Category Archives: numeracy

Where is that seller of peace and quiet when you need him?

I am in desperate need of some, as is Chris.

both girls gave us an appalling evening, and the night was made perfect by Sb doing a very uncharacteristic wee in our bed – mostly over Chris! So we have started the day in sleep-debt mode. the girls, being also short of sleep have been particularly loud.

Another bad start to the day was that the library is shut, so no picking up library books – cue an inordinate amount of wailing!

So we begin, with a mad dash into town and then sight tests for 3 – just under 2 hours worth!! Actually both girls were very good. SB doesn’t need glasses, but was obviously under the inpression that the optometrist was deaf, as she bellowed out the letters. i shew particularly good coordination by bf BB through part of my test! Outcome is that my eyes minimally worsened, so can keep present specs, though they are showing quite a bit of scratching [that will be keeping them then!]. Chris is getting old – as starting to be borderline for reading glasses – eek! While i had my test, SB drew a lovely picture of a house with our 2 cats, and wrote miaow 2ce. once forwards, and once in true mirror writing. Again she can’t tell the difference??

Nipped round town to get some more paints, and a god-awful photo to go in passport application [only lost the thing in sept, and had no driving licence since may!] And shed loads of apricots and sultanas for the morrocan wotsit I have agreed to cook at Melrose. I’ll have to whizzle them up at home and stuff in the fridge.

Home for lunch. SB still doing the addition pages of Singapore maths 1a. We read a couple of red nose readers, and then planted an avocado stone and some lemon pips. The conservatory was gloriously hot, so that will help the aubergines. about 2/3 germinated at best. The broad beans have romped whilst i wasn’t looking and outgrown propagator, and some blackening of tips, so fingers crossed for survival!

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oh well! Chris and SB went to the bottle bank with all our glass – nicely following on from today’s webland extravaganza, where she was most interested in the recycle bit. She seems to think if we had zips we could turn our plastic into jumpers though – hmm!

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BB has a bit of a love affair with baby dolls at the moment, as is being quite gorgeous with the loving.

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She is also getting more and more interested in ‘making marks with purpose!’

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When they returned from the recycling bank, SB wanted a grape feast, so we harvested the last of the grapes, sat in the rather lovely conservatory and I read her 2 more just so stories. We both really love these, and the language just rolls off the tongue [mellifluous!].

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BB and Chris filled up the bird feeders, and had a bit of a troll around the garden. We haven’t got the pond netting up, so had a bit of a panic about that! MUST DO! I met someone just last week who lost her firstborn to a pond accident. So no excuses hey.

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It was jolly cold out, so we have all warmed up with prolonged dance mat excercises! They are great fun. Even BB thinks they are great – in fact it was her who insisted it was got out. BB and SB have played together a fair bit today as well – lots of chase and noisy games, lovely to see. I was a bit worried about there being a large age gap, but they both seem to love each other greatly anyway.

As the evening has gone on, the decibel level has ramped up, and the silliness quotient, so Chris and I both frazzled now. they are both down from their bath, and it sounds like we have a schoolfull. I need to make a sponge, and I might try a banana and walnut loaf for melrose [sorry Katy!

giving up on baking due to unruly – or at least unsleepy little ones.

Have however looked at romans and vision!

Vegan cakes and alum crystals

luckilly not in the same mixing bowls. oh, and by the way, I have popped the Tate Modern photos on the blog and on flickr

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SB and BB did the library crafts thing with Chris in the morning, and made hearts, the theme was valentines’s day. Unfortunately, they left the bookbag and new books there – cue much wailing, and only realised after library shut. So must go fetch tomorrow. luckilly the mudpud book bag is somewhat distinctive! Anyway, before lunch she whipped through 4 pages of explode the code without any difficulties [though I had to explain what a mutt was], and we went on a read a red nose reader, and the first of the letts active readers ‘ratman and the big cat’.

Whilst there, she ‘buyed’ a my little ponies video, we had a chat as she noticed I ‘bought’ so we might not hear buyed much longer. We then watched it. It was a little bit frightening TBH, and a very odd storyline [even if I was only half watching, with the guardian in the other hand!] about stolen shadows.

We were both relieved when it finished – though possibly different reasons! And decided to make carrot cake. No carrots – so chris sent out, and instead we started a crystal from tescos testtube crystals kit. Nice simple kit, and for just under ?3. Aluminium, so we had a good discussion about safety, washing hands etc etc before starting, and mixed it all well. the ‘stones’ appear to be plastic, and you have to sandpaper them to key them. The main problem though, si that they don’t sink!!! Not sure how this experiment is going to work with floating stones! Especially since we have one on string – which is also floating on the surface. If I bought the kit again, I think I would use garden stones instead. Interestingly, they suggest you put in food colouring to make the crytals cool colours. Obviously haven’t done that this time, but will def go for it another time. Anyway, thats 2 different tescos testtubes that are fun. Have 1 more to try.

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Carrot man returned [oh, BB is asleep during this btw!] and we made an adapted recipe vegan carrot cake - hopefully it will be fine. one for Melrose, and one for saturday. [ps, they are being frozen, so won't be stale] Do any of the children other than mine like carrot cake? Otherwise can make a sponge too for sat. Then cakes for children and adults.

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We also did lots of mental subtraction and addition. though the sums SB gives me are sometimes quite unusual – in the dame slap style! Started the origami kit she got at the tate modern, neede Chris’s assistance with the instructions though!

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SB then did some starfall while I played with BB. Mostly peekaboo and pop-up animals. BB most put out though when got left behind and SB and Chris went to her swimming lesson. i made a curry [incredible mild] for tea. BB and I did more messing about together. It is nice to be able to give her undiluted attention. SB is getting better at letting me do this without taking over, but I suffer from parent-not-at-home-enough-guilt when we do it. Silly really, as SB gets all that time when BB asleep to herself.

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This evening we have read a couple of just so stories, and about henry the 8th, Mary and edward in the tudors -history of britain. SB dissappointed that didn’t get to elizabeth, so will read that when she has finished her bath.

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Tears before bedtime

mine! I read SB the boudicca britannia story and cried over them dying. I obviously need a strong dose of sunshine. Or something.

before that she Joe the dragoned – tangrams and spellcatcher. We also had a look at Google Earth

SB now being all waily in the bath – perhaps my blues are catching.

She had a great day at nursery. BB is also shouting – such a rarry girl these days.

Back to Wednesday

We had rather a good day. We did some tidying, and my mother arrived to stay over night. SB and BB very excited!!

Sb even read to mum – good on her! And did 6 pages of singapore maths with her. So felt we had shown education. Mostly we were playing. We had a woolly mammoth wooden skeleton thing to build, so me and SB had fun doing that. She played lots of games with my mum – the tube joining game, build a beetle, shape snap, jigsaws. Also wrapped up a present and did a couple of pictures. In fact was altogether charming and gorgeous!

Mum had been disappointed in the dance mat she got SB for christmas, so bought one from ELC in the sale. they had a great time doing the free dance together! BB kept switching it off mind you.

When my mum started to look like being in the wind tunnel was a bit much, I settled SB down with cbeebies to navigate around, and BB got a lookin – she had been trying hard for a while! Finally all settling down to play with lego. finished with some just so stories and others at bedtime. The Britannia book is really good – thanks Merry.

Nice lazy day and chat. I think we got away with mum not going into the room with xmas tree – but hope chris tidies it away before barbara comes! After beanies went to bed, we chatted family tree, and managed to work away at the Hellowell/Rushworth side a bit. Shame they seem to be the most popular surnames in Halifax, and the census writers had no idea on spelling! One poor chap is variously linneus, lyneus, lennis and lewis!! And when you add to this that part of the families prediliction for being unwed, going into service and being brought up by siblings etc…[no wonder it is proving difficult].

I think I maybe using it to sublimate my present disatisfaction with my life.

Mum went to my Nan’s on thursday [little Nanny], but forgot to take the triwalker, so they popped in yesterday while I was at work. In the eve, SB had ballet and did some explode the code as we have been a bit slow in that this week.

Blogging has pointed out the serious lack of muzzy and piano too!! Also history of the world. hmmmm

Manic Monday

Don’t know what the beans did at the start of the day, except that it did include some Singapore maths. They then went intio the city to have lunch [apparently a very nice pizza!] and try and find BB some shoes now she is walking. SB was very disappointed that her feet haven”t grown though.

When I joined them, they had so far failed to do this, as needed to go to the other clarkes across the city. So I had the pleasure of being there when BB got her first shoes – very nice. She soon got into tramping around with them, and was stunningly cute as she kept trying to make a break for it. For exceptionally good value, we Got SB a pair of princess slippers for ?2. Should have bought loads and ebayed them for ?5!

We then failed to decided what to buy with the Johns Lewis vouchers quite spectacularly – I hate shopping really. Shops should have comfy sitting down and thinking places, not feeling all hemmed in. SO vouchers are still intact.

Came home and had a very healthy chips for tea – oops. My amazon order had arrived – which ncluded the just so stories and britannia for Merry’s curriculum. We have already caught up on the britannia. SB thinks it is great doing British myths and legends – partuicularly as it kicked off with a reference to the trojan war. Also started the Just So which she rather enjoyed. SB cbeebied whilst BB tried on her shoes again and clumped around the house.

for her bed time story, SB read me most of the M and S enormous turnip book . She sounded out the long words, and I helped with some of the blends. She was great! So she got a new story cd – fairytales read by bernard cribbens.

I have belatedly watched child of our time – and not worried for once, as I think SB and BB do have a close bond. Folloed on with the first installment of Elizabeth.

Now for the first installment of sleep here! [btw, both beans went to sleep much more easily tonight]

the weekend

actually, am feeling simmering at the moment, so blog should cool me down. Having spent 45 mins or so putting SB to bed, 15 mins later I spend 30 mins or so failing to put BB to bed. I just can’t bear my whole evening being taken up by getting children to sleep. [or not]. Have unceremoniously handed BB to Chris. She has – however – taken 4 oz from a bottle for me, so not all doom and gloom.

So to the weekend, lets see what I can remember? on the overtly educational, we have done explode the code – SB happy to do it, and races through the pages, so not bad. She has done loads of webland, going forwards and backwards through the ‘editions’ that we have. When we started with webland, I used to sit beside her reminding her to listen to the stories to do the games, where as now she flicks all over the place with great confidence. She also seems to remember a lot of it now. on the IT front, there was a fair bit of cbeebies as well – particularly the stories.

Seed sowing, and discussions around that. [and counting – she was particularly taken when I clumped the broad beans in multiples of 5 so I could add them up more quickly than she could count them, and I saw her later on having a go with this idea.] SB read some of the easier books to me. She is getting confident to try and sound out longer words – though not very good at blends. We have gone swimming, read a number of books – the theme has been loosely underwater/seas or the poles. So looked at the globe, a book on the poles, and her underwater jigsaw books. taking in finding nemo characters!

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A great hit of the weekend has been a buy from ebay – a snappit build a donkey and cart set. It was supposed to be part of her birthday present, but why not spread things out. She has put it together and taken it apart numerous times over the weekend – initially using the picture to get things right, and then just remembering.

a snappit make a model of donkey and trap - reusable

We have also done lots of drawing – and played around with chalks on dark card as well today. She has written bits to go with all her pictures – the last even spelled by herself – lov SB to Chris [asked me about the H] lots ov lov [she remembered love doesn't have an u anyway!] We have been having a chat on and off about silent letters – like w in write. She had remembered k in knee from a discussion over a month ago.

Our Jenga -alike has been used to make forts, castles and patterns, and she has spent a lot of time with the dress up flower fairies, making stories for them to act along to.

A lot of the time SB has been quite self-contained, so that I have had a lot of 1 to 1 time with BB. She is being giggly and silly at the mo – so quite a laugh! Though she does try and feed me all sorts of rubbish as we go along – plastic pigs were todays menu, and specks off the carpet – lovely! She has her lower molar on the left rhough, and the upper one is nearly though. She is always keen to play with SB, and I loved watching SB try to feed her tea. It seems that although there is quite an age difference, they do get a lot out of each others company.

No doubt I’ve missed lots of stuff out. It seems that mostly I have juggled 2 children’s needs fairly well – for a change! That we have done more educational things than I though whilst having fun. They do just slip in don’t they!

Next week we reall must take down the Christmas tree, and tidy SB’s bedroom before Barbara visits.

Oh, and I have calmed down. It is past 10, and my evening will start with Sir Robert Winston [I wonder if BB is asleep?]

Edited to add: AH, flickring and I have rememerbed what I had forgotton – my friend Katrien , who used to live in Ely with her family, popped in on Saturday, as they are moving their final things – to Belgium. Somewhere nice for us to visit one day! And I have promised SB a barge holiday one day – like angelina ballerina. She does wish she had the box set of the books…

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Dare I go to bed…….

BB is alseep at last I don’t want to disturb her.
Yes I know I should have been in bed but I’m not. Though Helen was in bed at 7.30pm and asleep before the girls – some sort of first I think. Butterbean enterntained me this evening by not wanting to go to sleep…… :roll:

Left her having a feed with Helen while I put SB to bed, hoping she would drop off . But she was as perky as, well, a very perky thing afterwards so I took her off downstairs got coffee and blobbed on front of TV while trying to convince her to sleep. She dropped off ok after a fuss, but wouldn’t settle into a proper sleep, but whinged if just put down to potter about. been in and out of sleep a few times, even ahd a bit of milk from a bottle, had another feed from Helen, fell asleep but then woken by SB wailing on the landing becuase she had woken up. But has finally been asleep on the sofa near me for the last 30 -40 mins or so. so I haven’t done the tidying I needed to do (playroom and kitchen a disaster zone), haven’t gone to bed as early as I intended, etc. etc. – But I do need my post child-gone-to-sleep time before bed. Lay bets now on the first waking time of BB, how long I can put up with the woailing before I crack – or Helen does.

Enough of that, a quick summary of today, then I am off to bed. SB was up with me first so she sat and watched some Milkshake on Channel 5, packed Helen off to work which was a bit sad. We slipped into a different routine really and I was quite happy with us both being here, so missed her once she had gone and felt a bit lost as I’d sort of forgotten how we did stuff.

So drunk tea and sat with SB for bit while I woke up properly. Then breakfast. BB then woke up once we had had breakfast so got her up, and gave her breakfast whilst read bit to SB, then she did some drawing, experimented with different effects with crayons, some Hama-ing:

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BB came up with a new game with Hama beads – popped them in her mouth then looked at you expectantly, you put your hand out and she spits it out into you hand she thought this was great fun. so we pottered like this for a couple of hours, whilst I looked for afew different recipes to cook and made a veg list. WQe were then goign to take the Beanmobile (aka tandem and trailer) up to the farm shop but BB decides that 2 hours was enough and she needed some more sleep – so deferred that until the afternoon.

Did a bit of Maths 1A weekly revision book, it was about spotting, working out patterns of numbers going up and down. bit slow to start with, but was better by the end.

bit vague after that, lunch happened, Helen came home, some more Explode the Code got done , me and SB did the veg run – they were technically closed as they were putting a new shel unit thing, but he let me in and I got most things, there was some Cbeebies website going on, some rather nice saucepans came (Ebay of course…) – a couple of medium largish ones, decided that all we need for now is a proper steamer as that is how lots of the veg get cooked (or stir fryed) I took too long cooking the rather tasty dinner so BB fell asleep before tea (probably leading to the problems later….)

Time for my bed I think……

A game of 2 halves

I know, I’ve used the title before, but it was.

had a migraine on waking – actually almost certainly stress induced about returning to work – wondering what the chaos will be ike, and the penalty for being away.

So, CHris took beanies for a swim while i took the meds and slept it off. At least it worked! on returning, I could hear Chris doing the ulysses story, and perhaps a few fairy tales as well.

So i got up at lunch time full of resolve! So we had a fun afternoon. In no order, we face painted - rofl! me as Im not quite sure by SB, and her as a piggie and CHris as a bunny [mpre rofl] by me!daddy rabbit!piggies go oink oink

did some drawing and colouring and sticking. Read various story books, played with the fuzzy felt faces, did 4 pages of explode the code [in under 10 mins as allowed her to choose which writing bits to do, but she had to do all the rest - she did half the writing]

fuzzy felt madness

She then told us her present best friend at nursery lives in this village. Now I’m not sure exactly how best friends they really are, as you don’t hear loads about her like we did about rosheen in leeds, but… we have decided to see if her mother would allow her to come to tea after nursery one day, or around to play – so the mum can meet us, or mett at the park etc. Seems a logical place to try for a village friend who she can meet up with perhaps when stops nursery. May well not work out as time so short, but worth a try. SB doesn’t really want to stop nursery, so we may well keep her there until Easter [last possible] – particularly if cements some sort of local friendship.

So SB then wrote a letter to the girls asking her if she would want to come and play, and we will write a more detailed one for the parents. if i’d have known they were local, I’d have made an effort to say hello at the nativity.

over tea SB keen to do some mental maths as well, so we were exploring the concept of adding in tens for the first time, as she seems to be getting there with her understanding of tens and units. Otherwise I told her a few stories and then she chose some cbeebies rather than playing a game, having tidyed p without any fuss. We had a lovely and easy bedtime, both are currently asleep, so Iwill watch the videoed child of our time. Missed the stephen poliakoff thing though as forgot about it – grr.

BB as pootled about quite happilly today, highlights are always the ramming things into the wrong holes with increased frustration until she puts them in the hatch – in fact she would go for this option first if my hand wasn’t there! A bit of drawing at the same time as SB – though a fair bit of crayon chewing too. She loves the mini keyboard toy, and is very certain of which buttons noise she likes the best. She also makes a special sound for whiskey cat – if i was truly besotted I would say she is saying whiskey, SHe isn’t but…

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Can’t find id card for tomorrow, which includes the carpark chip. Unless i find it, I will have to pay ?10 in the visitors carpark!!!!!!! [over 4 hours you see] they prefer you to park and ride, and i might do that if actually get out of the house early enough = always a problem!

Not so bad in the end.

Just a few moments of teeth grinding [see both posts below]!!

Started well [after a poor show of a night, but not our worst] with Chris bringing me breakfast in bed – croissants in fact!

i got up, after reading the guardian magazine cover to cover, and pluged into reading Sb archeologists dig for clues, and persephone again from usborne’s greek myths. We read this earlier in the week, and she got the night and day stuff with the globe, but had to be reminded of seasons. Today she did both straight off after the story. We agreed that the persephone one sounds nice, but not so nice for persephone!

meanwhile BB was quite happily playing with the maths cubes, bringing them to me to be joind up, and having some incomprehensible sprinkle and collect game! So SB wanted them, and did a bit of number bonds on them, so we got out the singapore maths… We are supposedly slipping into the routine slowly, and this bit of singapore maths 1a doesn’t challenge her at all, the whole idea is she whps through it, feeling very good and gets the hang of doing it without it being a struggle. She has always liked match and sort books, and what we do here is far less complicated than the mental/verbal maths she likes to play all the rest of the time. sigh. Oh well, BB was pottering with the aeroplane from the porticos, so SB learnt a new word – aviatrix. [my father wnated me to be called Amy, but veto'd by my mother!]

Sp after lunch, I thought I would rescue the day while BB was asleep by making the much wanted lemon curd. After all, Jan promised home made stuff tastes nicer, and not lemon crud at all. She is right -n my opinion. Will get SB to try eating it for breakfast!

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However, as I needed to regroup, she and chris went outside and ended up making lovely sandcastles and decorating them with things from the garden.

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I got BB up and had a play with her. BB is finally starting to follow a pointed finger now to find things, so we were sort of playing this game. When SB came in and helped we changed tack!! She is so vocal, and very easy to understand, even if her only word is OOK – shouted, and a pointed finger if you are in doubt what to OOK at. Child of our time is on this evening, and I will watch. Reminding me to find the wooden bricks again for building with.

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Finally SB and I did something easily without a fuss! We told stories around her hama glow in the darks in the pantry – taking it in turns to make up alien stories. She then did a lovely sticker picture for me, and wrote on the back of it. I think for us, not doing much of the writing int he workbooks, and just doing it as required outside of them is working well. It means she is happy to do the explode the code, and will sometimes volunteer the writing, and is happy to write SB mummy and daddy [even if mummy had no y]. Her pen holding skills have always seemed a little behind her peers, and since she can do this much, i can’t see any reason to try and push her forward until ready.

As a final regroup. we made from the usborne fairy cookbook mini fairy slices – well, nothing like when I had finsihed adapting! but rolled out puff pastry with pizza type top. Yummy though. SB and BB both hoovered up all the spare ingredients – mozarella, frozen peas and sweetcorn, and the ever popular olives. i have promised SB that I will have a recipe pages bit on this blog.

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They are now in the bath, and we will again try a cot experience early as poss for BB. might work one day.

oh, and we finished off with a bit of the yoga DVD as well. Sb quite likes the salute to the sun. I can’t weightbear on broken arm yet.

Bloody hell

had just tapped out ranty post, and mouse did that going back a page thing, and I have lost it!!!!

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

won’t bother doing it again suffice it to say, the lemon curd making has tested my patience, and now it appears she doesn’t like it [when it is all done] as it is too sweet!! oh, and it was half the sugar – nicely mixed with the wet floor from previous spill, and had to again work out how much gone.

Other head banging moments are 7+3. took about 30 mins of sulking and wailing as I said 15 and 13 and 9 were wrong! After calming down she then did 6 more pages singapore maths 1A unprompted [cos I had had enough!]

I think this is running out of time syndrome again