Category Archives: Stringbean’s HE

Sweetcorn Saturday

Posted on April 9, 2006 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

OMG, I am 37! How time flies.

SO to the weekend, well my friend Shaula was visiting, but not due till the early afternoon, and then she missed her train, so in fact we had most of the day as ‘normal’. Sb did her explode the code 2 without a murmur, and even went on to do an extra page as ‘a surprise’ – so it can’t be that bad! We played a fair few games – snakes and ladders, uno etc. She chose some books for me to read – and I sunk into the loveliness of snuggling and reading. We did some more Greek myths and legends and some bits out of her DK family encyclopaedia – greece and giraffes!

During this time, BB had sole play with the ideal blox – and was getting rather good at manipulating them. She was also blowing the noisy things and dancing in her own wobbly style.

SB and I then went on to do her ‘sweetcorn experiment’. We sowed half direct, and are chitting half. they have all gone inot the propagator to see what happens. SB is enjoying being proprietal about lots of the seeds and their germination. I would defininately like to set her up a square foot garden in our patch – prob not this year at this rate though!

Once BB was asleep we did some face painting. It was supposed to be egyptian, but after we had flicked through various egyptian books, SB changed her mind, and announced we weren’t going to have an Egyptian Afternoon after all. So I painted hers a sky with a rainbow as requested, and she painted mine a sea with fish.

Wasn’t I beautiful! Chris set off to collect Shaula, and BB awoke, so we played with the coupe car we sprung from Merry’s garage.

I think it confirmed to Shaula this was a madhouse! Shaula got to read copious books, and play pretty much every game we have. We did have wine though!

I went to uni with Shaula, and allthough we don’t see each oither much – as both working – she remains one of my closest friends. Perfect really! Shame the girls gave us such an execrable night.

Manic day

Posted on April 7, 2006 by HHaricot | 7 comments

well, I guess not really, but it felt that way as I spent the whole day wondering when my mediation request at work would be received. Only to find that it had accidentally been given early on Wed!!! Oh well. I do have a highly efficient secretary – winking at Su should she be reading this!

So what did we do, well BB was a pest last night, so neither chris nor I exactly full of the joys of Spring. Sb started her hama princess this morning – so far looking really good.

but obviously a way to go! We then read Hercules and Jason and the argonauts from USbournes Greek legends. SB and BB had a lovely time playing with the ideal blocks, sometimes cooperative and sometimes not, and also with the dolls house.

Today we did Singapore maths 1A – the practice book 1 was finished, as SB on a roll, and wouldn’t stop till it was. With such sterling effort I decided not to mention explode the code! SHe did it all easily and correctly, so we will move on to the next bit. TBH for some of it, she was already moving on – counting 8 by 2,4,6,8 etc. I think my general levels of stress at work for the last 2 weeks, added to some kind of ‘you are official’ compulsion have definitely skewed my parenting/educating style. SO I am relaxing! Will still encourage normals though, but not get so uptight!

After lunch, SB saw me potting up the plugplants we had got [lavender] and said she wanted to finsih them, so she did a nice job of the remaining 30 or so. Chris remembered to put a cd on – Louis Armstrong, loverly! Having played a fair amount of chase, and read numerous times that’s not my dinosaur, BB settled for a nap. I did a fair amount of seed sowing, and SB moved on to jump ahead on the ‘puter.

As Merry pointed out, BB has a weird spotty tongue at the moment, not seen anything like it before. wondered if it was hand foot and mouth, but can’t see any other blisters. She does have 2 of her canines coming through, and is very snotty. Anyway, she has played alot on the ride along, stacking bricks and dolls house today, as well as chase and cuddles with me.

SB now a lot better, but still very quick to melt and cry – which drives me up the wall. being as unsympathetic as my mother! Both girls are singing in the bath. it may amazre you to know, but I hardly took any photos today!

7 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, gardening, General, history, numeracy, photos, writing

Not such a muddle

Posted on April 6, 2006 by HHaricot | 6 comments

TBH, I expected Merry’s house to be full of boxes and in total disarray considering how soon they might be moving, but didn’t look too panicky at all! obviously Chris and I are the worst for that!

We had a lovely day there, but I am glad we saw the older 2 when they got back from their stage thing, as it did seem quiet without them. I had a lovely hug from fran, and maddy shew me the egyptian things – very nice indeed!

SB and Amelie played together, and a lot of messing about with the Ideal blocks. i have bought one from Merry, but she warned me people usually come back for a second!

As I left weighted down with hama – well I needed to top up so much has been used, SB bought the princess, and I couldn’t resist an egg board after seeing Merry’s designs , though I did manage to resist the chick as well. So thats the educational budget blown out of the water! BB and Josie had fun playing together, and I even saw some patting and not just poking and pushing! In fact, they got on so well, we were able to have a nice natter.
Before we went, SB sat down and easily did her explode the code 2. I was rather proud of her, as when she got cross with the sled [instead of her preferred sledge], she decided it was a sledge, so wrote slej. i was so proud of the sounding it in her head and writing, I didn’t have the heart to mention the real spelling, but just congratulated her on working out it was a j, and actually writing one! I do get periodicvally grumpy with the American, like slip – and its a petticoat!

When we got back, both beans were tired, i read to SB whilst feeding BB, and then we had our treat chip supper. After that, BB played with the winnie the pooh stickers that she had got way back for her birthday, and SB and I played build a beetle. Nighttime was again thomas the tank engine stories and hopefully asleep!

Have taken a couple – but not many – photos.

6 Comments

Posted in General, literacy, Out and About, socialisation, writing

And now for today!

Posted on April 5, 2006 by HHaricot | Leave a comment

Sorry, there have been a lot of blogs today!

Awoke with migraine – actually I’m surprised I haven’t had more recently. So tablets and long lie in. Good for my soul! Eventually BB had had enough, slipped away from Chris a and rarred at me! Not sure? what else they did all morning though? SB was cbeebie-ing when I got down.

Hmm, I’m not sure either. There was some breakfasting, SB watched a video ‘Animal Tales’ from M&S, she spent ages writing lots in her birthday card to Nanny. We all played together for while with various of BB’s toys. SB complained as she tried to build a house over herself with cushions, whilst BB clambered on top. I read somethign but I’ve forgotten what it was.

My brain was still whirring from the previous evenings 3 hour meeting at work – aargh indeed! so did laid back playing with stacking blocks with BB and shape sorters. SB was supposed to be doing singapore maths in that 1 sum and 20 mins scribble kind of way, so i remembered yesterday and did things beside. lunch was a good distraction!

She did do it without bother after lunch, and we all ran outside to enjoy the sun some more. I weeded and then planted the rest of the onion sets. BB helped by peeling off their skins, and pulling them back out! SB helped rake, and enacted princess stories.

Back in and I read Greek myths and legends whilst BB fed. SB then chose a bit about genetics. She liked the double helix of the DNA. I obviously paraphrased and simplified wildly, but she got the gist – such that we did a bit of fractions on how much we shared with family – though clearly got to a woosh moment! So calmed down by reading some apple tree farm books together, and playing buckaroo.

After tea and bath, SB and BB? did interpretive dance show to classical music. ROFL.

An apprentice hit – what was with the hiding away and drinking champers? – and vidded Grand Designs.

Time Out

Posted on April 5, 2006 by HHaricot | 4 comments

has been had – thank goodness.

Am behind on blogging, well this blog. the gardening blog going great guns.

Anyway, yesterday the beans got me up by 7.30! makes such a diference to the day having all that time! I can’t remember in my usual technicolour detail though.Our plans changed first thing as we were going out, but a doublebooking and I took the chance to relax.

So we did some hama

of course, the problem with hama is…

Oh well!

We painfully did explode the code – not sure why it was so awkward. set myself into a corner and ‘had to’ carry though. I think work stress and newly ‘official’ is affecting my parenting. Hopefully a temporary derailment!

So we de-stressed by sowing the pepper and squash seeds from last weeks aztec meal. 48 of each!!! hmm, I wonder how many will germinate. BB took the opportunity to pull up a few of the sunflowers – sigh

While BB slept, I did some more mute apologising, making a dairy free sponge. I have never baked with soya milk before, but it was fine. Not vegan as I used eggs. SB wished it to be purple!

We went outside to enjoy the sun, and SB played hide and seek and I made stories for her to enact. BB awopke and the cake was out and cooled for some family cake decorating. SB wanted the cake cut to be Xmas trees and pressies – always seasonal here! I was amazed how keen BB was, and how much she concentrated.

And then we all went outside to rampage about again, and Chris finished panting the fruit trees

So, tuesday a great day!

Shall blog today seperately!!

4 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Cooking, gardening, General, literacy, photos, SB-PE, writing

Friday – Saturday

Posted on April 3, 2006 by Daddybean | Leave a comment

Friday was last nursey day, Helen has posted a nice piccie of SB with Vicky her keyworker below. Sums up her nursery experience for us really, she has enjoyed it, and it has been a positive experince for her. Both of her nurseries have been lovely relaxed places, with lovely caring staff. BB of course being Miss Laidback has seemed happy there as well. Thankyou to Kids Academy (dreadful name – so not what they were like)and silks Farm.She seemed ok about finishing, though I think she is worried about missing the playing time with other kids. she is really keen to start Rainbows etc. I had to wipe away the odd tear when I? picked them up. Silly I know, but I’m hopeless at this sort of thing. It’s that old end of something feeling, even though it’s exciting to be entering a new period.

Anyway, Helen wasn’t going to back until late, so just me and the girls for dinner and bedtime rituals etc. BB is? a little bit of a pain whne i haveto put her to bed becuase she still doesn’t really want to have bottles , so then just makes a big fuss for a while a lot of the time .

Saturday – Helen off to work, she was on call all weekend :-(? – what did we do?? can’t quite remember – would have no doubt played her 3D Snakes and Ladders since we seem to play that every morning. I do remember that I sat for soemtime with SB and read through an old Ladybird book about how aeroplanes work (aimed at much older children)- she doesn’t like to be fobbed of she likes you to explain things properly. So much talking about the diagrams – about the forces on aeroplanes, about how they move and are controlled etc. she’s remembered from a while back about the shape of the wing being important. This tiem the thing that seemed to stick in was about? lift and gravity. They did say at nursery that she was always coming out with odd facts about things.

We went into the local town for a bit of shopping – went round the farmers market? – did well not to by any nice looking cakes, preserves etc. just some nice organic veggies, failed to buy any sock for BB in woolies – losts of new born socks, lots of 2 yr old +, none in the middle – odd. SB didn’t find any toys she wanted to buy, nor books in the bookshop with her remaining money – which given all the pink dolly tat in Woolies surprised me.

Went into the cafe for some lunch, hadn’t intended to , but it was too late and we still ahd to pop into the supermarket – lunched (cafe man gave her two little crispy cakes for free so she was pleased by that),supermarketed – Waitrose so they have good little trolleys for kids to use , which is actually useful? when you’ve? sleeping child in a buggy as well.. She is quite sensible with it now as well.

Time we got home SB was flaggin a bit, she’s no been entirley well, with a sore throat and a ‘funny tummy’ – sat and cuddled read for a bit Then we went and paid a visit to the ‘home dad’ as was – A&C and their new(ish – 4 weeks almost) baby. Spent a nice time there for a bit, but SB had a bit of a wobbly when we had to leave, as usual SB didn’t want to leave – then got all upset becuase they weregoign out for a walk and we weren’t. Obviously all to much for her, as when we got home she was just crying and saying she wanted, mummy, so we sat and cuddled on the sofa until she came home.

Had? a bad night? – she couldn’t seem to stay alseep by herself for more than 15 minutes, and wanted Helen all the times, so not a good night.

Breathing in the Sky

Posted on March 31, 2006 by Daddybean | 7 comments

Nursery day today, so kids have been there moslty. Last day tomorrow.

It was Stringbean’s last Ballet clss of the term, turned up there a found that it was a session for parents to sit in on while they should us the sort of things they ahd been doing, so much dancing and skipping around by cute little girls in ballet outfits Also cute was Butterbean who did her ‘wobbly dance’ to the piano. I relaised afterwards that we had missed the last lesson last term – so it probably is a regular end of term thing. Helen will be disappointed to have missed it. And of course no piccies as I didn’t realise it was happening

That’s it really, SB made a goodbye/thankyou card for the staff in her room at nursery – She did some good conifer treees on it – apprently it was a christmas tree shop.? The sun was also setting she informed me so there wasn’t much sky below it.

On the topic of sky, yesterday I think it was she started talking about the sky and said that ‘we breathe in the sky’ – which I thought was an interesting way to put it. I did introduce the idea of the atmosphere being all around us and mentioned about the sky looking blue. But realised that it’s a rather intangible concept – ‘sky’ as more of a visual effect than a thing.

Had a little chat over dinner about things she might like to learn a bit about now that she will have finished nursery and we will have more time at home. She said that she wants to learn some more about space and said she wants to learn from the ‘picture books about things’ – which I assume meant the Picturepeadia and alll the other nice DK books we have. So we will see where that takes us.

Other than that Helen is away tonight, she has gone up to soem conference or training thing or something – in Leeds as it happens. so won’t be back until tomorrow night. So a bit late getting both kiddies to sleep – but me and SB had nice snuggle and read for her bedtime stories – a rather nicely illustrated book by Nick butterworth/Mick Inkpen as it happens retelling some of the parables Jesus tells in the bible. She did complain a few times, that the story of the Good Samaritan said the chap was bleeding where he got hit, but none of the pictures showed the blood! Followed by a lift the flap book of the nativity story (I think it’s the same one) – she’ll be wanting to go to church next

I’ve whiled away much of the rest of the time, fiddling about and wandering around some new blogs starting from the 13th Carnival of Homeschooling over on Why Homeschool

This amused me , among other posts. I liked the album thing here – I liked her time line idea as well. There is a good debunking of anti home education critiscisms over on the Bonny Glen and talk of the idea of tidal homeschooling struck a cord.

One of the above is hosted on Homeschoolblogger and I’m wondering if I should be linking to it or supporting the boycott, but I’m generally dubious about the effectiveness of boycotts. Though it seems here that this is boycott as a form of publicity tool to highlight the issue, rather than to ‘bring down’ HSB

7 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Books, Butterbean, Dance/drama, Stringbean's HE

Calm before the storm…

Posted on March 29, 2006 by HHaricot | 1 comment

well, for me anyway.

Lovely day today. Sun shining and all is well with the world. Sb happily did her Singapore maths 1A – we are still in term one allegedly, though doing this for some time. Not in a hurry. SHe’s confident enough to do the subtraction on her own, and was getting grumpy ‘cos it was all under 10 answers. So time to jump ahead! She then did a bit of a jolly phonics workbook – but said it was too easy. So after that mostly played with the dolls house and snappit donkey until lunchtime. sometimes with BB, and sometimes most definitely not.

After lunch she wanted to use the egg shells to grow cress in – no cress, so they now have basil. I didn’t supervise/help at all, and she quite happily got it all done, watered and ready for the propagator. i potted up a couple of the toms. She said she wanted to take a ‘window picture’ so here is one by her.

She then fancied going to the park, so we all got dressed, and she cycled there with the stabilisers on, got to the field, they came off and have stayed off. BB stayed for ages in the swing – SB hated swings at this age, but BB loves them. SHe was also particularly thrilled with the slide. She clinbed up with chris’s supervision, and I made sure she didn’t fly off too fast – well, i took a puiicture once and she did…

they both seesawed, and then Sb had a great treasure hunt game, and we lefted righted and walked 6 ‘places’ etc to find the fruit snacks. BB had a whale of a time running about and trying to climb up.

SB was grumbly at home, and BB asleep, so some book reading went on, and another snack. We then decided to cook for tea, and she chose aztec tortillas. Like a good HE Mum, i went to find various books with Aztec bits in them, so she read the romans pages! [ok extrapolated from pictures!], while I got the stew going – beans, corn squash and pepper. When she started doing the tortillas, I the read various Aztec facts to her, and she remembered a few to tell Chris. DInner was a resounding success anyway!

We have finished the day watching the planet earth on video, and it was a great one, all about caves. I was lucky enough to study in borneo for 3 months of my training, and have seen the bats exit and swifts ingress into the caves. We did race all the way back to the hut in the dark absolutely terrified though [4 girls without guide!]Now i know that bloody huge wierd thing was a giant centipede! luckilly didn’t have to climb the guano mountain, though did have to throw away a daypack, as never got the guano stains out of it… Confirmed my belief that even if I was thin, I could never be a caver.

Now going to watched a videod Apprentice [I fell asleep with SB...]

Oh and this having more than one blog business is a nightmare!

1 Comment

Posted in Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, writing

oh dear

Posted on March 27, 2006 by HHaricot | 7 comments

I think i may have a touch of Nic’s recent problem…

the beans went tp Chris’s parents today, and seem to have had ajolly time – SB made some biscuits and watched cbeebies [all she can remember!] And BB was a bit grumbly – well, she should have had some sleep! SB did a nice hama car with the big beads.
When we all met upm SB confessed to doing no match and sort, so she did 4 pages explode the code 2, and 4 of singapore primary maths 1a. we are certainly not rampaging through the maths at the mo! However, there is no rush, and i think she is happier that the match and sort is a bit easy, and she gets tested with the sweetie games we play – and seed sowing multiplication! Anyway, she is mostly consolidating 10′s and units, so needs to play her jojo in numberland some more. We did various imagination games, musical statues – BB lost!

I ‘felt unwell’ so bailed out of high interactiveness, but Sb wanted me to read her some of her waiting usborne young readers – and being mean I refused. I reminded her that they are going to be our fun books together when she reads. So she read a red nose reader cover to cover. I offered to get her the yellow ones, but she said she will read all the red ones first. TBH, i am not sure at what point you announce they read, but she certainly does. just needs practice!

I really have 2 most gorgeous girls.

7 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, literacy, numeracy, writing

mother’s day?

Posted on March 26, 2006 by HHaricot | 2 comments

i am having trouble with my flickr badges!

mother’s day didn’t really happen here, as Baby played up last night and Chris is not a limited sleep kind of chap!

Anyway, we had a potteringy day, and I did get a card at lunchtime.

Before you all point out the hama heart

I made it for my Mum’s birthday!

So, we did some hama, and SB made another mothers day card for Nana F, having decided she didn’t like the other one. I went to check on veg patch, and came back with asparagus seeds, so we sowed them.