Category Archives: SB-PE

yeah yeah, sure sure, yip yip

Posted on February 23, 2011 by | 4 comments

as SB says all the time :) . today was a day spent at home with girls, doing presents, home ed, chatting, playing cuddling etc etc. I was feeling a bit blue today. miss my sis, needed really to have a more going somewhere holiday to focus my gaze externally etc, etc. But threw myself into doing stuff with girls. We did some fab home ed in my lovely conservatory :) and BB successfully read ‘the’ a few more times :) – we are classing this as a MAJOR achievement :) .

SB getting happier at doing her junior galore park [on book 2] which also bodes well [yes, i know for her school year she should be book 3, but orig she hated writing, so have been gently gently introducing :) ] she did some music theory also, but her fav bit of home ed today was her choice of fact book.

which she got for xmas but only just explored [she has been reading back to back canadian girl stories i think!] and surprised me with just how much she knows about this already. we do lots of talking, lots of reading but negligible testing, so it is always a relief when you see how knowledgeable she is. BB peering over her shoulder at one point selected a spiral galaxy to be the milky way because it was the ‘right shape’. SHe also did some of her dk project book, which she still loves, currently minerals, cleaned the rabbit hutch and did a great piano prac with me. Also finished [more or less as we need the printer to work proplerly to actually finish] P amd M’s birthday presents and also M-I-L’s.

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BB started with piano prac, having heard me do some [yes, we must tune piano] and i must make sure to encourage this regularly as she remembered all what we had done and was ready to move onto a new note. She had the great reading breakthrough as above :) and we read why do spiders… She also did a lot of drawing with her watercolour pencils in her sketch book, and played a complicated weighing game with cuisinaire rods and a balance as well as making a birthday presnet for M-I-L.

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DH excavated the room of doom, M-I-L the hallway, and as well as home edding and reading to girls [oh, we did 2 chapters of story of the world after swimming lessons] I sowed some more seeds, as blogged, caught a v disgruntled snowy rabbit [lol] and ‘found’ things :) . F-I-L seems to be better pain wise but a long way off mobilisation, predicting at least a week more in hospital.

tomorrow hoping for a going out day :)

some other books semi factual semi historical that SB enjoying that others of similar might

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Posted in art and crafts, BB-PE, Books, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, history, literacy, music, noises and sounds, pre reading, SB-PE, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

Daddy Blogging

Posted on February 18, 2011 by | Leave a comment

there is a half finished draft post on victorian day back here in the workings bit of petits haricots. 52 drafts altogether, nearly all with daddybean as the author. I am hoping he will get his blogging mojo back :) at least for some of the fun trips and groups he goes to with the girls.

Yesterday they went to multisport, i worked a v v long day, and f-i-l had surgery. today they went to the arts award group for the first time. it is 10+ but bb got to stay with DH helping. they were doing botanic drawing, so quite a challenge, particularly for BB. in the end DH drew the chilli i think, and she did the shading in. SB did a plum and strawberry, and I am partic impressed by the shading of the plum. they both enjoyed it and plan to return. I believe BB did have a melt moment, cos on paper not what in head, so hoping wasn’t disruptive to the group.

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in the afternoon they dropped m-i-l into hosp. F-i-l has been in quite a bit of pain today, as the leg muscles all spasming :( i hope they can get it under control, perhaps with an epidural?? Looking forward to him moving to the rehab bit of recovery rather than the initial pain bit.

The girls had opticians appts. It turns out BB is long sighted, and needs glasses to read! SO we are getting a pair of Mr Men glasses for her. sb went to 2 diff opticians, but couldn’t find what she wanted, and is unkeen on the bendy ones again. I am v keen on the bendy ones, as they are the first pair not to be trashed and require recurrent visits back for fixing!

got home from work and we had cuddles, tickles and watched cartoons altogether. also a couple more canada books arrived. SB read one of the dear canada diaries last night and loved it, so was glad for another to arrive [they are 'preloved'] and BB is reading her prev ones again. I am loving going to canada in the summer, it is like a ray of sunshine in the dreary winter, giving us fun in planning, and learning and thinking :)

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, history, music, Out and About, pre reading, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE

Better blog or else…..

Posted on November 10, 2010 by | 5 comments

there will  no doubt be all sorts of complaints from readers used to H’s output :-)

Problem is, on the whole my days don’t seem very interesting, but here goes.

Got up a bit earlier then we have  been lately, as H had to go off for her first day back at work, so that was abit of shock to the system, Had an unexciting morning, waved H off. Drunk some more tea and enjoyed a quiet breakfast as neither of the girls had woke up.  BB got up and sata t the table playijng little games with whatever odd items she could fine handy, I pottered around the kitchen, put on washing, that sort of thing.  tried to wake up SB for the first time. (It would take about 3 goes and  1  hour to get her out of bed (she isn’t sleeping well due to her cough, and woke up last night and came into our room).

Me and BB went out to see the bunnies, and let Skittles out for a run about, explored things a round the garden with BB for a bit. She has collected all the used fireworks up from Friday, and played various games with them, whilst gradually dismantling them, disppionted not to find any gunpowder left in them :-).

Nice, but cold and windly outside, so nice to come back in into the relative warmth, and finally prised Sb out of bed. She had breakfast whilst reasding some more of her Yes Mag, and reprised me with interesting facts from it.

SB then settled down with some Singapore Maths, I did half an online order, so that I can book a suitable delivery time, before I ahve to think of all the rest of the things we want. Then I braved to cold again, to sort out bike carriers and SB’s bike onto the car to take to her next Bikeability session. Sorted out various other bits like snacks to take with us, Sb wrote a bit in her journal about fireworks night, a quick pasta lunch, and then we had to head out, pretty much on time. SB took her Galore Park Science to do a bit of in the car on the way.

Which is where the rest of the afternoon went a bit pear shaped…..

About halfway to Bikeability, I realised we had left the swimming stuff behind, which we needed for swimming lessons, well it was to late to go back for, so left the decision on what to do till we had dropped of SB, Parked car, met up with the Deependers outside the car park, and sent the cyclist on their way.

Decided to see if I could get some cheapish swimming cossies and a couple of towels so they could do lessons. Now we were right outside the swimming pool, which does have cossies of course, but Zoggs,a nd Speedos etc. so not cheap., decoed we’d walk to a nearby shopping centre (about 10 mins walk).

Tried, Primark, BHS and Debenhams, and a couple of charity shops on the off chance. The only things were some  (left over from the summer I guess) farily horrible bikinis on sale in Primark which I passed over. Not the time of year for cossies I know, but did hope for some. Best bet would have been to have gone to the big ASDA, or the big Tesco, but that meant driving around which I didn’t feel like. So bought a couple of towels in BHS (which BB loved for their fluffyness). Stopped for a quick very cake and sandwich in the cafe (no tea, not enough time :-( ) as I’d promised BB we would do that (when it was goign to be a nice hour or so me and BB pottering about….). By now time was running out, so I shoulder carried BB back to the car walking very quickly.

Went in the Swiimming pool after all to see what they had …….  feeling very hot and flustered as we had about 5 minutes. Managed to find some reduced so not so bad in price. But BB fussy, as she doesn’t like ones with the cut away backs, which most were. Found one that was acceptable, found one thst might have been ok for Sb, though probably to big  (I can never remember want ixn size she is for things like cossies and leotards) But then noticed the signs saying they could only take cash payments as the card system was down or something :-(  Only enough for one, so BB got it, seeing as she was the poor lass who had had to do all the traipsing about, and it was cheaper.  Buy this point

Rushed outside to see the cyclists just gathering up the road to cross over to the park, ran up to retrieve Sb and the Deepender boys we were giving a lift to.

Head back to the carpark, carried bikes up a flight of stairs , got to the car, managed to laod all the bikes on the rear rack – a bit of faffing as not used to those bikes and it’s always a bit of a fiddle getting them to fit together, strapped down ,lighting board on etc. So much easier using the roof carriers (though not in a car park with a 2.1 m height restriction…) . Ran downstairs to find a pay machine, payed (at least it didn’t charge me for another hour as we were about 5 minutes over the time), back upstairs, into the car, gave the kids a bag full of random snacks and drinks and headed off. Just over 35 miinutes to get to swimming lessons in annother town, it was going to be tight.

Traffic heading out of town was frustratingly  slow, but luckily the main road was very busy , but moving ok and we made it to the leisure centre with about 2 minutes to spare.  Rushed BB into her lesson jujst about in time and then wentback to help Katy transfer bikes to her car. Bikes and children transferred me and SB went back inside to flop down for 20 minutes whilst BB swum. Domino’s Pizza have a 2 for the price of one offer on Tuesday’s, and the kids like their Pizza’s so decied to get some for dinner. I tried ordering them online using H’s iPhone which I had with me, but it kept falling over  at the last bit on the Verified by Visa, which was a bit annoying. Would have been mcuh easier just to ring them :-)

Once BB was out, and I’d prised her out of her nice new fluffy towel and into soem clothes :-) we headed down to dominoes, ordered them in person, popped into the Waitrose next door for a few bits and were back to find the pizza’s ready :-)  Headed home finally, to find H with a migraine :-( ate Pizza, drunk soem much needed tea and I moslty dozed whilst the kids watched a couple of Sarah Jane Adventures on iPlayer (The Wii makes a pretty good way to watch iPlayer ont he TV easily)

Felt pretty knackered this evening, so haven’t done the jobs I should have done for having lots of people here for  tomorrows History group, but at least I have blogged :-)

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Posted in BB-PE, music, numeracy, Out and About, SB-PE, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, writing

relight my fire

Posted on October 27, 2010 by | 3 comments

:lol:
today was latinetc, and i had got a fun science all lined up! we were going to make oxygen – woohoo! and test for it. This completes a creating and testing for 3 gases – CO2, O2, H2 – series [yes, should really go for nitrogen, but it is trickier...] We’ll do it again no doubt in the future, but i emphasised the 3 and their tests today, and talked a fair bit about catalysts, being things that can make reactions go faster. We had hydrogen peroxide – which you can buy from a chemist cheaper than ebay [thankyou for t-bird for this nugget, only after i had purchased from ebay!] which will over time produce oxygen all by itself, faster if heated. But a catalyst will speed things up and make v much more ‘interesting’ . We had as our catalyst manganese dioxide – definitely going to be a winner, liver and kiwi fruit. [could use iron oxide but this doesn't do a lot, and lead oxide does do a lot, but i don't have any]. we put 15 mls of h202 with a bit of the catalyst [less than 1/4 tsp of the manganese dioxide] and a squirt of washing up liquid and some food colouring. it foams! we rated our catalysts in order of manganese oxide > liver > kiwi

The reaction is :
2H2O2(aq) -> 2H2O(l) + O2(g)
This is catalysed by a variety of transititional metal compounds and peroxidase enzymes found in many living things.

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i also did an adapted genie in a bottle [as had less h202!] that i had practiced at home, so knew to be way safer!! still pretty dramatic, and we got to test for oxygen with glowing spills v successfully. [ps i had also given them my usual scary safety prep talk, we had safety specs, lab coats and gloves, and the foaming controls this a bit. I think we all enjoyed it :lol: [mind you, i did have to remind a most of the older group that safety specs are not so good if on the forehead rather than over the eyes :roll: ]

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K did latin and french, Z did crafts – halloween and firework pics using oil pastels with a watercolour wash, and Merry did pasta and mastered K’s ecokettle! We are going to do the real science for kids next time, with all the children reading or having read to, chapter 1 of whichever level their parent thinks is ok, and then i am going to work out how we can model atoms in the interim, so we can each make one, and do some discussion around the periodic table and atomic weights as we do it.

SO after a bit of planning of groups, which K will tinker with and show and tinker with G, who wasn’t here today so needs to have an input, Merry went home, K did french and then we grown ups chatted as the children did a bit more craft. then we went geocaching for the elusive ones! and this time – fanfare – Z found it! still not quite where we thought it was going to be. SB led a group of children out of view, and BB got hurt, so was a bit cross with her for breaking cardinal rule of going somewhere that i didn’t know about out of eyesight and nearly earshot as well. :( . We then persuaded kfish to come to the next cache too, which i think she may have regretted… i had the coords only on iphone, which with classic timing ran out of charge when we most needed it :( [actually :lol: ] so Z rang chris and got coords, i had the gps which i don’t know how to use, and in the end kept marking waypoints and deleting them until they were more or less the coords. it was getting dark and looking a bit hopeless, so we gave up, but K and I spotted an interesting log arrangement, J investigated it, and tada!! a geotat cache! BB way too tired so i had a less than nice moment when little A – bless her – passed on what she had chosen :roll: mind you, we had had A in our car as she had had a moment too that she never got to go in other peoples cars. SHe and BB had a fab conversation which didn’t make 100% sense from the front… Though that was better than BB and L when i had those 2, who were on the cheeky end of the spectrum [not dreadfully, more mock outrage rather than actual required!!]

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got home to find chris had tidied the front room and wrestled with putting the curtains up. oh i DO like a room with curtains!! we had chips, falling asleep half way through, and the rest of us watching a fab programme about optical illusions. now i plan to watch the apprentice on iplayer.

And yes, it is 2 months since my sister died, and have thought about her on and off all day.

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Posted in art and crafts, BB-PE, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, investigating, language, little languages, music, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

its raining

Posted on October 27, 2010 by | 4 comments

actually it is the second time i have wrtten this blog, as i got to the end, and the blasted wordpress said i didn’t have permission to save and booted me to log in!!! it is going to be shorter this time :) [grrrrrr]

Anyway, as i said before :roll: today was another split child job, as it was bikeability for SB, in the rain – poor love! she didn’t find today as interesting, as she said it was ‘just yesterday’s stuff, but on roads’ I did say that that was the point… she does enjoy riding the bike tho, and chris and i thought it would be good to do some of the basics. Bikeability wasn’t the only thing today, she did some home ed stuff – maths - multiplying fractions, a bit of a surpise things come out smaller , grin, and some head maths on multiplying bigger numbers, which she gets to check afterwards with a calculator galore park history and a really good piano prac with me. so although the exam could be any time soon [eek] we have nailed 2 pieces completely, so only scales and the 3rd piece to go -eek! why does grade 1 recorder only have majors, when piano has majors and minors! In reading all the narnia books, she is now nearly through the horse and his boy :)

BB and i played together. we did a lot of home ed, but bb is autonomous really, and i can’t take any credit. i just get to watch, fetch and tidy up!! she had realised yesterday she had forgotten the colours in french, so today we learnt some of the again. [ah yes, i neeed to think of bike grease - with picture thoughts like that she could work for Collins :lol: ] we did some reading prac [without the dreaded 'the' word] and then when i was looking for chemicals for latinetc tomorrow, she ‘remembered’ the science kit cupboard, and had a load of fun making circuits with the primary electronics kit. as always, the flying saucer one a fav :) Finally she played with magnets for a bit, before declaring it rabbit-o-clock!! it absolutely pouring it down, we did a more cursory rabbit check and care rather than a long lovefest.

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I took BB to her new swimming class. it is the same time as SB’s, so that ought to make life easier. It didn’t today, as bikeability finished too late and she missed it :( . BB and i listened to classicfm on the way in and she nattered about the music being a tom and jerry music – she was right, the presenter then said so. SHe fell asleep just as we got into the carpark – awww. I enjoyed watching her swim. only 4 of them in that group today, but the most common name was ‘BB’ to be shouted. mostly, i think, cos she must be at least 2 years younger than the other 3! they did backstroke, and her little arms went like the clappers. awww again :smile: i enjoyed watching every second.

We weren’t home long before chris and SB joined us. so me and SB snuggled on sofa, as she was feeling in need of a snuggle, and i agreed the SoTW request and we read about the Indus Valley. I do really like SoTW. we watched sinbad and then bedtime for the girls, a bit of wailing from SB – too tired i think, so a long cuddle and soothe, and extreme mania from BB – same root cause, so a bit of firmness, oh, ok, i did shout *in the end* and a dictat that no reading or dsing, and no noise! they fell asleep pretty quickly…

Still worried about Uncle D’s health, and just other blah things, but enjoyed watching QI with chris.

oh, and the first person to pick up Vivien Visits TB has added both a bead and a small donation :) feeling happy.

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Posted in BB-PE, Butterbean, Butterbean's HE, General, history, investigating, little languages, music, numeracy, pre reading, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing

More Conservatory…

Posted on October 21, 2010 by | 5 comments

SB decided that she wanted to try and do as much as possible today and spend tomorrow making her halloween costume. Fine! So she raced through various of her home ed books – trying to remember here! kS3 science workbook, maths, french workbook, gruesome grammar, piano practice, she read her last Aquila [that counts as a fact book] and I was sure there was something else?? no idea…

SB, BB and I got to do a lovely afternoon of fimo, SB made a mummy and started a sarcophagus. BB made a skull and also another skull in a black cloak – very great :) i used scrappy bits of fimo to make keyrings, either for geotat or geotags :) so very therapeutic. And I needed therapeutic, having flickred the pics of sisters funeral. feeling v low :( not aided by another BB exploring when people were going to die, and who was going to die first. :cry: anyway, fimo good :) and made all the better by the inconsequential but loving chit chat that goes on whilst we do it. and ooh that is good, or what on earth is that mummy@ [a snake canopic jar - lol!]

also baby rabbits! missed there being shadow/biscuit, but good to know she was rampaging around her new home ;) the babiest babies still all doing well. on discussion, we are not sure whether sedna [gerda as was] is a giant, or whether hamster and the 2 black otters are just small?? all v beautiful. Aware we will be saying goodbye to the final 3 of the big babies this weekend, and feel slightly sad about that, but glad that they are going ro such good homes with friends.

Girls both had gym, and SB was v happy doing something or other on the bars [some kind of backwards twirl thing] and when she came home, did some non verbal reasoning asking that at the end if we could have a treat of story of the world, as she thinks that might be better than baking :) I did say lets do it now, but she wanted to do the verbal reasoning. so, unfortunately, she didn’t get the story of the world as it was dinner time, and then we watched a dvd about plants :( I have promised to do story of the world tomorrow. :lol:

BB hasn’t been mentioned much today in blog, as she spent most of it being either a monster, leopard or baby rabbit. TBH the baby rabbit was bearable, the other 2 challenging… but in between shrieking, rarring and pretending to eat her cuddly toys :roll: we did have some lovely cuddles and snuggles :) And we all had loads of interesting home ed type discussions, the ones where i wished i had google-in-the-brain! [like how many seeds are in a pomegranate, how long would it take to walk round the world etc] and the ones where i could answer, but could tell i was not being believed – ie why don’t fruit and veg tend to grow square…

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, literacy, music, numeracy, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

tuesday is my hump day!

Posted on October 19, 2010 by | 2 comments

well, we got up earlier today, after an exceptionally late night. SB just didn’t settle at all, and so was a very tired bean when she got up. awww . anyway, bit more of a discussion on 5 a days and what counted, how big etc over brekkie, then a look at part of the first chapter of real science for kids level 2. SHe did understand it, and we talked around it, but then got a bit worried that if she didn’t she would have to change science group, as she loves her science group. ((SB)) so i reassured her that currently the groups weren’t changing, but that if she found the level 2 difficult, then we would read the level 1 version. And i think though the group BB is in will be doing the level 1 version for labwork, that i will be reading the pre-k explanation to her beforehand, and think the various families may want to bob between the different levels, as more important to get understanding than be pushed ahead. [such an advantage to have a flip book!]

We then got down to a sturdy morning of home ed in my lovely conservatory. Hmm, i think i have forgotten to mention how much i love my conservatory :) .

SB did some galore park science, history and english, and then some clarinet prac. BB did some maths – with some serious argument over whether nothing/zero existed, whether you were allowed to put it in sums etc, and she remains unconvinced over its validity. giggle! She read a 1a magic key story – again with a grumble over the word the [obv that shouldn't exist either!] and i read to her the next story in the chaucers canterbury tales, the one with the bottoms, so she particularly loved that ;) we also finished painting her spider puppet, and later strung it together, tho as we had lost instructions, don’t know that it is quite right… Both did a bit of colouring as well.

we played with rabbits again – making sure we get enough rabbit love in before the bigger babies leave for their new homes. :)

after a nice lunch in our LOVELY conservatory we did some baking. SB wanted to use up left over rice crispies and marshmallows, so we went to do that, but we didn’t have enough marshmallows… and BB then wanted to make choc rice crispie cakes, but we didn’t have enough rice crispies or any choc… so we went to the shops and then made the cakes, and now have more marshmallows and rice crispies than wen we started 1 :roll: we also made some fruity snow from the galore park science book. SB really is quite an accomplished baker and cook, really good at following instructions and tweaking things so they work. it was a fun bake :)

SB and i also got in a piano prac before she went out for swimming. trudging is getting sort of a glimmer of hope about it, and the other 2 pieces are ok and should pass already, but time will make them better. so we started with arpeggios. she isn’t certain she will ever play them :( but we will see. we all did some ds-ing together with animal crossing and also mario bros games. we ate a chippery tea [totally ruining the 5 a day thing!] watching the primates episode of life.

now i must try and get things a bit organised for historyetc tomorrow.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, daubing and making, early maths skills, history, literacy, music, pre reading, SB-PE, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

fishgate!

Posted on January 28, 2010 by | 2 comments

As ppl might have read below, on monday chris bought fish from the fishmonger at the market. Today we dissected them at latinetc! i was really impressed, particularly by the younger [and more sensible :roll: group] at how carefully this was done in the main. i think the younger group were aided by being on 4 wanting to do it and 2 adults, to the older groups impatient 6! We started with looking at the beauty of the mackerel, the camouflage elements, and how we thought these might work, at the shape and dynamics of the fish – muscled and bullet shaped, likely to be a fast swimmer we thought. at the various external features – vent, protected eyes and gills, the various fins and the fabulous mouth. Then we started cutting!

we started with gills, talked about their purpose and investigated them – they are v beautiful! then we did our eviscerating slit – careful mostly not to eviscerated! amazingly we found the swim bladder, gonads, stomach and heart. may have found liver! def found lots of muscle and spine. and then after discussing those, they merrily set to on destruction! actually, that’s not entirely true, E did a beautiful dissection in the littlies, BB was a bit wilder! in the older group i think J and J did well to hang in their, being uncertain about dissection [and i have promised that will be the only one this term - so no eyeballs yet!] and the smell got to chloe. SB and maddy really enjoyed gutting etc their fishes…

other than that, they did music theory and latin and for the littlies french. we stayed and chatted whilst katy went to baby music, which was nice, i like the opportunity for a good natter. i listed to M and then J doiing their violin practises. we brought Maddy home with us, and she did brownies and judo v happily with SB, watched charlottes web with tea, and now all is finally quiet upstairs…

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, General, investigating, language, little languages, music, noises and sounds, SB-PE, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

centreparcs 2010!

Posted on January 23, 2010 by | 15 comments

this is the third year that we have gone to centerparcs for a january break with friends. more friends than ever also holidayed this year, so there was a home ed camp feel to it as well! SB in particular loved having lots of different friends to go down rapids and flumes with as well as general messing about in the water!

We shared with jax from ‘making it up’ this year, so got to enjoy lots and lots of lovely cuddles with soa, the gorgeous new baby. She is a total delight, and at that bit where she is smiling and laughing and being coy, as well as cooing and burbling – very cute! surprising us all, BB and small really did a good job of playing together the majority of the time, and big and SB had their usual tempestuous relationship – but this is starting to be far more boom than bust as well [which is relieving for me and Jax on the eardrum front! rofl!!] we adults had our chilled, wine enabled evenings after the hurly burly of camp life! we ate well – due to some pre-prep, thus , i think, enabling kids blood sugars to be better managed, and a more peaceful chalet as a result! big ate everything i cooked -so into my good books ! and small was surprised by liking some of it too!!

we mostly swam – surprisingly enough! we enjoy swimming, we enjoy messing about in water, and therefore we enjoy centreparcs! SB is fish like anyway, and was an intermittent visitor as mostly with friends – as mentioned above! i mostly played with BB, who has great confidence in the water, swimming over and under and really enjoying it. we got some zoggs seals that she had great fun with, as well as the noodles. we just loved it! also, whilst swimming, we adults got to chat with each other, share keeping an eye on littlies so we could go down various of the waterchutes and just chill. I really needed a holiday to chill, so this was ideal! i think i prefer elvedon for the pool rather than sherwood, but not a huge lot in it! i missed the salt hot pool, as the outside pool here not so hot, and had the rapids running off it, which BB permanently tempted to go down! I also missed the gentle ‘indoor river’. This year we did have a new ‘gadget’ a ‘nereus’ plastic bag for popping digital cameras in and using in the pool to a depth of 20m. remarkably successful i think! no leakage and the pics far better than i expected – main prob being the children actually staying where put!!

the playparks were enjoyed too, we had a couple of different sessions there, once predom with the deependers, and another predom with the sotp plus assorted other children brought along! and we did a nice cycle en masse round the complex. This was rather great, picking up a few children on the way – glad that B found her bike again – will not suggest here that she takes after her mother tho… Although i did take crafting stuff, we didn’t actually have anytime to do it, as most days we swam 2ce [morn and eve] and parked in the middle, or we did the cycle. we also had a mini birthday celebration for big and e and a meet at starbucks – so v sociable!

on the social front, the families [12 of them!] were divided into 3 areas, so i guess i saw the most of the ones in ours, and the families that we seemed to share a wavelength with for pool visits! so i missed mostly monsterteeny and manorborns [except for their all day endeavour!] and saw more of the portico, puddles, deependers, sotp, babs, jo, lovelyem and a sprinkle of ali!! me ‘n jax socialised out 2 of the nights, and ‘the boys’ 1 night – though they made the most of it, having a games and beer night and getting in at 4am!!

these poor unsocialised home ed kids! As a promise for the difficult sunday, both girls had agreed to do some home ed ‘work’ whilst away, which we did for 2 of the days! though SB did do recorder every day, and don’t think she will have much trouble with the grade 1 pieces. She also read loads of her new books…

so all in all a fab hol!! i will prob think of bits to add, but off to bed [probably!]

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Posted in BB-PE, General, music, Out and About, SB-PE, socialisation

bah to migraines

Posted on October 21, 2009 by | 5 comments

i think sometimes this blog is a catalogue of things that we didn’t quite get to do. not a very positive and uplifting thing! so i am going to positive spin the fact that i had such a migraine that i couldn’t drive to what looked like a fab art and craft experience for the girls into a positive opportunity for home learning! [though still, i hate being bound by migraine].

Anyway, I was up, BB was happily playing with happy street [they've been playing with it all week since it was about to be consigned to loft!] and SB was still asleep. chris roused her, and she did music theory whilst i cut out tissue paper circles for a craft in homage to harmony art mum. Luckilly, when i was thinking of doing this, i accounted from the differences in artistic temperament between her own offspring [guessed and hinted at on her blog] and my two! SO we had much smaller areas to fill, no particular design/plan/ rules, just a desire to stick something at the end on the window that might liven it up through the winter. So we did it, BB just did one, and returned to happy street. SB did 3 and i did one. we decided to string them together and hang off the window, and decided that we liked them, and SB has plans to vary it a bit. it was a bit fiddley, even massively simplified, to get the 2 bits of plastic to stick nicely. If i was going to be a bit more expensive about it, i think using laminating pouches would give a much neater look!

IMG_7370 IMG_7371

oh yes, before craft, SB had a second ever clarinet practice. I think chris is going to blog their fantastic trip yesterday, but also her part-christmas-present-early of a new clarinet arriving yesterday has heralded the sound of a very novice clarinetist. yesterday, sans migraine, i was enthusiastic. somewhat less so today, so suggested playing it to chris in the kitchen…

Erm, and a bit more ermmming!! well anyway, at some point we did some french – acombination of walking through the jungle with The Usborne First Thousand Words in French. they make a lovely combo, with a lovely story book with few words, but then all the names of the animals in the other one, so we can look and see if we want.

i was going to say we did some story of the world, but we did that yesterday, christopher columbus, magellan, amerigo vespucci. both girls were gripped with the idea they didn’t know the rest of the world and just sailing straight from spain, so we followed it on the globe, imagining we didn’t know what was there. SB and BB both did a bit of maths, we snuggled, I sowed on brownie badges, dozed a bit, repepped with medication etc etc. i didn’t move much from the sofa! played games with both girls, rummy, snap, monopoly. oh, i did piano prac with SB too, and she did some recorder.

Chris’s parents arrived after their hospital appointment, so we had a nice chat, SB and BB played snap etc with them whilst i rehydrate them :lol: and then nanna got suckered into an enormously long game of monopoly. chris’s dad has a few further tests to get through…

then it was mad ferring around – BB had rainbows, then SB brownies followed by Judo. BB got out the gears, and had fun with those, then the funblox, and finally fell asleep in my arms watching ice age.

i think i am going to call it a day, but think i rescued a lovely family home day from a disappointment day.

oh! edited to add – and how could i forget! major fuss today, as sb insisted she wanted to try some fake ham, as apparently she had it at nursery and liked it [?], so she did, and nearly gagged. chris, bB and i didn’t even try! but she also hurt/jiggled a wobbly tooth eating it, and later this evening it fell out. so she is 10 down!

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, early maths skills, General, geography, history, language, little languages, music, numeracy, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE