Category Archives: language

i don’t like password protected on the top.

Posted on July 9, 2007 by | 2 comments

so I’ll blog. today stressful at work, somewhere where not usually stressful. hmm.

anyway, while I was at work, BB did some painting, SB did some maths – subtraction her favourite! Also some handwriting practice. Chris has been reading her chapters of the maharbharata – what a complicated story that is, i an remember watching it in student days when on late at night.

when i got home the girls where ecstatic to see me – always good for ailing morale. we played in the water outside, brought in the washing. SB did some first language lessons – looking for nouns, read some bird things to me and loads of education city – first time for ages. BB did lots of poisson rouge, played with the ideal blocks making shapes and we all played tummy ache. spoke a bit of french
yummy dinner from chris. thinking now and watching prison break

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Posted in art and crafts, General, language, literacy, numeracy, science, writing

Il fait du soleil!!

Posted on July 8, 2007 by | 5 comments

Am trying to do a bit of weather with SB. we have had lots of il pleut and il fait du vent recently, so its nice to be sunny!!

A late start for me sine I was up till 3am working last night to sort out rota stuff for work. My parents arrived soon after, so the mayhem commenced! lots of showing off skills, dancing, singing, reading etc from girls. BB did a lot of poisson rouge. eventually we all went out into the sun. the paddling pool was filled and girls got v wet. unfortunately SB started a water fight with BB, that B soon escalated out of hand!

We had dinner outside, mum trimmed my hair. Did want it nic’s length, but she was too worried to go that short. The girls and Mum and dad played treasure seekers in the garden, and found a huge wooden snail shell – good, and a smelly dead hedgehog – not good! SO lots of chasing around instead. Some painting and lots of games.
I don’t really know how the day went so quickly. Must have been having fun in the sun!

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Posted in art and crafts, General, language, literacy

Quick blog

Posted on April 6, 2007 by | 2 comments

OK, so once the journey was done, the conference in birmingham was inspirational and depressing. Many of my colleagues are now starting to find some of the pressure that we in my unit have felt for the last 2 years. The government seem on a path to remove specialists and replace with cheap and quality free – fine for poundshop, but for health? So lots of debate.

An excellent speaker was incited for one of the keynote sessions. Prof Carl Chin – may I just thank the organisers for such a great talk. It was on why Birmingham is there.

So, I got home late on wed, played with SB for a bit – we had a bash at Spanish edu city and did some games and read books together. thurs was a long day at work but – FINDUS! [success on a plate!] my job plan has finally been agreed [well I await final confirmation so shouldn't get too excited] which will mean some ‘annualisation’ of my hours – I work v hard while there, but have more free time – some of which I will need to spend on courses and prof devel, but its up to me – woo hoo!

I am on call, but its good friday [when Jesus was crossed apparently] my parents arrived yesterday, my sister and family and little nanny today. Raucous and happy – just as I like it. SB happy reading a felicity wishes book, and lots of playing in the garden. BB seems a month older than on monday somehow. How does that happen?
garden stuff - my broad beans in modules need to go in the ground – as do the onion sets [late I know!] and potatoes [ditto]. SOme of the peas are ready to harden off. one of the modules is teaming with spider babies – tiny and yellow and black – prob deadly!! They run up and down the web presumably left by parent and then hide in 2 lumps under some leaves. The courgette have germinated, but not the other cucurbits yet. one sweetcorn germinated!! kirsty’s peas germinated. Must pot up toms.

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Posted in gardening, General, language, literacy, Out and About

Behind or Ahead?

Posted on April 1, 2007 by | 5 comments

Behind. Had a nearly 4 hour phone call yesterday eve, which although lovely to speak to my friend, made me 2 hours late for bed, and also a fair number of tasks unfinished – including blogging!!

Yesterday was a fairly relaxed day. We spent lots of it in the garden, looking at the seeds sprouting, the flowers, and organising SB’s flower and veg beds by the playhouse. Hide and seek and lots of swinging! We need more of Merry’s cardboard boxes for the veg patch! I did some weeding though.
We also sowed some more seeds – our cucurbits [butternut squash, another squash, pumpkin and courgette], finished the packet of mangetout and also the fennel [which might not germinate as such an old packet! All the last lot of peas sown have germinated, and the spring onions. The broad beans are outside in open greenhouse to acclimatise before being painted.

SB’s new 1/4 violin arrived – in purple with flowers. It was fairly cheap [and sounds it compared to her stentor 1/10] but the size is much better for her, and she loves the girliness. We couldn’t actually play it, as the bow needs way more rosin to make a sound! It also came not set up, so I had to fiddle with bridge etc – a while since I did that. It was fine for me, and I was happy with purchase, but someone else may not have been so happy with setting it up. We had a grand violin session anyway – BB on the 1/10th, SB on 1/4 [plucking] and me on mine [which has a fabulous sound, but an additional 00 on price tag!!]

SB also has done lots of reading, playing with the pattern blocks, geography jigsaws, and I have read lots of barefoot stories. BB has been an adorable pickle! She has also done lots of playing with pattern blocks, singing and dancing and playing with kids k’nex. We all watched some usbourne first fun with french as well.

Today, we have sowed the sweetcorn? – including some bicolour from kirsty and some self supporting peas. i need to pot up the toms – anyone needing toms passing this way…

Most of today was spent enjoyably at Chris’s parents, who have nearly finished the doing up of their house – new carpets and all [so BB in a nappy!!] A cut throat game of ludo took all afternoon – though Grandad kept threatening to go home! A bit of Nick Jr fix [hideous adverts!]

The girls are playing at the mo with both pattern blocks and k’nex, and we re expecting Joanna and family soon-ish for an overnight stay.

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Posted in Dance/drama, gardening, General, geography, language, literacy, music, Out and About, science

yesterday’s blog

Posted on March 29, 2007 by | 18 comments

grr to the F12 button which I mistakenly pressed instead of the backspace. it switched the laptop off, and therefore my blogpost evaporated, so I sulked!

Anyway, tues for me finished, as always, WAY LATE, so everyone asleep when I got in. Had appalling migraine wed, but took as many drugs as possible to keep it at least vaguely under control and got up near lunch time.

Actually, we did have a lovely day – though I had to keep head as still as possible! We played, SB read a fairytale book beautifully, did some more maths MPH1A [neeeeeaaaaarly finished!], a violin and piano practice [G and F added!] SOme colouring.

We spent a while making the dizzy funland Gears thing. SB followed the instructions very well, and i tried to distract BB from wrecking it! She was going to ‘maggle it’ [mangle it!]

We all went and ran about in the garden – unfortunately I left the camera out there too [blame the headache! - it rained last night] Anyway, a bit of sorting out, lots of swinging, rollerskating and running.

We watched a robin hood – lots of discussion about the crusades. should have had merry and girls! BB was exhausted and went to bed, SB and I ended up reading a french usborne first words, as SB and BB had got the usborne first words and usborne first french words between them – I of course did ham up slightly the french accent!! [Heaven help her]

then britannia and pirates book finished.

THE APPRENTICE

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Posted in Butterbean, gardening, General, geography, history, language, literacy, music, numeracy

Invasion of the bobbles

Posted on March 14, 2007 by | 7 comments

Well,that was Chris’s cry as he organised the home ed room – there did seem to be rather a lot of them about! In fact, chris has spent most of the day organising and tidying the room [and is still doing it] so 3 cheers for him!

resources reorganised!

What have we done? well the morning was mostly playing for the girls, running about and having fun. The new violin shoulder rest came through [its a bit big!] but we fiddled it [rofl] and both girls did a violin practice, and I managed to get some nice bow arm movement from SB. We had unearthed some DJ readers level 3 [a long ago book people order] and SB had a go at reading the carnivorous plants book, and she did some education city. We looked at the worms again, and our cress has started to sprout [the only thing sprouting so far. Have read kirsty's gardening blog and feeling well behind again!]. I read a variety of books to BB, and she did handstands while SB did a bit of singapore maths 1B final stretch!
After lunch, I distracted BB with playdough, so that SB and I could so a fairy clothespeg dolly from tesco’s. The playdough distracted SB too though, so we didn’t! BB has made a plaster of paris handprint, and we will do SB’s tomorrow or fri perhaps. We did our french conversation, and added in the age again. I know that isn’t really much for language, but still…
We then got out a microscope we had picked up from freecycle and had a play about with it. The lenses aren’t brill, but SB enjoyed messing about, seeing what she could see etc. intended to read greg’s microscope, but didn’t, and BB fell asleep.

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With BB asleep, we went and snuggled altogether on the sofa and did some story of the world [it has been ages!] and read about China and the great wall. we also have the great wall of china book from sonlight, and assorted bits from enchanted learning that she has done. We looked at the globe, messed about with our own calligraphy and I change the I am romulus and this is rom to I am chin shen and this is china [said, but she'll remember!] we even compared and contraste with romans, and looked at google earth – took up about 2 hours of interest. I guess this is what it should be like all the time!

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With BB then awake, we did tidying and had a chippery tea. Girls had a bath, and more britannia and ORT for SB bedtime, but BB still up and about due to 2 hours of sleep before! Other than that, both girls have been singing around the house, dancing and generally being lovely [mostly!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, geography, history, language, literacy, music, numeracy, photos

Back to Earth

Posted on March 10, 2007 by | 11 comments

we have done a fair bit of earth oriented thinking today! Unfortunately the beans conspired to make it a very very early start. Though SB did read me 2 books in bed, as I was refusing to be awake [chris just pretended to be asleep]. eventually I told him via SB that he needed to make me a cup of tea, so then had a catch up nap!

Urmmm, well I think we started with looking at the worm world thing that was picked up from the charity shop whilst looking for gists on thursday [rofl!] We duly all went out, filled with alternate sand and soil and liberated some juicy worms from the fruit bed to put in. BB was devastated that she didn’t get to play more with the snakes, but since at least 2 were put back on the garden as we were unsure whether they were really not working [her phrase] or playing dead, we felt the sooner out of her grasp the better. Later a ladybird also stopped working – she is a menace to our beneficials!!

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We had a look at our previous sowings, and a few broad beans have germinated, and we have a very thick row of radish seedlings – hopefully marking some carrot ones to follow! We also harvested loads of early sprouting brocolli – yum.

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it was a lovely day, so we did general playing in the garden, swings, playhouse etc etc until lunchtime, and I also pottered about with some weeding and feeding.

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After lunch we did simultaneous crafts [always slightly hair-raising! SB did a mosaic kit that Merry gave her for her birthday, BB did painting and stamping, and I lacquered the only bit of made fimo I could find from Melrose – the pendants and dragon appear to be awol.

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Hmm! then came a bit of awkwardness – SB and BB did colouring and then head over heelsing, and I asked that the felttips should be lidded and tidied – time to gloss! BB and SB did some violin practice [must get a shoulder rest!] , SB did some more area stuff with cuisinaire rods [from here to there] and BB and I read books and did pattern blocks and then had another gloss moment about being mean to SB!

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Daddy returned, so I took 5, they helped him find seed trays, and we reconvened to sow peppers, tomatoes and sunflowers. Watered in very well!! More playing outside and the SB did some piano practice, and BB fell asleep mid wail on my lap. have wound down with dinner and robin hood since then.

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Chris nearly managed to set fire to the house [sigh], luckilly I know if I think I smell something hot, I should immediately investigate [frying pan with oil]. Can’t get laptop keyboard to work either. Oh well. Early night tonight. Feeling much more whole – though frayed at the edges!

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, gardening, General, language, music, numeracy, science

rewind to wed

Posted on February 23, 2007 by | 4 comments

we’re not really doing a good job of blogging in order are we?

I guess wed was really a game of 2 halves, but i didn’t balance them well. Sb def losing out to BB. Must do better really. we did get a fair bit of home ed done -sb mostly confident with the subtractions [54-28 type] now, and did a fair bit of maths on edu city – multiplying. Also her reading is nicely moving along. she is really enjoying reading, and a while back i bought a set of usborne young readers from the book people, and now she is racing through them, they are pretty much dead right for what she wants to read. must give back merry her ORT 8 as well as read well now.

She has done some more of the chinese books from enchanted learning, and liked the numbers. She is finding it particularly amusing that 2 looks like=. it is making the maths slightly tedious as we have ‘the joke’ about all the 2′s each time. But lets face it, its a good joke, and she is really happy saying it.

We read random pages out of an encyclopaedia – insects, industrial revolution, volcanos, and talked quite a lot about evolution.

BB and i did a lot of playing, cuddling and messing about. we built towers and boats out of blocks, and knocked them down again, read books, danced and messed about.

After lunch we piled outside to enjoy the sunshine, sowed some carrots and make a makeshift cloche/polytunnel affair to put over the row. I did a fair bit of weeding, and the girls did lots of playhouse and climbing frame play as well. They did help chris with pruning the grapevine, and i popped the babyswing seat on the tri-swing [just as BB growing too big!] She did love it, and SB pushed her as she giggled. Lovely.

When we came in, all girls [including me] turned into grumpalumps for some unknown reason. BB screeching like a banshee over who knows what, SB wailing and me stroppy. so we divvied up, and SB had piano and violin lesson and Daddy kept BB occupied. The peace restored, we read, played games [spot the animal!] and the day back on track.

Every evening this week, SB and I have had an extra 30 mins of games or reading – whatever she wants – before her bed following the departure of BB. SB is really appreciating this.

Today I got home earlier to have a bit more time, and we mostly played and did some tidying up. We made a chocolate brownies – didn’t get the timing right – they were in and out of the oven like yoyo’s! more games and reading and a nice bedtime.

SB’s birthday this sunday. have the castle, no wrapping paper, and family arriving tomorrow to house of chaos!

oh, and i forgot to say, that BB is quite insistant she is a boy ladybird!

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Posted in Cooking, cute, Daft Stuff, General, IT, language, literacy, numeracy, SB-PE, science

started on the sowing

Posted on February 18, 2007 by | Leave a comment

so feeling much better. The middle of the fruit bed was weeded and covered in cardboard which we have sowed broad beans through – aquadulce claudia. i say we, because SB and BB worked as a team to plant them. SB reiterated that BB was an excellent helper frequently, for us all to exclaim just what a really useful engine she was these days [rofl] we also did some ivy removal – but carefully, as didn’t want to disturb any early birds nests.

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the girls also did lots of playing in the new playhouse with BB also now confident at getting up to the upper level and down again – though did like me and chris to pop in and out. what with having to bend over double to get through the door! but def a good buy – though very muddy on the floor now!

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In no particular order! We did the rest of the India bit in story of the world, SB liked the activity of nail varnish and make up!! She was in princess clothes anyway. we read some more of the buddhist tales and discussed the buddhist lifestyle vis a vis our own. SB finished the foam bag with great ease. Has obviously got the hang of sewing [sowing and sewing in one day!] and so will attempt to find the little cross stitch sewing kits from yellowmoon [via FC] to continue on with. [merry was right, I do have a lot of crafts, but you have to say that is a bit pot caling the kettle!]

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edited to add – gah,silly browser lost post as I was putting up, and I had only presaved half [silly me]

Anyway, that lead to lots of being at a ball, with me singing and SB and BB dancing in dressing up clothes – very jolly. When worn out, we relaxed wathcing bonjour mes amis. [now I have forgotten the blog post!] oh yes, we had a piano lesson – got to adding in D now, so 6 notes. BB came in half way and grumbled on the bass notes. SB not phased until she made a grab for the lego as well!

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BB and I have read lots of books together, done more marble running and jigsaws, and also general rousting about. SB has been investigating the enchanted learning printouts in depth, and done 2 more china booklets, and cloluring in and naming maps. She has thought the printout folder rather fab. I had better keep up and have some always in it. we discussed new year some more [and were a wintsy bit jealous of various flikr photos - she needs more organised and outgoing parents!]

We looked at seed catalogues – BB most interested in the fruit, and very good at naming them! Sb a veg girl, but we need a few more companion flowers to jolly things up. Must raid Merry’s cardboard box heap, and find a cheap supplier for smeipermeable membrane for keeping down the weeds [any advice?] Actually, can I ping Ady – does he know whether this type is any good for planting through, or don’t they do any planting through? [no, i don't think we need quite that much!]
there was a bit more ramble, but totally forgotten it. sorry!

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Posted in Dance/drama, gardening, General, geography, history, language, literacy, music, writing

Calling in the Grandparents.

Posted on February 10, 2007 by | Leave a comment

I need to crack on with preparing the base for the playhouse, so my parents came over today to look after the girls whilst i tried to get on with that. Though BB didn’t help much as she insisted on coming outside in the cold – she always wants to come outside whenever someone goes out there- pottering around until she got cold/fed up and then inssiting on me cuddling her- not really the point….

anyway, weather not the best for the job (cold -don’t mind that so much whilst working – but then it started to rain :-( ), and didn’t quite get to where I wanted, but reasonable progress made.

Whilst i was getting cold, various things where happening. Mot sure exactly, SB did some of the Cambridge Brainbox electronics kit, whilst BB played with maxi-hama. SB did some maths a bit later (getting through MPH2B – subtracting tens and units), and finshed off her enchanted Learning lion booklet. Played couple of games – Tummy Ache and something else, played with lego, some reading, then they both played loudly with the pop-up tent. after GP’s went home, both girls wanted to help me with dinner. so spent ages cutting up caulifower to make cauliflower cheese, so dinner was a bit later than it would have been…. which gave her time to do a bit of Explode the code

After dinner SB finshed off playing connect 4 with Helen.

BB cute moment: she is extending her size words. she asked for an orange. I asked her if she wanted a big or small orange (aka Clementine). she picked up the big orange:

“Big” pause ” ‘normous” pause “ginnynormous” – big smile and giggle :-)

What else?

Yesterday, we were supposed to go out earlyish to BB’s toddler-gym session, but decided not to bother as it meant going out in cold slushy stuff to drive into the nearest town. So, as seen, we played out in the snow (once we eventually got all the necessary clothes on, hunted down gloves etc. which seem to have gone into hiding since Melrose :roll: SB was happy, BB intrigued for a bit, but then decides she preferred having a cuddle after falling over in the snow a few to many times.Eventully I got tired of carrying her around the garden and we came in. SB played for a bit more , but then also came in. We warmed up with hot choc and crumpets whilst watching most of the program about migrating wildebeest that we caught a bit of pre Melrose. There was a good bit about lions hunting together, as well as lots of other discussion prompted about different predators, why some animals are in groups and some individuals etc. after lunch she did some maths, some colouring in a dot to dot book of gladiators, we sat a read some books. she read a bit on a printed out web page about lions – it was in normal size print which she normally says is to small, but read most of it fine. There was some websiting – EC and Poisson Rouge which she likes and it entertains BB

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, cute, Daft Stuff, gardening, language, literacy, numeracy, science, Stringbean's HE