Category Archives: numeracy

“We are tidying, we are tidying..”

Posted on March 17, 2007 by Daddybean | 2 comments

Could do with the Mice? from Bagpuss, to sing songs and help us out since that is what we have been mostly doing this week. in particular, as mentioned by Helen, tidying, and reorganising the playroom, which seemed to be disappearing under piles of ‘stuff’, boxes etc. I seemed to have moved most of the books around, organised things to be more accessible. There are now some shelves just for ‘Butterbean’ toys rather than being thrown in a box, which means she does actually now play with them. Also been tidying other places, like spending about 2 hours other day, just putting away piles of clean washing, sorting out the cupboards in the girl’s room – which have loads of space which was mostly filled up with boxes/bags of outgrown/waiting to be grown into clothes.
Basically, things got so messy and disorganised that it’s hindering getting on doing educational stuff, either you can’t find things, or you can’t face getting something out and adding to the chaos, or it just sits there praying on your brain as it needs doing or you end up doing a bit of sorting out or tidying, instead of doing stuff with the kids, but not enough to make an impact – it needed a concerted effort. Yes I know we have plenty of space and storage space, but that just means you can put off things for longer…..

So still things to do, but much improved.

So abandoned attempts to do much ed stuff really, some maths, reading here and there about this and that. As part of the maths stuff on money, SB did a shop the other day, priced up somethings, including putting barcodes on them,

then I had to buy things and she gave me the change. Realized when she had done it that we haven’t really done decimal addition or subtraction yet which we needed to do to calculate things. We could have done it all in pence, but SB decided she wanted to use the toy till, which has a calculator bit on it, to do them, so she did that, and I explained what the ‘point’ was – or tried to anyway

Today, so far, SB gave me a ballet lesson, SB and BB have made mothers day cards, my parents popped round this morning, and Helen has baked/cooked, assisted in various ways. BB is a real Bob the Builder fan, so to add to the couple of well played videos we have I’ve downloaded a couple BTB things so they’ve been watching some odd thing where they all go off on some sort of Cowboy holiday in America.

Ahh, Helen has been cooking with SB, she has just come in to say the ‘kitchen is all mine’ , which is rather ominous.

I hate kitchens, no sooner do you get it cleaned and tidy, you blink and it’s a disaster zone again. I want two kitchens, one we use and spends most of it’s time messy, the other would be just for going in and enjoying the pleasure of sitting in a nice clean and tidy kitchen. No cooking, or children allowed

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, literacy, numeracy, photos, Stringbean's HE

Invasion of the bobbles

Posted on March 14, 2007 by HHaricot | 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!

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.

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!

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

Oh for some sleep!

Posted on March 12, 2007 by HHaricot | 11 comments

v difficult to get up and go to work, but did so. [though had a mad phoner on my mobile while I was there - i think it might have been Josie! I put it on silent - rofl] The beans did a bit of maths, not sure what else and then went to the playbarn to meet with a friend. they had a lovely time

When I came home, Chris was reading the tree of life [about evolution] well, SB read half of it and he finished when she got tired. Its a really nice book actually – the evolutionists answer to a creation story. I would recommend it. They then all looked at places on google earth – my parents are off to Syria, which started the search.

We did some violin practice – both of them. SB has a stiff bow arm, so am doing various weird waving excercises as well, being a swan, wrist sighing etc etc.

We read some more of the science encyclopaedia all about atoms [woosh over her head I think, but she liked looking at the pictures - especially the rutherford model]. We looked at the worm world again, they seem to be fine, and pulling the leaves down their burrows. Other than that mostly played dolls and loved me! [the ed is all bitesized if you were wondering how it all got fitted in!]

They also helped Chris make a pineapple upside down cake [BB only ate the pineapple!] All very noisy and wild. Early bed for all of us.

oh, a late update! we have played around the world board game [draw] and connect 4 – and SB truly beat me [rather than a tactical lose] for 1 game out of 3! Hooray. More britannia and ORT reading for bedtime stories, and she is now listening to Horrible Histories CD [so I might tick history!]

11 Comments

Posted in Books, General, geography, history, literacy, music, numeracy, Out and About, socialisation

Writing in my head.

Posted on March 11, 2007 by Daddybean | 3 comments

Stringbean was talking about doing mental arithmetic last night. she desicrbed the process as ‘Writing in my head’. Which I rather liked.

3 Comments

Posted in Daft Stuff, numeracy, Stringbean's HE

Back to Earth

Posted on March 10, 2007 by HHaricot | 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!!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

11 Comments

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

One day…….

Posted on March 9, 2007 by Daddybean | 5 comments

I’ll get the hang of bloggin every day…….

But as Michelle has been nagging me in Merry’s comments I’d better write something – can’t be doing with more extra women nagging me.

OK, Monday was our mothly HE group sports session, so we went along to that and SB ran around and did sporting things, BB pottered and I drunk tea and chatted :-). Followed by a trip to the park with the Katy and the crew from In at the Deep End. After that the plan was to head off get some lunch and go show shopping, plus a few other things. Went to the shopping centre where there is a decent sized Clarks, only to find that it was shut for refitting or something and wasn’t going to be open for 3 more days – so waste of car parking there then. Since we were there we got lunch and a few things, got back to carpark – it’s one of those get a ticket on the way in, pay on foot places. Realised I had no cash and it didn’t take cards, so had to traipse off to find cash machine etc. which meant of course we were welll over the hour, so that cost even more…. sigh.

So eventually escaped from the car park, headed off to the independent shoe shop we got SB’s last ones from – it’s out of the city centre and easy to park by. Got SB some shoes – a bit boring as she is now well into school age shoes, though they had better options last time, but SB really likes them so that’s fine. BB didn’t need any, though did discover that she has had a sock stuck in the end of one of them for who knows how long – it was squashing back here toes a bit and made it seems as if one fooot had loads more toe room….

By now needed more tea – so took up an invite by Katy to pop round to theirs which is just down the road. Enjoyed Earl Grey (but no tea pot….. ) and admired the birthing pool masquerading as a family size birthing pool filling up the dining room.

home to, well not sure really – ISTR some computing stuff goign on with the girls.

Tuesday went round to my parents house for most of the day, did do bit of HE stuff here before we went – moslty more of the Singapore maths – still the money bit, and some reading.

Wednesday

Helen was doing job interviews today, so not at home as per usual. Helen got a Learning Resources book about using Cuisenaire rods to explore Area/Volume and Perimeter from Sonlight last week, so Sb wanted to have a go at that. She spent ages with it, not so much on the book activities as with all the pattern making and general playing around with them that ensues. also got to practice drawing straight lines with the ruler (in the right place…) . Funny how simple thing like that isn’t a simple as it looks – getting the pencil at the right angle, holding the ruler firmly, in the right place, lining it up etc.

We sat and read a couple of the Anholt Artists books – Picasso and Van Gogh ones, and then spent some time looking for different pictures of their on the internet. There was some more Webland-ing and a bit of Ed City.

We finaly got some new swings seats (Ebay) to go on the swings, so we put one of those on so SB was happy to be able to swing again and spent some time on there. and generally playing outside – harvested some of the Purple Sprouting Broccoli which we have lots of right now.

Never understood the whole ‘kids don’t like green veg ‘ thing, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, whatever it is out love them all.

Watched a bit of the Life of Plants DVD before bed.

Thursday

BB’s toddler gym thing, so that’s a 9.30 start. SB took her camera with her and snapped some photos, haven’t had a look at them yet and sat and moslty read some Letterland books she found in the cupboard this morning. She is such a good advertisment for a HE-ed childthere, sits quietly with her bag, reading, or drawing, or writing etc.

Went into town after to do some shopping of various sorts. Noticed the stationers shop in town is closing, which is a shame – it was always useful for various bits, and very helpful in there as well. It’s our nearest town, and has survived pretty well with a range of indpendent shops as well as the normal high street places. But gradually the independents seem to be going.

There is a shop which sells gists etc. that has lots of stuff from different parts of the world – they tend to have little changing displys of stuff in one window. It was Chinese stuff for chinese New year last time. This week they had some Native American stuff on display, so looked and talked about some of those things, the photos they had etc. bought a few things in a charity shop, including a kit to make a worm observatory thing, so will hopefully be putting that together soon.

Once home had lunch, together me and SB read through a set of Quentin Blake books she got for Xmas and then Hellen got home early from work. There was somejigsawing – BB really getting into them now, head over heels practise, Sb did soem more of the Area etc. book before ballet class.

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Posted in Butterbean, IT, literacy, numeracy, photos, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

totality

Posted on March 4, 2007 by HHaricot | 4 comments

remembered to look at the moon. it certainly does look weird when it is the wrong colour! When I got home from work, SB and I read some of our new books – marie curie and the search for radium and eric the red and leif the lucky. She had lots of questions after the marie curie one about science and elements and atoms, but decided we would look at another book ‘tomorrow’

she has done a fair bit of webland today while I was out, and chris has done a grand job on sorting out this years propagatory – time to sow some seeds! bit late with peppers already – oops.

SB and BB both did some violin practice, and SB some piano. otherwise mostly chilled and did pattern blocks altogether. tonight before going to bed, I read SB some britannia and she read me clumsy crocodile from usborne young readers. Her flow at reading is really coming along, and she reads things all the time now during the day – fantastic.

I must make sure worries of work don’t eclipse the joys of home.

4 Comments

Posted in Books, gardening, General, geography, history, literacy, music, numeracy, science, Stringbean's HE

rewind to wed

Posted on February 23, 2007 by HHaricot | 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!

4 Comments

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

Blog or Else

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Daddybean | 5 comments

Which was sort of what Helen told me – seeing as I’ve been a bit lax in the blogging stakes lately.

So some gap filling:

Last Sunday

It was my Dads 70th birthday on the Friday. On Sunday we went over to theirs to go out for a birthday lunch. It was an all you can eat buffet type thing at an local Indian restaurant. It was nice, but would have been a bit better if the restaurant had been a bit more together.

My mum had rung them to say that we were veggie, and would there be veggie dishes, as was told there would be. When we got there, there was one veggie dish on the buffet (a rather nice potato thing – there were veg samosas but they were mixed up with meat ones….). It turns out that we could order something from the menu instead (same price) – that was fine, but we didn’t realize this until we were all sat down and were going to get food. so of course mum and dad had eaten a lot by the time we got our food. Not helped in that we had ordered some onion bhajis and samosas – ok normally you have them as starter, but seeing as everyone was eating, we thought they would bring the rest out as well. But no – though obviously they were cooked, as when I asked they appeared straight away.

So, could have been better with bit bit better clarity from them on what was happening, but food was good (though weird Mutter Paneer had chickpeas instead of peas – not so good when you have ordered Chana Dhal as well…..) Girls enjoyed it, SB at least at well, BB was entertained by the various fish tanks.

Finished up with cake and game of Ludo at mum and dads house.

Tuesday

SB started with more palying with the Polydron stuff before breakfast. Then the usual black hole that takes in breakfast, getting dressed etc. did sit down for more maths. After that we had a various bit of food shopping to do, so over to the post office (where of course as we only had quick in and out transaction the person 2 in front seemed to be carrying out every possible transaction you can in the PO in one go….). Then the bakers, then home again. Then get the bike and trailer out, tootle up to the farm shop for veggies. They are putting up a nice big polytunnel, so hopw to have some more interesting home grown things this year. It’s at a local plant nursery, opened when the village greengrocer shut. As a ‘farm shop’ they are supposed to grown most of their own produce (85% I think – by value I guess?) so he has been gradually increasing that.

Returned to lunch, then not sure, but we did sit down to SOTW later on – moved on to India, the Indus and the Ganges and the story about the formation of the Ganges. Then off to swimming lessons – for some reason they are now continuing through half term. but this hasn’t really been brought to peoples notice – I only new because some one else has mentioned it to me. So seemed a bit lower in numbers. treated the girls to dinner there (kids meal so they offer burger and chips, nuggets and chips etc….. anyway, SB likes the veg nuggets so they had those). Makes the evening easier really, as wqe don’t get back to past 6 pm so dinner becomes a bit a rush. This was me and Helen can have dinner bit later once girls are in bed.

Thursday

Umm again…..

One of my targets is to get out and do more regular bits in the garden to keep up with things. So we did spend about 1 1/2 hours outside, the girls mostly played in and out of the playhouse etc. I was weeding the strawberry patch, BB helped out a bit. SB decided that the playhouse garden needed a climbing frame so moved the Little Tikes one over there. It easier than last year to do this, as this time last year BB was still in pretty early toddler stage, so would fall over lot, get stuck etc.

After that and Lunch , whilst BB napped. We got out the Physics science kit we got given last year (thanks Raihanah ) SB wanted to do something involving test tubes and the spirit burner. So we did one boiling, evaporating, condensing and distilling water (boiling old coffee, collecting clear water. Liking to have things correct, we talked about the difference between water vapour and steam – one day she will remember She enjoyed it , and it kept us busy for an hour or so.

BB got up and made herself a paperclip aeroplane

She does love doing experiments etc. and we don’t really do as much of it as we should I think- certainly no excuse on the knowing what to do front….

We um and ahh about the Young Scientists Club kits on and off. Whilst we really ought to be able to sort the things out ourselves, we don’t as much as we should and there is also the whole ‘kit thing’ that seems to appeal to SB. She does seem to enjoy the whole box of bits. instructions etc. that is ‘hers’ thing. Umm, ahhh…..

Friday

Other than shopping, not a lot really. Typical morning blackhole stuff meant leaving later than I wanted to. We went out to Staples, where SB wanted to investigate all sorts of things, then to the pet place to to get cat food and spent ages looking at fish, rabbits , guinea pigs etc.. Then Tesco’s via Tesco’s cafe for lunch (well, a plate of chips and carton of milk for them to share). Time we got home it must have been about 3, and the rest of the afternoon sort of just frittered away with cups of tea, Ed. City and other kiddy websites, some reading, cooking dinner etc.. We did do a bit of piano practice I think.

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Posted in Butterbean, gardening, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, science, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Ah, peace!

Posted on February 14, 2007 by HHaricot | 11 comments

Only temporary, SB and BB getting ready for bed, so more like distant screeching rather than the in ear variety! Those looking at the piccie below will realise we have had company!

So, we got up, did a bit of tidying [though as I did it, i wondered why, knowing that with 6 girls the floor would have secondary carpeting soon enough!] We made a dairy free choc/banana loaf and got that baking [yummy!] and SB started some more subtractions to get a handle on how to do it.

Merry and girls arrived, SB much put out that she had to finish sums – there were only 4!! But was told that Merry’s girls had all done their’s. So they finally got playing, and mostly dressed up and played being children??? Had lunch and then the playhouse was up so a roust about outside. I love the playhouse, and made by family of someone that posts on uk parents newsgroup. Now we just need a trellis and a white picket fence around it! Little House in the Big Garden. We need to get new swings for the tp frame though, as now the final swing has broken – sigh.

merry – bless her – had bought LOADS of craft things round for the girls to do. Including floam – which I have never used before, and has a weird texture. It was really good to use as a joiner between pompoms, polystyrene balls, mini sticks etc. so we did some playing, and then the children joined us [rofl!]

[ returning some time later, as have been playing lego with SB, then reading about mediaeval towns, and then she red me a blue red nose reader!]

not sure how quickly floam dries though! then merry had some foam sew it yourself bags. SB made a start, but then finished half of it when Merry and crew had gone home. She found it very simple to do, and was very happy with it. I think I am all linked out now!!!!

The cake was demolished to the last crumb, and more playing ensued. BB and Josie were cute, BB did NOT demonstrate well her potty trained ness! The other girls ran about, outside and in. The wendy house was a hit. We grown ups chatted and did some home ed discussion. Merry said that I had lots of craft kits!!!!!!

Very nice day, thankyou for visiting and having a wendy-house opening ceremony photo!