On the radio

Just had an email read out on the radio :-)

Home Education is one of the topics featured on the Andy Harper show today (they had a bit earlier about? family home educating becuase of bullying of their daughter.) Another lsitener made the old comment about children needing to go to school to socialise, know how to gte on in the real world so I whacked of? quick email which they then read out. Plenty to be critical about on re-reading of course, but it was a bit of? quickie:

Just been listening to? the bits on Home education on your program.

why do some people seem to think that Home education means that children sit at home and never get out and meet other children? That certainly isn’t true of any of the children I know, nor of our daughter – in Cambridgeshire there is? thriving HE community, with lots of different actives going on every week. There are all the classes that children can attend such as ballet & swimming lessons, brownies, scouts, youth clubs, play schemes? etc. as well as more informal contacts.

We as a family will be going away for a week with 18 other HE families in Feb and later on in the year again, and as for the 10 HE children filing up our house
yesterday…..

It’s interesting that this issue of ‘socialising’ is one that is so often raised.
- yes it is something to be considered, but people who start home educating soon realise it isn’t really an issue but yoiu might just need to be? a bit proactive.

To be honest, when the it seems someone’s argument for school is that children get to meet other children it doesn’t seem much of an argument to me.

A social kind of day

We had the puddles and porticos over today. Although there were some concerns that it may be a bit princessy for Ernest, he raced away! Master of events was Violet – organising them into a game of sardines [which our house is well suited to], and we didn’t really see them until lunch was called

time to eat

Merry tried twins out for size, and decided it was far to heavy!

trying twin for size

After lunch there was some more violet in charge of line ups..
eldest portico said line up...

But due to some global tiredness, a bit more chilling including DVD and cbeebies. Ernest and SB played schools – very odd concept!

SB devastated when they all left. For a start, she had just put on her princess clothes! Thought that an overnight stay at least should happen.

We adults gossiped, cuddled assorted children and looked at blog updates.

Sorry Merry about Amelies itchy eyes. Hope they settle soon. Also took outrageously few – and crap – photos!
Thankyou Alison/Gwenny for green bead bracelet. BB is still not to be parted from it. She is now dressed in a different sleepsuit!

After everyone had gone, SB did some drawing, I read her a story or 2, and she cbeebied. Now hopefully fast asleep. BB is shouting very very loudly at the moment – she collapsed asleep when everyone left, so a late nap means a late evening sleep. I guess we should tidy up…

sorry chris

piggies go oink oinkdaddy rabbit!

so many rofls!!!!!

Getting going

a bit of a slow start to the morning due to feeling tired and lethargic, nothing much really happened between getting up and getting girls into the car to go to my parenst house. Had nice time there SB did some painting, sat with Nanny making some little William Morris cardboard boxe, A bit ofreading, playing with a few toys, such as some of the old toy cars from my childhood. Butterbean beaning around as usual, trying to sneak up the stairs – open treaded bare wooden ones so not very toddler friendly.

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She even got my Dad to read bit of a book to her, which is pretty unusal, not because he doesn’t really want to, but becuase he finds sustained reading a bit hard work as this ability was affected by the brain damage he suffered with his botched operation (years ago when I wasn’t even 2) and he finds it hard to concentrate on the words. Bit unfortunate that the book she had picked was a rather wordy one rather than nice simple book with not so many words. Anyway, it was nice to see.

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Had nice lunch there, went out to help my Dad measure up their garden. BB insisted on coming out as well, so got rather wet tights as the grass is damp and she has no shoes yet, she also kept scampering down the drive, where there is no gate yet. Guess it’s time to get some shoes. Got home with just about enough time to get swimming stuff organised, then off to swimming lesson for SB. home, pasta tea, Helen home, happy children, bath and bed. SB is getting to sleep much better recently.

Re BB and sleep, plan is to move her out into spare room /bathroom – it has a bath and handbasin, but shower doesn’t work and proper guestroom has a handbasin so not really used as a bathroom anyway see if that will help.

Alison and the gang are here tomorrow along with Merry and co – upping the ante on last week there will be 10 kids here – kitchen and play room in particualr are disaster zones, half wonder if there is any point in tidying them up ;-)

Well, better…

Well it would have been helpful if Butterbean ahd gone to sleep properly rather earlier than 11.30pm or so, but the night was a bit better. I took her with me into the spare room to give Helen as much chance as possible to sleep. She did wake at around 3 am – ish, but went back to sleep with just a bit of fussing, woke again somewhere around 5.30 -5.45 but was happy enough so didn’t have to disturb Helen until it was nearer time to get up. Was full of beans and seemed to be awake, but when I went to get her, she had gone back to sleep at about 7 and still snoozing……

So not brilliant on the sleeping front, but better, and she did go without a feed and without all the mad screaming and fighting we sometimes have. I’m wondering if it may be partly down to the environment – her associating our bedroom – her cot is stilll in there with Helen and food etc? Then again it might just be fror some random baby reason.

Anyway, off to visit my Mum and Dad’s today so time to get organised.
Before I go though just though I’d draw attention this, which was taken a couple of weeks ago, but deserves to be blogged as it is such a classic Butterbean face:

A typical BB face

Dare I go to bed…….

BB is alseep at last I don’t want to disturb her.
Yes I know I should have been in bed but I’m not. Though Helen was in bed at 7.30pm and asleep before the girls – some sort of first I think. Butterbean enterntained me this evening by not wanting to go to sleep…… :roll:

Left her having a feed with Helen while I put SB to bed, hoping she would drop off . But she was as perky as, well, a very perky thing afterwards so I took her off downstairs got coffee and blobbed on front of TV while trying to convince her to sleep. She dropped off ok after a fuss, but wouldn’t settle into a proper sleep, but whinged if just put down to potter about. been in and out of sleep a few times, even ahd a bit of milk from a bottle, had another feed from Helen, fell asleep but then woken by SB wailing on the landing becuase she had woken up. But has finally been asleep on the sofa near me for the last 30 -40 mins or so. so I haven’t done the tidying I needed to do (playroom and kitchen a disaster zone), haven’t gone to bed as early as I intended, etc. etc. – But I do need my post child-gone-to-sleep time before bed. Lay bets now on the first waking time of BB, how long I can put up with the woailing before I crack – or Helen does.

Enough of that, a quick summary of today, then I am off to bed. SB was up with me first so she sat and watched some Milkshake on Channel 5, packed Helen off to work which was a bit sad. We slipped into a different routine really and I was quite happy with us both being here, so missed her once she had gone and felt a bit lost as I’d sort of forgotten how we did stuff.

So drunk tea and sat with SB for bit while I woke up properly. Then breakfast. BB then woke up once we had had breakfast so got her up, and gave her breakfast whilst read bit to SB, then she did some drawing, experimented with different effects with crayons, some Hama-ing:

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BB came up with a new game with Hama beads – popped them in her mouth then looked at you expectantly, you put your hand out and she spits it out into you hand she thought this was great fun. so we pottered like this for a couple of hours, whilst I looked for afew different recipes to cook and made a veg list. WQe were then goign to take the Beanmobile (aka tandem and trailer) up to the farm shop but BB decides that 2 hours was enough and she needed some more sleep – so deferred that until the afternoon.

Did a bit of Maths 1A weekly revision book, it was about spotting, working out patterns of numbers going up and down. bit slow to start with, but was better by the end.

bit vague after that, lunch happened, Helen came home, some more Explode the Code got done , me and SB did the veg run – they were technically closed as they were putting a new shel unit thing, but he let me in and I got most things, there was some Cbeebies website going on, some rather nice saucepans came (Ebay of course…) – a couple of medium largish ones, decided that all we need for now is a proper steamer as that is how lots of the veg get cooked (or stir fryed) I took too long cooking the rather tasty dinner so BB fell asleep before tea (probably leading to the problems later….)

Time for my bed I think……

Not a good start….

Helen couldn’t get to sleep anyway and had gone off to another room.

BB woke up at about 4.30 ish and was not happy – she screams (it’s not just a cry), she tries to scratch/grab you, she hits herself on the head face with her hands – even scratches herself sometimes. She did eventaully fall asleep again, but it tends not to be deep sleep and the smallest thing can wake her again.

By about 5.10, and a couple of wakings I was getting ready to give up when Helen appeared anyway as she had had enough of listening to BB. Of course a feed and BB was asleep, the rest of us, including SB who was woken by the crying didn’t ever really get back to sleep before the alarm at 6.45. :-(

Hope Helen’s day at work isn’t too bad.

A game of 2 halves

I know, I’ve used the title before, but it was.

had a migraine on waking – actually almost certainly stress induced about returning to work – wondering what the chaos will be ike, and the penalty for being away.

So, CHris took beanies for a swim while i took the meds and slept it off. At least it worked! on returning, I could hear Chris doing the ulysses story, and perhaps a few fairy tales as well.

So i got up at lunch time full of resolve! So we had a fun afternoon. In no order, we face painted - rofl! me as Im not quite sure by SB, and her as a piggie and CHris as a bunny [mpre rofl] by me!daddy rabbit!piggies go oink oink

did some drawing and colouring and sticking. Read various story books, played with the fuzzy felt faces, did 4 pages of explode the code [in under 10 mins as allowed her to choose which writing bits to do, but she had to do all the rest - she did half the writing]

fuzzy felt madness

She then told us her present best friend at nursery lives in this village. Now I’m not sure exactly how best friends they really are, as you don’t hear loads about her like we did about rosheen in leeds, but… we have decided to see if her mother would allow her to come to tea after nursery one day, or around to play – so the mum can meet us, or mett at the park etc. Seems a logical place to try for a village friend who she can meet up with perhaps when stops nursery. May well not work out as time so short, but worth a try. SB doesn’t really want to stop nursery, so we may well keep her there until Easter [last possible] – particularly if cements some sort of local friendship.

So SB then wrote a letter to the girls asking her if she would want to come and play, and we will write a more detailed one for the parents. if i’d have known they were local, I’d have made an effort to say hello at the nativity.

over tea SB keen to do some mental maths as well, so we were exploring the concept of adding in tens for the first time, as she seems to be getting there with her understanding of tens and units. Otherwise I told her a few stories and then she chose some cbeebies rather than playing a game, having tidyed p without any fuss. We had a lovely and easy bedtime, both are currently asleep, so Iwill watch the videoed child of our time. Missed the stephen poliakoff thing though as forgot about it – grr.

BB as pootled about quite happilly today, highlights are always the ramming things into the wrong holes with increased frustration until she puts them in the hatch – in fact she would go for this option first if my hand wasn’t there! A bit of drawing at the same time as SB – though a fair bit of crayon chewing too. She loves the mini keyboard toy, and is very certain of which buttons noise she likes the best. She also makes a special sound for whiskey cat – if i was truly besotted I would say she is saying whiskey, SHe isn’t but…

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Can’t find id card for tomorrow, which includes the carpark chip. Unless i find it, I will have to pay ?10 in the visitors carpark!!!!!!! [over 4 hours you see] they prefer you to park and ride, and i might do that if actually get out of the house early enough = always a problem!

BB go to sleep!

please

Not so bad in the end.

Just a few moments of teeth grinding [see both posts below]!!

Started well [after a poor show of a night, but not our worst] with Chris bringing me breakfast in bed – croissants in fact!

i got up, after reading the guardian magazine cover to cover, and pluged into reading Sb archeologists dig for clues, and persephone again from usborne’s greek myths. We read this earlier in the week, and she got the night and day stuff with the globe, but had to be reminded of seasons. Today she did both straight off after the story. We agreed that the persephone one sounds nice, but not so nice for persephone!

meanwhile BB was quite happily playing with the maths cubes, bringing them to me to be joind up, and having some incomprehensible sprinkle and collect game! So SB wanted them, and did a bit of number bonds on them, so we got out the singapore maths… We are supposedly slipping into the routine slowly, and this bit of singapore maths 1a doesn’t challenge her at all, the whole idea is she whps through it, feeling very good and gets the hang of doing it without it being a struggle. She has always liked match and sort books, and what we do here is far less complicated than the mental/verbal maths she likes to play all the rest of the time. sigh. Oh well, BB was pottering with the aeroplane from the porticos, so SB learnt a new word – aviatrix. [my father wnated me to be called Amy, but veto'd by my mother!]

Sp after lunch, I thought I would rescue the day while BB was asleep by making the much wanted lemon curd. After all, Jan promised home made stuff tastes nicer, and not lemon crud at all. She is right -n my opinion. Will get SB to try eating it for breakfast!

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However, as I needed to regroup, she and chris went outside and ended up making lovely sandcastles and decorating them with things from the garden.

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I got BB up and had a play with her. BB is finally starting to follow a pointed finger now to find things, so we were sort of playing this game. When SB came in and helped we changed tack!! She is so vocal, and very easy to understand, even if her only word is OOK – shouted, and a pointed finger if you are in doubt what to OOK at. Child of our time is on this evening, and I will watch. Reminding me to find the wooden bricks again for building with.

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Finally SB and I did something easily without a fuss! We told stories around her hama glow in the darks in the pantry – taking it in turns to make up alien stories. She then did a lovely sticker picture for me, and wrote on the back of it. I think for us, not doing much of the writing int he workbooks, and just doing it as required outside of them is working well. It means she is happy to do the explode the code, and will sometimes volunteer the writing, and is happy to write SB mummy and daddy [even if mummy had no y]. Her pen holding skills have always seemed a little behind her peers, and since she can do this much, i can’t see any reason to try and push her forward until ready.

As a final regroup. we made from the usborne fairy cookbook mini fairy slices – well, nothing like when I had finsihed adapting! but rolled out puff pastry with pizza type top. Yummy though. SB and BB both hoovered up all the spare ingredients – mozarella, frozen peas and sweetcorn, and the ever popular olives. i have promised SB that I will have a recipe pages bit on this blog.

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They are now in the bath, and we will again try a cot experience early as poss for BB. might work one day.

oh, and we finished off with a bit of the yoga DVD as well. Sb quite likes the salute to the sun. I can’t weightbear on broken arm yet.