Category Archives: music

Quick blog

Posted on August 6, 2007 by | Leave a comment

as I’m doing something else!! [writing talk]

SB did maths, BB did happy maize [no longer supplied by bead merrily!] then SB wailed as we hadn’t signed her up for any of the clubs at the sports centre – because she said she wanted to make her own mind up and hadn’t! she decided that after all she wanted to go to the one I had suggested – hip hop and street dance [i was guessing sparky party dances!] . it started today. luckilly there was spaces, so a quick drive out. SB has really enjoyed it. 2 hours x 3 days. maybe she’ll also do the cheerleading one in a couple of weeks time?

When she got back and I got back from work i had a short demo, we did jigsaws, SB had a complex game with her paper dolls [another benefit of the start of room of doom 2] and BB was keen on the ABC book and cards, and the ABC animal puppets. she is desperate to read.

We made heaps more mess with trying to sort out the books though – oops. DId read some more rainforest stuff, and played a rainforest addition game with SB.

BB did some poisson rouge and starfall. she knows how to start up the computer, wiat until the personal setting screen comes up, ‘press snowflake’ and then the ‘firefox’ – rofl at a 2 year old knowing the browser we use. SB? expanded – its the mosaic firefox [close!!]

Both had a short violin lesson. SB picking up london’s burning. Happy to have had a break after stress of thinking she was going to play at kessie. SB then wrote me a letter on the etchasketch about how? ‘ I lic plaing with you mummy. love from elinor ++++++++’
BB fell asleep at the dinner table – bless, and we had such a nice snuggle then on the sofa that I fell asleep too – oops. woke up to find SB happily playing with zoombinis.

both girls filling me with lots of rewards and blessings as they are so loving and affectionate – well, when BB isn’t being awful to SB, and SB isn’t wailing in repsonse, or winding BB up!!

Leave a comment

Posted in Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, geography, literacy, music, numeracy, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

Early to blog!

Posted on July 7, 2007 by | 3 comments

Am making frog-in-the-bog for tea with home grown veg on the side – that is the life! would have own eggs, but perhaps not yet!

BB is being dreadful again at going to bed, and is then so tired that she falls asleep like the dead in the day. So today we haven’t let her fall asleep – she’s been dunked in a freezing cold paddling pool in the afternoon to make sure! Whether she makes it to the tea I’m not sure, but they’re having a bath upstairs at the moment.

However, she IS being gorgeous about playing animals. Mostly lions and monkeys, which we have played a lot today. She also demanded ‘diolin’ practice – duly done for 10 seconds! Painting - 2 minutes, reading a book – hours! We have played shops and also with bricks, and a ‘find the’ game with the letter cube thing that Jax gave us – rather a hit!

IMG_7290 IMG_7314

SB woke early and plugged herself in front of the TV. When I got up – at 9.30 – so not as late as I would have liked! We read stories together of brer rabbit. I suggested we did the next bit of first language lessons – the aesop fable narration, and she already new the story so happily summarised it. When I said that I could write down her summary or she could, we then spent the next hour happily writing it down, whilst doing other things – see below! [BB and I were being rather distracting though I guess, with falling down towers!]. I was very proud of her, and she was impressed too. Though she is keen to improve her handwriting, I don’t think she’s bothered by spelling as long as she can read it back.

IMG_7294

She then spent ages getting dressed as a princess and cleaning her teeth, and BB did lots of poisson rouge – getting rather good at mouse control, but easily frustrated when she right clicks by mistake. I have stuck a hand sticker on the left click, which usually reminds her.

SB did some brick building with BB for a bit, and then we sat together as she read me various bits from the DK picturepedia on birds. We have also been watching the life of birds in the evening, so she remembered some of that to add in, as well as the other bird books we have read. Wanting to do some flying experiments, we went to the kitchen to make different shapes, but ended up doing mostly a craft session on birds with feathers! She is disappointed they don’t fly well, so we might to the experiments tomorrow.

IMG_7292 IMG_7318
All out into the garden to make the most of the sunshine, having pasta for lunch outside [v late!] and the then SB did some sudoko, BB tried to catch the fish in the pond, and then they both spent ages splashing about in the paddling pool or helping me pick broad beans and pod them for tea.

IMG_7302 IMG_7299
They’ve argued over helping me make batter for the frog-in-the-bog, so lets hope it still rises! Chris doesn’t appear to have drowned them yet, so I shall quickly flickr. oh, and no chris, I won’t be doing different colours!!

edited to add photos and say, frog in bog a success, BB fell asleep the instant she had finished chewing the last mouthful. SB went on to custard and banana. We are about to play a game. We played Amazon arithmetic and happy families.

3 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, gardening, General, literacy, music, numeracy, photos, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

oh yes, blogging

Posted on July 4, 2007 by | 7 comments

nice to have a day off! girls woke up wayyyy too early! STill didn’t have breakfast until 11 though. before that the girls did lots of playing with gears gears gears! SB making up her own monsters, and bb fitting them together and messing with eyeballs! A spot of book reading.

SO pancakes for breakfast. then both girls did some piano practice – we had been concentrating on violin, so SB had some wobbles, but realised she still knew where to put her fingers! BB also had a go at playing middle c.

SB did some maths, BB is a bit of an addict for baby einstein dvd’s – havng quite rightly shunned them earlier [what was I thinking??] also reading books, doing Maisy’s colour book – and getting most wrong! We played animals – mostly monkey’s. if i roar as a lion she puts her hand over my mouth making a soothing shsh sound – very cute.

ermmm, general interaction type stuff. jigsaws, me flickring, girls shrieking etc. actaly will do a piccie kessie blog to tie in some of the key day things, maybe. oh, we did a bit more on firstlanguage lessons – proper and common nouns. some writing.

After lunch [obviously late as late breakfast] I agreed to take 2 desperate girls to the park. i really am not a going to the swings girl. Anyway, 2 girls loved it, stretching the boundaries on how dangerous looking they could be before i looked panicky! We were joined by school children later on, and SB and a girl started playing together. I could hear a ‘what, you stay at home?’ and SB confirmed it was the HE question! BB gor whingey, so said it was home time. SB wailed all the way home as it wasn’t fair we left because OF BB. BB fell over after about 3 steps, and I picked her up and she fell asleep in 3 more steps. sB wailed more when i suggested she carried the bag [2 drinks and 2 apple cores! - really heavy] So we frogmarched home with her wailing even more. gloss gloss.

SO she did something with chris whilst i became human again, and BB slept. she then read the usborne book about celts that i bought from joanna at Melrose – fab book, and followed the quick internet links.

[watching prison break, and am v glad we don't have a death penalty in the UK]

BB finally was persuaded to wake up, and both girls had a bath and downstairs for tea, watching bob the builder. SB and I read about the life of a roman soldier and then bedtime.

so there we are, a day! oh, and BB now asleep again – phew

oh, and i really miss bolding – i might have to restart doing it

7 Comments

Posted in Books, Butterbean, General, history, literacy, music, numeracy, Stringbean's HE, writing

OK, so kessie weather worsening

Posted on June 20, 2007 by | 3 comments

aargh, but I will still have great fun, SB and BB won’t notice. the pool is good!

SO into work this morning, reasonably smoothly, but 1.5 hours longer there than planned. Met up with chris and the girls in town, and he had picked up my new glasses. I put them on and SB immediately laughed, told me I looked silly. Apparently they are too noticeable and go perrr-chinggg at you. sigh. that was good for the ego. Have been wearing them all day to get use to them. After lunch in town we left chris shopping and came home.

We did violin practice.SB has cold feet over playing the violin at kessie, and it is prob too wet anyway! so she will prob make up a dance. we did lots of playing outside and made up an adventure course – great fun for both. in breaks, I read some more SoTW – augustus caesar, and also some of our emperor book. SB read me a life cycle of rabbits book. She also did some maths and reading whatever took her fancy.

I did some weeding, planted spare beans in the gaps. the girls helped me with watering – always good for a laugh!!Actually SB very responsible at it, BB watered weeds, SB’s feet etc etc! I think we may have glutted ourselves on strawberries! and also bought cherries today.

Chris was sorting out camping stuff – yes we will bring poles! and girls aslo helped him and pottered about in the hayloft. what else? oh yes, BB and Imade some nice sausage rolls. I think that is it.

difficult day anticipated at work tomorrow. will def have wine at kessie!!

weather

3 Comments

Posted in Butterbean, Cooking, gardening, General, history, literacy, music, numeracy, SB-PE, science

the most unrelaxing time off work.

Posted on June 14, 2007 by | 3 comments

partly because there are a couple of issues that mean i can’t actually switch off and rest from. but they are also difficult to do anything about. I prefer omnipotence than this worrying and dithering!

And because there were a variety of tasks to tick!

Anyway, Mon and Tues were good. I think – in retrospect – that I will never book anything dentisty in!

Wed a bit of a stress, as we made an unplanned visit to chris’s parents on the wed, to see his uncle, aunt, cousin with husband and baby [the teeny tiny one born earlier in the year]. Unfortunately Chris’ uncle has bowel cancer, and not presently suitable for operation. He is having chemo, and had a dreadful reaction the firs time. Yesterday he was tired, and not his full fettle, but certainly better than we were anticipating. [lots of prepping SB]. Baby A is gorgeous and very smiley and laid back [aargh I feel broody!] SB and BB adored her and helped bring her things. BB was amazingly gentle and gorgeous. I say amazingly, as she stabbed SB purposefully with scissors before we had left home! [scissor privileges most def withdrawn] ANyway, a family day. But I had to do dentist dash in the middle – and obviously dentist not so close to Chris’s parents! My Daa had also arrived before we left – so seemed a bit odd to hello-goodbye. He was on his way to a golf match, which got cancelled whilst he was here, so he trimmed our topiary – good dad!

last night though I had loads of unsettled dreams and woke up with work palpitations and too little sleep. SB did lots of reading to Dad and some singapore maths. he was trying to teach her to catch a ball. like Monster, I think she has inherited a non-schools sports gene pool. i was v good at swimmer [hey, I was a lot thinner!]. She does seem to be good at gymn type stuff too. Must follow that one day, but she is keen on joining trampolining club, so think that should do!

Then in afternoon we went into town to have eyes checked. I went in with SB, who confidently said she was home-ed so no whiteboard [when asked] but that she was good at using the computer and could read! The optician was good too, but when SB talked about pupils and could say which bit they were and seemed interested, the optician explained what she was doing at every step, what they might find. Coolest is the new machine for taking pictures of the retina – no more ophthalmoscope! BB was in there with us in totally charming mode. Both girls stayed oK, whilst chris and I dithered over glasses. You know, I look no great shakes, and glasses don’t add much. I have no style talent, so actually in front of everyone having to try the things on and look like I care – which I do of course, but I don’t actually have any ability here!! Oh well, chose an unlikely pair anyway.

we also went to milletts and BB investigated everything whilst chris pondered. Eventually we left, and it was tipping it down. Got back in time for SB to go to ballet, and BB and i made choc cookies and cheese scones. Lots more reading and some DS-ing and both girls now tucked up.

We must have early night.

oh, and the other bit of crapness was we were supposed to go and visit little nanny this week and drop off aunty margaret’s birthday pressie for next week. except little nanny is with aunty margaret this week. her pressie not that transportable. We were doing other things this weekend, but chris has apologised for our absence [I believe, if not, I apologise for our absence] as I have to see little nanny whilst Aunty M drops her off. its been ages since we visited, we can’t go till after kessingland. my life and diary are a mess!!

3 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Dance/drama, General, literacy, music, numeracy, science

Me and my smelly shoes

Posted on June 12, 2007 by | 2 comments

well, me and Sb got some not-quite-crocs from ebay. very cheap unfortunately the seller had a problem with knowing colours, as we were supposed to have lime green and pink respectively, but she just focused on the pink! I can live with pink feet I guess!

Anyway, an early start as SB reading at the library [see, public speaking at 6!] she read a Clifford book, a couple of dog poems and a kipper book. i liked her way of getting the children to take turns with the flaps, and BB her little helper. She then did a sticking material onto cut out dogs craft. The session is obviously for under 5′s!!

We did some singapore maths 2A – finally we get to do adding up and carrying in columns! i breath a sigh of relief at this. SB though good at doing it in her head with the tens and units, but columns help with the hundreds. The only real difficulty is with doing 5 and 2 variably back to front, it can be difficult seeing what her answer is!!

BB did lots of colouring in and cutting, and playing games with the pencils being people. She has also just got keen on ‘galloping’ either with the hobby horse or broom! She also helps SB’s maths by shouting out random numbers. [not welcomed!!]

We played outside, picked some broad beans and mangetout – the girls ate the mangetout directly, the broad beans for tea! Lots of fun with watershooters for the girls – chris got a bit carried away [surprise suprise] so I was drenched. Though was nice after boiling alove in the greenhouse.

SB had swimming, and I watched in the gallery. she is a bit of a flibberdygibbert! the coach kept an eye on her, as she was doing duck dives as often as anything else! WIll try and at least get front crawl pinned down on holiday. And mushroom floats, as SB thinks the idea is to curl up in a ball, and then fling out as wildly as poss!

When we came back she did some jump ahead 1 CD – which she finds nice and easy, so a fun thing . And we did some violin practice, with me playing it with her a bit – mostly to try and pin down the timing. She was a bit freaked by this, so haven’t tried a canon yet! I think she has done really well to get so far,but not sure it will be up for a canon with Joe, but she is keen to go ahead. Back to positives though, we only really started practicing the violin vaguely seriously when Sarah suggested a duet, so I think to be playing a recognisable tune with a reasonable bow hold, though varying violin hold and enjoying it is a real achievement.

erm, more reading to each other, playing games and tidying up. ’bout it.

oh, and its the new crocs-a-likes that have a weird smell!!

2 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, history, literacy, music, numeracy, SB-PE

I should be in Cancun

Posted on June 11, 2007 by | 3 comments

the local carnival here continues on apace. this eve we had the local band playing in village centre and a raffle. SB was the proud winner of a box of chocs – chosen by her after considerable time!!

i went to work this am and then home. SB had done some maths and we did some violin, loads of reading/ jigsaws etc. Some colouring and writing. BB read books, did magic painting and bit people – lovely!! more strawbs harvested. I am sure chris will mention the milkshake.

Anyway, I should be in Cancun. but decided i really couldn’t face it [even though I would have enjoyed it once there] and it was expensive!!! so converted study leave into annual leave.

oh, I bought some goats milk, and we all liked it. SB is quite keen on the idea of a small farm. chris isn’t!!

3 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, literacy, music, numeracy, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

cycling and roasties

Posted on June 10, 2007 by | 3 comments

my migraine abating now – having fair ruined the weekend!

Anyway, sadly without me, chris and the girls did the village carnival cycle ride, and SB did 10 miles! good going – with some stops at the official drink stops etc where she chatted to anyone who would listen. She was the youngest single cycler – someone younger on a tagalong. Chris pulled BB in the trailer. . He found out that our village has a power station in it!!!!!!!! Apparently at a landfill point in the old gravel pits. hmmm.

IMG_6578 IMG_6584 IMG_6586 IMG_6575

We went to chris’s parents for lunch – hence roasties. The girls enjoyed playing in the mini stream and waterfall they have had built. Relaxed nattering, and finally home. SB has practiced her violin and done a lot of reading and baked cupcakes. Also a fair amount of nintendogs – BB also rather keen on nintendogs!

3 Comments

Posted in General, history, literacy, music, SB-PE, Stringbean

Shall we gloss?

Posted on June 9, 2007 by | Leave a comment

I had a combination of migraine, non-perfect outcome at work [my fault], feeling crap and blue.

so i compounded it by being so? unavailable for my girls that BB was biting me whenever she wanted attention. sigh. I did improve in the afternoon. Just.

SB did violin, lots of reading, made a lovely card and went to the kids carnival party. BBbit me lots, we did lego, reading, jigsaws.

both girls helped me with picking peapods [though i didn't get to eat any!] BB stuffed herself with strawbs [ and we have loads!!!] they also enjoyed scattering rooster pellets and watering.

Leave a comment

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, gardening, General, literacy, music, socialisation, Stringbean

rice pudding and strawberries.

Posted on June 6, 2007 by | 3 comments

Apart from madly thinking about various deadlines at work, I have had a gresat time.

SB is getting there with frere jaques – half speed though! hmmm for kessie! Hope Joe will be forgiving.

Girls did lots of playing – shops, families etc. also lots of playing with the book people boxes. In fact the boxes were prob the most looked at bit of the book people order! SB did get stuck straight into the poetry collection – she has athing for poetry at the moment. She is planning to recite a poem at Kessingland. its true that some of the books are more ‘future books’ – some diana wynne jones for me [rofl! i loved her charmed life as a girl] and the roman mysteries collection. But the DK animals collection really lovely, and the where on earth – so we had a look at those.

We also looked at SOTW again – its been ages, but Julius caesar – SB quite good on this from the horrible histories CD! Also continued with primary maths [i do think i prefer it to MPaH]
The strawberries in the title, well, we have LOADS ripe now, so our little birds were out picking them! At least i did get 4 this time. And I made rice puding with BB – yummy!

BB did lots of colouring and magic painting – which she is becoming very careful about. SB did colouring and made this sun catcher from beadmerrily. well i thought it was beadmerrily but I can’t find it!! Shame, because its lovely, and SB really enjoyed it!

forgot to say that we gave SB her DS today, she has been saving up beautifully and will now put that money towards a trampoline! Thankyou very much to Claire for her generosity. We have nintendogged until i went crazy!!!

3 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, gardening, General, geography, history, literacy, music, numeracy