Category Archives: Stringbean’s HE

back to school

Posted on May 6, 2009 by | 4 comments

we went for a school taster session today for both our girls. they both did really well. obviously we stayed with them. they did some alphabet, copywork and money with a bit of history thrown in. they had some games as well. they looked particularly cute in the school uniform [which was compulsary]. the teacher also seemed v pleased with how each of them listened, behaved and applied themselves to the work. i was rather impressed by BB’s copywork as she hasn’t done any of that before!

but i am getting a bit ahead of myself. in the morning we went to michelle’s to say hello, gossip, drink tea and have lunch – not necessarily in that order. BB was v excited as she loves playing at their house – thinks it is v exciting! SB and C played labyrinth, and BB geomagged and basically kept herself interested. she was being mostly a sweetie today. As part of her brownie promise thingy, SB helped to tidy up after lunch. i am hoping to instill some domestic servitude into them before it is too late, and we are no longer allowed to do it!

in the afternoon we went to hitchin school museum for our taster session. ably led there by michelle with chloe leaning out of the back at precarious angles [ :lol: ] and were the first!! to arrive. so we got to look round the museum bit in piece and quiet, have the undivided attention of lots of ladies of a certain age dressed quasi victorian [as it was a victorian event].

Then the rest arrived and the event started, we were split into 2 groups and got to do the classroom bit first – which i have to say i think is a bonus! SB was so sweet, putting her arms around BB to make sure that they were put together, and generally being loving, adorable and an ace big sister. as it was, they split the mummies up and then asked the children to follow, and realised they had small families on one side, and large on the other, so re-divvied!! we all enjoyed the classroom, we had only a couple of unruly children! and we and the ‘teacher’ managed to ignore quite well for the majority as they were only unruly in that little child way. BB had 2 small melts – all sorted with a huggle. one for when she dipped her fingers in the ink… and the other when she struggled to write 1/3d on her slate, having written everything else v nicely. she did improve again, and as sand writing was next, she thought that was fab!! i thought the lady teacher had excellent teaching and class control skills, and i alternated between being the clever child [d for denarius] and then the dunce [not knowing queen victorias birthday!] so had to sit in the corner with dunce hat on! chris got caned though [SB initially worried, but we told her it would be an act, so she thought it was fab after all]

we went into joseph lancasters monitorial room next, and sb listened keenly [i know this, because she discussed it at bedtime!] and bb didn’t wriggle too much, and there was an interactive bit, a worksheet bit and a crawl through a pretend horizantal chimney bit [v much enjoyed!!] and we finished with SB spending her money to buy a slate, and BB bought a sticky springy lizard [a surprise as she had been much taken with the pop guns!] .

home for SB brownies and judo run, BB having a snuggle, a book read and then my little pony video [groan] and then tea infront of dr who.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, history, Out and About, pre reading, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

latin in the wild

Posted on April 29, 2009 by | 4 comments

today, for a change we did latin and science at an outdoor venue. was rather a good idea [not mine!] though i was a bit stressed as got stuck in an enormous traffic standstill, that seemed to have no cause when we got to the front. not quite as bad as katy, who had key problems. got there and met up with ‘the gang’ and the children played for ages in the play area v happily. then after being tempted with snack did classical studies with katy, acting out the trojan horse and one of the many greek dolphin myths. we had lunch – michelle had brought the pasta out with us, and v well received. and then we did science. i thought we should do something easy to get us thinking chemicals, so we thought of the ones we knew – hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and some of the ‘mixes’ H2O and CO2 and then discussed with piccies what makes up an atom and then a molecule. we made H2O and then ethane with sweets and cocktail sticks before talking a bit about solids, making some more molecules with molemod for the older ones, and face painting molecules for those that wished it. we began thinking of ‘valency’ [i know we are not supposed to use that word!!] this seems to be a good website btw.

the children put on a show of the greek dramas for us, and then we said good bye to those going to baby music, and the rest of us looked round the animal shelter part of it, oohing and ahing at the animals we liked [sb partic fond of the dog idea, and bb of guinea pigs] and more playing in the park with adults chatting. v grounding experience for mums like me needing a bit of grounding!

BB fell asleep near instantly being put in the car, and stayed asleep for a bit [which is why she is snuggled in my ‘whiskey hole’ [leg curl space for cat to snuggle in] at the moment as i type!! SB is reading. SB did the customary brownies and judo and then we had chips with a side order of daleks! we need to fix our conservatory and the chap came today with a quote. it is on the steep side. so to recover from one astronomical thing we went out and looked at some more with our telescope.

so tonight we looked at craters on the moon – even bb was impressed, a previous night she had been disappointed at the small size of saturn. she remained disappointed at the small size of saturn tonight, but it was so clear that the rest of us saw one of saturn’s moons!! so we were all v excited.

other than that, as a backwards catchup from me, we have done bits of recordering, piano playing and verbal/non verbal reasoning. SB has moved onto chapter 2 of her Junior English Book 1, but was distracted on looking up lotus flowers and read a book about nefret working for Cleopatra: Discover the World of Cleopatra Through the Diary of Her Handmaiden, Nefret and then about Captain Cook (Famous Lives) because the book was nearbye!

we have fimo-ed me some owls, bb a fish brooch and sb some beads for little nanny’s birthday, and also done some painting, seed tending and lots of games outside. we have also played a lot of games of Bohnanza and Castle Keep

good news that my mammogram normal. less good that my working hours seem to always increase rather than decrease. may help us pay for conservatory though!!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, daubing and making, General, geography, history, investigating, literacy, little languages, music, numeracy, online resources, Out and About, pre reading, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

A too much out-y week.

Posted on April 26, 2009 by | 5 comments

For a couple of years, the first Monday of the month has been a HE sports session, with sessions for younger and older kids, with the cut off age around 7-8. But the older session didn’t really get enough support anymore, so that has been dropped (just as SB has started doing them…..) . The re-jigged session now has Streetdance for older ones, followed by a younger ones sports session.

So it was off to that Monday morning. SB enjoyed the Streedance, BB enjoyed the sports, so that was good. SB has taken some stuf in her bag to potetially do after Streetdance, but mostly played outside the hall with some of the other kids, who she doesn’t really know so well as they ahve tending to do things aimed at the older kids. Not quite the normal attendees, so we didn’t have our usual playmates for a post sports park trip. I’d brought the bikes, so we went to the playground (busy as sunny and warm and the last day of school holidays by the looks of it for some kids) and then they cycled around the park paths. Where we discovered a little stream lake bit with some rather over fed ducks and geese who weren’t very interested some peanut butter sandwich leftovers.

Home, where SB did something of a booky nature (probably one of the VR or NVR books) before it was time to get ready and go out to Ballet. I managed to do passable pig tails in her hair.

Jax sent a fortuitous email that reminded me we were supposed to be going out on a trip the following day  ;-)

Tuesday

Was  a HE trip to Ecotech, which was advertised across multiple East Anglian groups and so popular they there is a second one this week.  It was a fair drive for us, but managed to get out pretty much on time (which was generous in terms of travel time). Combined with  quicker journey than expected we even had enough time to pick up a few bits in the next door supermarket before joining the group.

After an intro, we split up, out group did an activity building model wind turbines first.

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It was fun, though for an activity that they must run loads of times I felt it was not as well run as it could have been. Maybe he was a bit unsure of dealling with such an age range of children.

We tested and modified  our various versions. The kids got to choose how they arranged the blades, Our first one didn’t work at all. I was an even pattern, though not with them eqully spread.

 

 
After a bit of reorganising and it worked:

THere was also a bit of fiddling about with the angle of attack of the blades with one of the other turbines. Bottom line was that the number of blades didn’t seem to make a lot of difference.

After this we had lunch (we had packed lunch, but the cafe seemed fine a reasonably priced)

After lunch we headed out side. Those seven and older could go up the inside of the turbine tower – 305 steps (the only one the public can go up it seems).

Yup, up there 

SB went up, BB wanted me too stay, even though there were plenty of people she knew staying down, so I didn’t.

So whilst SB was up the tower, we pottered around the bottom, looked around the organic veg garden, where the kids all got Rhurbarb leaves, BB’s lasted about 10 mins before she had mangled it too much. Waved at those up in the tower, a sat in the shade in the Willow den.

Friends :-)PullEcotech Wind Turbine, SwaffhamRun away.Waves :-)IMG_9399 

They finished up with a session on recycling, but we had to head off to get back.

We made it nicely in time. BB has started doing a Little Dribblers football skills course at the sports centre, which she was very excited about (after years of traipsing around after SB she is pleased to be doing her own things now.. Once the instructor realised that she didn’t really have much idea what she was doing, and wasn’t very good at listening to what she was supposed to do she was fine. It’s a 4-8 yo class, so a couple were they same age I’d guess as her, though a bit more skilled football wise :-) She felt a little left out as they all their football kit, so that has been rectified via Ebay for next week. I do find it a bit of a shame that all these things get so gender differentiated so early. There was only one other girl there, probably 7-8 and obviously been playing football a bit. Can’t believe there aren’t more young girls who would like to have a go if offered. 

Anyway, SB was pleased as she finally got to go and have something from the sports centre cafe, which BB has been doing whilst SB has her swiming lesson. SB watched a bit of BB, and then did some Getty and Dubay handwriting practice.  Then me and BB waited whilst SB did her swimming. 

Got home to find H already home (unusual for a Tuesday) and glad that dinner just needed warming up to be ready.

Thursday.

Was back to Tots and Nots which haven’t attended for a while due to the possibility of Chicken pox and needing to be careful becuase of family gatherings before and at Easter.SB did a long piano practice before we left, which made us a bit late.  SB made a fold out thing showing how the Union Jack is made from the different flags for each country, BB made a shield and sword which she then used to run around chasing people with :roll: Both got to do some recorder lesson with Gina, SB did a little piano, then we had lunch there before heading off to another new thing.

A new ‘multisports’ session started up earlier in the year, the replace one that ran before for 8′s and up, seeing as the older sports has stopped on Monday, SB wanted to try this. Shame that it is right the other side of town, so we had to drive 20 mins to get there. SB enjoyed the session, played a bit of hockey, did some basketball skills, though we had to leave just as they were to start a game, to head off to another town for SB’s Gym class. (of course it’s back the way we had come…) 

Friday

Was planning on not going anywhere, but realised we had something to take back to the Red Cross. Which sadly has temporarily moved from a 10 minute drive to a 30 minute drive.  SB did some of her verbal reasoning book, and some music practice before we went out. We headed via a Citylink depot to pick up some Amazon parcels. Then over to the Red Cross. Since we were out and SB had been complaining of needing new trainers we went shoe shop hunting. Had feet measured in Clarks, of course in typical fashion they only had hardly any she liked in her size (one in fact, and that was one with the funny bit in the heel with a toy in which she doesn’t like). The sales assitant also seemed to have a problem accepting that she didn’t want anything too girly – most had too much pink or purple, or where excessivley ‘boy-ey’ red and black, shiney silver etc which she doesn’t like either. Can’t help thinking that a they need to arrange to have a better system – there have been a number of times we’ve not bought shoes there just becuase the available selection was so limited. Though I do see you can now order shoes on thre website to try on in store.

However, BB was pleased as she got some ‘Croc’ type foam Doodles there which she really loves.

Headed off home stopping in another town, where we found some reduced price trainers in Millets for SB, and some Sandals in the cheapy shoe shop, didn’t find any suitable Crocs though.

Home where they sat and read various books from the Amazon Order before dinner.

 

We’ve had  a few car conversations on the way to various places. SB heard and advert for the National Lottery, so we had a discussion about how that worked, why you were unlikley to win the jaclpot and what she would spend £6 million on. An expensive trampoline and a dog apparently to start with.  Also somehow got onto what happens to all the male chicks and chickens that aren’t needed.

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Posted in Books, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, Dance/drama, early maths skills, literacy, little languages, music, Out and About, photos, pre reading, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, video, writing

An oasis in a week of stress

Posted on April 22, 2009 by | 11 comments

i am not convinced that going to work is actually worth it always. and this week is one of those times. actually, thinking about it, this whole month. not that i can even talk about it let alone blog. but there. i am sure i am not the only worker that feels this though…

anyway, chris is going to blog yesterday, which was rather fun i believe. it did mean we didn’t quite do what was planned today as he and the girls were still exhausted [i am always exhausted] but instead had a lazier day. SB did piano practice whilst i was in bed, and had her head in a book when i came down. when i am feeling a bit blue, amazon tends to benefit [ :lol: ] and this time was no exception, and i have spent some of my birthday money on nice books and also Bohnanza! it came today, so we spent most of the morning playing it!

we did also do some hugging, cuddling read the next bit of SoTW, look at some other books with marco polo in them or explorers, The Picture History of Great Explorers , I Wonder Why Columbus Crossed the Ocean: And Other Questions About Explorers (I Wonder Why) ,The Story of Explorers and Exploration and also a map. [i think alison is right, i have too many books! ] Following up on recommendations on the blog ring, we also looked at a bit of Write Around the World: The Story of How and Why We Learned to Write which i also like very much and would recommend.

ANother birthday purchase for me was a Great Gizmos – Movie Motion Zoetrope kit. which BB was fascinated with for the hour or so i was reading the above books to SB. SB then also had a bit of a play. We are going to do some of our own! and then we had lunch :wink:

SB hasn’t done much maths for ages, so she took the book out to the pond, and some rubbed out ernests book as well. BB said she was ready for ‘plussing’ as she is now as good as SB :roll: and :lol: at the same time! actually she just about is ready for plussing, as long as each number is less than five so that she can stick her fingers up and see them together. SB needs to learn some times tables i think, to make the whole multiplication thing less laborious. she wanted to know how i knew 4 x 7 was 28 so quickly. i told her, like number bonds, you use it enough and you know it [unless you are a maths genius and just know it anyway]

BB had had enough plussing, and wanted her face painting, so found the paints and she chose a dalmation, except every spot had to be the same size, but a different colour and not black, so actually she was just spotty!! she painted my feet with cheaper face paints. i have this book Face Painting (Usborne Activity) since i have no artistry. Speaking of lack of artistry i found all the ‘special’ paintbrushes had obviously been used on a previous occasion and not washed out. what is worse, they have glitter particles and glue – aargh! i think i need a mummy only shelf!

we then got out the paddling pool, filled it with water and had it comedown the climbing frame slide and into the pool. what fabulous fun. what a perfect way to spend a summery day hey! [oh to be that age again too] so we all giggled, laughed and enjoyed the day. SB went off to brownies [at the 'big house' this week to look at the lambs and various other animals] and then judo – which she loves. BB was ‘xhausted and watched my little pony video [argh] and magic school bus – not so bad – and then fell asleep. SB on return watched Little House On The Prairie – Series 2 [DVD] [1975] [which frequently makes me cry]. i guess we are pretty much done! chris read George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt to SB for bed time, and now, having had a lovely sunny weathered, sunny mood day, it is apprentice time.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, geography, history, investigating, music, numeracy, science, Stringbean's HE

the gloriously sunny weekend

Posted on April 20, 2009 by | 3 comments

well, i got up gloriously early and was up and at’em. thing is, i am not sure i can remember much of yesterday!

ermm, i know SB did some piano practice! oh, and i made some ‘stone age’ tabards out of fake fur material for the girls – yay, the sewing machine worked!! umm. oh yes, we sowed lots of seeds – sweetcorn native american [for its blue and yellow colouring] squash festival, pumpkin mars and a golden courgette. also climbing bean cobra and runner beans lady di and sunset. pea misty. so that was quite a lot of things!! we read some french, as haven’t done much there for ages Les Amis De Berthe and built on that with a bit of conversation and description. also looked at some stone age books Prehistoric Peoples (Exploring History) and i think just generally played in the sun. OOOH I remember!! we went easter egg hunting at ‘the big house’ [which is v lovely!] BB cycled there and back as she is ace now at cycling. she can also get herself going now. she was enjoying skidding on the gravel there, and did come off, unfortunately. the other thing we did was bribe the girls 1p for every dandelion flower they picked. this is chris’s idea to cut down on the seeds floating about. i think 10p per plant with some root might have been a better bet. this has cost us about a fiver so far!! SB did some VR [has finished the NVR book]

anyway, so to today. another fabulously warm day!! we started with porridge – always a good start, and then went out to play, filling up the bird seed feeders, and immediately getting a rush of birds. then BB wanted to paint her dinosaur volcano – the dinodorium that she hasn’t done for ages, so excavated that, and SB did some painting by numbers. Striking the HE iron as it has been quite cool for a while :blush: i read some The Story Of the World – the Middle Ages V 2 . this was about marco polo, and both SB and BB were quite enthusiastic about it, so i read around with marco polo and The Picture History of Great Explorers . both v happy. we did a bit more french with Space Postman/Le Facteur Spatial (I Can Read French) , and then put up the play tent, and chris got out his spacepacker, so a fair bit of tenting and general play went on. i finished my book Postmortem (Dr Kay Scarpetta) . actually will recommend this one The Other Queen , that i read whilst away, and also this one Henry: Virtuous Prince, but i left this one The Wise Woman in the travelodge as disliked intensly – and gave me nightmares and an unsettled feeling which is no good if there is no husband to cuddle!! [i think the amazon reviewers are in agreement!]

Anyway, it being a clear evening, we finished off the evening looking at the stars – and in particular saturn through the telescope. BB was decidedly underwhelmed by the size of it!! that is 4 year olds for you!! prior to that BB and i did jigsaws whilst SB read Your Head (See Inside), and See Inside: The World of Dinosaurs (Usborne Flap Books) [obviously one of BB's books!!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, gardening, General, geography, history, language, literacy, little languages, music, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

Easter

Posted on April 19, 2009 by | 7 comments

i guess i should blog! i am just not feeling v bloggy, and actually, there has been scarcely any time. it is VERY unusual for us not to blog for 2 weeks though!!
So, what did we do after the party?? well, i worked, and worked and worked! latin etc happened without me. chris did the optics stuff. it was a much smaller group as merry’s lots were lurgied, and the manor borns were getting ready to celebrate marcus’s 50-2! i shouldn’t laugh, as the next day i celebrated my 40th. my parents had arrived for easter, and we had a lovely meal and thought 40 not soooo bad!! And as a special 40th birthday present i got a telescope – only on loan!! but i did see saturn!! [v happy] and also the moon. my arents also very impressed with telescope, as it is enormous.

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hordes of family started arriving on the friday, as had my sister and family and little nanny staying as well. children all got on well as usual, i finished just in time the hand made easter eggs, easter cake etc etc. was a lovely easter. little nanny getting v much frailer, and my heart goes out to her being so brave. i declined her help in the kitchen, she got to sit down and chat. after so many years of being chief bottlewasher, kitchen skivvy and all round enabler, i told her the baton had passed on! she nearly didn’t come, thinking she wasn’t quite up to it, but i think she was happy. i had the kids play games in front of her when she wasn’t up to joining in – The Settlers of Catan (New Edition) being a firm favourite, but also the train game – Ticket to Ride – Nordic Countries. and then when she was we played rummy and donkey. my B-I-L has decided he loves playing games when here, so that is fab, and we had a go at settlers and at Puerto Rico

then i went back to work again after easter, and then off to a conference in swansea, whilst the girls went to chris’s parents so he could do stuff.

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Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, investigating, language, little languages, music, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, vivien

The Birthday Party

Posted on April 5, 2009 by | 12 comments

I would like to start by thanking merry for inventing muddlepuddle and muddlepuddle camps and the blogring, and allowing me to meet the people who have become friends over the years. and then thank them for coming to mine and Kirsty’s joint birthday party this weekend, being lovely and giving me a really lovely birthday to remember. Also surprising me with a fab birthday cake and Race for the Galaxy , expansion and also Agricola animals!! thankyou v much for all the thought and love for the initiators, givers and organisers . i am indeed much touched. And whilst i am doing and oscar speech, i would also very much like to thank Kirsty and James for coming early and doing lots of helpful hoovering and sorting activities! [and to chris of course!]

So, sat morning dawned, and we grownups did final sorting, some baking and then guests arrived – merry and sarah first and then soon a houseful, so we gave up on final jobs! the girls and all their friends got excited running about outside. we grownups had cups of tea and then worked our way to the odd glass of wine. i had a lovely time chatting with friends, watching the kids having such fun. lots of lovely food arrived. more lovely friends and thankyou so much for everyone that came! [everyone expected arrived! and i was v glad to see everyone, and sorry for those that couldn't make it, who were missed]. kirsty and I were both surprised with an enormous and fabulous birthday cake and also presents which weren’t expected either but were very much appreciated for the surprise, love and thought that went into them.

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Day turned into evening and various friends left, but loads stayed [and we found room for all of them!] and kids carried on playing. BB was excited to share a room with r and most of the bigger kids all shared a room, and stayed up later than us adults, with 2 kids staying up all night!! they all woke at 6.30 anyway – groan! but i fell back asleep when they took their noise downstairs! i eventually got up, and we had a lazy day with people peeling off home, with the portico’s last to leave [and lucky to have dry children!].

SO we have had a lazt afternoon, playing games, cracking open SB’s geode – which she really enjoyed, and does have a sparkly centre – and also then watching HP and the order of the phoenix, with SB falling asleep on me – which was lovely. BB had fallen asleep and woken up again, so still with us!!

SO a fab weekend, thanks all. makes nearly turning 40 all that more bearable!

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Posted in art and crafts, General, socialisation

colourbox

Posted on April 2, 2009 by | 3 comments

we had another fab day today, nipping on a latinetc field trip [ :lol: ] to colourbox [as arranged by our field trip organiser] despite dire warnings re parking, there actually was loads. I did park in the wrong place [the place google suggested!] but they said it was OK [i think they thought i was seeing a truancy team] and we walked round in fab sunlight to struggle a bit to actually find the venue – though succeeded!

really enjoyed it [sorting flickr photos prob next week!] as did the girls. they both enjoyed the dark maze best! we started in a room with white spotlights that then changed to the primary light colours and these overlapped etc. I think the kids much to fascinated with shadows to be overwhelmingly bothered re light blends, but we tried! anyway, the loved it, particularly lobbing penguins around. we then moved to the dark maze. michelle and i tried to get through it first before the kids with torches, and nearly succeeded. it was absolutely entirely pitch black, and i did enjoy it. the kids also raced through, and bb was v proud when she went through on her own without torch!

then into the white room, and played with light boxes and prisms – my fav! making rainbows, splitting light and then bouncing it around mirrors and trying to join it back up. we adults had endless fun. to be fair the kids did too, before going back to dark maze to play a wild ghost game. def recommend it, and apparently we get a video too!

everyone came back to ours, which was lovely. lots of playing in the garden [must remove pirate ship before weekend!] and adult chatting. SB and chloe cleaned the garden furniture, and then in true apprentice style [DOH! I missed it tonight!!] realised they hadn’t agreed a price structure in advance. cleverly they tried to get chris to sign without reading a document – but failed, canvassed adults on the appropriate price, and i agreed to pay them double what i thought the job was worth, and half what they thought! a good lesson!! eventually just kirsty and kids who are staying over. Kirsty laughed at me lots as i cleaned [and moaned about it!] the kitchen cabinets and then sorted and cleaned the pantry. i really am not a cleaner. when i do it, i go all mazportico, and concentrate on a minutiae rather than a global pic too!! well, you have all seen my house [i think!] so i guess you are not expecting miracles!!

SB had brownies then judo and BB, m and a all did some fossils with air drying clay [i shew them my fossil collection!!] v late bedtimes, and i have made a v plain and simple veggie pasta bake for the weekend

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, daubing and making, General, investigating, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

space, the final frontier…

Posted on March 31, 2009 by | 2 comments

we went to Leicester space centre today to have a look around. the journey wasn’t too bad, and loads of parking. what’s more we could swap our tickets into a year pass and therefore go back again! We ate at their tiny cafe -rather lovely broccoli soup. Going in i was a bit nervous of the number of school parties, but they were easily absorbed. we loved it! there were lots of interactive bits big displays and sound bite info – so easily accessible for SB and BB. I loved the visuals in the planets bit. SB says she loved it all, and BB loved the shop!! the becoming an astronaut bit was good, and the job i was given was… medic!! rofl. We all enjoyed the star show visuals [though def aimed for key stage 2 rather than me!] and enjoyed seeing the rockets and satellites. It was a v visual museum that encouraged exploration and talking about things, and we are keen to go back.

leaving on the later side to get back, we weren’t sure that we would make it to SB’s swimming. luckilly we were just a few moments late, and got to see how much she has improved since I last went. her strokes are all strong and recognisable now, though the butterfly is a bit shaky [i never ever got the hang of it] and her diving was more of a jump/fall! but most impressed.

so finally back home, and i got the choc eggs out to add another layer [they apparently need 4 for best effect] and girls are alternating milk/white [BB] and plain/white [SB]. BB had a few books read, and then we did an eino kit on optics. might need more sun for the pinhole effect!

finally some sylvanians and bed in disgrace for sb when i found the alphabet written in pencil on marble fireplace. TBH wasn’t aware she could write the alphabet out. BB helped me clean, and squirted window cleaner in my eye. i appear to still be able to see.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, Cooking, daubing and making, General, investigating, Out and About, SB-PE, science, Stringbean's HE

not my blog post!

Posted on March 24, 2009 by | 8 comments

the builder #1 came and looked at the conservatory, and suggested starting again for 7k. the job too much of a nightmare otherwise. hmm, chris to ring listed buildings and discuss! its not as if the conservatory is partic grand is it. the vine obviously would be saved!!
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library day for the girls. I believe they then went into town to get brazils to chocolate, and there were none at all!! didn’t do the banking thing either.
SB did another bit of chapter 1 galore park Junior Science Book 1 and some piano practice. both girls apparently played beautifully for ages, so got to learn that playing beautifully = less parental interferance!

SB swimming lesson. we had lots of chats around various things. i love listening to SB and how she thinks an what interests her from what she has read or listened too. she was telling me all about the burghers of calais that she has listen to on our island story [well, i am fairly sure that is what it is] and it is clear she was swung by the heroism angle!

i had migraine, but did read to BB and we all watched the first of the 2 parter where Rose goes. BB ecstatic over both cybermen and daleks in one episode! mind you, she also said how good it was that not many people had died. i suspect more might in the next episode!! she did cuddle me lots tho.

Chris and SB play long game of rummikub. SB was rather happy to win.

I think the d is playing up on my laptop, and i don’t get tomorrow off work either. work sucks atm. getting close to battlestar galactica finale. BSG has helped me get through some v crappy work times!

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