Category Archives: literacy

Esp bad as this started yesterday, but then I stopped to go to bed…… Can’t be bothered to edit it to reflect the correct tense though.

Helen was chatting to Jax on the phone earlier an complaining that she’s no idea what me and the girls are doing half the time becuase I’ve not been blogging – sorry, did someone mention something about talking… ;_) . I did find I was out of the blog reading/writing thing once we went to Copenhagen, so better write something……

So on to today. Well it rained most of the time it seemed, so little incentive to go out, so forgot to go and walk the short distance to get an appointment for SB to get her hair cut as it’s not been cut since before we moved and is annoying her (actually it’s ditto for me as well, but I don’t like ladies hairdressers , even when they say unisex ‘cos there is nothing else in the village, ‘proper’ barbers me). so a pottering sort of day really.

Once Helen was off to work and both girsl unusally were up and awake, we sat and generally played for a bit as BB wasn’t awake enough to be put down happily.

Headed off to the kitchen for breakfast, gave BB a couple of wooden spoons to entertain herself with, and so of course SB had to join in to. After her breakfast, feeling a bit crafty, SB dragged some bits out of the craft cupboard and started gluing and sticking. She found little Flower Fairies bag and wanted to decorate it for mummy. So she occupied herself for sometime with that, with just a bit of help now and again, mostly on strategic glue placement, while I continued with BB’s breakfast and mine, washed up and other kitcheny domestic tasks. The two Fairies on the bag are SB and BB apparently,and they are hiding. The craft table from the utility room is still out in the garden and hence was very wet so she did it on the kitchen table so we ended up with glitter etc. stuck to table as the newspaper had been forgotten. (re glitter, I bet the owners of our old house still vacuum up glitter …..)

Back of into the playroom where SB dragged out some books and ‘match and sort’ – aka workbooks of various sorts – moslty maths. We sat and did some reading, and various bits from the workbooks. she did quite few bits of various activities around of number bonds, more than/less than, simple subtraction and addition. She is pretty proficient at these now, what she doesn’t like is having to write down the numbers too much as she isn’t very good at that yet, though she can write them mostly pretty cleary if she wants to. Next step for numbers with her will probably be the whole tens/units thing. We come across it few times now. But it’s something she isn’t ready for yet.

When the postie came, laden down again with various Ebay parcels, – I bet she is glad we are near the start of her round – she also brought a package for SB from my Mum and Dad. A magazine thing and a couple of quid to spend. Magazine kept her happy for ages. It came with little toy of a few little toy pigs and things which she played with on and off all day – including complicated game that lost me involving her little ‘Baby Annabel’ dolly. Spent a fair while reading the stories, helping her with the various puzzles etc. she did very well at writing the answers in on the little crossword thingy on the back. She does like writing, I think she is probably ready to be introduced to something bit structured regarding it, so just as well Helen has order Getty Dubay from Sonlight – by ‘slowpost’ so who knows when it will come. I’ve been pointing out the little arrows they often put on the outlined letters to indicate the way to draw them , and she does seem to finally be taking notice of them now, which will probably help her produce better formed letters.

Semmed to be some other things happening, but my mind is bit blank BB was of course around and joining in when when felt like it. Usualy when SB wanted to play with somethign without BB grabbing everything. She keeps on looking like she might crawl, but then just does the ‘extendable arm ‘ thing they do when they manage to reach all sort of things that you thought were out of reach. She also does the ‘how did they move over there – I never saw them move’ bottom shuffle thing that Josie was so good at. She loves standing though, nursey comemnted on it the other day. And likes now to walk bit if you hold her hand, I think she will be walker first like her big Sis at this rate. She does go backwards on her belly quite proficiently though. SB does love her to bits though and is generally so considerate of her, and loves to help wioth her. She does this shouting/screamy thing to her, which really gets on the parents nerves, esp. late on in the day, but BB loves it usually, bursting out in great smiles and chuckles, which of course just encourages SB……….

Helen came home so she had some time with the girls while I whatever boring doemstic tasks it was that I did.

Had pre-bedtime spurt of Miquon maths. SB had got it out earlier, but the childrens materials book is just a lot of pages of actvities with no explaination. some is obvious, some you aren’t sure quite what is expected. But The accompanying ‘Teacher guide’ thing has lots of explaination and suggestions etc. It’s approach in many ways seems quite different so this is useful. So I’d put it off earlier, but we went ahead this time and she did a few bits. It has some good things to do with using the Cuisinare rods. SB is really gettting the grasp of these now understanding how you can use them to represent a number, and how the different sizes relate to one another.Seemed a shame to stop her, but we did want her off to bed

So, Tuesday

When Helen had gone to work BB was up but SB was still in bed, so me and BB had a nice bit of one to one time, and I could dangle her upside down (which she loves) and generally play around with her without Helen worrying that I am goign to drop her or hit her on the ceiling or some such. SB came down after abit, I think she’d been up in her room playing tea parties with her cuddlies, she brought basket of them down for her and BB to play with , ahhh So we played for bit and then got around to breakfast eventually, having a bit of pop out the front to watch the workmen resurfacing the pavement. Intending to go to the library later we sorted out the books to take back/renew and actually picked a couple so we could get our first stickers etc. for the Reading Voyage thing (ermm we seem to have been a bit slow on the uptake her….) so of course we had to re read most of them. I tried to spark bit of dicussion as to why she liked some books rather than others, and what were the best bits, which was moderately successful, esp. the latter aspect. The Muddlepuddle bookbags have been successfukl anyway in helping keep out library books altogether. We actually managed to take all the books back in one go

Anyway, it was sunny, SB was into workbook mode now, BB wanted milk, I wanted coffee. So we decamped outside with workbooks, milk, and a nice cafetiere of coffee and sat at the patio table. While BB fed and dozed off me and SB looked at the books. She had bought out the miqon one again, but the bits she wanted to do required me to explain some things to her and she didn’t really want that, so we did one of the other simpler more general maths type ones. She is getting the idea now of number lines. They had one of those in the book, went onto the discussion of numbers beyond 9, drifted into the ’10′s’ and counting up in tens. once we got to about 50- or 60 she was able to write down 70, 80 etc. herself. Showed her what 100 (and palyed around with the idea of it being called ‘ tenty’) and 200 was written like and then she could do the rest of the ’100′s. talked about how many noughts 1000, 100, 000, 1,000,000 etc. had which she found quite exciting. BB got packed of to the bedroom, and I wanted to sort outthe tomatoes in the greenhouse which have been neglected and look very unhappy. She was goign to help, but decidedd the GH was too hot, so got a cane and went to play. she was goign to be fishing, but I soon heard her ‘killing’ the towels hanging on the line…..

When she finsished her games she wanted me to do something wqith her, but i wanted to finsih, so she got a couple more workbooks She went onto a couple of basic science and ‘opposites’ ones. Simple stuff really for her, but if she likes doing it fine by me. One spread was about animals living in different habitats – cold places and hot places, the cold palce had Polar bears, and Eskimo, seals and Penguins. Now this is a bit of thing of mine, so many kids books show penguins and polar bears together living in the same place [I assume dear readers that you all know they don't........ ] Now okay story books etc. I’ll let them off (grudgingly) but books which are supposed to be about ‘Science’ – Grrrrrrrr!!!!!! This idea is so prevaent that I find kids in a school of 11, 12, 13 etc. not realising this.

So anyway, we had bit of discussion about this, looked at the globe to see where the Arctic and Antarctic were etc. Short diversion into why they were the coldest bits (which no doubt lost her mostly, but I am endl;essy surprised by which bits stick, so persist in popping bits into the conversations.)and so why maybe the didn’t travel to the other poles etc.

So SB sat doing these while I finished in the GH and chopped down various bits of overgrown tree until BB woke up and called us to lunch bit of blackhole here, as we didn’t get out to go to the library until getting on for 4 pm, but can’t quite think what happened in between. Did spend some time upstairs with BB rolling about sans nappy, while I put clean nappies and clothes away ‘ably assisted’?? by SB.

Nice visit to the library, renewed some books, got her Reading Voyage bits done, sat and read a few things, enterntained people by being dressed in her fairy outfit got some new books. Came home via the church yard so had to stop and read lots of grave stones and the hairdressers to make an appointment for SB who hasn’t had a cut since before we moved. Home to make a rather nice cous cous thing (SB loves cous cous) for dinner, SB did a good job of cutting up the Runner Beans. Helen home a lateish as usual for Tuesday, more ebay parcels to open. A nice DK game which they played a couple of times while I finished diner preps.

BB was with me in the kitchen on the floor while I did this, she started off miles away from the the ‘to compost’ bucket but unoticed by me shuffled across and started rummaging. When I noticed she had a n apricot that had started to rot in one hand stuffed in her mouth and a bit of green potatoes in the other.

Dinner, small people to sleep, coffee, ahhh………

Some thoughts/ponderings are bobbing around in my head, but that will have to wait.

A few piccies (not esp. good) are of course on flickr