yay, spring is in the air. the daffs have been around for a while, the cherry blossom nearly over and the magnolia budding. Hooray for the rebirth!
I had a lie in today – well, BB did wake me, and we sang songs for a while, but she got up with Chris and I didn’t. When I did finally stir my stumps, I had heard them playing dollies together for a while – no idea what else.
So a slow start, with me reading books to the girls and them playing more dollies and castles. We also did a violin practice [for both] and started SB on twinkle twinkle – but will do merrily we roll along as well. She enjoyed trying starting on different strings.
We looked at the paperweight mosiac from yesterday, and peeled off the paper – unfortunately some of the little mosiacs came out too, but I think that was because the paper wasn’t damp enough. Can glue them back in easily enough. It looks fab anyway.
After lunch we piled outside to make the most of the weather. Mostly playing – hide and seek – where I giggled so loudly in my hiding place, but she still walked past twice :rolls: BB kept giving the game away as well. Chris washed the cold frame, and BB her dolly [thank goodness not SB’s new one! – we should have bought her a bathable one from Merry!]. Much swinging and looking at sprouting broad beans and radish – some suitably investigated by BB, so probably also ‘not working’
We sowed some more broad beans – into roottrainers, and some aubergines. Gradually catching up! Need to do some peas and brassicas ideally before hunstanton for the earlies, but fine to wait. BB got really carried away by the broad bean sowing, so happily sowed the rest of the packet into little pots which she filled with compost. the bean family are so ideal for little fingers! She was sooo proud of herself too, and told me about it over and over again.
BB is such a jolly little thing, SHe loves to talk [good thing in this house] and tell stories. In the garden she had 2 little boats that kept going on adventures round the garden with her, and you could overhear snippets of conversation between them. She is being a bit mean to SB but we are being firm that isn’t tolerated. Chris thinks that she actually enjoys doing the kiss, so now she has to go out into the hall and then come back in and kiss, and SB is encouraged to ask for a kiss at other times – maybe that’ll work. She loves being upside down at the moment, and does adore SB [mutual], following her around, and wanting to do everything with her. She’s also been my shadow – mostly because I have had so little time with her this past fortnight. Back on even keel now though I think.
We kept back some of the broad beans, and have done the beans in a jamjar experiment again – to again look at shooting and rooting. wonder whether to have a go with carrots as well this year like that – though the seeds are so fiddly?
We came in for hot cross buns, and SB cbeebied. BB – poor thing – started to flake, and was trying to eat and be asleep at the same time. Both girls got early baths, and BB stayed awake [just]. A quick pasta tea, and she was much perked, so we all looked at the first animal picture atlas together – BB spotting animals [mostly snakes and frogs!] and SB having to do continents as well.
SB then asked complicated genetics questions, so we discussed chromosomes, DNA and mitosis [sort of!] and looked at pictures of DNA [getting her to practice saying it out n full - BB had a go too] in our science encyclopaedia. We worked our way around one copy from each parent, but we each have 2, and so there can be ‘hidden genes’ ie blonde and curly! so you get a ‘surprise’. At the back are some experiments, starting with cress and the need for light and phototropism. Chris took BB up to bed, and we set up the relevant experiments, having a pack of cress handy.
SB then fancied doing some piano, and we have turned over another page, so have added G to our list of notes![ GABCC#DE] . We looked at our worm world again [well, we had looked at it several times] Ours aren’t the most active, so I might add one or 2 that have never met BB before, in case that is the problem! it might just be they are slow to recover from such a shock. We re-read all about earthworms, and I felt a need to make a home-ed poster about it as a project. We will see whether I can persuade SB thats a good idea too.
Bedtime, for the big girl, and I read her some more from Britannia [which I can't really class as history - more British myths and legends!] , and she read me another ORT book. She told me she REALLY REALLY loves these books. She’s geting good at it. there was hardly any sounding out, or mistakes, but she has been reading books on and off all day and loves to read the farm books to BB as well.
only a week before annual leave – wayhay!
) SB wanted to do something involving test tubes and the spirit burner. So we did one boiling, evaporating, condensing and distilling water (boiling old coffee, collecting clear water. Liking to have things correct, we talked about the difference between water vapour and steam – one day she will remember 
), and didn’t quite get to where I wanted, but reasonable progress made.
SB was happy, BB intrigued for a bit, but then decides she preferred having a cuddle after falling over in the snow a few to many times.Eventully I got tired of carrying her around the garden and we came in. SB played for a bit more , but then also came in. We warmed up with hot choc and crumpets whilst watching most of the program about migrating wildebeest that we caught a bit of pre Melrose. There was a good bit about lions hunting together, as well as lots of other discussion prompted about different predators, why some animals are in groups and some individuals etc. after lunch she did some maths, some colouring in a dot to dot book of gladiators, we sat a read some books. she read a bit on a printed out web page about lions – it was in normal size print which she normally says is to small, but read most of it fine. There was some websiting – EC and Poisson Rouge which she likes and it entertains BB