Category Archives: music

making the most of it.

Posted on July 7, 2008 by HHaricot | 1 comment

i had a much needed lie in today. my head, body and soul were not at all engaged. whilst recovering, i heard sb do piano practice. when i came down, chris and sb had gone through those lovely anholt books around artists. we did some HE – handwriting, french. i have to say that SB’s handwriting is really coming on. She has struggled at writing, but in her own time and on her own terms she is getting there. She likes the getty and dubay, and does lots of practice with cards and notes to people. She also spent a lot of time doing the colour in doggy clothes she got from merry’s girls.

BB also did french and some early numeracy with singapore early bird and literacy from before the code and letterland red books – which i managed to find. BB was very impressed to get some books, its a shame i can’t get sb gagged quickly enough before she says they were hers first!

we did lots of imaginative play altogether today. i am trying to jumpstart my immersion back into these games, as i have sort of gradually faded out of being a pinky ponk, or a doggie or a vet etc etc. so i decided this was ridiculous, so i have been a pinky ponk [or whatever it is!] bought and cared for doggies, played with cuddlies etc etc and made my girls happy.

we also baked carrot cake, watched some how things work, nina and the neurons and magic school bus, picked peas and broad beans from the garden.
aargh how did it get to be this late?? bedtime!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, early maths skills, General, language, music, numeracy, pre reading, science, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

migraines and mischief

Posted on July 3, 2008 by HHaricot | 2 comments

i didn’t have wed off, but had to work – with migraine. so missed on what seems to have been a fab visit to a firestation, and also meeting friends to talk to grrrr.

instead i had a suprise day off today – a surprise as i was going to a conference far side of london, but, due to raging migraine and out of migraine meds, that just wasn’t practical. retired to bed with cold compress and gp appt booked. so i now have meds again and at least spent half the day compos mentis with the girls. [well sort of] what struck me was that having got out of the pistols at dawn to dusk for a bout 3 days, they have returned to that pattern. aargh to the levels of bickerdom. it isn’t all bb, the split is prob sb:bb 40:60. just that bb is noticeably more unmanageably horrid. mind you the wailing was also stratospheric today, so i might have been better at that conference in london.

in between bickers and wails and time outs [for me] we did have a lovely time! SB and bB had done some beautiful hama when i came too, and we ironed them b4 they were scattered on the floor – so result! SB then finished singapore maths 2b part 1 [at last - we have been being quite slack on the formal ed front] and bB and i did earlybird 1a -which is v easy for her, as it is predom counting to 10, which she can do in french or english quite happily. actually in english she gets to 20, then starts going up in 10′s. the more/less, most/least is quite easy too. so a romp really, but she likes having done hers whilst sb is doing hers.

after that we did some french – farm and wild animals. much taken by the fact that lots of the african ones had the same names, but with an accent. and we read SOTW on australian aborgininal beginnings – sort of! we looked at aboriginal art, read some dreamtime stories, and thought about doing some painting. but sb and bb had a fight over this, so the offer was withdrawn in a fit of pique [and regretted afterwards - must keep mouth shut!]

girls went out to play, i had a time out by hoeing – i have to say we have done the best so far with the veg and fruit beds. earlier this week chris harvested 3 1/2 lb strawbs!! we are harvesting peas, broad beans too, and the pots are prob ready to have an exploration!!

i then brought out some books on weather and ponds, and a pond dipping kit from ebay – which turned out fab [never linked to an ebay seller before, but actually the magnified tank is v fab] and this rescued the afternoon. we have quite a lot of pond life in our goldfish pond. unfortunately loads of mosquito larvae in the waterbutt, but we have lots of waterboatman – who eat them, a water spider, and pond skaters. we have a plague of large pond snails [oh dear!] and on one lily pad stem was the empty shell of what was some kind of dragonfly we think. so we all enjoyed this. BB liberated loads of pond snails, and then both girls played unhappily in the paddling pool until riot act read. SB had violin, and BB sitting on step… then BB made a card and SB and i played an alphabet game and then we played shops.
i redressed SB’s foot and put BB to bed. and there we are.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, geography, history, language, music, numeracy, pre reading, science, Stringbean's HE

nearly forgot to blog!

Posted on June 14, 2008 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

had a busy week and a v long day yesterday – my excuse! oh, and really need to be sorting holiday snaps.

today was a bit manic making SB’s scarecrow costume with us all sewing on patches and then manically getting out! SB was sitting on the rainbows float – the theme for our rural village’s fete was … farming! Anyway it was a good turnout, a load of stalls for village groups, all with tombola or raffle, and cakes for sale! there were a couple of extortionately priced kiddie rides too. the girls both got a ride on each. I think SB was happy to be on the float this year, though she said it was hot.
BB has not been in frame today, she has been v waily, so we left earlier than we might have done. she fell asleep on the way back. SB and i read the stories in barefoot book buddhist tales, looked at bits about tudors and did some piano practice before bb woke up. we then replenished the bird feeders [tht takes some time!] and the girls played whilst i planted out sweetcorn. SB really is a lovely older sister to have.
i think that about finishes today. execrable band in one of the pubs playing

the week so far

Posted on June 11, 2008 by HHaricot | 2 comments

good news on mon, and SB has the plaster cast off. this should help wound heal more quickly as not so hot and sweaty, negative is that it is far more easy to bash – so a mixed blessing really!

tues the girls and chris went to a roman event and enjoyed it greatly. sb was apparently a good hopping legionary! and both girls enjoyed clay pot making

today we had a far to early false start ith SB waking at 5. eventually got her to sleep again, and we had a second wake at 9. we all had a snuggle and a read downstairs – dinodoors with BB, history of london with SB. we read a french story, and did some numbers in latin. the girls have got the latest RSPB mgazines and read those. BB wrote on hers too. she is v keen on the idea of forming letters – usually AOUC.

both girls were v keen to do something crafty though, and BB had decided that this should be with some left over glass paint from suncatchers, so we spent a lovely morning decorating jam jars, and were all very happy with our results. the girls shared and got on well [which was a bit of a relief!] and we chatted and enjoyed.

after lunch, SB and BB did quite a bit of playing together, both with the castle stuff, and playing vet, with lots of giggling and laughing. i enjoyed listening and watching, and in boredom clicked often on H2Opia on facebook! – didn’t want to disturb! WOuld have liked to go out and weed, but knew my mvt would signal bickering. when it started slipping, SB and I went off and did some piano practice, and BB watched something. SB’s piano coming on nicely, she has got the notation fixed in her head now, allowing some really good sight reading.

i was surprised by chris’s parents arriving [though he wasn't!] and i was still in pj’s, so a quick change and chatting before SB off to rainbows. she took chris with her, as didn’t want to be left, and BB and i played dinodoors, building houses for them [and they knocked them down] and reading. bB really into rhyming at the moment, in pretty much ever sentence she is trying out rhymes, Both girls are execrably making up jokes! violin practice[short and seated] when SB returned, nd then more castle and vet games until tea and bed.

BTW, there were many good moments on holiday. it was v hard work though. i realised i wasn’t projecting enough joy though when SB sobbed for ages over me not being happy. i am making a concerted effort to be happy. when we came back we watched child of our time, and i was v sad for eve, and the loss of her mother. [we also watched a waking the dead about bosnia/serbia - neither of these programmes being a particularly good choice]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, early maths skills, General, history, language, literacy, music, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

Getting on with it

Posted on May 19, 2008 by Daddybean | 2 comments

Which is pretty much what the kids did today.

Up, a bit of screen time (Pingu and Magic school bus) before getting dressed so we could go across the road to buy bread, milk and marg to have breakie with a bit of Hama beading on the side. After breakfast SB went off without the smallest reminder and did some maths (subtracting things like £6.13 – £4.85) and piano practise – though had to be reminded a bit how to borrow when subtracting. BB moslty played with the Geomags – she is really into them at the mo, we finally need to get some more I think. That and random 3 yo games with random objects, checked on the mushrooms in the mushroom kit – does;’t like to eat them, but fascinated by growing them.

Then SB started on some more Hama-beading, with BB also doing a bit. Whilst all this was going i was assisting in various ways, and being domestic – washing up, and cleaning out the fridge, cooking chickpeas etc. Sb then moved onto finishing off her T shirt that she was decorating for Amelie (late birthday present) . finished off the design on the front. Decided to write on the back – i wrote it down on paper for her, she spaced it out ok and then finished it off by writing Birthbag instead of birthday ! – it was funny, but I tried not to laugh as she was really upset by it. Helen laughed even more when she got home which didn’t go down well. Will try to rescue it – it hasn’t been ironed to fix it yet. Helen was trying to convinve SB that Ams wouldn’t mind, SB not convinced. all the morning passed without too many arguments
They both went off and did some bits on the Starfall website until lunch was ready.

After lunch I sat down for a ‘five minutes peace’ cuppa and to write an email in my role as Merry’s tech support ;-). BB wanted to do a craft kit she found floating about – making bugs out of pom poms or some such. I said I’d do it once i’d had my tea, but then SB said she would help, so they went off to the kitchen to do it. Not sure how much BB did and how much SB, but they were both happy when I went in to see how they were doing so left them too until they stopped.

They both did some skating about for a bit at some point, so maybe that was now, then Sb helped me start to cook dinner – cutting up the Paneer and onion until H came home.

They played a Dinosaur ludo game – Sb didn’t like getting sent back it seems. Before long it was Ballet, more cooking, home from ballet, playing in the garden, feeding birds, Swimming, home to eat the curry that H finished off – a treat of cookies that SB bought from the shop (with her own money) when we got home. Bb to bed, while Sb and h played a game I think. Then I weeded the fruit bed, then time for coffee, chocolate and the last episode of Heroes Series 2 (a bit odd as it was cut very short by the writers strike.

and I’ve even blogged !

I’ve still got to blog my photo meme day from Friday, maybe tomorrow?

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, Dance/drama, daubing and making, gardening, IT, music, numeracy, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

ahh, hmm, ohhhhhhhhhh

Posted on May 19, 2008 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

yes well, sunday.

i was at work for a lot of the day [and lets gloss over that shall we!], but did get to spend the afternoon and early evening at home with the girls. Although it was yesterday, my brain a bit weak on what we did! i know there was a lot of geomagging, kids k’nex and pattern blocks. SB did an excellent violin practice. we read some books together – and did some french simple words and a lucy chat. i think she had done some maths earlier? not sure!!

Anyay, we bailed out into the garden and played in the tent, and hama beaded. i watered some of the potted veggies. ermm, i think there was more, but the day at work proved stressful, and i guess i have just got a poor memory! i do know that when i got home at nearly midnight both girls were back up again, so i went to bed with sb, and chris with bb. i do believe i would have had no sleep at all without the reassuring presence of a child.

today i have been told SB has done maths and piano. she also has hama beaded, pompom crafted and made ams a t shirt, and we promised not to blog what she wrote on the back [bless her spelling mistakes] but i believe chris alluded to it in a twitter. since that bit wasn’t ironed [fabric pen] might it come out in the wash??

BB also did her t shirt and hama-ed, and happily geomaged and k’nexed. oh, and starfalled some alphabet stuff.
when i got home we played dinosaur ludo, SB to ballet, then to swimming. me and BB just pottered and played on the swings mostly, and collapsed in front of pingu and magic school bus. i must go to bed now as shattered!!

no-tent saturday

Posted on May 17, 2008 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

not such a good camping weekend, also not such a good weekend to try and show someone one of the tents – that I had as a teen with my parents. lots of happy memories tied in that tent. we have passed it on anyway, and I hope it is still in working order [and that the new owners do take a digiphoto of the tent step by step as they unfold it so it can be back in order]

I was at work for the morning, but got back in time to have some playing time with the deependers. the children all seemed happy playing together [well, mostly] haven’t found l’s trousers though. wonder if they are playing sardines somewhere!

we did – at BB’s request some ‘speriments. i was trying out the beginning of electricity. though both wanted to do it, they didn’t want to do it together as it were, and i guess i am not being the model of patience at the moment, but we got there, had fun – particularly with static in balloons! i think i might start to have to do lesson plans!

We moved onto violin practice with SB, her in charge of how long, and she enjoyed – got to hovis advert! lots of cuddling, did a bit of french [things in the house!] and girls watched some magic school bus. BB to bed and SB and I read the isle of immeter [in the sir cumference series, which she really enjoys]

watching heros and listening to beat of talent free band at pub across the way [with sundry woos and wails!!] . thanks for hugs.

Spooky Spoon Bread

Posted on May 15, 2008 by Daddybean | 2 comments

Thursday.

Off to Tots and Nots groups in the morning. Just in time for SB to take part in a French game with Katy. I sat with BB and did a picture with her made from different shapes cut out of paper. Bit of general playing and snack eating. SB did a picture as well. Drew a portrait of Helen. Gina whose does various music teaching there brought along some flutes. so they got to have a go with those. BB was interested, but didn’t want to try. SB managed to get some sound out of it without to much effort. Bit of singing of songs, then SB had her first recorders session with Gina. said she enjoyed it and wants to do some more. It should be becoming a regular thing.

By now BB was pretty grumpy – she wanted to go and watch SB playing, said she was hungry but didn’t want to eat any of the things I had in the bag. Didn’t want to do anything I suggested etc. – probably tired (had woke me up before 5 am, though went back to sleep later) and hungry (only had eaten half a slice of toast and a modicum of yoghurt ).

Headed off home via Tesco’s for a few things – which was a bad idea – it’s a big Tesco Extra store and buying just a few things seems to involve walking miles. BB was amusing by the bakery counter. I was with SB a bit further along whilst she chose her bread, BB was sat in the trolley shouting out ‘ I want Spooky Spoon bread’ ! :-) Spooky spoon (from the character in Numberjacks) bread being her name for a French stick – ever since we had one that was vaguely spoon shaped at the end and they kids dubbed it Spooky Spoon.

They both amused a mother at the veg bit. They were both begging me to buy a bag of Peas in their pods because they love eating them straight from the pods – but they were imported and rather expensive so I didn’t. Good to have kids who like consider buying bread and vegetables a treat though

Escaped Tesco and got home to a late lunch of mostly Spooky spoon bread accompanied by a dose of Magic School Bus. SB did piano practice, and handwriting. BB got out her violin and played with that, couldn’t find her maths book which she wanted, so did some leap-padding. then they both got out the Geomags. BB got upset because they kept on sticking to each other and they bickered and argued over which Geomags they each had, could do with more really. I cooked some soup, which neither of the kids seem to like much – probably a tad too spicy for them. Helen came home and read some books with them – I caught one about Alexander Graham Bell.

Then off to bed.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, language, music, Out and About, pre reading, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

hmm an atypical home ed day.

Posted on May 14, 2008 by HHaricot | 8 comments

i am going to nominate today as the home-ed day in photos meme [please see previous in sidebar!], and will hopefully get the photos up! it is atypical, because i was at home, because i bailed out of a group today and declared duvet, and rainbows was cancelled. maybe chris will do one as well! thing is, i prob need the photos to remember what we did
8:00 they were both up with chris, so they prob watched something! had breakfast

9:00 I’m up! BB is doing alphabetting [using alphabet stencils to write the letters] SB is colouring in a rainbows picture, and then looking at the difference between the roman alphabet and ours. i read some dinodoor books with BB, we all do family members in french.

10:00 getting dressed and cleaning teeth. i look round at house and decided to spend the day in the garden! [ in fact t-bird gave me the idea with her tent-ed] SB makes a great go at putting up mini-tent [with BB being not too unhelpful, and even nearly helping on occasion!] . I shew them my bag of selected options [not exclusive, they could have gone and got somethig else], and both started with colouring. BB with crayons in a bible book [bought by chris's parents] and SB in pencil on nice paper. She drew the garden first, and then started drawing my portrait.BB did some before the code.

11:00 sees us discussing the weather in french – well, learning some of the weather words and popping them into saying it is hot and sunny. we read part of a book about food chains, and then had a fruit break. SB chose the ladybird book about the spanish armada [no I'm arder!] for me to read to her. BB liked the guns, and then went off to play in the garden. [I am concerned about her!]

12:00 sees SB doing singapore maths 2B [halfway through] and BB and i looking at the extremely greedy starlings eating all the fat balls, and deciding to have a go at making our own. with a break for a who has the silliest face competition. SB finishes her maths and does it with us.

13:00 mostly lunchtime. SB made lunch whilst i put lard [yuk what a truly awful smell, but the birds have never eaten them when made with veggie fat] over our nut, fruit, seed and mealworm mix. SB made peanut butter sarnies for BB, avocado sandwiches for me [using same knife, so slightly unusual!] and cheese for her [fresh knife!] and we watched some nina and the neurons. About now i thought, ooh, we have done alot today, lets make it our photoblog day! luckily i always take a lot of photo when i am at home to prove i was there. BB did some fab geomags – she wanted to make a square [cube]

14:00 BB did a short violin practice – mostly just enjoying making noise. chris and BB went off to get some pallets from the orchard down the road to use to make an ad hoc empty compost bin [we have filled all of ours] . SB was going to do violin, but took rather a long time getting organised about it! we did do a violin practice too.

15:00 has us back out in the garden. BB in the sandpit and SB drawing with fabric pens on a white t-shirt. both then did lots of playing in sandpit, with water, on slide etc. chris made compost bin, i played hide and seek, and took some flower photos.

16:00 children happily playing, SB did some pot watering and had an icecream. i potted up the yard long beans and put into greenhouse [oops, forgot to say that in the garden blog - must put that right!]

17:00 no more photos. both girls in desperate need of a bath!! after that some tidying up in the garden by me, whilst they watched pingu. a recap on french words we have looked at today.
18:30 judo for SB, i read bob the builder books to BB, we had tea and I put BB to bed.

19:30 SB home and fed, a short look at zoo tycoon for DS and then also to bed [by chris] whilst i potted up toms and cucurbits.

21:00 with the binging of the church bells, the tv switched on and we watch the apprentice and blog. the end of atypical home ed day. with thanks to katy for being understanding of me need to duvet, as we should have been doing science and latin in the morning, which we do all really enjoy. i just needed some home time.

photos to be sourced and added [of course, to make it actually a photoblog!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, history, language, music, noises and sounds, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

summer is here – now official!

Posted on May 10, 2008 by HHaricot | 1 comment

well here anyway, as SB and BB had a row about it!

before i start, why is it that as soon as i friends ans family flickr due to an overly persistant re-contacter, chris links to our blog from an everone view photo!! sigh!

anyway, it was another hot one today! started off in the cool with piano practice with SB. she wants to do more piano than violin at the moment, so i am hoping to facilitate that, but keep the violin ticking over. certainly her piano playing is coming on in leaps and bounds at the moment, and i guess this increases the enthusiasm. i’m going to try and find an easy duet book as well for that. [actually if i did more violin duets with her that would prob be a good thing too!]

SB then got on with some maths and handwriting whilst BB and I made some cheese scones [had to hide some so we would have some for tomorrows picnic!!]. we then did some lucy chat books at the beach – v helpful i now know the word for shark! and BB did some alphabet recognition.

All piled out into the garden under the gazebo to do some more crocodile making. SB has embellished hers so much with papier mache that hers is more of a thorny devil. bB’s was more minimalistic, and then she wailed because it was too wet to play with general outside play. chris and i both did bits of hoeing fruit bed, chris weeded some veg patch, i planted and SB watered. we have started hacking at the yew trees as well.

had some camping pancake mix left, so added cocoa powder to it for a chocolate pancake treat [bB's idea] we all prefer plain! Then put up one of our tents in the garden for the girls to play with [the cheapy 2 person 'festival tent']

cooling down now – phew!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, daubing and making, gardening, General, language, literacy, music, numeracy, pre reading, Stringbean's HE, writing

Category Archives: music

making the most of it.

migraines and mischief

nearly forgot to blog!

the week so far

Getting on with it

ahh, hmm, ohhhhhhhhhh

no-tent saturday

Spooky Spoon Bread

hmm an atypical home ed day.

summer is here – now official!

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