well, that was the home ed lesson for today. quite a good one really!
it was a latinetc today, without the puddlegirls though. SO we had combined latin and games were played there, and the littlies did winter french – drawing pictures and then discussing what you could see in french. both language sessions were enjoyed by my respective daughters!
for the science bit today, I had loan of a resuscibaby from c’s badgers. so we did that. the younger group were v attentive to how to do it, and all had 2 goes each at remembering – the most vital bit for them being call for help! i wouldn’t really want to be in the position of them or no-one [but research shows really only 11+ or 13+ have the strength to actually do cpr on an adult], but I think learning about it, and coming back to it every so often is important. The older group were WAY more dramatic. for a minute I thought I was Merry asking them to act out a scene from casualty!! once I had persuaded a toning down of drama, we got on with it, and each of them successfully did cpr at least once, and practiced finding landmarks on each other – though we did A LOT of discussion on how you can’t actually do it for real on someone unless they need it! We did all the safety, calling for help, defibrillators and associated stuff. SO I think that was worth doing, and they did it well – all be it with ‘style’!
the other half of the science session was starting on bones. [thanks again sarah!] and we drew our own hand bones using an xray to model. we named and chatted about the different bones, and how we got our hand mvts. They decided not to label in chalk, so here are websites with the ‘real names’, so they can be labelled at home. Next time we are going to do the bone in vinegar thing, so will need LOTS of vinegar/ jam jars and chicken legs…
of course, a friend currently residing in the states had to go for a bit of one-upmanship, and their hE involved looking at strawberry DNA! luckilly she put out the ‘recipe’
1. Pulverize strawberries down to goo in a blender.
2. Mix 25ml strawberry goo with 50ml of water.
3. Add a pinch of salt.
4. Centrifuge for 60 seconds.
5. Strain out solids.
6. Add 15ml of liquid soap.
7. Centrifuge for 60 seconds.
8. In a test tube, mix 50-50 goo-you-have-made and ice cold isopropyl alcohol.
9. Gently mix (tip it back and forth a few times) and allow to separate. Broken cell bits are at the bottom, DNA is in the cloud at the top.
10. Pipe off a little of the top cloud. Put a drop or two on a glass slide.
11. View under microscope. DNA!
They used a kid’s science kit centrifuge [gulp!], and it didn’t seem to be going all that fast.
and now I am on the hunt for a cheap centrifuge!! This site also interesting! hmmm. It feels all exciting doesn’t it!
hermmm, well where was I before sundry flights of fancy??? Ah yes, after lunch, SB and chloe were keen to do some music, with G, but got started all on their own, and were being so fabbly autonomous with an EE mark 
that we left them to it. the were using the colour coded bells, and using felt tips, writing music for them [felt tip corresponding to bell!] we were v impressed!! Unfortunately we were all haring off, so i don’t think they realised quite how impressed we were!
home, SB did some piano practice, and drew some traffic signs for the next harmony arts assignment, and then did some sewing. BB watched some mona the vampire and then did some sewing also. SB had brownies – and we saw her make the promise, and she seems much happier in brownies than she ever did in rainbows, so that seems good. [maybe she is just a happier girl] she had judo, and a new boy is apparently a bit too rough, but the sensei seemed to have it in order. SO there we are!
in the rest of the week, apart from thinking about the future of HE in this country and getting depressed, political and activated, the kids have played – in snow, a lot with sindy/barbie and sylvanians. SB has done some maths and piano and is really loving reading her encyclopaedia of knowledge and coming up with odd facts all over the place. i have worked silly hours – must do something about that! Chris has baked cakes for Melrose.
that too trendy to be called coriander!] and then spent 90 mins in waterstones agonising over books. BB surprisingly rejected the latest 
[which i wanted to read!] and instead had a dinosaur theme! 
and SB sorted out a variety of books having melted down over the roald dahl books and not chosen any of them… We saw M and C for about 5 mins, had a wrong book trauma best glossed over and missed train by a minute. 
and 
she is going to make a list [who does she get that from] of all the roald dahl books we have, and then spend her book vouchers on getting the ones we don’t. not that she has stuck with fiction, other nose in a book moments with 
and 
. but actually what she has mostly done this weekend [and this is a falling of perch moment plus extra drumrolls] is writing!!!!!!!! My daughter, the not keen on writing one, must have spent about 8 hours this weekend writing. SHe has written thankyou notes to all her friends who went to centreparcs [all of her own volition, and the one i caught site of was v effusive] as she wanted to let them all know how much she loved them – aaaah. please remember agape! those whose children receive them, will hopefully receive them more happily than the rainbow friend, who when SB told her she loved her, said that that was highly inappropriate [raised eyebrows emoticon!] lots of 2 way explanations involved which i thought rather saddened the whole thing. ANyway, proud of all her writing, we carried on with all the christmas thankyous. SB has also done some piano practice [last pieces in the gbdf book] and maths – spurred on by BB with her head in the clouds declaring that she was catching up!
which she is particularly keen on as there is a dinosaur on the front! we had done lots of reading together, including most of the quentin blake books we got from the book people, incl this one 
. 
and we played lots of games [
, 
, 
] we tcikled, giggled, sylvanianed – the girls doing good compromise and cooperation – phew! BB did some brianbox electronics, and was most pleased to get a circuit that could light [she wasn't following instructions]
[bah to all that text in the link!!].
we didn’t take laptops/internet access devices with us, so did not blog from centreparcs. so this is not going to be a blow by blow account!
so i left chris and the kids swimming and took the car round, and realised i couldnt unpack it as i didn’t have key to the bike rack. grr! never mind. said hello to all arrivals, and generally chilled! we took one premade meal, and next time would take 2!
, 
. they were great hits, as the english is funny, the french doesn’t appear to be a direct translation, but use nice language [must check with katy!] and we also bought jill and the beanstalk, 3 billy goats gruff – which i remember borrowing from leeds library in english/arabic [and a couple of others :blush: ] un beknownst to me, chris had also weakened on the resource front! 
. i blame michelle 
and recommend it. ermm, i think from there we went on to watch harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban, and eat tea and SB’s cake. where i am at the moment! oh, i have flickred xmas day, and now onto the rest of xmas. will get there!
