Petits Haricots

it has definately been an out and about home ed week for the girls tho! Monday was the talking to trees group, this time about the willow. SB has v much loved it, BB has fallen out of love for it so I don’t think they will sign up for the next term, but it has been really well thought out. maybe we will try and keep it on a bt for sb. Tues was busy with pottery in the morning which both girls are really loveing. i am hoping that i get to see ither some pictures or the real thing soon as too inquisitive for my own good! BB then went shopping for dinosaurs with DH [money from grandparents burning hole in pocket] and SB went to animation group. She had storyboarded a 4 scene party with getting pizza for our sylvanians and thought it had gone well. so a happy day out and about, and swimming to finish…

Meanwhile i went to waht was a rather fabulous course in london. as promised to the girls i did commute back on mon night so we could ooh and ah over fireworks together. i did get back rather late tho [tho there were really booming fireworks near regents park, and i saw the towns lighting up as i went past in the train home] and we were all disappointed that dh had got so far to putting the fireworks to store in the garage as leaving them outside, and it had rained… i was determined to be fun tho, and luckilly had taken bb’s and put in dining room [where i would have much more safely put sb's!] and and sb’s rockets had been in an additional plastic wrap, so we did these outside. the air was crisp, no wind, and we star watched and oohed and aahed and thought them fantastic worth the commute tho i was cream crackered commuting back the next day.

Coming back home the next day was not trouble free either. Actually the coming home was fine, but BB and i spent our time from about 10pm-1am in the local casualty as she fell in the bathroom and landed badly on her hand i could not convince was not broken. she was certaily in a lot of pain, it was bruised and she wouldn’t move it. the hospital were great with really friendly and helfpul staff so she was happy, and liked having her xrays . not broken

due to the late bedtime we had a late start to weds, and a change of venue with the deependers coming here rather than the other way round, and we made some astrolabes and worked out how to work them as well the sun even popped out for a few moments so that we could work out correctly how to use the astrolabe to measure the position of the sun. we are hoping to remember to do this throughout the year [perhaps]! SB and the fishes learnt some musical terms as she had her grade 4 theory later that day, and played some french games. we grown ups had a chance to chat and catch up [something i don't get to do as much as i would like !] overally lovely even if BB was a bit on the grizzley side due to hrting wrist and late night.

unfortunately BB needed much more snuggling – not that unfortunately as i do love snuggling – so we watched lots of walking with dinosaurs together and SB went off doing her grade 4 music theory exam, which she think went ok, so fingers crossed!!

i have no idea what happened yesterday as i was so late back from work. but i don’t think this has been a good week for book based home ed! will have to try better next week. and yesterday was the not-forest-school where they were coppicing. and then shopping – sb has shoes and pjs and bb pj’s and tops. both v happy.

We had my mum and dad and nephew and niece staying with us this half term, and they were very excited that it would include halloween . they arrived early on saturday and we got going pretty straight away with some crafting as niece v v excited . so the weekend was a lot of crafting, kids playing happily, some baking and board games. we adults also played board games in the eve .

Monday they went to play golf with my dad [all of them, and now we really must arrange the golf lessons for sb and bb as dad has got them all clubs. BB partic enthusiastic, and I am keen to help BB and dad bond, so therefore encourage this . Then they went to the golf club bowling lane and had a great time [well, there were a few 'parts' but mostly anyway a great time ] and I joined them for the very end.

Tues they went into town by bus and spent some time at the zoology museum and the archaeology , wandering about town, having lunch and generally having what sounded like a very nice day . DH may have taken pics, but I haven’t seen them

Weds was halloween, so a lot of prep for this, including making biscuits to hand to trick or treaters – dad was left at home to do this and said these were all excitedly snapped up as mostly dinosaur patterns – with BB and E. SB did music theory as did M. He also was doing a craft homework for school that I helped a bit with, but looked really good . oh, and plumpkin carving [as bb insisted we all called it] this time with enough flesh for soup. BIL arrived before we went out, so joined us all dressed up was v much fun as this is a friendly village and also it didn’t rain. kids got a HUGE haul of chocolate.

the next day M and E left with BIL, but we loved having them and had a great time altogether and mum and dad stayed on. SB continued with her music theory – she did 8 p[ractice papers in total in half term – and BB continued with daily cello prac with mum. at the weekend although we thought of going out to a firework display, bb was worried about noisiness of bangs, so did a last minute buy of some fireworks and did our own, with toasted marshmellows and roasted chestnuts lovely.

I have loved having my fanmily here. do wish we all lived closer, we have had such a tough last few years and it has felt like we are battling against the prevailing wind. Lovely to hug and be hugged.

just have had family staying over the half term, so no blogging time. then a course, so away, and now catching up. Before I get to half term, I am going to show some of the great stuff the girls are doing at arts award. DH is the home educator and takes them to these things, but he ‘invisiblogs’ [his word for it] and mostly invisiflickrs too! so it is hard to show some of the great stuff. Luckilly as SB has an arts award blog he is at least placing those photos up because she is nagging. I would like him to put the pottery up to as she could blog that as well. [must set her onto it ]
so, to the the gallery music from Take Hart [you know you know it ]

not all the arts award pics are there. there were some gouache pics, oil painting , some acrylic on acrylic and some craftier things too. I might have to take the phone around the house to find them and get pics

We need help! we have had 2 cats for nearly 14 years now [rescue kittens, so done well ] and v periodically they have had fleas, noticed by me because i get 4 or 5 bites, and we realise we are a bit late with the frontline and get it done. HOwever, we have a plague of fleas. at the start of the half term weekend i was getting upwards of 30bites a day. we put advantage on the cats and have currently confined them to the ‘room of doom’ [utility room] have moved tortoise and fish and have flea bombed and sprayed all the rooms must be at least 2ce if not 3 times. i am still getting bitten. i am using max piriton and eurax for my itching, and wearing mosquito repellant hopefully. i think there are less, but not enough less. This eve I have caught another flea [in sellotape so hoping to look at under microscope ]
I am reluctant to continue flea bombing and spraying so frequently as can’t be good for the rest of us! candles in water didn’t help. SO, any good plans, or if i need to bomb and spray, any tried and tested regimes. should i let the cats back in so fleas bite them and die, or will that worsen the flea problem.

or shall i just move out.

This is going to be a short blog I think, due to the speed i plan to write it in. I should be doing one of two things, either lying own with eyes shut getting rid of migraine [well i have eyes nearly shut and am lying down, and am typing this without looking at the screen, so it may look a bit weird!] or getting up and tidying and hoovering this room as my parents and my nepwhew and niece will be arriving soon. DH has been scurrying around trying to get our bombiste of a house a bit tidier – one day we will keep it this way [thinking prob only when kisd have left home as neither of us like housework, can always think of something better to do with time, and and and!] girls are tidyhing their desks. these are allegely for doing home ed on [or will be if the LA ever did a home visit, whicih we don't plan that they will]. instead, they are a flat surface for shoving half finsihed projects, boxes, books and anyhting and everything on! so currently looking more like the himalayas.

Anyway, I am gicing myself half an hour max to blog and drink tea and try and pretend i don’t have migraine [ot is moderately under control with tabs today] and then tidy and hoover this room, and then make this quiche enough for 8 for a lateish lunch. [will feedback on whether i actually did this!] so, back to weds and wodensmeet/weded/hewed or whatever else we are calling it!

this started with pumpkin carving. we nipped into somewhere along the way advertising pumpkins for sale [the good thing about being rural!] tho still one pound each. and arrived a leeetle bit late at zoes, and the girls got stuck in. i went to get my camera or phone to take pics and UTTER DISASTER I found i had left both behind on the ktichen table! I don’t mind being cold turkey without phone, but no pictures!! [imagine voice going up into a squeak] even when we had cameras with film in them i took lots of photos. so for this post i am borrowing the photos from the others since i harangued them into taking loads and posting on flickr [not good to be owning up to bullying!] . anyway, gids did a good [if messy] job, but didn’t quite scrape out enough from all the pumpkins to make pumkin soup, so it was pumpkin and other veg soup for tea

tidied away and got science and poetry ready. for science this time we were looking at plant cells, so we discussed what plant cells should look like and what we should see, and a bit of a comparitor with animal cells. kids then got a bit of the onion skin between layers, dipped into iodine to help with staining and then made a slide. gradually getting to less bubbles! we used the microscope from the portico – which we all think is fab and sent lots of love that way . we got brilliant views. i did lots of bobbing up and down to reset and focus, but we didn’t crack any coverslips [which i think is a result!] next time i must take some lens paper, as the eyepieces did get all smeary between looks. then we drew what we had seen at 2 different magnifications.

lunch was the normal pasta, and the second science and poetry group happened afterwards. Poetry was the lady of shalot. SB said she remembered the bit in anne of green gables [a book she likes a lot] and they drew some illustrative pictures. SB and E sightread their recorder duet beautifully between them, and hoping that if they practice they might play it at caberet. but even if not, good to practice playing together. when they are confident, should try more complex music with em and i on lower instruments! Em also kindly took SB for a clarinet nag, as she isn’t practicing much currently as we are between teachers! [thankyou] SB also did some music theory as 2 weeks away from grade 4 exam [panic!]

Merry had brought a fab fimo idea of making pixie houses using Bene’s baby food jars and fimo [waste not want not!] and the kids all spent ages and ages on it, their results were impressive. definitely an idea to revisit another time in another guise, as i thought M was going to do an arabian nights one for a bit [she didn't] and it struck me that several of them of different heights on a board with candles in would make a beautiful hand made gift. they spent so long it did mean that zoe and i did the first kneading of dough to make rolls to go with the soup, and got a bit giggly over not being gbb candidates :).

we said goodbye to merry and family at that point. After washing hands, all the kids left had some white and some grain dough and made a roll of each to bake – plaits and animals and hearts etc and smelled lovely :). then did bells with EM. Hopefully we are going to play bells to a care centre nearer christmas and also sing some carols, so that would be good Beautiful

soup and back for BB’s grading at judo – went fine, SB judo and now my hlaf an hour [plus 8 mins!] is up, and the girls are shouting so need to go and intervene, then hoover and then make a quiche

I have been meaning to blog since saturday, and if I don’t, it will all run away from me! it is already no good, as i have forgotten all those little bits of loveliness! well, not all, SB and i had a lovely bedtime story snuggle together, with a chat about life and the meaning of everything and also a ticklefest sometimes as she is getting so grown up it is lovely to have her as a child, even if such a short time. DId i blog that she looked so grown up and assured in her smart clothes for judo grading last sat? Tho once I had said this, she then went into silly mode and we had a giggle at lots of pose striking – including duck-laying-egg!! SHe is adorable Currently we are reading Blood Feud by rosemary sutcliffe – my book from childhood. I love the tactileness of books, and was quite put back when SB announced she would quite like a kindle for christmas birthday! I think i have loved sharing friends with her [my childhood books] and find it hard to believe the kindle would be the same! I ahve also had lovely moments with BB cuddling as we watched human planet, sitting on my lap playing with SB’s chocolate game, being part of her whirling ninja or astronaut etc sketches,watching her snuggling under the duvet with big on the sofa as they watched jurassic park together. so often big and bb just dont mix, so it is often a bit of a stressy juggle when she stays over on that front [tho fab for SB], so it was partic lovely to see them being happy and giggly together. I think it is that 3 people spells trouble problem, as SB was out at judo or guides at these moments.

oh, did i say that big stayed with us after Jax left on weds until sat afternoon, when her dad came to pick her up? we had a lovely time other things that big shared with our family – a sports session at the local HE group, a not-forest-school session at the local HE group [lots of scrub clearance i think!], doing some book home ed, and playing with barbies. Oh, and lots of board games . we really enjoyed having her stay with us

I, unfortunately, was working a lot of the weekend , but i did get to spend some time at home. both girls wanted to play games, and currently they are v keen on agricola and carcasonne. BB also found our polydrons. this reducing screen time has, as thought, got her looking again at resources we have around the house, and she had a wonderful time building different shapes, and turning them into rockets and making imaginative games with them SB and i did a long overdue piano lesson as well. i do enjoy playing duets with her

Monday the family went to the inlaws for the day, so a bit of a telefest! but also roast dinner treat SB and BB both came home with some bibles – one that nana got when just 15. although we are not religious, my inlaws are, and it is important to me that both girls have some understanding of the various faiths, but also christianity in particular as it is important to so many family members and friends, and also of cultural value to help with understanding history and literature. SB was still limping from her judo grading tho [oh, she got her next belt ] so didn’t go to ballet or gym . when i came home from work [late] we enjoyed playing her chocolate game from thebabs, i did get to the end but bb also enjoyed the logic challenge

yesterday they had pottery/ceramics which again they v much enjoyed with the local HE group. DH will hopefully put up the photos. BB has apparently made a mask and a pumpkin, not sure what sb did! she was too engrossed in her laptop when i got home from work. they had also tidied the playroom – phew! Swimming lessons also, and SB able to walk well enough to do this. We spent a fair bit of the evening setting up the microscope from the portico, and getting it to work and looking at things under it. it is a beautiful microscope, even if i am too dim to understand the instruction booklet! our cheap BBC wildlife magazine came as well, and we all enjoyed reading bits and looking at some stunning photography. SB has kept going with music theory, as exam only 2 weeks away – eek!

what are we watching??

we are enjoying a few programmes on i-player currently to watch with the girls. Human Planet, War Farm, Great British Bakeoff and Merlin. BB is also rather taken by Leonardo and SB by Danni’s house. however, we tend to pick up the odd dvd cheaply, so this week we have enjoyed the jurassic park trilogy – bit of a gorefest! one is scariest, but we enjoyed them all. Particualry BB, and our friend Big who was staying seemed to enjoy them too [will see what Jax feeds back!]. Tonight we are watching the mountain episode of human planet with the girls. excellent and gripping and both girls and parents learning from it of the marvels of our planet and humans ‘on the edge’ as it were.
DH and I are really enjoying Andrew Marr History of the world, who do you think you are and Neil Oliver Vikings [with QI and Bones as a bit of fluff ] . We do tend to limit the tv time the girls have, a little bit of fluff on getting up or getting in from somewhere, and a shared thing in the eve, which we tend to talk about and comment on. then dh and i will watch something before we go to bed.

what are we reading?

DH and I are reading different books in the greg mandel series by peter hamilton. It is scifi, and i really like it, as does DH. You need to like the genre to like the books SB is loving a book from her book box – troubadour. her book box is book people and cheap books i come across and squirrel away, and have to be earnt – working hard on home ed, doing well in exam/grading, being a lovely sister etc etc. SHe recommends this book. BB is currently not reading a book. I try different styles, genres and push at age boundaries a bit [tho not too adult]

what are we playing?

bb is still playing a lot of roblox on the computer SB and Big have been playing wii winter olympics, and we have all including Big played board games, carcasonne, agricola, smallworld and giro galippo. very different games but all great fun

I meant, 14 posts ago, to celebrate the fact that this blog has 2500 published posts . i forgot so i will celebrate now 2514 posts!!!

having moved on from that bit of celebration I will now have a quickety quick run through the week. hmm, where had we got to Monday turned out to be a bit of a disaster. both girls did lots of at home bookwork stuff, and then SB was supposed to have a root canal. [2 years ago she slipped and completely tombstoned her front upper 2 adult teeth to the pulp. since then she has had them built up at the dentists, when fully grown she will have veneers. unfortunately this leads them prone to infection. last year she had one root canal, and this year she needs the other] . DH forgot so she didn’t, and this will also put back the traintracks further . anyway, she was relatively happy and had ballet and gym as normal. I got back from work a bit early so BB was happy as she didn’t have to go and watch SB gym. DH had also sorted ‘scratch‘ onto BB’s desktop, and she was having a complete strop moment of creative frustration over the process I have asked DH to work it out and then give her a few lessons till she gets started! He put an animation prog on SB’s netbook, so she was having fun with that making her glasses move all over her face

tues SB had an animation session with the local home ed group for 11+ – it is nice to have some older kids events, and she really enjoyed it. BB was v jealous [increasing sb enjoyment] but instead went shopping with DH to spend book vouchers from last year. SHe really really loves shopping! so both had a great day out, and swimming for them both in the eve. Jax and co arrived as well in the eve, so they rampaged around with Big and Small and I zonked on sofa [having had appaling sleep night before and humongous work day] poor hostess that I am. it is lovely that they travel so far to come though, as it gives the older girls some time for face to face rather than internet contact.

weds was history day. Jax and Zoe have already blogged this, so since this is the second time i have written this blog post [the first time my computer did something wobblish and it was lost] I am slightly tempted just to say read theirs!

SO we are starting on our Story of the World book 3, and we covered today James 1st ascension, religious beliefs, gunpowder plot, tirade against smoking. we also covered the settling of virginia and commencement of planting tobacco leading to expansion of the slave trade. a quick mention of nzinga of ngola as well in the morning. The craft based activities were done with listening to the relevant chapter or extra resources and then discussing.

for the gunpowder plot we made peg doll guys and then burnt them :evilgrin:

we discussed king james anti smoking treatise, and how posters are peppier and so made some. I loved the imagery taken from his treatise, and also the attempt to make the language appear mock-tudor. they all spent quite a while on this, allowing me to read a fair bit, and katy discourse on the ascension to the throne.

meanwhile some where baking thanksgiving foods with zoe – succotash and cornbread and parkin. they were all delish. the succotash perhaps a bit too buttery for everyday [tho this was a celebration] and the cornbread surprisingly sweet. all eaten up

katy had a variety of kids volunteering to be stuvyesant with his peg leg [an adapted sink plunger!] and jax talked about the triangular slavery trade. some of the children were still doing their antismoking posters, and others drew slave ship pictures. the older children were asked to write something about what had caught their interest that morning in the history scrapbooks. SB opted for the gunpowder plot. The plan is to stick in pictures/artwork/ maps and info prints and photos into these scrapbooks this year as part of the visual record they keep.

we then had a late lunch, played with the tiny ones, oohed and ahed over the tortoise had a cup of tea to revive and then katy set up a sumo ring. this was excellent fun we learnt about the traditions, the correct ritual and reason, and then various kids had a go. obviously BB was desperate! we adults laughed in the sun

gradually all the families left, and we were left with Jax’s big, who is having a 3 day sleepover . the elder 2 girls did some watercolour painting, SOA did some daubing painting before she left, and BB and SB had judo [separately] . on BB return, she and Big watched Jurassic park 2 and laughed lots it was nice seeing them snuggle on the sofa.

I think I might finish this blog post here A great day with friends, and sunshine! after all, SOA had granted me a wish with her magic wand the night before, and i had wished for a sunshiney day

resources for the day
[amazon affiliate links]

It is a while since i did a resources post. I meant to do them regularly, but, well…

this one, is a bit of a plea for help really. SB wants to learn italian. she wants it to be fun/enjoyable, progress through rather than stop when she can say her name, and have a fairly intuitive standalone core resource and then some fun peripherals.

for example, in french we use galore park french, which she says is fine, tho a bit ‘dry’ and she is happy ‘getting on with it. ALongside it is skoldo french – but currently she is on the last book. she likes this one far more though. They both have spanish versions, but no italian. for the audio, we use collins french mostly. alongside this we have bought loads and loads of different bilingual books, which she reads aloud, or i share with her. On the whole, this works [or would if we actually did it more regularly...]

I would like something similar in italian, and we have a lot of false starts.
these for example: [the collins mindmap just doesn't work for her, and contatti is something you need to do audio and book at the same time it seems, rather than listen to the audio to help with the book or vice versa - tho i think we could use this better - i might have to 'play' with it.]

so it seems, that actually what we probably want is something she can do as a ‘workbook’ and something that she can do as ‘in car audio’ ideally they would tie together, but would be used separately [no book in the car, no audio doing the workbook] and some fun books and peripherals. We have a kids italian cd – which she has really enjoyed, but stops there, it doesn’t progress on – which is a shame, we need vols 2 and 3! And we have found an italian ‘workbook’ [which i have 2 copies of - doh!] which she seems to like. but this isn’t ‘all joined up’ and i am sure there is something better out there…

please help me through the muddle of resources needs to be something she can do on her own – she is quite self driven, that i can help with if required. I speak NO italian, so does need to be something that we can work out rather than in italian only! I am desperate [and don't want to add more resources to my not what we wanted pile!]

thankyou

[links are amazon affiliate, feel free to put affiliate in comments for me to click ]

as the twilight of this year darkens, it is the perfect time to think of the dawn of the next. so we thought of planting our spring bulbs. this involved a trip to a garden centre an a nice saunter around to see what we could put in the garden in the future.

we picked a good selection of bulbs – mostly dafodils and tulips, chosen by the girls for their pretty packets and then got planting in front of the conservatory in an area freshly weeded. we are hoping for a really good spring display

other signs of autumn in our garden