Category Archives: socialisation

A Family Weekend

Posted on October 24, 2005 by | 4 comments

we visited my parents for the weekend. Such a nice time. put the worlds to right, wailed over children growing so quickly. Hopefully allayed some fears about home ed. Felt loved.

Friday:That was the short version! We wet down on the Friday and had a hideous journey due to a major smash on the M25 which we were luckilly not involved in. SB so excited to be visiting my parents, and BB, well being BB. lots of reading books and investigating the toys went on, and a very late SB bedtime.

Saturday: The next day SB cycled with my Dad to the swings. She was very proud that grandad was taking her, and had begged for us to take her bike with us for this very reason. Grandad proud to be so wanted too. SB ‘read’ a book to Nanny – well, at least sounded out some of the words, did a bit of explode the code, and also Mum had bought a colour in book, so that done too.

In the afternoon we went for a wallk along the river at Marlow – always something I enjoy. I played many concerts at the church, and spent a lot of my childhood walking there! SB likes the rather nice childrens play area. there were loads of swans and geese to be fed – but Chris had not remembered the bread [my mum and I travelled in a diferent car as we went to homebase first. hummed and hawed about a fantastic deal bunkbeds – abit like Ernest and Buttercups, which I thought were a great idea when we visited. Sense prevailed. After all, if we are too broke for a halloween party, then I cant buy bunkbeds. mum bought us paint as an early Xmas present!] Anyway, back to Marlow. A nice walk along the river. Some georgeous houses – how many home eds would have to live together to club for them??? SB running along the bank spotting things.

Nice family evening [though Chris doing the computer guru thing with my Dad, it was me that saved the day with the laptop on trial!!]. Played scrabble – I love it, so sad!

Sunday SB did some explode the code, and told Mum about Elizabeth the first. good girl! We also did sweetie maths. My sister Vivien and her 2 children came over, so basically lots of fun and merriment. I love my family! SB and my nephew M play together realy well, and my niece E is now a happy thing – playing with both SB and BB. BB went into adorable baby mode. She needed to make up for the horrendous night we had had! lots of photos I need to put on Flickr

www.flickr.com

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, history, literacy, numeracy, Out and About, photos, socialisation, Stringbean

Archaeology Day

Posted on October 20, 2005 by | 12 comments

Oh what fun. Let me say now, before you all switch off, it was fantastic. I loved it, just my cup of tea. the children loved it, and it was great fun!!

The background was that we [Merry, Tammy and I] had enjoyed reading archaeologists dig for clues with our children, and the children of the families thought it a great book. On meeting up for the Roman re-enactment thing a few weeks back, the children enjoyed scrabbling in the sand being archaeologists, so we thought, well why not?? And Tammy being an archaeologist……

So Merry and Tammy and families came for the day to have fun. First we covered arts and crafts, as the children painted their pots using red yellow and black [OK, real paints rather than natural glazes and dyes, but they were garden centre terracotta pots. When they are teenagers, they can make the pots as well!] this done, they hared around playing with each other on the bikes, climbing frame and indoors whilst they dried. SB, Sam and Fran also went looking for flints in the veg beds – and found loads. The ceremonial pot breakage came next – Amelie took a few goes – bless.

At this point all the children were supposed to disappear whilst I buried the pots, but SB and Sam helped out. we all helped mark out the squares – 2 test plots each. I dug the holes and they put in the broken pots, plus some hama beads grave goods [these were pre-christian!]. Some competition between Sam and SB ensured that there was plentiful grave goods!!

Lunch time – phew. Minimal trauma as pasta with help yourself toppings, so all eaten up. Second sitting for adults [after Tammy had read copiously to thechildren, the archaeologists book and moved on to fairies - Merry and I did contemplate leaving the building surreptitiously at this point, but it seemed unfair!] I got the recording things and the glue ready for the afternoon fun. Cheesecakes from Tammy [yummy] set us up for the archaeology.

As this is arable land, luckilly, artefacts are usually near the surface, and our dig was no exception [it was bad enough digging filling up 10 test pits without going too deep!]. A handy field walker [LOL] had left a clue as to which pot was buried underneath, so the children all found their pots, and started digigng. less adult help was required, and they all had a go at recording on the chart the places they had found things. Fran was the first real find – some pottery not buried by me, and also Amelie had some extraneous pottery. When each child thought all was found, we had a quick over dig and brought up a few more pieces and went to the glueing.

Glueing the pots with 5 children is much more hard work than glueing with 1!! Especially since they were tricky things to glue. I think to anyone else contemplating this bit of fun, I would suggest terracotta saucers instead. Easy to paint, and much easier to glue! Bearing with me, Fran and SB nearly completed their 2 pots. I had to admit to Amelie that half her pot seemed to be missing – and we couldn’t find it in the hole either! Tammy and Sam nearly completed theirs. Sam went to do a bit of sieving – since I had found 3 garden sieves. The others gradually went off to play. They all played together really well. [usual minor sharing traumas, but nothing major] We decided that the incompleteness of our pots [due to missing pieces and glueing trauma] was very realistic.

During this time, Josie practised her escapology tricks [rofl], and interacted with BB. They did seem to be having a game of pass the item at one point. BB asleep on sofa, and I don’t think her nappy has been changed since before lunch – Aargh terrible mother! They have both seemingly enjoyed the whirlwind of activity around them, and the interaction between them is cute.

Some chilling out and then the parting of the ways. Sb is at Ballet – having cycled there with Chris on the tandem, and BB is asleep. Peace – how wonderful!

Yep, I am flickring – its getting its own set!!!!

oh, the village lights committee came round to confirm our willingness to buy a christmas tree for over the front door, and pay for the yearly decorations. OK i said, when should I get the tree – well by the end of the month – what??? Where do you get an Xmas tree from in October???

www.flickr.com

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, history, photos, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

OK, so for archaeology day….

Posted on October 17, 2005 by | 5 comments

Have cheap terracotta pots. Have practiced painting them with only black today to see how long they take to dry [approx 30 mins], and will break one, to make sure it breaks only into a few pieces – these will I guess have the potential to scratch?

then grown ups can bury and thought of burying with each one a grave good? ie a few hama maxi beads or something. And we might try and bury a few stones or shells as well. If anyone else has anything else that they would like to bury as an idea we can accommodate that too. We’ll mark out some grids. I have a feeling that the younger ones ie SB, may do a dig up as quickly as possible thing, but we will see. We don’t quite have enough digging up things – ie garden trowels or holiday spades.

while waiting for the pots to dry enough to be buried by some of the adults [? about 45 mins??], we can read the archaeologists dig for clues to remind them of what we are doing and or some of the history resources – perhaps the early people ones, and then see if they will run about and play for a bit.

I can have drawing paper and implements in the conservatory laid out for them to draw what they have found – or anything else that takes their fancy. You can get in directly from the garden, so can limit the spread of mud throughout the house! [oh how likely!]

Potential other activities – I am going to make some shallot confiture at some point, so can keep the blanching water and skins for some tie dyeing [though I am aware Merry's have already done this.]
we have prob bits of wood etc out in the garden that we can give them a stash and see if they can build a few small huts [ROFL!!!] for barbie!

Outdoors we have loads of daffodil bulbs to plant if more digging is what they fancy.

If rainy, we could have a go at making the egyptian sweetbreads in the history projects book. [or anyway]

You will all i hope bring spare clothes!!!! as i think this may be messy. and potentially something tlike an apron for the painitng? [we have 2]

I am hoping for Merry [3 girls +baby], Tammy [1 boy] and maybe Karen O [3 boys] to come

lunch could be pasta and either tomato sauce, grated cheese or just better depending on preference. We have lots of fruit.

if anyone has an activity they are desperate to do/try out I’d love to have a go too – except mummified chickens!

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Posted in General, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

default blog

Posted on October 15, 2005 by | 5 comments

you see, chris is sort of reliable at blogging, and then again………
have been at work all day, and now just on call.
very nice that SB and BB with chris joined me after stagecoach and had a picnic in my office [sorry Liz - my sharee]. well, BB mainly just guzzled milk.
SB then did some of the getty and dubay that I had printed off. We had a hysterical moment when she wanted to draw things beginning with K – kite, kangaroo [though my outline apparently more t rex], koala and… we were stumped. Chris made me giggle at the thoughts that the dictionary must have a very short K section. i googled, and came up with knight – to SB’s disgust, so then thought of knee. we had a bit of a discussion then about silent K. How will we manage to home ed, when we can’t even think of King?

I had to do some work, and they went off to the park – both cycling and swings I believe.

When I got home, SB finishing tea, and BB thirsty – LOL. After tea we looked at CBBC schools site, and SB has had fun with barney bear – in the new forest, in dublin [with some mapping] and in australia. it seems odd to be progressing from cbeebies!

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Posted in Dance/drama, General, geography, language, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

Sleep…? how quaint an idea

Posted on October 15, 2005 by | 4 comments

Edit – Ahh, like buses, two blogs have come along at once – my take and Helen’s take below :-) Ah well leave as they are I think

11 pm, SB still awake upstairs – and she’d had bit of late night last night as well. Fell asleep on the way back from the puddlers group and when we got back I just couldn’t get her to wake up. Ah well, means that she was full of energy for when Helen came back from work.

Morning disappeared soon enough, with a trip to Tesco’s, Staples, sorting out an activity for the puddlers group (and then leaving the materials behind…..Grrrr…..), a few house chores. Group was good, as Merry has blogged elsewhere, it’s turning into nice little group (or even not so little), Shame we don’t live little bit nearer when it comes to travelling to it. SB always enjoys it, she spent ages today cutting colouring etc. to make T-Rex stand up model. She took great care in carefully cutting it all out. Taken by Tammy’s comments re recent evidence that some dinosaurs had some sort of feathery covering rather than scales she stuck feathers on it -Fluffy T-Rex any one :-)

She also enjoyed the ‘make a skeleton in the ground thing with bits of pasta’ activity, as well as making, and more importantly, noisly throwing around paper Pterosaur. I’ll get some piccies of them tomorrow, (forgot the camera again, but Merry has some nice ones)

Once home whilst SB snoozed, BB woke up, so me and here played for bit without interupption, she is getting gradually better at standing, and is happier about holding onto things other than people, and almost lost the lopsided crawl she had. Just starting to cruise the furniture a little bit. She had dinner while I had a cuppa, and then Helen came home just as I was starting dinner. Work seems to have been a crap last couple of days, and she is on call all weekend :-( Does have next week off though, and no plans for us to go away anywhere until the weekend)

SB seems to have got into Story of the World, I was looking at it last night and she wanted me to read her a bit, so we did the first chapter, and I heard them reading the next bit about the Ancient Egyptians earlier. She’s been resistant to books with lots of words and not many pictures until now, so maybe we’ve reached another little milestone, she even let Helen read her a bit of the Faraway Tree at bed tiome last night. Might get hold of Winnie the Pooh and try that now, before she get’s too corrupted by Disneys efforts ;-) anyway, been looking at the SOTW Activity book and itching to ahve ago at some of those things – by the time we’ve finished hacking the garden some more should be plenty of long wooden bits and stuff – just right for building a nomads hut . What say you Merry and Tammy – maybe next week?

Chose a little Usbourne Pocket Science book about how cars work or somesuch as her bedtime reading – fascinates me how she loves to sit and listen to this sort of thing, even though some of it must go over her head. didn’t blog it on Tuesday, but we sat and I read her a Ladybird book about Aeroplanes. It was not at all simple stuff, and I didn’t read the text verbatim, but we did look at the diagrams and pictures whilst I talked about Aeroplanes, the shape of wings, lift and other forces on the plane, different types of engines, controls etc.

SB bedtime update 00.22 – still awake……….. Time for our bedtime though

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean, history, Out and About, science, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

fridays child is …

Posted on October 14, 2005 by | 2 comments

…finding work hard.I’ve had a bad 2 days really. Feeling trammelled by forseeable work constraints, and not sure how to resolve any of these issues without having to move at some point – sigh. feel I have therefore made a crap choice for my family, as we are all settling here really nicely. hmm. Also been in terms of actual work a difficult 2 days. sigh. Also working this weekend. groan!!

Some things OK though – although been home very late at night, the girls have been up and enthusiastic. And tonight that has been really valuable for me, as I came home feeling hopeless and uncomfortably dejected, but just doing normal things with them has enabled me to relax.

SB very taken by the story of the world. Chris started reading it last night, and she asked me to read some more tonight. We are discussing writing – she actually seems to remember a lot – where the nile is, flooding and farming, and egypt, pharoahs, heiroglyphics etc. Anyway, we discussed the sumerian cuneiform writing, and she would like to do some. must but some clay, but playdough to start with! She also laughed at the hippopotamus being a water horse. these books are written nicely aren’t they.

We also read the usborne pocket science books what is the earth made of without prompting she named all the planets and that they were in the solar system. she even told me why we could only live on earth. not bad really. Each time we read the books, she picks up a little bit more, and asks a few more questions. The other one was how do cars work and she was quite taken with the idea of how the pistons worked, and naming car parts.

At bedtime I read a few more chapters of the faraway tree. She has finally decided she doesn’t need pictures for a read aloud as long as she likes the story. She’s still not really aleep though and keeps coming downstairs.

this is mainly as she fell asleep after the puddlers group. They did dinosaurs, and I’ve seen her t rex, pteranodon and muddy dinousar pasta bones!!

BB’s black eye is improving. She is starting to walk more around furniture – oh help!

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, General, history, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

october blogbumping

Posted on October 5, 2005 by | 5 comments

has been rather grand!
we have kirsty and co staying, and merry and co round for the day.

it was nice to get in from work to a houseful yesterday. Kirsty’s 2 and SB were demonstrating nicely one of the reasons we bought the house – it is a fantastic place for children to run around madly shrieking!! They played together, watched shrek and investigated the house together. unsurprisingly very late bedtime. foolishly i’d said we read 1 book for each – andthey all chose long ones. kirsty giggled as i started to paraphrase! not that they then fell asleep……… We got in a good natter before my eyes refused to stay open anyway. I did check out the sonlight manuals though.

Today they all demanded we bake so i checked ingredients and recipe. SOme nice drawing occurred while we adults had a cup of tea! they then ran around indoors and out like loons while I tidied some of the disaster from yesterday! once the floor was visible, it was quite clear that happy street should be done, and the 3 worked nicely to get the track to go around the mat – even with BB ‘helping’!

Kirsty here! Helen forgot to add in the huge conversation she and Marcus had about hearts and discussing the different parts of it using her freebie heart model she got ages ago. We must get one of those! This was started by looking at a big body book so loads of discussion there too. Marcus was beign very brave I must say, talking to both Helen and Chris like they were normal people (which of course they are lol!) and not like he normally talks to adults! He’s getting better!

oops edit no 2 – forgot to also add that on asking for a paracetamol for a headache Chris supplied me with 2 double strength cocodomal (sp?) which resulted in me being stoned for the whole day!! erm, oops!

When Merry and co arrived, Fran settled down to read numerous books to SB [what a great idea!], before they got more adventurous. the littlies demolished the happy street of course. While we grownups discussed sonlight, usborne and brownie-style badges for bloggers. was a great natter.

Chris edit – Whilst those adults nattered. This adult was in the kitchen organising lunches for the hoards. Much uproar was caused over instant needs for Pitta Bread ! there should be some sort of rule that all children will eat baked beans….

Children went outside and climbing framed and sandpitted [great!] when started to look overly excited we went to plan B which was drawing in the conservatory – some great pictures done. Included discussion on growing grapes, why they have pips, the solar system and order of planets.

When Merry went we had pasta tea, and the children counted to 10 in all known languages. Chris read some of our pre-loved ladybird books – greek legends and dinosaurs. They all did a lot of counting and adding, and some shops playing. I insisted only one book read to nigt, but they still spread it out by doing a full home-ed thing by discussing each page – counting, spotting differences etc etc. sigh!! Still awake. Anyway we actually did a lot of autonomous home ed.

now, have flickred, so may do a badge whilst drinking wine!

www.flickr.com

ok, better late than never!

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Posted in art and crafts, Blogging, Butterbean, General, history, language, literacy, numeracy, photos, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

What an excellent weekend – edited to add photos!

Posted on September 25, 2005 by | 2 comments

Had some great company, from the ‘making it up’ family. [who have also beeaten us to blogging!] SB and Big racing about together and BB and Small also doing a fair bit of interaction. Took so many photos, have given it a flickr set

On Saturday, all the children were fairly exhausted still from a late night, so we did ‘managed interventions’ [LOL] to keep the humour going and their awakeness untill an acceptable time for bed. This included sticker pictures, icing [and eating] muffins, book reading and indoor/outdoor changes of venue. It worked quite well really. Its nice to see how well they all get on bearing in mind the short time they have known each other, and the few times they have met. got some nice Flickr photos. Small was being a bit of the daredevil on the climbing frame, but escaped with minor bumps and bruises only [a relief!]

SB also restarted Stagecoach – she missed the first one last week. Having been reluctant to go, we were discussing this beign the last one, but she returned full of enthusiasm – we will wait and see.

Bedtime well managed, and peace had descended by 8pm – wow! Allowing for a fair bit of adult natter time and general gossip/setting worlds to rights and catalogue drooling. We weren’t quite as good at getting an early night. Jax appeared to also like the melon vodka.

www.flickr.com

Sunday
Well, Merry has beaten me to the blog! Anyway in the morning, the girls were still shattered, and played well for most of the morning, and then were played out really – well they have done well. We did though dress them in matching princess fairy outfits [bridesmaids dresses to you and me!]. SO I have now worn my voice out [as if] by reading every princess story in the barefoot book, half the faeries one and to general amusement, fox in socks, which I will consider sending Big as a present!

Merry and Co from Patch of Puddles joined us for lunch [chaos!] and then we went to the romano-british day at Hinchingbrooke Park. We were rather late getting there, and had missed the battle, but I did enjoy the rather gory Boudicca story. The lady in the roundhouse was informative, and SB enjoyed just looking about. She didn’t think there were any romans there, as they weren’t wearing togas, or the bright red of the army [though we did miss the fight - and she was disspointed about that] As we walked pased the spinner, she said she knew it was spinning, and she had seen it before, so didn’t need to again! So something def going in then!! ‘quietly making noise‘ were also there, and Sam, and SB had a jump over dinosuar pit/midden [depending on viewpoint] competition. They both lost!

The display room was good, and all the children enjoyed the sandpits/archaeological digs. there were some tesserae to make mosaics, and bits of moasaic tiles. SB particularly proud to get a free postcard. On the display, it said various freebies for schools and entry to various local digs etc, so may follow that up, as it seems there is quite an interest from the children. The archaeologists had fluorescent safety jackets with official archaeologist on the back – Kewl!!

www.flickr.com

Said goodbye to the various families as we all went back our different ways. SB just about persuaded to stay awake, and we used up the rest of the pyramid templates. The house is VERY quiet!! A total disaster zone, as 3 mini tornados and a baby destroyer of worlds have certainly left their mark [s]. I’d better start on the happy street [and flickr in a bit!]

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Dance/drama, General, geography, history, literacy, Out and About, photos, SB-PE, socialisation

Short Blog

Posted on September 24, 2005 by | 3 comments

well, for once I’m going to be succint as we have guests.

yesterday I finally went to the emergency dentist to have tooth done – should have gone ages ago as cracked filling was spearing my gum. Still painful today, but in an aching something done way, so much better. the emergency dentist at the hospital was a fab woman.

Jaw ached so much, that I called it a day at lunchtime though and came home, just in time to nip off with the beans to puddlers. [my first!]

that was very nice! will def go if free from work for whatever reason. It was an egypt session, so we made tammy’s fantastic sugarcube pyramid – from the story of the world activity book. Rather unfortunately, she told me that the activity boook comes with suggested stories to buy, all available from rainbow resources, so Jan may be main another order when this one comes through!

other bits of fun – heiroglyphics, scarab beetle seals, making a paper pyramid and sand camels. I rea d a few books as well. tick box, tick box, tick box!!!!!! Hopefully Merry took a photo with our beans, that I can nick from flickr!

Home again home agian quickety quick, as imminent arrivals from ‘making it up’. I say imminent, but although Tim did OK, Jax got caught in traffic from hell. Big and SB instantly disappeared to play, and eventually all 3 were intently happy streeting.

any thoughts they might wear tthemselves out were, of course,erroneous. eventually a midnight socks the survivor tape did the trick. they still woke up promptly though, an BB had given us a dreadful night. luckilly i am coming too whilst blogging. may even get dressed!!

guinness back as well

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, General, geography, history, literacy, Out and About, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

Blogbumping – 2 for the price of 1 again!!

Posted on September 18, 2005 by | 1 comment

We had a lovely day at the Portico yesterday, and caught Merry and girls there as well – so a really nice and wild time had by all the children. SB loved it. We were well chatted, well served on the food and drink, and general all round lovely – thanks.

The children where variously clothed in the copious amounts of dressing up options on offer, and spent a lot of time getting soaked by making waves with the pool. I didn’t get to see much of SB, so tickled Amelie as my surrogate daughter – she has a similar all arms and legs quality to her!

BB and Josie were obviously interested in each other, rather than playing together. A certain amount of anything you’ve got, I’ll have went on. Josie showed off her superspeedy crawl, while BB showed that she can at least crawl now [mercedes vs trabant!]. For 2 weeks difference, Josie looks decidedly older. i think its the more hair [as well as crawl and stand expertise!]

We were in Reading for a course of mine, so stayed the friday night in football stadium hotel – gratis [v nice]. The family are getting used to being conference families, and SB aquiring a checklist of expectations. Luckilly left to ourselves we usually camp or hostel, so the obvious differnces between what we are prepared to pay and what we accept are not so noticeable! Very nicely, the company paid for the families meal as well as me on the course dinner. Not expected – chris said he would have had pudding had he have known. While we were at the course, I had thought he would get to the Portico’s bright and early, however, since breakfast was free, he was doing the 6 breakfasts until I explode thing, and then BB crumbled a samosa over sparkly suite – oops.

Overt HE stuff – Today I have been at work most of the day, home hopefully for the night – but depends as on call. Chris took the beans swimming, and SB swam 2 widths – not bad. BB loved it [no surprise]. Not sure what else they have done? When I got home, we read loads of phonics books – with SB reading the hot fox one. played with her fairy castle, did part of a GB jigsaw, did the whole of the DK travel the world game, and played a sort of rummy with a set of happy families cards – which SB picked up the concept very quickly, so not bad. L:istening to classic fm, and did some discussion on happy/sad.

We also had a chat about Aunty Peggy dying. Sb asked if she was now in someone elses tummy. A moment to grasp she was thinking about rebirth [we have read some buddhist tales] I explained no-one really knew what happened, that you can believe that you go to heaven, or that you are reborn [but don't remember], or that you think perhaps there may be nothing else, but memories. I believed that Aunty Peggy now lived in my heart, and the heart of those that loved her. SB liked this idea, but is going for the rebirth, as she is sure she has lived before. She then asked if God was real – so I admitted I wasn’t sure, but lots of people did, and lots of people didn’t, and it was something she would decide herself. She does. We had a cuddle and moved on.

BB has enjoyed crawling around and exploring the house. Her new found ability is causing SB some distress as all her things [like the jigsaw] are puffled up. I did suggest doing it on the table!

Am Flickring – so some photos being added to last week – especially a gloriously pouty SB photo – so go back and look!!!! [well, when you see some have been added to here though!]

www.flickr.com

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Posted in General, geography, literacy, numeracy, Out and About, photos, SB-PE, socialisation, Stringbean's HE