Category Archives: writing

getting excited!

i like parties, even if they are a bit hard work to organise – and a bit worrying when one essential piece of craft equipment hasn’t arrived yet!

felt lurgified but better, so went to work, and realised i had used up all my energy by lunchtime. luckilly it was a front loaded day, and i rearranged the pm things for next week, came home and snuggled on sofa with girls to read books. SB has a sort of tick box timetable again – she was nagging me! we then had to go through the blog to see what she could tick off for the week. it is simpler than the last one anyway. She had done maths and handwriting in the morning, and lots of reading. we did some recorder together.

then, having perked a bit, we did some baking – shortbread, and i also whizzed up some black cupcakes to decorate. cue mess everywhere. girls played alot with the castle.

so another rest, and i have done a bit more tidying, and plan to do a bit more baking tonight, and a bit more wood polishing [beeswax]

busy bees

we have been very busy today. i had a lie in as still feeling bleurgh, but medication overcomes all eventually! SB was v industrious, and did her maths [woohoo, she can finally reliably tell the time, so she is due a watch], handwriting [still getty and dubay] and piano practice before i got up.

i got up at 10, because that is when the amazon parcel arrived. the girls were falling over themselves desperate for me to open it! it had 2 french/english story books, SB’s recorder books and 2 michael morpurgo books – beowulf [which we will save as a bedtime book, we are currently on the second roman mystery, and chris on the first narnia] and blodin the beast. Oh i also bought a pompeii book to go with the current theme on a different bloggers recommendation, and we enjoyed that.

SO today has been rather book oriented! I read the blodin and pompeii book to the girls, we did the red riding hood with cd [but prefer me to do it] and sb read me some of a volcano fact book we have. both girls read a pirate flap book we have as well. BB did some maths and some letters. SHe also did ‘extra’ french, as she insisted on doing the maths counting in french.

All this took the morning, and a late lunch and then a bit of the afternoon. we went outside to run about, play football etc, and then returned in for a snack.

At this point the enormity of the total tipness of the house, and the imminent guest situation turned me into a bit of a panic, so i reorganised the bookcases in the playroom [why i couldn't just lump the books on i don't know] and also we sorted the child ‘bits’ – you know, fimo art blobs, broken hama, numerous tiny plastic tat animals etc. the girls found homes for them all :roll: . i realised i was getting snappy, so told sb to choose some music – and we had a french cd [rofl!] but i calmed down, and we have done not a bad job! i have also polished some of the staircase woodwork. i hasten to add that this house is actually not going to live up to many peoples idea of tidy, but it will at least have somewhere to place feet!!

BB did maths jump ahead, and SB whichever jump ahead she has got to, then they both argued over who could practice recorder with me first and def couldn’t under any circumstances be doing it together. it was sb’s turn to ‘win’ a nonwinnable situation, not that it made her happier. but once we had settled down to it, it was fine. some magic school bus to watch, and a treat of curry take-away for all our hard work.

where has the week gone?

for me mostly lost in la la migraine land. and for chris some vomiting thing. bb pretended to have a migraine today – v cute, if somewhat worrying for the tendency to migraine is familial here. please let both of mine not be affected.

yesterday was therefore a bit of a laidback day. actually bb wasn’t laid back, she decided to learn french. i read 3 books with her, and she did poisson rouge – she can count to 10 happily in french and knows some of the colours – although still insistant that blanc is black. i can see her point… SB also did the french books with me, and so i think we are starting to get somewhere in our rhythm of french, so am pleased with that. SB and bB also did some piano practice and handwriting. sb mostly wrote reminder notices to stick all round the house for daddy to take her to the hairdressers!!

we had got a new book from amazon about tectonic plates etc, which we have also enjoyed reading and – drum roll please – we have read some more story of the world!! about clovis the ex barbarian. mUST do more SoTW!! [though i liked the look of that galore park junior history. discussed it with sb, and she prefers me to read stories to her at the mo.

today they did some piano, and played alot, and SB has been sewing – it might be a cloak for A? oh, and sb has had her hair cut! [photo will eventually follow, but i have to do them in order - chris might not be so fussy!!]

the trouble with brownies

BB is just a little too lark like at the moment, and SB and owl like her parents. i think this house prob only has 3 hours of all asleep inhabitants, so chris and i are a bit on the zombie side at times. i felt i had had a lie in by 9am, and went down to join the fray, actually, i think the fray came up to join me!! we did jigsaws on the bed, played imaginary games about frogs that hide in the duvet etc, until my imagination was worn out and we went downstairs. you know, i was far more imaginative with Sb more easily. i must work on this!! SB did piano whilst i was still in bed!
we did some ‘normals’ as it were, with SB enjoying handwriting practice whilst BB and i had fun with an ancient first alphabet workbook that sb had not done at the time. BB is getting to grips with at least considering what sounds might start a word. and she also has much more interest in writing – sb had none at all at this time, but bb is having a go writing letters and numbers – not often recognisable to anyone but her!. she has a runic signature that she does all the time as well, which has a near capital A in the middle.

SB had a bit more of a struggle with maths, so i sat her with me, and with prodding she did it all fairly painlessly. we thought of different ways to make a quick guess to see if the answer was right. i like singapore maths, as i think it makes manipulating numbers easier.she borrows and makes up to hundreds and tens in swirls as it were, and gets it right. ie in 4.25-2.35 she was quite happy to add ten to the 25 to make the answer 2, and then remember to take it away again for 1.90, yet at 6.60-4.90 she borrowed 1 from the 6 and did 16-9=7 so 1.70 . bb was playing quite happily with a bus, being the magic school bus!

we then did some more imaginative play, involving me walking the girls round the house on ribbon leads and pretending to feed the doggies. bb quite often needed to do a poo… i decided i didn’t fancy playing any more, so the doggies had to go to puppy school and listen to some french about a monkey wanting a banana!

some point after this [o think] the girls went to get dressed [it is lunch time obviously!] and after lots of kerfuffling i went up and read riot act AGAIN about bedroom such that both girls wailed, bb inconsolable and i tidied half, bb made a slight effort and sb a reasonable one. so only 1/3 bedroom left to go…

lunch and i became reasonable again!! we did hand painting – because i really didn’t want my face painted. my left hand was done by bb, and my right was a poppy field by sb. we had a lovely time. i painted a rainbows rainbow on her cheek ready to go to said rainbows. it was her last rainbows today and she was quite sad. also because we had got some treats to handout, and she forgot. bless.

whilst she was out, bb and i baked some chocolate brownies, and though i tried and tried to get the timing right, this time they are raw in the middle – sigh. i just can’t time brownies. please, what should be the optimum moment for pulling out? they wer for the guests this weekend, and the mixture yummy!! so we watched magic school bus.

Cuddled sb on her return and more mSB before bathtime before dinner. after dinner she was searching merry’s website for aquabeads. i have told her that if she wants jobs to earn money, they will only count if playroom and bedroom tidy! and after bb going on, she has the same deal if she wants a longneck! i have to asy, i adore the anamalz range!

anyway, where were we?? oh yes, bedtime!!!!

making the most of it.

i had a much needed lie in today. my head, body and soul were not at all engaged. whilst recovering, i heard sb do piano practice. when i came down, chris and sb had gone through those lovely anholt books around artists. we did some HE – handwriting, french. i have to say that SB’s handwriting is really coming on. She has struggled at writing, but in her own time and on her own terms she is getting there. She likes the getty and dubay, and does lots of practice with cards and notes to people. She also spent a lot of time doing the colour in doggy clothes she got from merry’s girls.

BB also did french and some early numeracy with singapore early bird and literacy from before the code and letterland red books – which i managed to find. BB was very impressed to get some books, its a shame i can’t get sb gagged quickly enough before she says they were hers first!

we did lots of imaginative play altogether today. i am trying to jumpstart my immersion back into these games, as i have sort of gradually faded out of being a pinky ponk, or a doggie or a vet etc etc. so i decided this was ridiculous, so i have been a pinky ponk [or whatever it is!] bought and cared for doggies, played with cuddlies etc etc and made my girls happy.

we also baked carrot cake, watched some how things work, nina and the neurons and magic school bus, picked peas and broad beans from the garden.
aargh how did it get to be this late?? bedtime!

Spooky Spoon Bread

Thursday.

Off to Tots and Nots groups in the morning. Just in time for SB to take part in a French game with Katy. I sat with BB and did a picture with her made from different shapes cut out of paper. Bit of general playing and snack eating. SB did a picture as well. Drew a portrait of Helen. Gina whose does various music teaching there brought along some flutes. so they got to have a go with those. BB was interested, but didn’t want to try. SB managed to get some sound out of it without to much effort. Bit of singing of songs, then SB had her first recorders session with Gina. said she enjoyed it and wants to do some more. It should be becoming a regular thing.

By now BB was pretty grumpy – she wanted to go and watch SB playing, said she was hungry but didn’t want to eat any of the things  I had in the bag. Didn’t want to do anything I suggested etc. – probably tired (had woke me up before 5 am, though went back to sleep later) and hungry (only had eaten half a slice of toast and a modicum of yoghurt ).

Headed off home via Tesco’s for a few things – which was a bad idea – it’s a big Tesco Extra store and buying just a few things seems to involve walking miles. BB was amusing by the bakery counter. I was with SB a bit further along whilst she chose her bread, BB was sat in the trolley shouting out ‘ I want Spooky Spoon bread’ ! :-)  Spooky spoon (from the character in Numberjacks) bread being her name for a French stick – ever since we had one that was vaguely spoon shaped at the end and they kids dubbed it Spooky Spoon.

They both amused a mother at the veg bit. They were both begging me to buy a bag of Peas in their pods because they love eating them straight from the pods – but they were imported and rather expensive so I didn’t. Good to have kids who like consider buying bread and vegetables a treat though :-)

Escaped  Tesco and got home to a late lunch of mostly Spooky spoon bread accompanied by a dose of Magic School Bus. SB did piano practice, and handwriting. BB got out her violin and played with that, couldn’t find her maths book which she wanted, so did some leap-padding. then they both got out the Geomags. BB got upset because they kept on sticking to each other :roll: and they bickered and argued over which Geomags they each had, could do with more really. I cooked some soup, which neither of the kids seem to like much – probably a tad too spicy for them. Helen came home and read some books with them – I caught one about Alexander Graham Bell.

Then off to bed.

summer is here – now official!

well here anyway, as SB and BB had a row about it!

before i start, why is it that as soon as i friends ans family flickr due to an overly persistant re-contacter, chris links to our blog from an everone view photo!! sigh!

anyway, it was another hot one today! started off in the cool with piano practice with SB. she wants to do more piano than violin at the moment, so i am hoping to facilitate that, but keep the violin ticking over. certainly her piano playing is coming on in leaps and bounds at the moment, and i guess this increases the enthusiasm. i’m going to try and find an easy duet book as well for that. [actually if i did more violin duets with her that would prob be a good thing too!]

SB then got on with some maths and handwriting whilst BB and I made some cheese scones [had to hide some so we would have some for tomorrows picnic!!]. we then did some lucy chat books at the beach – v helpful i now know the word for shark! and BB did some alphabet recognition.

All piled out into the garden under the gazebo to do some more crocodile making. SB has embellished hers so much with papier mache that hers is more of a thorny devil. bB’s was more minimalistic, and then she wailed because it was too wet to play with :roll: general outside play. chris and i both did bits of hoeing fruit bed, chris weeded some veg patch, i planted and SB watered. we have started hacking at the yew trees as well.

had some camping pancake mix left, so added cocoa powder to it for a chocolate pancake treat [bB's idea] we all prefer plain! Then put up one of our tents in the garden for the girls to play with [the cheapy 2 person 'festival tent']

cooling down now – phew!

today [quickly]

chris had minor op this am – all well

his parents came and supervised. SB quickly rattled off maths, handwriting and piano. lots of games then with nana and grandad.

when i came home she got out a fossil find kit we had picked up from a museum, and enjoyed doing that. BB separated sand and iron filings using a magnet [maganet] and v much enjoyed that. she suprised me by using the word evaporated correctly. she also used her maganet [maginfying glass this time!] to look at plastic spider in more detail. SB off to ballet, BB and i read books and played games, and then stuc straws together to make panpipes. SB off to swimming [where her stroke has gone back to 'unusual'!] came home to find nina and neurons in progress.

At SB request, box books have swapped from explorers to science books with experiments in.

Just another Tuesday

Morning, off to the Library. SB on her inline skates, BB on scooter. So took much longer given SB’s skating speed at the moment. BB very funny, she is very much into mad scootering at the moment. Zooming along shouting madly, she was scootering along, going ‘look I can steer’ when she crashed straight into a telegraph pole :lol:

Library, storytime for BB – SB sits and reads other things now, a bit of craft sticking making tulip pictures. which BB insisted we bring home and put up over the cooker taking down old artwork. Finding some more books – SB brought home 9!! Mr Men books. I told her she would have to read them all herself as i wasn’t going to read them (really dislike the Mr Men books), a bit of nattering and home.

Met Trish, other HE mum and child C in library, and they came back a bit later for coffee/lunch and playing. Trying to play indoors didn’t quite work, but decamping to the garden and the sun was much more successful.

After they’d departed they made birthday cards for Helen, and wrapped presents. SB had to go over the road and buy some more wrapping paper. except for crossing the road (which she can do fine at the zebra crossing, but just likes you to watch her in case she isn’t sure about it) she manages such shopping trips OK. BB stuck a strip of paper together and wrapped it up to make what was apparently a fish for Mummy.

SB got on with some more Getty and Dubay handwriting, followed by some maths. Stuff on money (Dollars and Cents – it’s Singapore maths, but it’s all decimal so she’s happy with that) all pretty easy stuff. Was a litle stuck on what writing say 65c in Dollars meant and why it was $0.65 – she got the hang of it though. Though I mad a bad job of trying to explain decimal points. which reminded me we need to do stuff stuff on fractions reallys.
Meanwhile BB played one of those impenetrable 3yo kiddie games with a seemingly random selection of objects, in this case something like a teaspoon, a plastic dinosaur, a plastic tub, a pair of nail clippers and wooden lolly stick.

I did stuff like get dinner going, hanging up washing etc.

Sat and read a bit (of one of the numerous new Book People books) of a book about Rainforests, which some how involved a conversation on rabbits eating their own poo :? They then sat and read some of their library books before dinner.

bored blogging

though will no doubt get back into the flow. SB did some maths and handwriting first thing, watched magic school bus and raven, bB wailed about her lost dinodoors [she has only had them 2 seconds!], did a bit of earlybird maths and watched the same things. was going to do some music practice, but my parents arrived after my mothers hosp appt. chatted, sb played games, bb wailed about lost dinodoors, and wanting to paint her volcano.

so we started to paint her volcano, and SB started to do some brainbox electronics. 5 mins later, bb wailing as wants to do the electronics – do you see a pattern? anyway, i negotiated a settlement and we did lots of the whirring one until the batteries ran out, then a wild run about outside. read about the rainforest to BB. most of the rest of the day was spent outside, but we did do some messing about with a science kit on magnets and compasses. have left it out to have a bit more of a look at tomorrow. SB has changed all her box books to ones about explorers, and a couple of the new books.

we did actually have a lot of fun running about in the garden, and rescued the day really. BB and SB ‘helped’ chris by making manure cupcastles :roll: but ots of swinging, dipping feet into v green pond water etc. We refilled the bird feeders, and played games.

I took SB to swimming – her new speedo goggles far better [thanks all], and also i can see a v definite improvement in her stroke, she doesn’t appear to be drowning half so often.