainbows, then SB brownies followed by Judo. BB got out the gears, and had fun with those, then the funblox, and finally fell asleep in my arms watching ice age.

i think i am going to call it a day, but think i rescued a lovely family home day from a disappointment day.

oh! edited to add - and how could i forget! major fuss today, as sb insisted she wanted to try some fake ham, as apparently she had it at nursery and liked it [?], so she did, and nearly gagged. chris, bB and i didn’t even try! but she also hurt/jiggled a wobbly tooth eating it, and later this evening it fell out. so she is 10 down!

i got up really late as work has had my nose most definitely to the grindstone, and i had some sleep deprivation to catch up on! the girls were playing beautifully together, and although it is prob the KOD to blog it, they seem to have gone through their grumpy with each other patch and are enjoying each others company again. i *could* worry that this means SB is playing lots of ‘baby’ games with BB, but I like the games they play together, and i am not in a rush to push her game playing older!

We had some postcrossing cards arrive - woohoo!! so put them up on our display. this is gradually encouraging sb to remember continents, and what countries may be found where. OK, so we have not had any arrive from africa, antartica, australasia or asia, but we have sent one to taiwan and australia! SB has started writing more of them as well.

will start the day and perhaps rewrite as i recall! oh i think we started with SB doing recorder prac, and then duets with me as i had got a yamaha recorder treble to match hers. we love duetting. though gina says sb practiced stuff she has been able to do for ages rather than the new things! whilst we were doing this, BB got out a science kit - first electronics, and worked through the book making all the circuits [they are v simple, but i was still v proud as this includes putting batteries in!]
SB did some verbal reasoning and then galore park science - which had an experiment-recipe to make, so we got ingredients. SB fancied crafting before that though, and BB and chris went outside to mend her bike burst tyre from too much skidding!! SB made some dried flower pics which we laminated. unfortunately we seem to have destroyed the laminator when tried to laminate a sweetie wrapper pic. hopefullly chris will take apart and it will work again? we did a short piano practice, concetrating on rhythms.

we then made the rock cakes - these show sediment being laid down over time and creating dinosaur fossils. good fun to make and eat! might remember that idea for a group geology session one day!

so we collapsed infront of tv to cuddle and snuggle, and sb broke the video - it has been a breaking kind of day! so i read rome in cross section to her and bB and we looked for and spotted things and related them to the roman mysteries books. finally watched some mickey mouse dvd, had dinner and then it was bedtime.

my evening work, again, has been home ed politics. making sure i have done as much as i can, writing to mp, dscf, select committee, filling out consultations etc and asking others too.

please, if you haven’t

the petition

the review

the older group was far more successful, mixing up chemical solutions, being v careful. they got some fabulous results, and are gradually being led into the ways of being a chemist! i haven’t done a great many chemical equations, because i am hoping that they get chemical safe yet interesting stuff skills first to build on! but do throw in the technical words and terms, and i think they are all starting to associate copper with blue, iodine and starch and we even precipitated out some iron today. so i think it is working! a bit out of my comfort zone though, exploring chemistry with the so young!! but they have all done so much ’safe’ chemistry, that a few chemicals seemed the logical next step! [see the chem 2 page in the sidebar]

SB as always loved music, and her and chloe put on a fab latin doctor play. actually 4 other children in pairs did too. BB loves her french and science, so at the moment it does run v successfully. SB had a wobble today though - it has been a while since she has been so easily wobbled, and it reminds me how far she has come in personal resource and strength in the last few years, and how proud of that i am. we had a hug, did some 1:1 chemistry, sorted out the issue, and happiness restored. phew! A bit of discussion going on about the latinetc group, to try and make it work well for all children, and what compromises and adjustments may make a globally better picture. i am always change resistant, but can see that a few tweaks here and there may benefit!! We listened to a max and maxin french story on the way home, to maximise the french!!

home and SB and BB were thrown into the bath and had their hair washed. they were showered after swimming last night, but somehow still looked really grubby all over!! SB did a bit of general home ed stuff, a bit of maths, a bit of preparation for her viking presentation on friday [wish i could be there, chris better blog!], some of her mecchano car and her DK mediaeval project book. We had another postcrossing card to send, so SB had a look at the various maps on our walls, and was struck by the few roads in the scottish isles… I like postcrossing for random map moments!

BB and i went to rainbows, she is loving it. she is by far the tiniest, and she wants someone to stay, which is ok for now. but she joined in readily and loved the guessing game and the bubble blowing. the rainbow leader is v good here, and her daughter also helping out was fun. BB got her rainbow top, so was v happy. passed SB and Chris coming up as we were going home for SB’s brownies and then judo.

BB and i watched toystory as we ate our dinner [spinach, potato and cauli curry, yummy] and when SB returned, she watched the egyptian what the ancients did for you.

now i am catching up with the select committee and home ed activism. i really never pegged myself as someone likely to be an activist!!

on thurs they went into town and had a bit of a shop. SB is on the lanky side, so has great difficulty in finding trousers that stay up without having to bunch lots of material up either with with elastic or belts. so they popped in to next, and a small fortune later she is really happy! BB had boot heaven at clarke’s, but SB not so fortunate, as with an E fitting there seems to be no shoes for her. the specialist shop in town seems to have closed down, so a bit more of a search is in order i remember this from my childhood! They then went onto a home ed friend for a playdate before rushing back for gym.

friday. ah yes, a home ed visit to a local orchard. a yearly event where the rather long suffering owner drives round the home ed rabble on a wagon hitched to the tractor!! i have been before, and it is excellent. he is v informative, the children get to try different apples, including new varieties and old trusted, and also see the sorting bit. he makes juices as well. SB came back with armfuls. BB had her footie lesson later on and then both happy to see me we have found the yoga dvd, and both girls rather cutely did it. SB and i both had a giggle reading the bagthorpe saga - our bedtime story. SB has decided she is rather good at doing trances - i v much agree, having seen her trance for over 30 mins doing one maths sum!!

Saturday. we started with the quest seekers presentation at the library. a bit weirdly it started by a speech about how hard reading was and why most children don’t choose to do it - this may be true, but seemed an odd start to the thing. and anyway, mine love reading, and i imagine a fair number of the other questseekers do too!! BB won the questseeker raffle and got a little ball game thingy, and in the book sale i bought SB 3 of the Spiderwick Chronicles for 30p each - a bargain! also persuaded someone else to buy Azincourt, which i really enjoyed. we posted some postcrossing postcards on the way home and put up our world map with the received ones.

SB has done a fair bit of piano practice over the last 2 weeks, so we had a ‘lesson’ together, and she is really moving forward. i am hoping that the speed of progress when she practices might persuade some more practice!! we did some recorder duetting as well, which we both like. whilst sb did some other home ed stuff - maths and music theory - bb and i played with her farm animals. i think i might neeed to practice at this, as i am less and less fond of playing with things! SB got out a tescos elecetric fan kit, which she put together quite happily - bit like this one Ein-o’s Box Kit Electric Motor Electric Science. we then had a lovely time making cards for chloes birthday party.

Merry having rung, we realised to take an alternate road work free route!! and arrived second at the pool venue, in time to give a very pregnant Jax a hug! and for Big and SB to exuberantly greet each other, before all those staying at the manor arrived too. i loved the pool, a great depth baby pool for bb to manically swim in. as an aside, her swimming is really coming on - although it is still more drowning with style, the backstroke is particularly good! scarily, she actually dived in twice - eek! luckilly bellyflopping rather than smashing head on the ground. i got to chat to the babs a bit! the bigger girls were being crazy in the bigger pool, though SB, big and E were mostly playing with the floats rather than the long floaty obstacle course.

lovely time, i love swimming!! [though i actually didn't get to do much, mostly kept an eye on crazy bb!!] party tea at the venue and lots of the blogring were in attendence! said hello again to michelle’s friend B, who i have met before and like v much! [she should blog you know!!] the cake cutting was a crazy moment!! back to the manor and wine and chat and relaxing until suddenly it was midnight, and we drove home to the sound of kids snoring!

sunday [btw having to blog with left hand only bb asleep on me and sb snuggled up also, watching jungle book - hard!!] anyway, i had planned to go to west stow for a reenactment weekend, but i had an unsettled night with lots of v unsettling themed dreams so had a lie in to recover - as did SB from having a late night. bb was up early tho. so i was a bit put out to have ‘ruined’ the day, but recovered! i discussed with the girls what fun things they wanted to do, and SB wanted to make the viking flatbread that was in the young archaeologists magazine. could i find it anywhere??? nope!! luckilly google to the rescue. the recipe galled for buttermilk tho… so we have made our own butter and topped up the amount of buttermillk with the first ‘washing’. we did do some of the butter in a jamjar for authenticity!! but the rest we did in the food processor, and is now in the freezer! SB then made the dough for the viking shardbread. we made one batch with honey, and the other with herbs, tried some each, but froze the rest to take to history group next friday and hopefully rewarmed there!! tasted delicious!! BB did some painting and stamping happily whilst we did this.

SB and i played bohnanza and landlock, she played castle keep with chris. i played an extremely long game of farm animals with BB. SB and i got the solar panels that we won on ebay to power a knex motor tried out, and thought what we might try and build - but didn’t! instead BB did some fimo-ing - piggies - and SB hama-ed some witches hats and we are all out of black. i seem to be constantly ordering from bead merrily!! think i might save up the order though!! i used some left out and hardening hama to make eyballs, teeth and worms beads for a scary halloween necklace! [having grumped at bb for starting something months ago and then doing no more so the fimo was dodgy!! Although our present to chloe had sparked some interest from SB, we didn’t actually get round to doing watercolour painting. nor the piano, maths and ballet practice we had planned. oh well!!

hoping for an early bedtime for the girls, but have, unfortunately, woken bb up, so not sure when she might fall asleep again! but an early out tomorrow.

me - well, with the girls went and visited mum and dad for the weekend. always good to catch up, relax and be loved and spoiled!! though did have one of the most horrendous journeys down for roadworks, diversions and parkedness!! also saw my BIL and nephew and niece for sunday, which we all enjoyed. a flying visit from sis too. returned late on sunday. chris had a weekend of tidying, though i really wish it had been windowing. i am sure it is going to fall in one of these days.

monday girls did some shopping for ballet stuff and new cycling helmet for BB. SB had ballet, a bit of home ed type stuff done i think. tues is library day, and a visit to chris’s parents, with swimming then for both girls. i played some games in the evening, and we watched a rather boring fact dvd on ice age survivors.

so to today. latinetc! it seems ages since the last one, and i have really missed them! it looks like we might be making a few changes to structure and layout, a dynamic process! today i did science - as always - and slightly shorter sessions, which i think worked better. i had 4 mystery chemicals, and descriptions of properties of 4 chemicals, and we had to identify which was which. think it worked v well!! merry did some fab fimo craft - though sb did a beheaded version!! a latin refresher by katy. think sb has forgotten vast swathes! and some music from gina and our busy morning was busy! we were going to go to the park in the afternoon, but it got chilly, so merry and girls came back to ours, and there was fancy dress going on.

excitement for bb’s first rainbows! she thinks one of us will have to go until she is 7 we’ll see!! she loved it though. sb is currently in brownies, and getting more badges probably, then judo. we did a really good piano practice today as well.

the other thing we are doing is postcrossing towards some geography!! actually working currently, in that each of our sent postcards has been looked up on a map, and more excitement over the current 2 received.

In the afternoon she bought postcards for postcrossing - we have nabbed the idea from the babs as a gentle way to introduce some geography into our life! she also wrote one of the cards as the crossee is 9. and also did some sectret ’stuff’ which she has sent to cousin e as a birthday present. i think that took most of the afternoon before ballet.

together we read some french - a berthe and a lucy chat book [links in my books we read section], story of the world - isabella and ferdinand and i did some of her before the code c with BB.

BB also made some plaster of paris dinosaurs and other moulds whilst sb at ballet - lets see how they turn out! [hopefully they will turn out!] She watched the walking with beasts first one [her favourite] and also played with the science magnet kit.

tea early enough that bb could go to bed afterwards and sb and i had time to play ticket to ride. we drew! we both really enjoyed it, and need to get back into the games playing habit together. in our roman mystery, jonathan has survived being executed - as sb predicted!

i did nothing whilst the girls played a long, convoluted game of sylvanians mostly beautifully together [i heart sylvanians] , i did nothing whilst SB did her maths next to me on the sofa, and bb tried to make up the same maths to do in her little writing pad, ‘i have 2 bananas and 11 peaches so that will come to 15 pounds - rofl!’ - she didn’t want to do her real maths as she was too busy adding for 5 pages!!

i still did nothing whilst sb did her piano practice - v hard that! but she has finally finished bach’s air. i did nothing whilst they did more sylvanians, and i did nothing whilst sb did music theory.

finally i thought i was allowed to do something!! and watched with them the aztec and the egyptian what the ancients did for you. woohoo to doing something! the girls have really loved this. i followed it up with reading 2 chapters of the gladiator of capua and 1 of story of the world [joan of arc] to SB - and am being resolutely defiant!

TBH, i think i am worsening rather than improving, and v fed up at that. chris, luckilly, is improving, though seal like cough awful. in fact he was well enough to do a quick forage for food. and some plaster of paris, but i ended up too unwell to use it. mind you, i did try and call him back because i had keeled over to find he had left mobile at home

so what did happen? well sb piled into her mediaeval project book for over an hour - guess that is approval!! she has decided she wants to do the ancient egyptian one next as has really enjoyed working on this one.

BB and i made another fimo duck/goose so that she has the ‘full set’ like on the page! and SB also did some more hama.

bb desperately wanted to do yesterdays colour mixer experiment by herself, so did that, and then made some crystals. we have an ex ebay part used no instructions smithsonian crystal set, and started that. sb wants to make the geode though, and not sure how to put the outside bit on - has anyone out there got a similar type set with instructions for that?? HELP?? we are nominating an old saucepan as a crystal pan for dissolving anyway.

so, both girls then had to play, because i staggered indoors with home grown corn on the cob, popped it in the water and collapsed. it is lovely native american style corn on the cob, and bb still wont eat it! 1 hour i managed of being up. hopeless. chris returned and i napped whilst sb did some maths.

i awoke in time for tea and we watched what the ancients did for us - rome - which was fascinating for all. sb did a piano practice, and has gone to bed clutching a number of box book of the Jacqui bailey
sort to read as she loves those.

time to nap again.

edited to add - i thought i had lost this blog post with a server crash, phew to autosave!! and have looked and other peoples outings to framlingham and to rockingham with jealousy, though know we wouldn’t make it to car without me needing to go to bed! will have to remember for next year

they did some maths today each, apparently quite a bit. bB particularly proud of that! also SB did some recorder practice. Playing with monsterrabs happened, and also a library visit. following library visit was book reading.

my day at work slightly stressed by waiting for the outcome of my sisters appointment. it wasn’t as good as we would have liked, but also not as bad as we feared, so we are being positive. when i got home i implemented the engaged mummy plan, which involved doing some before the code with bB and then reading

with SB - her choice. this may not sound v interesting, but i like reading so that’s good, and it is a very structured activity, so ideal to a stressed mummy. after dinner whilst bB off to bed, SB and i played castle keep and rummy. finished the day reading some more of our roman mystery

so, having done the safety messages, what have we been doing. well, we have been being very hot!! chris has got some scaffolding up at the window, and done some putty work - hoorah! and the girls have mostly been in our paddling pool. indeed thurs i was so hot that i was in it too!!

sb has done a bit more maths and piano practice, and also teaching bb to read. we had a new arrival yesterday - a metronome, which they had fun investigating, a star kit, and a geography book - both looked through the astronomy - bb recognising saturn which she has seen, and sb some of the geography - it does look good.

SB has had gym and yesterday they went to nana’s and grandads [so no doubt watched alot of cable tv!!]