Category Archives: literacy

Show and Tell Soup

The day after we had got back from Kessingland, so feeling mostly like just being at home, but got ourselves together to get out.

Monday was a monthly gathering of one of the local HE groups, CHEF. normally there is a theme with activities, crafts etc. This meeting was a bit different. Everyone brought some vegatables and we all sat down and prepared them together – which was all very sociable and cooked them up in a big pot into soup. Some bread rolls were also made.
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While the soup was cooking we had a ‘show and tell’ session, with a bit of prompting she decided to take stuff she had made at Muddlepuddle camp – the needlefelting, the basket and the kite.

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she did a good job of talking about them and showing them round, in fact most of the kids did. Kessingland Tie-dye was also in evidence,

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So some good plugs for MP camp. some people were quite impresed by the quality of the stuff produced.
Once that was over we spent the rest of the time eating soup, fruit cocktail and some cake , yum. Soup was fairly tasty, in a slighty nondescript vegetabley way, there was a good variety of veg in it, onions, leeks, courgettes, celery, peas, broad beans, broccoli, carrots, potatoes. Though these faces may not be a recommendation……
We like the soup - honest :-)

It made a nice change from the normal HE group stuff, i’d recommend it to other groups.

Came home via Sainsburys , where SB demonstrated why pushing a trolley a bit fast and then sliding to a stop is bad idea by crashing it – luckily into me rather than someone else. Oh for the little kiddie trolleys in Waitrose, just right for littlies, then summoned home by SMS as parents popping in, so got home to have a chat/play (as appropriate) with them.

Tuesday happened as well somewhere, filled with normal things such as storytime/library visit – which ends up taking up pretty much all of morning in the end, once we have got up, found books, read a few of them again etc. Dealt with lots of post camp washing, and other post camp sorting, some Explode the Code, got organised to go early to swimming lessons so we could go to the playpark near there for a bit first, quite a nice little park, with a few different bit of equipment – SB liked the little roundabout thing you worked by sitting on it like a bike and pedalling to make it go round. I’ve given up tryimg to watch the lessons, BB just wants to run about climb up and down the seating area etc. so I don’t really gte to watch so now I just go to the cafe stick BB in a high chair, and we drink coffee and nibble things, and I get 20 odd mins quiet time – which since on Tuesdays Helen is often lateish to very late home from work is very welocme by 5pm. Afterwards se wanted again to watch the Circuit Training session for a bit – she seems fascinated by this for some unfathomable reason. I think she probably fancies having a go at it.

In the event, Heklen didn’t get home until 11pmish, so a beear infront of CSI once they were both alseep in bed was very welcome.

quick today

at the moment I am trying to seize the moment with the girls, and banish the dark side as it were.

so today we watched some cbeebies together, played imagination stuff, geomagged, read books – SB read 2 red nose readers and an apple tree farm with a bit of help. i then read why the sea is salty, and we discussed beaches and seasides. SHe then spent a while on jump ahead maths while I played allsorts of toddler things with BB.

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when bB slept, Chris set up and experiment for SB, and we watched how cooling gas in a glass makes the water level rise – well I’ll show a picture. We used the DK picturepedia explanation of molecules – really good – to help her understand what was happening, and she enacted molecules in various states!!

science - molecules!

BB and SB have both made plaster of paris foot and handprints [well, C and B's respectively at Kessingland were so good!]

When BB woke up, we did a great deal of sorting out of the hayloft, as someone locally is putting a few boxes of hers in there. If my future becomes less than pleasant, I guess we could rent that space for storage… BB played in the car, and I rescued my box – see previous post!

we played outside a bit, and then listed to little toe whilst eating tea, and discussed real vs totally made up stories.

Arrr beee chur be durrp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what a scorcher!

suntan lotion – tick! hats – tick/cross/tick/cross etc!!

So today was an enjoy it while we’ve got it day! The MODHEU was put up again for some shade, and the girls whizzed and poddled about in the garden, climbing, swinging and sliding. Lots of giggles, laughter and ‘mine’ could be heard!

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Chris did a fair bit more weeding of the main veg bed, so when the temp drops a bit, I am going to go out and plant out squashes and sweetcorn [actually temp OK now, but bath and bedtime, so if I was outside it would cause mayhem!]

We did some home ed type stuff, when not running about aoutside, and some of it was simultaneous. SB made some more circuits with the brainbox primary plus kit – in fact she went and got it out and started without any assistance. It is a real hit. She has done half a hama butterfly and drew a lovely birthday card for my Aunty Margaret – writing and spelling herself on the back [except the aunty margaret bit] so slighty alternative, but no worse than my typing! She also did a wodge of explode the code 3 - this bit is about y’s and vowels at the end. SB was found reading a read nose reader as well – yay.

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Some mental maths today – mostly on number bonds for 10, and some ‘lumping together’ [aka multiplication] of 2 and 3 lots of … under the guise of running a shop, and how many egg boxes did I need etc. She suggested this btw!

Actually, we had a proud daddy moment in the shop when she added 12 and 12 and got 24. It seems to have been the only good moment of the shop as the post office queue was apparently hideous, and SB went into I want mode. [its also the 1 stop shop].

Last weekend, the grauniad had a recipe for paneer – 1 litre full fat milk and 1 lemon juice heated – so today me and SB made some. it is now wrapped in muslin in our jelly bag, and the excess whey dripping out. Cool! SB liked watching the curdling process, and we saw how little curds there were to whey. SB also helped me cook tea.

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We did watch the rest of Sound of Music. I am def depressed, as I tried hard not to cry as I discussed why they were running away. SB actually missed most of the overtones, and really didn’t understand. So I didn’t do that much explanation – war we can do later. She does want to see the sequel film, of them getting to america – i explained there is no film, I just read the book of their life, but to no avail! We’ve listened to little toe – now a daily occurence she is so fond of it. Before tea, as we had 2 exhausted little beans, they have been watching the blue planet – well SB watches, and BB dances to the music [cute]

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BB and I have mostly cuddled and shape sorted, chased, swung and built towers today. I do try and get a bit of as near 1 on 1 as I can – but SB not entirely amenable! [this is usually when she is match and sorting or hama-ing!] However BB is such an independent thing she is quite happy to have short bursts – as long as she can feed whenever she wants, and has prime control of lap time!!

Argh moment of the day was a thrush flying in, and then not flying back out again, ut being frantic by a non-opening window [eside a wide open door!] I psyched myself up to try and catch it in a tea towel, when finally it flew back out again.

Sunny day – AT LAST!

What a lovely day. We got right out into the garden and tried to catch up. so at last a garden blog!

We didn’t do any ‘match and sort’ today, but a fair bit of mental maths and spelling – SB and her teddy were playing at schools with me today outside. She insisted she had hard questions and the bear easy [cos he is 4!] I was weeding and hoeing at the time, and BB poddling about the garden – mostly climbing.

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SB painted her tile she made at the Abbey, nicely with black, yellow gold and silver at her choice, It looks very nice. And it was then lunch time. We listened to little toe and classic FM. SB very taken by house on the prairie and tom’s midnight garden. We had a spin off discussion on landgrabbing from Indians, and how to make a firebreak.

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After lunch we decided to ring a history book – so she chose a picturepedia book about the body! Anyway we went all the way through the book. She is fascinated about the body. It lead onto a discussion on oxygen, and how it was neede to make energy in the body, and how it was needed for things to burn. So we did some really cool oxygen experiments. we lit candles inside jars and watched them go out, and chris remembered a really cool one where you lit a candle floating on water with a jar over the top, and the water gets sucked up. Her Xmas tree crystal is looking good too.

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BB awoke, and so she read me a stack of books. SB went through some red nose readers, and the went into garden for a ‘school break’ while BB and I had some 1 to 1 with the fun blox and some wooden peg teddies. The all back into the garden. BB to run about wildly and giggle, and me to read Ulysses to SB [a firm favourite!] Actually BB and Guinness were doing a fair bit of bonding too.

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We all made the dough for pizzas tonight, and then more fun outside. BB loves the little car we got from Merry, and SB is totally wild on the swings – particularly the trapeze bar, andging from her legs twirling around. My Aunt lost her 2 front teeth that way…

Hmm, what else, well we ate the pizza outside [incorporating home grown asparagus, and in the salad home radishes], with the girls running around the garden thinking it was great fun.

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Sb went to bed listening to 5 children and it – at last she likes the more grown up story CD’s – though Winnie the Pooh still her favourite.

it has been a very relaxing day.

My Little Nanny not had such a good day, as her next door neighbour [since they moved in after the war] and closest friend in hospital to die from her breast cancer. Although late 80′s, their friendship has spanned half a century [more], her husband and Nanny’s brother were prisoners of war in thailand together [building infamous railway, and against all odds both survived] and they’ve seen children and grandchildren grow up. So wishing a peaceful crossing there. She is heavily sedated and not really ‘there’ due to brain mets, but even so, lets hope for diginity and a gentle passing none the less.

Tuesday Catchup

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

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

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

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

SB did some more to her Solar System poster,

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

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picnic day!

which was lovely. we met up with one of tbhe localish home-ed groups for a picnic in the park. It was sunny most of the time, and there were lots of people there. A lovely park too. SB had a whale of a time, running in and out of the play area and the paddling pools with her friends. BB was also very adventurous, and being her usual gorgeous self.

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It was nice for both Chris and I to go, as we often seem to share the children like a relay race, rather than jointly.

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It helped shake some of my cobwebs, as I really am fairly blue at the moment.

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This evening, SB did some paint and learn CD, and then we have watched another segment of sound of music. She was fixated by if they would have a wedding ball, and enjoying the songs – clearly missing most of the plot! Not got to the overt Nazism yet – thats the next installment.

Ooops, forgot the title….

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

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

Education city

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

? Reading Drawing

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

Bread Ready to go

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

Measuring

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

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

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

Homegrown Asparagus Flan

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

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

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

Yesterday, I sneaked away…

… as definately in need of r and r!

came home to find in-laws visiting, and much merriment. i had stopped off at tescos, and they were having a womens clothing sale, so last of the big spenders, I bought shorts for 2.50, top for 1.75, another 2 for 5 each, and then a 20% discount on the lot – v pleased!

And since miserable and no money whatsoever, i then bought a dinosaur testtube kit for Sb and some v cheap walkie talkies.

so we played with the walkie talkies. SB was fairly hopeless at keeping her finger pressed down! no doubt practice will improve things. BB was very jealous – so SB let her play too.

we buillt the glow in the dark dinosaur together. a t-rex, and then she and it squiggled into a cupboard to make sure it did glow in the dark. BB read books to me. She now says ‘mine’ well!
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She and BB then spent a considerable amount of time putting on a show for us – to the fimble radio! lots of dancing and twirling, with Sb dressed in her ballet togs.

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SB did some singapore maths 1B – 10s and units, which she is galloping through, and then Chris’s parents treated us to a curry. thankyou!! it was delicious, I was ravenous, and BB seems to be a real curry girl too. in fact i’m about to have some reheated.

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what else? Oh, SB insisted BB did some match and sort – counting to 10 flap book – rofl! And they both played with the ideal blocks.

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Earlier, SB had done some hama, some explode the code and lots andlots of playdough with BB while Chris did a good tidy up of the main downstairs – for which I was very appreciative [actually i thought his mum had done it - oops]

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Unfortunately the garden and gardening gone to pot. I am trying not to care.

Simple Sunday again

Had a lovely day. My lovely sister got up early and cleaned the kitchen – yay! the children all played nicely together, a bit of dashing outside, but rainy. They watched some more blue planet, and went finally mid afternoon.

SB then did the yoga video 2ce [thanks again Katy], and since SB was still asleep, we played games of set until she had woken up. We don’t play competitively yet, just take turns, but she doesn’t ail to spot one now, and is starting to be fussy about ‘what kind’ of set she wants! She had wanted to do some more electric circuits, but i couldn’t find those, and education city, but we have run out of free trial!

instead she made some more dream avatars, while I got BB up. they played bounce over mujmy and the bed and general rough and tumble for a bit [chris dug up some weeds in the rain, and had a shower to warm up!] . SB read me some say the sounds ladybirds books – she was very impressed, as was I, even though the imp and troll story must be one of the most phenomenally tedious I have ever read!.

BB practiced saying book to me, and brought me a fair few to read whilst SB played with the lego – so we did turn and turn about of lap and book or lego. i read SB some dr seuss. So BB gradually getting the hang of speech. [shoes, mummy, daddy and book are the clearest]

Rather hysterical was the pre and post bath olympics that SB and BB had, running the upstairs circuit again and again [naked as a nod to ancient greece!] while I counted, and SB tried to beat her own time. BB just chuckled madly. At bedtime Sb insisted on an encyclopaedia as bedtime story – so we did various pages of ‘C’ . We are so behind with piccies that I shall do some flickring.

Sorry we couldn’t go to Fran’s party – so happy birthday Fran.