Category Archives: science

i hate laptops

Posted on November 26, 2006 by | 6 comments

when they flick screens for some unknown reason and you lose your whole blog post! It will consequently be very short.

Edu – SB very into Education City, on a trial, but will finally convert to the realy think this time – if anyone has a code they wish us to use, let us know. she is level 1+ for the english as 2 is a bit hard, and level 2+ for the maths. at least this time you are allowed to have different levels as this has been something that has put me off in the past.

we have played with the nursery bit with BB too, though won’t be buying it as a lot for nursery rhymes.

BB has been desperately under the weather for past few days, and last night and today def ill – nurofen/calpol the works. I weaned her this weak – actually without much trauma in the end – so suffering pangs of my faultiness about it as she no longer has my antibodies.

Other than that she has enjoyed playing with her birthday presents a lot, and playdough [which she does whilst SB fimos] SB fimo-ed today a lovely angel. i forgot to add any holes to hang on xmas tree so it may be a cake decoration

SB and i did lots of reading today with BB semi flaked on my lap [wanting to watch her bring me back on a loop - so we need to video her doing something else!], we story of the worlded the romans, read some ORT and usbourne farmyard books, she did lots of colouring and EC.
We were going to make a pegdoll fairy/angel, but BB wasn’t well enough to let us do it without her, and not sick enough to ignore us doing it with her IYSWIM

SB has enjoyed playing with my mum this weekend as well, and they enjoyed wathcing strictly come dancing together, amd planet earth. what a good mix! SB has been doing a lot of ‘interpretive dance’ about the place, and suddenly informed me their ballet uniform has changed to a lilac one with a ribbon belt? Why don’t the teachers let us know these things, as she saysd she is the only one still in the old uniform. and we need a character skirt as they no longer wear the blue polka dot one – sigh!

oh well, she has enjoyed some ‘trials of life’ as well today. SO although I feel I have mostly held a grumpy sick 2 year old, I guess we have done HE as well. SB has been very good at fetching things so i don’t have to jiggle bb too much. what a fantastic older sister she is.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, IT, literacy, numeracy, online resources, science, Stringbean's HE

will try and think of title!

Posted on November 22, 2006 by | 8 comments

BB still a pest with sleeping, so Chris was up very early, and even the rest of us were quite prompt. I have migraine – almost continually, so must be stress.

Morning was mostly playing with BB’s birthday presents – traintrack, etch-a-sketch, building blocks and some play food, as well as her ‘den’. Some reading aloud of various library books as well.

The a race to the painting session Merry had organised. We thought we were going to be late, but were the first – total shock horror! Poor SB was travel sick when we got there – nicely decorated the carpark. SB was really happy decorating her mug and had a clear idea of what she wanted to do, and how i should help her. BB was a challenge to keep happy – and Chris mostly did that, as with migraine in hot room I was better holding head still. I’m sorry Merry, but I am going to have a little rantlet here – I feel a bit bad doing it, as SB really enjoyed the activity, and the place was nice, and you organised it, BUT…

1. Why did she go on SO much about not being able to pronounce some people’s names, and saying she was going to give them numbers? She didn’t even try SB.

2. She made a huge deal at the beginning of being [to my view] slightly snide about HE – could they tell her anything about winter, did they know anything, did their mummies do all the work.

3. The huge deal at all having to draw a thin neat line before they were allowed to paint on pot. SB started to get nervous about this, so I got her to just start [which earnt me a frown!] And SB then asked me if we were going to get told off!!! We did actually, for using ‘the wrong colour’ SB had wanted to do snowflakes and stars at night. We were told she couldn’t use black – fair enough – so she chose a dark blue. OK, so maybe it isn’t going to look like the others, and perhaps the colour is overpowering – we will have to see – but after all it is actually what SB wanted to do, its never going to be in ‘work of art’ category, but I and she will be proud of it anyway, so whats the big deal? She didn’t come round to us after that, but was cross that I shew SB how to add rays to her star, and then did a bit of line that SB was worried she couldn’t do thin enough – I was told it was no longer SB’s mug as I had helped/done it. It was her design, her choice of colours, and I scaffolded at times so we had fun doing it together. What is so wrong with that?

Hmm, actually reading that, I am more pissed off than I thought. One girl nearly refused to do the thing altogether she was so worried about not being able to do a thin enough line! At one point I found myself getting worried about the state of SB’s lines – FFS! At least she was trying. The older lady when she came round was much mellower and encouraging.

I have to say, in case Merry doesn’t boast about it, Amelie did a really stunning snowman. But SB loved doing it and wants to go back and do more.

on the way back we picked up a freecycle microscope, which SB is going to have great fun with. We had a preliminary play after Chris cleaned it up and got it working again.

For bedtime story, I am reading SB charlie and the chocolate factory. However, I feel an overwhelming desire to call them the bouquet family, so TV sets about its insidious corruption!!

edited to add. Actually, migraine prob making me partic grumpy. I think the place was v nice, and prob it was this ‘I shall educate them’ thing that was narking me – my autonomous mothering coming though! Those that did do it the ‘envisaged’ way though were helped very well. They had loads of things to choose from, loads of paints, we were never hurried a long, and were made to feel very welcome, in spite of nearly as many non painting children as those painting! We got lots of 1:1 care as a group.I am still narked about items 1-3, but at the end of the day, SB said she’d had a lovely time, and her and Maddy were going round wondering what they could do next time, so = success from her point of view!

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, General, Out and About, science, socialisation

Action and Reaction

Posted on October 27, 2006 by | 1 comment

Monday and Tuesday felt like nothing days really regarding home ed, though there was some maths, a bit of explode the code, some bits of reading of various sorts, and probably other things, there is usually some colouring/drawing goign on most days at the moment. House has bit a right disaster zone lately (sounds familiar) – one of those situations when it gets such a mess it feels like so much effort to do something about it that you don’t. And it’s really getting in the way of doing home ed things. Which of course just makes you more fed up with it. Not helped by being out too much last week. This week we have been staying in a lot more, and no classes etc. so feeling a bit more relaxed about that as well.

So made an attack on that this week, my mum and dad came over on Tuesday to help things along (why are Mums so much more effiecent at this than us youngsters…?), and when Helen and the girls went to Little Nanny’s on Wed I satyed here, and as it rained, I worked on tidying upstairs. Our bedroom is nice and tidy again,which is always so much more relaxing.

Still more to do, esp. the utility room – sort out some more storage for HE craft/science stuff etc.. General crap and ‘stuff’ that just seems to collect around the place and paperwork etc.

Anyway, yesterday focussed on a bit more on education – Stringbean spent ages first thing drawing and colouring and picture card for Mummy. Spent a bit of time upstairs tidying Butterbean’s room, whilst the girls ‘helped’ – though moslty they played a game of climbing in the airing cupboard and shutting themselves in :roll:

After lunch, once BB was asleep for her nap, me and SB got out the Physics science kit, and had a go at that- we ended up building a little balloon powered car. Lacking a camera, we played with video camera instead, so we can inflict his on you ;-) I particularly like SB’s ‘TV presenter’ mode and her ‘blowing up a balloon’ song:

[vimeo]112777[/vimeo]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, literacy, numeracy, science, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE, video, writing

Life without a Lens

Posted on October 25, 2006 by | Leave a comment

Is certainly very difficult! We have had people to stay and BB has been being unbearably gorgeous, and apart from video – which we rarely use – no mechanism of catpure. Unfortunately we have a 150 pounds excess on insurance, so not sure what to do.

This week was a bit of a stay in week, with Chris on Mon, and his parents came round on Tues, so the ‘match and sort’ has been going well, and SB doing more and more voluntary reading of books. We have also read a lot to her, particulary from the ‘I wonder why…’ series. We’ve thought a lot about seasons and changes. i’ve managed some piano lessons – yippee!
today we went to little Nanny’s. As I drove there we did our usual singing and qwuestions [always helps me concentrate on driving!] pointing out my favourite buildings [and SB's] on the way. She made me giggle by pointing out the roman road, and telling me it went in straight lines so the British couldn’t hide round the corners – she says this MUST be fact as heard on a CD [yep HH] – as I tried in vain to explain it was a joke. We do a lot of car ed.

little Nanny is well, she is having a knee replacement next week [much needed] and hopes to be more mobile aftr that. In her mid 80′s this is not something she takes lighlty, but having been housebound for a year, quality is more important than quantity. I can see though, however much she denies it, she is worried about surviving, so I have suggested she requests a spinal. I think she can take the noise of the orthopod, and spinal’s are better for cognitive function in the elderly – and she is worried about that too, as she hasn’t been as good since last years run of bad luck. SB made her a lovely picture card to take into hopsital with her, and also a beautiful hama star [which we can't photo!] threaded trhough with pink ribbon to make a talisman necklace. Bless her, but Nanny wore it all day. SB and BB were delightful.

When home we had a look at a human body book, and then to bed. I am filling in some dratted form for work to try and get pay progression. it is due in tomorrow, but I am doing it last minute cos it is a right pain. I don’t think I’ll be successful though – they are only going to give the points to 8 consultants in the trust. i should have given the form to Nic! [yep, I am distraction activitying still!]
Speaking of Nic, I have had a number of garbled texts this evening, so I guess they are having fun.

Hmm, I am charged with making a costume like angelina ballerina’s firefly one for halloween. I have bought some ribbons, and am planning to embellish a dress with it. I hope its OK – I am just not as good as seamstress as SB believes!

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Posted in art and crafts, General, history, literacy, music, numeracy, Out and About, science, writing

Turning cinema into planes.

Posted on October 18, 2006 by | 4 comments

 

Well, today we failed to have a free cinema trip and instead went and spent a fair bit of money instead. Enjoyed it though in the end.

We were supposed to be going to a NSFW showing of March of the Penguins. We even left home at the time we meant to, which should have been long enough for the journey. Unfortunately all roads into town seem to be snarled up. We left the motorway, to find traffic backed up to the roundabout, so headed back onto M-way to try the next road in – I go down it pretty often at this time and is not usually very busy by then. But today it was backed up right down onto the M-way and along the hardshoulder and not moving at all really. I suspect a crash, as police car came through at one point. We made another attempt, but we were losing hope by now and this was also snarled up, we were now late and were obviously going to miss a chunk of the film, so decide to cut our loses and do something else.

We had been going to meet up with Bob and Katy and co. but at least with mobiles we were able to keep them filled in and they were able to get the tickets and see it anyway.

Seeing as we had just gone past the IWM Duxford we decided to go there. Though it’s a bit on the expensive side (though not I think bad value) so if we had realized we might not have done, esp. as we didn’t have any lunch with us so had to buy that as well. Anyway, it turned into a good day out.

Dusford was very good. There is a new Airspace exhibition focusing on the history of British aviation.  It’s not finished yet, but it is partly open. A hangar full of various British planes, including one of the prototype Concordes which was open for viewing, which was mostly full of various bits of test equipment. As  latest plane it had an escape hatch in the floor – basically, AFAICS you dropped out of the bottom of the plane –  Helen wasn’t convinced by this. There is a pretty good ‘ hands on’ bit upstairs as well, with various things to do with the construction of planes and flight which SB spent a fair while in. We looked at exhibits inside a couple of other hangars as well as some old commercial planes outside – SB was inordinately pleased to be able to go inside another one of them :-). There was much more that we could have looked at but just didn’t really have the time nor energy. They did have nice cakes in the cafe though for when you reach that point in the afternoon.

There is restoration work going on on various planes, which is being carried out in public view, so there were a number of planes is various states of dismantlement. I’m not esp. into planes, but I do like machines and things in general. Seeing complicated things like planes with all their guts exposed was interesting. It wasn’t greatly ‘ war-ry’ but there are of course lots of military planes on show. There was little bit of discussion about bombers dropping bombs. SB hoped that they were just dropping them on other soldiers, so we had to explain that no, sometimes they get dropped on ordinary people and children etc. as well.

By the time we had finished and got home we were knackered. It was time for a little relax before dinner. Though Helen read some books to SB, and a bit of SOTW.

After dinner I had to go out and pick up the latest Freecycle acquisition from someone in the village. We got one if those large (ish) freestanding pools, so pleased with that – SB has always been jealous of the Portico’s. so that should ensure lots of bad weather next summer…..

In one of those strange quirks of fate, the people listing it are the mysterious  ‘ other HE family’ that I heard about – she happened to mention it in an email. So now we know who they are, will hopefully get together at some point.

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Posted in Butterbean, history, Out and About, science, Stringbean's HE

Wet in Wicken

Posted on October 12, 2006 by | 4 comments

 

Ok, we didn’t actually get wet in the end, but I couldn’t  resist the alliteration.

Yesterday we went on a trip with other local HE families to Wicken Fen. A National Nature Reserve owned by the National Trust that preserves a bit of the old Fenland landscape that has mostly gone now .

 But getting wet was a close run thing, before we left it was chucking it down, as it was much of the way there, but it was easing off as we got nearer ‘ look, the sky is getting lighter’ was the refrain from the back of the car. Still little rainy when we got there (just a bit early as well for us..), by the time we had all assembled (luckily inside) it had stopped. The older ones were starting off with screen printing, whilst the younger went off for some pond dipping.

 Sisters togetherGetting a better look

 They are well set up for this so have  nice big rectangular pond with wooden edges etc. for easy dipping. I think everyone managed to find various little beasties – Dragonfly Nymphs, mayfly nymphs, Water boatmen, Great Diving Beetles, tiny little Pea Mussels, water snails, and various other unidentified small wriggly/swimmy things.

Good fun and no one fell in, everytime I moved off to take a photo I thought BB would go for it.

After dipping we went off to do  bit of clay modeling. The idea was to make clay models of beasties or whatever, some did, lots just made random clay things. I think screen printing sounded more fun.

Clay Modelling

After this we headed back to main building, I was going to suggest  snack and tea stop but there was a sort of treasure hunt thing organized around the boardwalk on the reserve – where the kids had to find hidden wooden animals, by the time me and BB caught SB up, who had gone on ahead she was ready and raring to go, so we did that instead. I’m a little dubious of these sorts of ‘ let’s find all these x things’ as I feel it can just mean the kids go around looking for them and you miss out on the point of whatever place you are going to. But that’s probably me just being  grumpy old man.

Anyway, SB enjoyed it running along with the bunch of the older-younger ones (IYSWIM) looking for them. Mostly she was way ahead of me and BB, as we pootled along, chatted with other pootlers etc. She did have daft SB wail at one point when looking for something and  boy point it out – ‘ Wail, wail – I wanted to find it myself and now I can’t…..’

Come on then.

But that was easily out done by her later escapade. Heard SB wail in the distance, and some one said she had fallen off the boardwalk. Amongst the wails I was regaled of tale of really quite excellent dimness. She was ‘ running my fastest’ and so ‘ I had to have my eyes closed’ (WTF? ) – and so yes she fell off the edge of the board walk…..

I did well I thought to keep  straight face, while trying to be sympathetic.

I’m sure Katy was sniggering up ahead.

By the time we had hunted  all the animals down, I certainly was ready for lunch, so it was time for a nice  cup of tea Though it was rather damp to sit outside and BB was bit on the restless side and wanted to be outside, so a fairly short and not esp.. relaxing lunch. And the rain started up again just as we left.

Once home we just really flopped, watched an episode of Life of Mammals, played with BB etc. After dinner SB insisted she wanted to go outside ,so she was scootering around the garden in the almost darkness. Whilst BB pottered around slightly bemusedly I think.

It was a good day, the place was interesting, they had some great large cutaway models of things like the inside of  a fly etc. Certainly worth another visit. SB is now quite good friends with some of the other kids and they make  good little gang. Shame Helen wasn’t able to come (it is normally her day off of course), she was being an examiner type person.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, geography, Out and About, photos, science, socialisation, Stringbean

salve [an epic!]

Posted on October 2, 2006 by | 3 comments

as already mentioned by Nic, we have been down to Sussex and back. SB has been reading about the Romans a fair bit, and so, remebering Fishbourne Palace from a school trip, we decided to go camping in chichester. And yes, we did get there!

Thursday

An early start meant we got to Fishbourne Roman Palace in time for an early lunch before the school trippers, and then could get to the museum part whilst they were lunching. Sb really enjoyed it. She looks with massive concentration at everything, so we can’t do things quickly any more, we looked at every artefact, read every label and discussed everything. Of course BB went wild over this! Chris took her for a run about.

We then went into the Northwing of the palace and looked at the mosaics. Having recently buillt a paper town house, SB good remember a few of the names, and also compare the palace with a standard small villa. Also, the city through time has been read a fair amount, and a few books about romans we have around [though not there with SOTW yet]. There is a centre bit for children to do rubbings of roman coins and tiles, and also make mosiacs etc. The gentleman in there called us over, as he had been watching us and said how well behaved and good and interested SB had seemed to be compared to the school children [proud mummy moment - of course,had she been in a group of 5 home-ed friends with only one parent, she would probably have been as noisy and running about as the 6-8 year olds]. Anyway, we got the bit to ourselves for a bit, and SB rubbed some coins ant tiles, and put some roman pots into the right categories [real roman too, so she was impressed - but it feels like todays pots!] She was confidently identifying samian ware anyway [though by today has no doubt forgotten]. She spent ages doing a mosiac with those plastic cuboids you stick in holes [there was one at melrose one year? proabably Sarah's] and when another boy asked if he could have a go too, confidently directed him and his friend as to how to do the pattern.Another bit of boasting, but more cos it was fun, is that there was a match up todays and ancient roman itmes pairs game. We were about to start this, and a mother of a school group came with a daughter and just took over [so I was grumped] but got the first 2 wrong, and SB corrected her. SB had remebered the oil and scraper [even calling it a strigil] to clean with [courtesy of the city through time series] and that sponges on sticks wiped bottoms [though neither of us know what they were called!]

we discussed pulleys and levers again at the roman lifting device., and then as we went out into the walk around the garden, announced she would be the roman lady in the peristyle [the previous mum was close by and nearly died] I have to say though that today SB couldn’t name a peristyle, but instead the triclinium so its swings and roundabouts, and I don’t imagine she will remember any of these words for long, its just a flavouring to learning about and hearing about romans.

where were we, oh a run about the garden, joining up with BB and ghris and then a mosey around the shop. I bought some books for half price, SB bought some colour in roman sheets and a multi colour pencil thingy – the one where you have to push the plastic bits out and pop them back in the top to get the next colour. She lost one in the car 30 mins later!

tent up, SB scootering and playing around wHile it tipped it down. She did some colouring in of her pictures too. nice flat site and minimal wind so OK. Dinner cooked and girls to bed, shortly followed by parents! I got about 6 million mosquito bites in 30 secs [only slight exaggeration] and SB got one on her forehead that blew up and gives her an ‘unusual’ look for all our photos subesquently!

?Friday

The next day we got up bright and early, after a very poor might with BB [she can smell the milk at that close a proximity] but still were much later to Nic’s than we intended. The children had great fun, dressed up and ran about. we gossiped and were ably catered for. Had the added bonus of Lucy being there as well, and reassure her that Melrose not that scary, but she needed to bake!!!!!! [well, ok, not necessary, but very nice] We stayed much later than planned as well, and only just got back in time to the campsite before gate closure. girls asleep, but another dreadful night.

?Saturday

SB played with a cheap optics kit I got from the one stop shop across the road, and made a perisocpe, played with the mirror bits, and looked at the various supplied pictures with paddles of different colours, and then ones that diffracted the light wierdly. She enjoyed it, we did a bit of tlak about light, but mostly made each other look wierd through the difractor thingy!

We had been going to go to arundel castle, but Ady and Nic persuaded us that the tariff was extortionate, and Ady sang the praises of chichester walls and cathedral and market. So we went there instead. We did enjoy going round the walls, SB pointed out there were no arrow slits and we discussed lack of them and crenellations etc. There was a good playpark, so we ran down to that and had a good play, and then a picnic a bit later on. SB now can proudly do that monkey swinging thing. I have never been able to do it, so my 5 year old has now surpassed me [before sniggering, I was thin until I met chris!]

As we walked past the cathedral, she decided to visit that, since we had planned to anyway… Its very nice and welcoming, whoever he is in the red cloak gave us a leaflet, and a child’s one for SB, and we were off. In true form, we had to read and look at absolutely everything, so BB and Chris had a running break outside! She was particularly taken by the chapel for the royal sussex regiment, full of poppies, so we discussed the wars and the meaning of the poppies. We looked at the various bishop’s tombs, at his ‘crown’ crook and dog or lion at his feet. [hmm, I am a bit low on the religious symbols here. home ed for me before another cathedral visit!] She liked the kings portraits, but we were bored [yep me too] by a kindly old lady going on about how they had rebuilt part of it. A small talk would have been welcomed, and we looked polite, but probably too much so, and I find it difficult to edge away. SO I allowed SB a bit more leeway in investigating the choir stalls, and lying on the floor to look at windows and ceiling arches than I might otherwise have done. And having done it, it didn’t seem at all irreverant, just a child wanting to see, so i’ll let her do it again.

the cathedral has a lovely cafe BTW, we treated ourselves to a coffee and cake as had had a picnic lunch. it has a nice garden for running about children, where other children were also running about.

Went through the market and only bought olives – so not too bad! We went to the beach at East wittering, must have been high tide, and pebbly. Huge waves and surfers out there. SB wants to surf one day. BB flaked out in car, so CHris and I took turns to watch her [have some peace]

For a change, I tried a sort of camping mexican, and it worked really well. the tortillas are easier than rice to do, so another one pot meal to my repertoire! And very quick. SB, BB and Chris went for a walk to explore while I did this, so 20 mins of pleace – bliss! We read one of the roman books as bedtime story [her choice]
Sunday?

on our last day [after another awful night!] we went to the weald and downland open air museum. absolutely fantastic. we were there about 5 hours, and didn’t get round it all. There were various enactors and workers. SB as always fascinated by the smithy, and the lovely chap there talked to her sensibly about horse shoes and smithying. It was the herb weekend, so quite a bit on strewing herbs, washing herbs and recipes, herbal remedies and cooking herbs about the place. SB loved exploring, and talks more to the enactors now, and BB loved the clmbering up and down steps and looking out of windows. SB bought henry the 8th’s ring in the shop, so is very happy! its too big though.

Dreadfull drive home…

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Posted in art and crafts, Cooking, General, history, Out and About, SB-PE, science, socialisation

this was the day that wasn’t

Posted on September 27, 2006 by | Leave a comment

somehow it took us until 3 to pack, and so we haven’t gone on holiday. the whole day seems a bit wasted!!

SB and BB played beautifully together. SB nearly managed to pack all the items required herself.

SO, once we weren’t going, SB did some maths, we read a book together and looked at the roman website linked below. We also did some brainbox electronics and playdoughing.

BB showed a deep desire to potty train, so we have assorted puddles of wee around. Unfortunately she started screaming for a nappy and we didn’t quite get there. luckilly well formed and easily cleaned from kitchen floor!

We are planning to leave really early tomorrow!

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Posted in art and crafts, General, history, numeracy, science

Writing in retrospect

Posted on September 25, 2006 by | 1 comment

We didn’t go to to Gressenhall in the end, partly cos I’m going near there tomorrow, and the drive 2ce put me off. Instead we went to a National trust watermill. We had a lovely time there. Its really good, with lots of children friendly demonstrations of how bits work, and it is still milling flour. So we all enjoyed wandering around it – even BB [who got soaked by the watery activities!]. Should be some good flickr pics eventually.

We also did some explode the code, and SB read another magic key book – this time about the red planet. She is asking to read to me now [well, 3 days in a row anyway!] so I have bought some more books from the book people. Well, I haven’t ordered for over a year. i took more than half of the order out of the basket before I paid as well [:rolls eyes:]

Otherwise we did lots of running about in the garden playing and discussing various imponderables – all of which I have now forgotten, but at least 2 I thought I should blog. Oh well. She finished a hama princess. Must buy some clay from Bead Merrily! We watched the next bit of the dvd about living in the ice. She was predictably very interested in the antartica bit
Today I nipped into work for some how to work in a non-NHS enviromnent discussions – difficult! but on returning, SB has been building the whitehouse, and having a chat about america with chris, and looking up virtual tours on the internet. obviously, she forgot instantly about the president! Se as exploded the code. Book 4 she has to think about a bit more. We have missed maths for 2 days unless I persuade her to do some now? We are going to do a piano lesson when I have finished typing this though. Ha Ha! suggested the maths, and she’s doing it!!! OK, not autonomous, but no complaining as I actually only said it cos she was asking me what she could do next.

So what else, oh, we have another cake experiment in the oven. This time a chocolate mayonaise cake. SOunds a bit wierd, but lets see. Always good with both BB and SB doing it. Actually, SB does it, and I try and stop BB from doing anything too dreaddul by letting her mix up a small bowl of chocolate gunk. The cups work really well though. For example, she need 2 cups of flour, but only the 1/3 and 1/4 ones fit in the bag easily, so she worked out she needed 6 of the 1/3. Unfortunately she forgot what number she had counted to somewhere on the way to the 6, so lets see! [i'm also baking it in the wrong sized tin, so timing uncertain.]

BB is being gorgeous still, kicking a ball about and giggling. She loves the fish – they are prob being fed too much as a result. She likes being read to and jiggled about still. Operation attention is going well, but no noticeable loss in bf antics!

Anyway, guess I’m done now, will help her on this second page, and then to the piano. Tonight I’m out for a work meal. Hopefully we will flickr monster’s party soon, and then with yesterday we are up to date – wahayy!

edited to add – the cake is out of the oven and looks and smells delicious – oh the temptation!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, history, literacy, numeracy, Out and About, science, Stringbean's HE, writing

In fear of hibernation!

Posted on September 23, 2006 by | 5 comments

So we have done multiple postings today. TBH, home ed has meandered on, but I feel we aren’t quite getting it right. This might be more that I am not getting it right, as I have let my life get unbalanced recently. However, I don’t do unbalanced for very long :grin: , so time to rebalance and get my ‘carpe diem’ motto back in action. SO I have.

On the home ed front, we have been getting into a habit of a bit of explode the code, and a bit of singapore maths near every day, just 2-4 sides depending on mood. This is working well. Explode the code has been good for us, as SB was adamant she couldn’t read, and actually still thinks she can’t, and wasn’t going to try. Explode the code has never been reading to her, so has never hit the can’t read so won’t button. However, now she can read the singpore maths instructions, words all over the place to make sure I am telling the truth – sigh! but very excitingly for her, she read one of the usbourne young readers on pirates and an oxford magic key on robin hood with barely any stumbling or help. So thanks Merry for the introduction to ExTC!!!

We’ve done a fair bit of bobbing back and forth on history. She likes books about Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I. We have also carried on reading about ancient greeks, minoans and the legends and myths from these cultures. Some nipping to Roman times, 1066 and the mediaeval times [well, Robin Hood myths mostly] to fit with various history re-enactment outings we have done, and also with the street through… and city through time books. I really like the Story of the World text and activity, as it breaks things up into SB chunks. We get pictures from DK eyewitness books and the Usbourne ancient civilisations book. i don’t imagine SB will remember great chunks, but she does enjoy it, and weird facts pop out all the time. Today we were doing Medea and Persia in SoTW, and she i quite good at paraphrasing, but also seeing stories are similar – particularly the abandon your baby one, as she thought it was going to be about Perseus.

I haven’t got to grips with regular music lessons [piano or violin] – which is very bad of me, since it is a passion! We listen to classic fm alot, and SB tries to describe the type of music. today one of the planets came on, so I said it was the planet. Initially she said she could hear the words jupiter, but then decided it had to be about Uranus or Pluto as it sounded so cold and far away. I was impressed [and it was Uranus]. We do do alot of singing, and she makes up music for her dances, so I will just put it in my list of thinks to get into the habit of!

Another thing in my blogroll of shame is languages. I really mus just get bottom in motion and sort this out! Still very tempted by Rosetta stone. Merry suggested I should relook at education city – as something computer oriented may overide my inertia!!

Geography is covered well at the moment – possibly driven by the mediteranean history we are doing, but also by gettting a free globe ball from the kids national geographic subscription [we are awaiting our first magazine] . We also watch are fair number of the David attenborough DVD’s, and this covers natural history and geography regularly. Must look up what this evenings one was, but essentially it was about volcanos. SOmething SB quite keen on.

Science is mostly from books – the why does… and the usbourne ones get a regular reading. We have looked at caterpillar lifecycles on the brassicas this summer. Unfortunately BB likes feeding the ‘snakes’ to the goldfish, so they don’t really get to complete the cycle. Also the free fish are rather good. It would be better if we actually knew what they were. Linked to a photo on the rare offchance anyone might hazard a guess! but we have done crystal experiments, talked A LOT about dinosaurs [and the 2 have played games with the cheap ones from tesco], and thought more about surface tension and sound and light rays in a number of ways.

SB has dance and swimming lessons, puts on countless dance shows for me and is still keen that we find her football lessons. i can’t believe that she won’t just wail… We still aren’t at the top of the rainbows waiting list, so at this rate we will be starting with brownies! She’s going to more CHEF and PBEO group meets, which is good.

Crafts are never underrepresented! Today we have drawn and coloured with SoTW, a birthdaycard for my niece as well as various other pictures. We also try to regularly bake or be involved in food prep. today we tried that choc spread cake again, but using oil to see if it could be adapted – no! but its still edible.

We are also spending alot of time outside, to get the most of the last of the good weather. We are still harvesting bits and bobs from the garden, and SB and BB love the swings and climbing frame and slide. Actually the most amazing harvest has to be the carrots, as i thought we had smothered them in weeds months ago, but they aare doing well! The butternut squash also a surprise last minute success. We have just started harvesting the grapes too – yummy!

if all this sounds rather busy, it has to be said that SB plays for the majority of the time, hearing me read to her is never turned down, she chooses the books on the whole. We play set, uno, made up princesses/queens/roman slaves etc etc regularly [I wonder what the people in the pub think!!]

BB is adorable. Mostly speaks in full sentences, with one comprehendable word embedded in it. She dances, sings, draws [on absolutely everything - the menace] and likes to copy SB in everything she does. BB and SB usually play reasonably well together, with dollies, lego, happy street and outside. BB not good at recognising when SB not in a sharing mood – and both give no quarter! Weaning is not progressing, though BB usually play feeds now, which is a nuisance, and I presume territory marking! So I am trying to develop other 1:1 times with reading, doing jigsaws etc, and sharing SB’s activities [not altogether impressing SB] so that it becomes less necessary to play bf acrobatics.

So, I guess in summary I am enjoying my children more again. I can’t altogether switch off work and the worries, but I am doing better at not letting it get between me and my family. Hopefully this will in turn reassure them, so SB less waily, and BB less feedy in time.

oh, and I rather liked those Gressenhall piccies K. hmm, I wonder about going tomorrow???

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