The long and the short of it.

Posted on September 23, 2005 by | 1 comment

Bwahh! just shut the wrong window – goodbye post….. Luckily it wasn’t too much written.

Took the tandem out with the trailer as well for it’s first run as a full rig – ‘The Beanmobile’ :-) To nursery and to ballet class – a few car-replacement miles to justify it’s purchase.Stringbean thought it was great having Butterbean as well. Lovely Autumn morning to be pottling along. SB seems much happier now about going off on her own into things. She’s happy now to run off to get cuddle from ‘her’ nursery nurse, always used to like me to stay for bit first, and goes off into ballet without a second thought. Good to see, as she was always happy to do this, but the move left her seemingly much less confident. Excited to have all the gear for her ballet class, though ‘Bad Daddy’ forgot to sew the little bits of elastic onto her shoes, but they stayed on fine. Quite why the teacher wants skirts above the knee when the skirts in the shop all seem to be longer than that I don’t know….. bit more sewing to be done eventually I guess. Supposed to have little basket as well. Outfit is mostly in blue though, I’m sure there are ploenty of disappointed little girls who would have preferred all pink :-)

She of course looks just so cute :-) in the outfit. Piccies will soon be on Flickr.

That’s about it for interesting things from today, a bit of mising catchup from Tuesday:

Morning started unsually with bit of TV – she asked to watch some TV, and had managed to pick the time when CBeebies starts on BBC2, so got to watch a bit of that first, prised her away for breakfast by promising to video a bit.

Breakfast was followed by finding library books, getting dressed etc. – always seems to be plaver when we want to get out, then she wants to take her dolly pushchair as we almost ready to go out :roll: , Amble round to library, drop off the books for checking back in, settle down for story time – BB seemed quite attentive as well. Then probably SB’s favourite bit of the colouring and glueing and sticking – it was a mermaid so she was happy with that. She is always the last to finish as she always wants to do two…..

Bit of a chat afterwards about HE and stuff, given pointer to a dance shop in local town, so planned a visit to finish kitting SB out with her ballet kit. home to give BB some milk whence she promptly fell asleep and slept for about 3 hours :-) – she had had very bad night – a lot of crying – I’d ended up taking her into another room, but she still continued for bit. So me and SB had peaceful time, reading some of her library books, having lunch, watching the bit of recorded Cbeebies – Balamory, hanging out washing, whilst SB ‘helps’ – eventually decided she would be the ‘peg giver girl’ and clambers on the climbing frame – latest trick seem to be to climb along the top of the ‘jungle run’ handlebars with a foot on each one.

Main thing is that we finally started on doing something with the ‘Muddlepuddle postcards’ (a bunch of children on the Muddlepuddle email list sent postcards to each other) Pinned the map to the board, joined postacrds to location with some red wool. It’s looking very good, but still not finished as we ran out of pins – ands while we must have loads, they haven’t surfaced from the boxes yet. SB got very good at stringing the wool, tying knots and cutting it. Will do a piccie when it’s finished. However the list contained 28 other families we only seem to have 20 recieved – is it time to ‘name and shame’…?

Somewhere onong the way, SB disappeared upstairs to play with her dollies for bit, while I was on the telephone, so I left her to it to grab a bit of valuable ‘me’ time for a bit of quiet reading of the Grauniad and drinking of tea. Helen was due back from work pretty late, and a bit of kid free time is very good for keeping things on an even keel later on.

Once BB (eventually) woke it was some quick late lunch and then we whizzed off to do some shopping. Dance shop was tedious, becuase all the new classes have started and we caught the after school ‘rush’ – well it’s atiny shop, so only afew customers, but only one salesperson, so it wasn’t goign very quickly. So we had to wait what seemed like forever. SB – and BB were good though waiting so long. SB pleased to have the gear now. Popped into closing down baby shop and bought a couple of fleecy winter hats for the girls each for ?1.50 each – SB talked me into buying this fluffy plastic Tiara thing as well……

Time for quick hit on Waitrose and then home for dinner. SB was fine really, but did come out rather to often with ‘can we have’, ‘I want these not those’ etc. I was flaggin g a bit, so came out with the old chestnut ‘ I’ve just spent loads buying you your dance stuff, I don’t want to hear anymore I want’s or we will take it back’ :-) – one of those ‘did I really say that’ moments…… Ok empty threat , but it had the desired effect :-)

Home for dinner, a bit later than normal, and BB seemed starving, she wolfed it down and was making a fuss > Helen didn’t get home until about 8 – 8.30, so SB pleased to still be up when she got home, so she had bit of late bed time. BB of course was just happy for some proper nosh. Spagehtti and sauce from a jar (Lloyd Grossman, rather nice actually) was just about all I could manage to get for tea for us by then.

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Posted in Books, Dance/drama, geography, literacy, Out and About, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Thors Day

Posted on September 22, 2005 by | Leave a comment

well, i have been thundering about a bit at work recently, but calmed down today.

SB had nursery followed by ballet
Guinness [with 2 n's] had his op, and is fine so far

i felt so miserable I bought the fruit trees anyway. i think they are as essential as a tandem bike, and although not got the money for either…..

Finished the pickled shallots.

SB in very manic mood this evening. finally asleep.

thats it really!

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Posted in gardening, General

Guiness needs an op :-( – edited

Posted on September 22, 2005 by | 5 comments

Had phone call from the vets this morning, yep he has dislocated his hip. Vet tried to put it back but it kept popping out (probably becuase of ruptured tissue flapping around and getting in the way). Apparently the recommended solution is to chop of the end of the Femur so that it doesn’t have to go back in the socket ! It seems that the ligaments and the cats muscles are enough to hold it in place and that they adapt to it quite quickly and are fine.

Sounds quite bizarre, but he’s the expert. Hopefully will get done today, though one of the vets is off so depends on emergencies etc. We will need to keep him indoors for a bit (we’ll try….) but at least we don’t have to keep him in small cage like we did when Whiskey broke her leg – she absolutley hated that.

Not cheap, but not dreadful either , and it’s the first time he has needed to see a vet, so amortised over his life time it’s ok. At least he was back home when it happend . If it had happened when he was still awol, who knows what would have been the result?

Edited

He’s had his op, all seems well, should come home tomorrow – then we have to just keep him indoors, with another cat and with the weekends visitors, extra children etc. Ah well we’ll try.

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Posted in General

Late starts and early finishes

Posted on September 21, 2005 by | Leave a comment

well, hopefully chris will finish the blog for yesterday and put up :?)

today – well I had had such a crap night with BB feeding permanently, and rather a few work calls that I was no good for man nor beast and had a lie in.

Rousted up, and came too with nice cooked breakfast from Chris and played ‘round the mulberry tree‘ board game with SB. I read the last 2 disney princessess magazines [oh joy] cover to cover. SB loves them though, and it is all learning to enjoy the written /oral word after all.

I gazed with a suitable amount of impressedness at the map and postcards she and chris did yesterday [is that a spoiler?] whilst feeding BB [so she went to sleep for 2 hours- nice!]. we found where people lived, and those that sent postcards from areas other than their home address caused some consternation. Chris had aimed the postcard to Dartmoor, but it is now re-aimed somewhat closer to home. [you know who you are!]

We went outside to measure up the fruit bed – which looks a much more promising site for an archaelogical dig. I am going to buy minarettes, as although I think they are aesthetically fairly awful, they are the best functional use for that space, and then will have some espaliered pears and apples around the veg beds. Ken Muir are doing an offer with the kitchen garden magazine, which is effectively 6 at 12 each. I trimmed some more holly, and played catch games with SB, and stories for the climbing frame.

Found guinness, and unfortunately confirmed tht he has a very nasty leg injury, so is at present in the vets awaiting xray and then hideously expensive treatment. [so maybe fruit trees will wait]. Its either broken or dislocated – possibly from being run over. Rest of him seems ok – thank goodness. We will find out tomorrow.

SB had desire to make cupcakes, but settled for chocolate muffins. I have found out that she prefers to measure things in imperial – well there are far less oz than g! So returned to the past to measure in oz theingredients. They were delicious – so obviously an imperial recipe! Did some match and sort – AKA miquon while they were cooking – she def prefers singapore, but i think that is because miquon is so different to start with. She does, however, really like using the cuisinaire rods. Hooray – not a frip after all!

Whilst she ate her lunch, I got some of our shallots and started preparing them for pickled shallots – they are steeping in the brine overnight. prob 1/3 our shallot harvest, and will make 2 kilner jars. I will use some for shallot confiture. then discuss with chris whether to use the others fresh or pickle. Since we are a family keen on pickles and chutneys, I think its better to pickle and chutney, and use onions for everyday eating. We are going to replant some of them, as too late to do a shallot order.

BB keen on more feeding, so we read a book on earth sea and sky [well half], about, well, what is says on the tin – we didn’t get to sky part. She likes things involving the globe, so we looked at various features on there as well – though ours is such a cheap tesco globe that not very featureful, more political. We also played dinosaur ludo toghether. SB getting much better at understanding the flow of games. May even introduce the catching concept now. A ring on the bell, and the last of the redbook order [that had gone to leeds by mistake - I am sure i changed the address - LOL]. So we then read 4 of the anholts artists series. A real hit. A nice way to start thinking about art. She was particularly struck by the art in the Picasso one – asking why he painted the girl so many ways. [why not?]

We also have been listening to classic fm, and trying to discuss the type of music etc a bit. Must do a bit more stuff with the piano though.

BB has crawled alot today – getting very good at it. [in a slow lollopy way]. i am still making sure that I divert attention purposely to her, and SB getting better at following along, or doing something else [albeit reluctantly].

I’ve been out for a works meal – which was very nice. Given a slight grilling over home-ed, put played it as an even balance, not an anti schools thing, and something that just seemed right for us at this time. i wish Chris had never been a teacher though. I am p****d off with the, well its ok for you as Chris is a teacher – irrelevant!!! I keep plugging on about it just being an extension of what i’m sure they do for their own children without noticing anyway. no special skills, just time, patience, books and enthusiasm [well, ok there are some special skills in that lot - patience being one I have to master!] Some nodding there, so left it at that point.

Sundry messages and notices: I was having a dig at myself in the last post as a reaction to the school solar plexus thing. Do keep on posting your lists of what you do – i think it was the 10 pages of miquon!!! I like to see it, and although I do compare, on the whole I am not too stressed by it, as SB a wee thing. I can’t believe my blog stresses anyone – after all, we don’t often DO much of anything [ie 1-2 pages miquon with a lot of round the housesing] and its often me just reading lots.

If I was to be critical, I think i don’t do enough hands on demonstrations. This is why I am exited by the idea of a fake dig. I did look for old terracotta pots for painting and then breaking – with the idea that they could be dug up and glued together. However, we seem to have not brought any down from leeds with us. nor broken crocks. Will rethink. On a similar vein, having blanched the shallots in their skins and got a lovely deep coloured water, how much onion/shallot skins do you think you need to put in to make a dye??

Oh, and Kirsty, I only have 2 K books!!! [LOL] I thought I had more than that, but i have some 1′s and the usborne science ones making me think I have a lot!!!! My real flirtation with sonlight will start at about core 2, when the history and readers start to tie together. we might even try it then for that part.

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Cooking, gardening, General, geography, literacy, music, numeracy, Ponderings, Stringbean's HE

gentle type of day – now with added photos

Posted on September 19, 2005 by | 19 comments

i had a sudden argh moment when I felt somewhere in my solar plexus that if we were living a different life, I would have done a school run today for SB. made me jittery enough to suggest to her she do some explode the code. Luckilly, for my resolve, she refused! We are, in part, home educating because we think that formal schooling starts way to early, and here was I nearly school at homing! In part, I think, cos the blogs are full of families with children of SB age, but also older sibs, and I read these and feel inadequate [but only occassionally] because of the wealth of ‘work’ they are getting through. Standing back, I think SB is getting all the encouragement she needs at the mo, though I think I would prob like to be getting used to some element of structure ‘normals’ as Merry calls them.

I also really like the sound of sonlight curriculum. The books I have from sonlight I really like [and yes Kris, I am a watcher/bidder!!]. I’m reasonably sure I would enjoy doing it. I’m not sure about using it at the moment, as too much structure – though may grab an opportunity to look at someones instructor guide. I may do it later though – partic the later world history ones. i am not religious though, and would immediately have to give away loads of the books, so am unlikely to ever buy in in totality. So here I am, a natural list-maker, orgoplanner and structurer, who nevertheless feels a child led semi-autonomous [mostly autonomous in fact] approach is best. No wonder I have turmoil and conflict! luckilly, SB rather good at autonomous ed!

Actually Merry, our veg plot needs a good digging over, I offer it up for buried finds!!! [on subject of others blogs]

Well, we got up nice and early – which unfortunately always makes the day better, no no excuse for lying in bed! I took the breakfast opportunity of writing letters to Uncle Robert and Little Nanny, and found them hard. Although I thought I had prepared well for this one, I have found today my thoughts are centred around my loss of Aunty Peggy. Consequently, I just wasn’t up for any socialising, so we made our excuses for the iceskating trip. SB drew some pictures and coloured them in to include with the letters.

SB still very fond of patterning – and today we used the coloured Jenga-alike blocks. We did start off playing the game, but TBH, she hasn’t got the co-ordination as yet. She then built patterns, shapes and moved onto ships and a roman fort! She had quite a story for the fort, and was very proud of it. the barbarians [BB] did manage to destroy it though. Chris has a tangram set somewhere, but who knows where, that I think SB would enjoy.

We did quite a bit of rummy style happy families [as with 2, you can't play the game otherwise]. She’s got the hang of my made up rules, but still tries to help me, so we will work on strategy!! Good at pattern matching, sorting and early strategy. [ie, 1 of these already in bottom of pile, so not a good one to collect - type thing]

We read some books – I love the DK street through time one. Usually we romp through, but were reading slowly and looking carefully, trying to imagine what might of happened, and how much of a shock roman culture must have been, what could you do about viking raiders etc. We only got to mediaeval and stopped there, as we had been concentrating for so long. Maps and globes are being interesting again, so actualy finding geography easy to cover.

After lunch we made biscuits and then iced them – so a rather yummy activity. SB getting more careful with measuring. Chris and I agreed we’ed be better off with different scales though, then perhaps she could be independent with measuring.

What else? A convoluted game with the phonics cards. she was a diver, diving into the ocean to bring them back from the deep [aka rug] for us to read. i got to be the learner for the blue ones, and her the red.
A mammoth legoing game – I built her a pyramid, but it wasn’t very practical for sleeping in, so converted to a tent.

yummy tea from chris!

Now its getting colder, we are in full jumpers mode, as this months bank balance is not healthy enough for heating unless it snows. Luckilly jumpers are all that is needed – I will put heating on for you Jax, don’t worry!! [your room hottest in house anyway]

Anyway, although we did no explode the code, or formal maths, we covered various concepts through play – equal sides for pyramid, SB’s roman fort [made with jenga blocks], squares, kites and diamonds. So waht was my panic all about then!!!! I don’t even think today was particularly full-on.

BB and SB played together intermittantly, and SB getting more tolerant [though ot really very] to BB’s new mobility and ability to puffle everything up. i am encouraging SB with playing peekaboo and hidden things under cups, and insisting on me having some one 2 one time playing with BB [if only short] where she has to do something else, or join in on BB level. Not entirely succesful, but trying to gently instill a sense that BB doesn’t only get attention when she is feeding – especially now she does that far less. that SB has her one 2 one time when BB asleep, and that is when the Mummy only with me activities are best – like cooking!!! BB is a happy and tolerant wee thing though, and does quite happily bumble about. I just want to make sure that i don’t rely on this, and give her too little attention. today she was giggling like mad with horsey horsey, chip chop cherry tree, raspberries and just liked being walked about. Peekaboo is a favourite too. putting BB into a cardie that my late cousin Anne knitted for SB gave me pause for thought too.

Flickr will follow! oh and mmmmm seed catalogues

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Posted in art and crafts, Blogging, Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, Ponderings, 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!]

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

Aunty Peggy

Posted on September 18, 2005 by | 10 comments

Died quietly in her sleep. She has been very heavily sedated in the last week, so gently slipped away.
As I have blogged, she was unexpectedly found to have cerebral metastases from a previously unknown lung primary and was treated with compassion and steroids for the last few months.
i loved her greatly, as an extra set of grandparents [with Uncle Robert]. They had never been able to have children, and so have been surrogate parents for members of his family and closely involved in our lives, writing, seeing and generally loving.
She was always outspoken [if honest a bit too much at times] and could certainly play the eccentric aunt to absolute perfection. There was never any doubt about her generosity of spirit though.
I will miss her, and although another expected death, it is still very sad. Little Nanny is rocked by it – as if this seems a bad year to me, it has been a devastating one for her.
I am glad that Aunty Peggy managed to gently slip away one night with some diginity left intact.
I am glad for all the times I have met her and laughed with her
I am glad for all the fun and humour that she has injected into our lives with her eccentricities [particularly the 'bloody quasimodo' sketch that nearly made me inhale a sprout at the time and has gone down in family folklore]
I am glad that SB if not really BB has had a chance to meet and love this eccentric and individualistic woman.
I am glad that I had a chance to see her so recently, when I knew as I kissed her goodbye that it would be for the very last time.
Aunty Peggy, I love you, and I am glad that you have been in my life. Whatever happens – if anything following death, you are alive in my heart

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Posted in General

aaargh

Posted on September 18, 2005 by | Leave a comment

webmarshall ate another post thinking there was gambolling [purposeful sp] going on!
AAArgh
anyway, nice time yesterday at the Portico, with Merry and co as well.
children had lovely time, as did adults.
lovely food provided.
was a really long post, so be glad it was eaten I guess, as I don’t have the heart to do again. [why didn't it eat the aunty peggy one, I had copied that one just incase?]. I copied this one, and it published without a hitch??

might flikr tonight. At work [again] at the mo

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Posted in General, Out and About, socialisation

Mudpud camps

Posted on September 16, 2005 by | 10 comments

i have finished huge presentation, and have a few moments to myself before must do it!
On mudpud camps page, I posted an idea about perhaps camping in central England near some attractions – maybe a theme park, and it got 56 responses.

I had seen 2 I fancied, as they seemed to primarily cater for 12 and under – about our age group really

wicksteed park in northants, which also has campsite on it – not sure if any statics. Also very cheap to enter and near M1 and M6 so easy access

The American Adventure – not as bad as name would suggest~! in Derbyshire, where a variety of other interesting outings not that far away.

I was trying to think of central England really, as then no-one can feel that the camp is just too far, and also the driving weill be easier as near motorways.
Also trying to think of cheaper places that might do a group discount

I like the sound of the first place, so will probably take beans on a visit someday
Where else??

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Posted in General, Out and About

Just call me Angelina

Posted on September 16, 2005 by | 5 comments

Nursery day today. Increasingly find us getting to Thursday and thinking that it is getting in the way of all the other things we could be doing. Though of course the plan is that I am at work on those days, hasn’t quite worked out like that yet though.

Afterwards took Stringbean to her first Ballet class lesson. It’s in the village which is nice, as often for us now things are elsewhere and need travelling to.

She has wanted to do ballet for it seems like ever (she said to me on the way there that she had wanted to do it in Mummies tummy). most of the other girls going there already had there leotards and their little skirts.and shoes, so she was a bit disappointed that she doesn’t have hers yet, but they had a leotard that she could borrow. Didn’t get to watch it sadly, but they did all look so cute :-)

Seemed to enjoy it, though seemed a little disappointed as ‘they didn’t do any ballet’, which I assume means they didn’t do any twirling around, dancing etc. – more simple movement stuff. did enjoy telling us how they all got to pretend to be a ballon going pop.

We are continuing with Stagecoach for bit, but will drop it, maybe after Christmas as more things come on stream – she has enjoyed it, and it’s an area that is diffcult/impossible to cover well at home, but it’s expensive and it really messes up the weekend as it takes out Saturday morning every week (it’s a 20 mile round trip). I think it is maybe something to come back to when she is older if she really shows an interest in this area. But once she is 5 in Feb she can start proper swimming lessons – she has managed to swim a width of the pool now and that was the deal :-) They do do stuff for under 5′s but it seems more playing, confidence stuff etc. and she is well beyond that, also Rainbows, and if I can find one a Gymnastics class (there is special Gymnastics place , but nearer would eb nice – and there is a fair waiting list for the proper classes it seems.. plus various HE stuff as well. It should keep us all busy.

On return from Ballet, I gave the kids their tea and heaed straight for the bath as Helen is normally back later today. Once out of the bath she was home and BB could feed (priorities…) and SB could play with her. Not entirely sure what was going on all the time, SB mostly scampering around with no clothes on as far as I could see. She did play a nice ‘Hide something under the cups’ game with BB.

A few future thoughts are forming. We have accquired quite a bit of stuff now – esp. books (moslty thanks to a bit of an Ebay frenzy on Helen’s part, plus a bit of Barefoot books, Redhouse, Sonlight) We could open a DK/Usborne library I think :-) – as well as general history/science/geography type things, we have Singapore/Miquon maths, Explode the Code, various phonics reading stuff, Getty & Dubay handwriting, Sonlight Timeline stuff. We want to put together a box of sciency stuff we looked at so that when something comes up we can have a go at it there and then. a lot is general household stuff, but somethings will need buying. We were looking at the science kits Sarah has mentioned before I seem to remember. And I’ve got a couple of years worth of Krampf emails stashed away.

So plenty of things. I need to spend sometime sat down looking at and thinking a bit about it, and I sense a plan for aiming at a modicum of mild structure coming over me. Nothing to intense – one of the reason for HE is that I think school starts being too academic too early, and I am a bit Charlotte Mason-y at times. But there are areas SB enjoys such as the maths ‘match and sort’ workbooks and related mathsy stuff in general, she is gradually getting a grasp of reading, she loves trying to write things down, she loves looking at books about various periods in history. I’d like to organise things so that we can easily do bits of stuff, do Getty & Dubay regularly, try to bring bit of structure to the way we approach the maths (the ‘pick a page, any page’ approach of SB is falling down more frequently as she progresses and the concepts get a little ‘harder’.

An area I think is suffering is that of ‘nature study’ – we do do various of bits of this as it comes up., looking at beasties etc. But I was concious when down in Somerset when out walking together that we don’t seem to have done much of that recently, since we moved. When in Leeds we had Country park we used to visit, and some local woods that we often used to walk round – with some excellent big rocks for SB to clamber on. Don’t seem to ahve done much of that, TBH, though we live in village now, I don’t think I fihdn the countryside very inspiring round here to get out exploring. Must make more effort. Though even our garden itself is a good resource.

And ther are things like churches and graveyards, that SB seems very interested in for some reason, and maps – which she seems to have really got the hang of conceptually which are jsut asking to be picked up on whille the iron is hot.

So a bit of a plan is needed me thinks. There are also domestic aspects to this, as too often the house gets to much of a tip, esp. the kitchen – I find it hard to concentrate on playing/doing HE stuff wetc. witht he kids when it is too much of disaster zone. Need to work on it staying tidier. more organised.

Haven’t Flickr-ered for a few days, something very amiss there……

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Posted in Books, Butterbean, Dance/drama, Out and About, Ponderings, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE