Petits Haricots

soo, what have we been doing?

well, the girls have added another thing to their schedule! BB decided she was old enough to do ballet, but the class time in the village was wrong for us. however, also in the village there is modern/latin dance class, which happens to fit. it’s an hour long, so we wondered how BB would go, but she loved it, and has been showing us the cha-cha-cha since! SB thought it sounded good, so is doing it as well! BB has also decided to add in judo, but wants to start this term before SB moves up. SO current standing SB: mon ballet, tues swimming and ‘modern’, wed brownies and judo, thurs gym, fri alt week golf 1:1. BB: tues swimming and modern, wed ? judo [?? might try rainbows again]

SB has done some ballet and music theory practice for respective exams. more worried about the ballet than music theory… she has done lots of colouring in of the victorian house [as has BB]

and a few bits and pieces, but i think having a pause after a full on home ed week last week! we have continued on with SoTW, falling a bit behind with maths i think [she is on singapore 4A] but has decided to give mathletics a go after visiting the deependers. BB has done a bit of letter work, and her reading is definitely easier now! [we are still cvc-ing!] we are enjoying the songbirds books tho. they seem to suit her!

so onto today. latinetc! the main business was music theory with gina, as exam this sat [eek!] i think she will pass if reads question properly! i took BB and L to play with waves whilst the others were theorising! and they worked v nicely together. We had been asked to bring some ‘classics’ books, and when theory was finished, i detailed c into reading. later in latin, they did reenact some of them.

I also took along these, which i think are fabulous, but better for an adult to read to child. really well written, and we have certainly enjoyed them and i highly recommend!

did wave and water experimentation with the older group, and this went down well, and they looked at most of the various properties we could assess – and some additional things besides!! chris joined us – in from his speed awareness course [tut tut!] and a bit of french that was a lovely time! SB had a balet prac for the dnce as part of the carnival, but judo cancelled [to bb's disappointment]. i was grumpy with all as had to clean out rabbit hutch – second time ina row, and SB [with BB a bit] are supposed to keep an eye on that! rabs are happy and healthy tho, and still friendly!

BB and i did some more sciency things – we did some of her primary electronics kit – i watch to make sure she doesn’t short circuit, but she hasn’t yet! and then made some bouncy balls from the elastics kit. we are now watching the oddly accented [ie american] disney animal robin hood!

ok, the productiveness tailed off a bit towards the end of the week, but it was good while it lasted!
for our weekend we went for a mini camp in the peak district to do some cycling.

campsite v reasonable, and we chose the flat lower field even tho it looked like a rowdy group there! [they were, but i wasn't that bothered, would be much MUCH worse if they strummed a guitar] apparently 6 tents complained, and they lost some deposit money. but actually looked like a reasonable place to have a group camp. the bottom field had some more tucked away camping places, and also lots of trees and mounds of earth for the girls to run about in!

we took the new-to-us minnesota 4, which was remarkably easy up! it was plenty big enough for a weekender, and was waterproof when it rained. slightly more condensation than i am used to , but guess that is the SIG and the fact it is smaller! the mesh doors would have let in less bugs if chris had remembered to shut them! anyway!!!

so sat we did some lovely cycling along the tissington trail to parsley hay, and then back along some of the high peak trail. it was only a gently cycle, as a family affair, but it was about 9 miles. and i loved the trails! we did geocache along the way, but only found 1 of 3. we didn’t have the clues with us, and TBH, we liked the wind in our hair cycling, so limited search time. the one we found was pretty easy, and released BB’s ammonite there. she is hoping it might go to places where fossils found, and even have a pic or 2 beside fossils. you never know! i think it would be cool to be found one day by any of our geocaching friends! [ooh, jut updating that it has already been picked up!!] we exchanged some beautiful marbles for a balloon – think that offsets the pinecone for pony! the stop at hartington for lunch had a signal box to explore, and icecream and tea… the parsley hay had a v good kiosk cafe!! nothing like an inducement when cycling! but my fav bit was sb and i setting off back down the high peaks, nearly reaching 20mph as we whizzed along! fab views and fab weather.

i’m not a natural athlete, but look, i am happy!

bye bye to BB’s travelbug

the next day we were not quite so succesful with the weather! we decamped and set off to do part of the manifold trail. we took the winding path route from hulme end to the cafe, but soaking rain caused us to take the quiet road back, which was at least much faster! the views there beautiful in a perfectly bucolic way! on the way back, i saw nothing, as had to remove glasses to see at all… [-3.5] BB was unhappy as not only drenched, but the trailgator made sure she was covered with a decent amount of mud from chris… we did stop briefly to find a geocache, but the rain was unrelenting, and BB lost the will to live. we pedalled furiously back to hulme to find that we were a bit too late for cafe, and so stripped off girls in car and dressed in pj’s. i stripped off in public loos and used driers on some of my damper areas! a v bedraggled girl and mum came into do similar. i also had ‘camping p’s’ as replacement clothes. finally we were all dryish and in car. thank goodness for flask of coffee and fruit and nut chocolate!!

before the rain

this is halfway back, sheltering in the tunnel, and then the rain became *really* heavy!

sometimes my blog must read like school at home, and maybe sometimes like an untrusting unschooler! but i do believe still that we ed SB in a child led fashion, and BB autonomously! ANd this week, with a music theory and a ballet exam coming up, focusing on that has led SB to be rather productive in her work! she has certainly worked hard at both ballet and music theory, and ‘in the working groove’ has been careering across her potentials sheet to do 18 of the possibles. quite a lot of music prac, some grammar, some languages, bit of maths, bit of history, and obviously lots of reading! good for her! And so BB has also been gripped by the productive flow – in her own inimitable manner! i have given both SB and BB a bit of a long overdue piano lesson.

today is a latinetc day, but with a bit of a serious reduction in numbers. so it seemed pretty quiet, and we merged the groups. i did music theory, and had to admit to not feeling at all comfortable with quarternotes etc, so we had to do the crotchet, quaver etc. but think i didn’t ruin too much of gina’s previous work… i thought science would be more fun than it was. i wonder if the reduced assembly reduced the pleasure? or because i had already enjoyed doing music theory, i had ‘run out’ a bit for science? it did work tho – more or less, might relook at trying to watch the waves!! certainly having an OHP so we could look at waves on the ceiling was fun. and the pyrex dish and pushing pencils made it work well. hmmmm. a latin play from all but BB [ ] some french and then a moan and groan from me to adult companions! and the day was done.

home and chris has now finished some rabbit hutchery stuff, so rabses are in new palace and seem v happy. Sb wanted to finish her grammar book, but couldn’t find it. i declined to help, so she faffed about with maths – for nearly 2 hours! [tho if she hadn't faffed, i imagine she would have completed what she did in perhaps a quarter of that time - lol!] BB also did some maths, some writing, some aggravating parents and narrowly escaping being caged with the rabbits… and then made a fab pass the parcel which we all played later. finally she settled down with some felting after half heartedly opening and starting numerous half finished crafts and she needle felted me a pumpkin face! SB by now at brownies and then judo. BB has decided she is nearly old enough to go to things, so would like to do trampolining, dance and maybe rainbows. finished the evening with bang goes the theory, and SB and i have now started the 4th bagthorpe book, having finished the flavia gemina: fugitive of corinth

SB had an absolutely fab time at her PGL holiday. it was a 5 day one, and she said it scored 9/10 and she would quite like to do the week next time as they didn’t do any swimming costume things… her favourite bits were the high swing thing she and maddy screamed down together, and the vertical challenge. she said the high wires were tamer than centreparcs. they loved building and floating the raft! the food was awful tho [she said, though the leek and potato soup nice]. she said the ppl supposed to enforce lights out told them as long as they weren’t wild they could have fun, so her room chatted way into the night, and she said the other 2 girls in the room were v nice. [only one shower required! - lol] it was a success! like all things, a few hiccups – a badly sprained ankle and a couple of more rowdy boy types.

we missed her tho, and were really really happy to see her back! and BB, who had been at nanna’s and had a trip to hunstanton on the bus. aww. so sat was mostly cuddling, reading and gen calming down [so a fair number of blast labs and horrible histories as well as me reading sotw and beowulf. played with rabbits etc etc!!

today SB did some music theory [exam coming up!] was excused ballet prac [exam coming up!] read some french, listened to me read a number of box books played with rabbits, and then BB decided she wanted a blue peter badge, so the ed ante ramped up! so we prepared something to say about a dinosaur pic for a blue badge, and we prepared a bit about her sowing dwarf golden french beans, and her being a golden french bean [lol] with some pictures as well, and then went to submit. horror of horrors, you have to be over 6. i submitted anyway in the end, let blue peter take the responsibility for her screeches!! so SB decided she should to, and has written out beautifully something about nature watching, which we will add pictures to and send as a green badge entrance and fingers crossed. not sure if via their website or by post the best??

now i am playing agricola online, and losing v bady!! rofl!!

i have got massively behind in flickring, but thought i would put a few photos up of things the girls have done.

SB did some felting, she hoped it would look a bit like van gogh style flowers, which it did before the felting process! we live and learn!

BB went for an apple tree, and got a bit distraught that they moved around, though was happy with the finish

SB did some marvelous baking

and BB did a fab picture of a dinosaur in watercolour pencils, which she sent off to dinomite magazine in the hopes it would be featured [fingers crossed!]

i have very much liked using this as a chronology backbone to history. We are now working our way through book 3. SB snuggles up and listens as i read the stories to her, and we often but not always supplement this by looking at other books we have for more details.

I imagine there are lots of ways of using this book, and certainly a quick google search brings lots of options! we are prob going for a fairly common approach! we have read it through and done a few bits of extra to tag on the side as a first read. we started when she was 5 – a fairly common start time! we have done less of the activities than i planned tho!

I don’t think we are going to do book 4 next tho, as my youngest is 5 already. instead i think we are going to go back and start book 1 again. this series is ‘designed’ to learning spiral around, and read 3 times in total in the classical way, but doing slightly differently on each turn, as the child is correspondingly 4 years older.

so next time, i plan to read to both girls, snuggled together and do the questions, and then ask SB to search in our books for more detail or another angle and read some of that to us [we have lots of other books!] and do the mapwork and some additional interest reading or writing herself [perhaps start the galore park book and work through the appropriate chapters as we get to them] and then hopefully with a group of friends have a monthly meet where we do the crafts as a mixed age thing. the friends needn’t have read SotW, but perhaps something about the age we are doing crafts on, and we can encourage some discussion on that. it might even work better if we have all used different sources.I can then maybe read some myths and legends whilst they are crafting. I think that would be fun!

I think I am quite excited! would tie in some visits – grimes graves, stonehenge, british museum, various roman bits and pieces! i think this would work well as a mixed age meet together, but adding on for those older. and we could always add a show and tell element to it as well for those that do nice things like lapbook, or who had visited something relevant etc.

[the galore park so you really want to learn... starts at 1066, so would move to book 1 of that when we move to book 2 of SoTW which we would hopefully do the next year]

this week as seemed a bit odd. it started on a tuesday after all! and we lost SB to PGL, going with her friend M from the puddles. SHe was sooooo exited and happy! the weather has been great for them, so I am hoping that they have had a fab time. SB can be a bit of a complicated person, so it kinda depends! we haven’t heard anything tho, so that must be good!

BB, having felt a bit odd and lost, has, i think, enjoyed being an only this week. she got her choice of everything, including bedtime readers, and i sang her to sleep each night. she has chosen tea, and daytimes were planned around her. currently she is with nana and grandad for a sleepover, haven chosen that ahead of a trampolining course. she has also done gym trials this week – hopefully she will then get a place.

Wed was a reduced not-latin – we will do latinetc next week! this time we were at mine so katy’s youngest and merry’s youngest could meet our rabbits and play. i think i should have got some stuff out and organised, as it took a little while for them all to get going. but they did in the end. I wonder if it was because they missed the older ones organising the games for them? i baked a choc spread cake, which is vegan, and actually quite biscuity rather than cakey, and BB baked choc sponge cake. it was all eaten… i also face painted everyone. some crafting with airdrying clay, and some colouring, but we adults got plenty of time to chat and hug. wish we were neighbours really. whenever i hear ppl poohpoohing internet friends i always have to break in and say that internet friends have become my best irl friends. even tho some of them i only meet a couple of times a year.

today i am at home, only just out of bed, as dreadfu migraine [again] typing this with eft ey closed and cold compress. just cos extremely bored with being migrainous. need to shut off laptop now tho. 30 mins is as much as can bear. will listen to the birds tweeting int eh garden.

hey, look, we have nearly caught up!

Sat it was raining, as anticipated! so we got up, sorted all the inner bits of the tent so just the shell left, and had breakfast. that gave us a break in the rain, so tent down! hooray!! Chris bought some things from much wenlock to take to the party, and we sang with c in the shelter of the toilets as now raining a fair bit! Our journey to SOTP was not so brill tho. M6 like a carpark, and when we came off, we were instantly diverted [not in a good way!] but we made it via a v scenic route!

popped up our little evolution in the party field – where lots of other tents popping up, and discussion on wind factors etc were taking place. then in for tea and cake and chat, whilst awaiting everyone to arrive. startling new haircut on one of hosts soon got used to! girls fell in love with trampoline, and after a bit of the usual hesitancy and parental proddings, got down to the serious business of playing. BB, J and R in particualr made a cute threesome bouncing around. SB had a bit more variance than normal in the friends she played with. Big and E, who she often hangs out with, were rather taken by an older boy present, and stretching away in age to be older, and SB really not entirely sure how this works as yet. So she played with a wider range than usual, and only needed an occassional shunt to get going in a different direction. Since she usually bemoans the fact that she hasn’t played with the full gamut, i am expecting her to have been happier with this outcome. She only had a couple of trampoline accidents too – not bad!

I was both sad and wobbly, and migrainous, so apologise for total lack of sparkling wit and humour [no real change there is there!] But did have a lovely time, so thanking everyone for that, in partic J and J. Did get to have lots of chats and friendhsip moments, as well as playing a game [always good!] It did mean chris got to have a late night or 2 instead tho. Think the patchwork cake worked better than anticipated! and looking forward to seeing the photos as they come out. Chris has flickred ours! will add one or 2 to this post! SB enjoyed the geocache walk with others, and was kicking herself about not going to the stables to see the new pony, as she thought everyone was going to staples  Also loved the swingball matches that went on! we have some sparkling athletes amongst the husbands – not!!

But mostly a lovely warm memory of hospitality and friendship. Thankyou

not sure how much i am going to blog, because i am utterly shattered! must go to bed soon. however, think i should get going to catch up with today! chris is hopefully sorting out photos from the weekend to flickr. think so behind with flickering may have to go backwards!

anyway, wednesday of our holiday! i had a late start as feeling a bit wobbly over various family things, so stayed in tent reading for a bit, but was ready to go out for a walk and geocache into much wenlock. the clues were mostly straightforward [shame that one was missing tho!] and we paused to have a rather fab lunch from the deli – i would recommend much wenlock deli! we had a picnic in the churchyard and the girls played climbing trees and catch. carrying on with the caching, we went past much wenlock priory, and decided to go in. they had those interesting audio thingies, which we enjoyed listening too, and even BB liked it. unfortunately she had a total melt in the shop over the issue of money. aargh. the worst for quite some time really. so with a bit of gritted teeth and quiet talking we managed to get back to a sense of balance and carry on! much of the cache was related to the olympics of much wenlock, but finished not far from a windmill and BB managed to swap a pinecone for a stuffed horse keyring [much to michelles disgust - but she had carreid the pinecone for ages specially]. most of us went back to the tent, but marcus took SB and C for a smoothy. SB loved geocaching tho, and remained her usual cheerful self. unfortunately the heavens opened and they got completely drenched. oh dear!! we have a fab kebab. BBQ tea.

thurs was a migraine day for me – grr! one which lasted in the end 5 days, with sat being the worst. but we went to enginuity. this was smaller than i expected, but the girls all found things that they really enjoyed about it. i liked moving the steam train best! the girls both liked the ‘xray’ viewer best. lots of interactive things, but like in a lot of places, the ones that needed you to move between levers were ruined by wild inconsiderate play by others. SB gave up with these! we spent a long time there though I am glad there weren’t many others. we had lunch at the museum of iron and then explored the museum. this was prob my fav one. i thought it was a really well thought out and interesting display of how the iron industry grew in the area, and how various bits of it worked. SB was quite interested in the wife and sister running the industry for a while, and making it make a good profit. by now my migraine reaching epic proportions, so although i enjoyed a wander around the darby furnace, i then went back to snooze in the car whilst chris and the girls went on to the darby houses with the manorborns, and enjoyed dressing up in victorian clothes. when they returned we went to the rather lovely tea emporium in ironbridge. we crossed and marvelled at the bridge as well. pasta for tea! as the manorborns ate out, we did some reading around victorians in the eve, and a couple of other books.

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friday saw us early up and out [ok, not so very!] as we decided to have a lazy breakfast at the tea emporium, which was v lovely! we explored the rbidge and walked down to the ironbridge gorge museum. quite a tiny museum, with a lot about fish! liked it too. then we took c with us to the tar tunnel – unfortunately closed due to low oxygen levels. i bartered with lady though that we could stand inside and not go beyond trucks! so at least we got an impressions. the girls all decided they could tell the oxygen was low and didn’t stay there long! a nice wander back along the canal to where we had parked the car past the china museum by the youth hostel – may stay there winterish! we then drove to the jackfield tile museum [lead me not into temptation!!] where m and m where having a sneaky quiet tea and cake! this was my second fav museum. i love tiles, and could v well imagine them throughout my house! by the end BB coming to the end of her museum ability, so we waved the manor borns off to the pipe museum and returned to tent for chilli and enchilladas [yum!] and a bit of a tent tidy as leaving early next day and rain expected.

we have been away. we went to coalbrookdale camping in much wenlock with the manorborns. we had a fab time! we learnt a lot about the area from the variety of places we went too, from the early times with the much wenlock priory, through the industrial revolution times to the modern. also a lot of back discussion about victorians, steam etc.

we arrived on sunday at sytche camping and put up tent and tarp in the scorching heat. unfortunately we wer not pitched near the manor borns, but instead about as far away as poss. they could still hear BB tho, so failed there! anyway, i did get sunburnt putting the tent up, as it was that hot!! the manorborns followed later and were pleased to share a cool beer and cup of tea!

monday started off with music theory for c and sb. c v enthusiastic, sb somewhat less so, tho i think she has now sorted tonic triads! some cwaft [ as pronounced by BB and mimicked by c!] and set out to blist hill and got their fairly soon after opening. loved the intro hall of the noises of smelting and steam, but BB not so keen, so we went up into the sunlight and to the bank to change our modern money into blist hill old pennies, farthings etc! [what a fab idea!] we played dosie doh the school groups and the big 2 girls did the maths challenge. this was really good, but let down by a couple of things – some shopkeepers emphasised how hard it was or gave the answers!, and when a shopkeeper wasn’t there [cf candemaker] you couldn’t complete. so anyway, that minor grip aside we had a really good time, the post mistress, wood turner and printer were especially good to talk to. SB has really got into the swing of asking questions and listening to the answers to feel how things were. its not that long since we were at the black country museum, which is also turn of century victorian, so she is pretty clued up on their tools and kitchen paraphernalia anyway. also i remember little nanny’s stories, so retell them whilst i can. [we should revisit gressenhall, but i think it might make me cry.] I love the steam things, and also spending time seeing how things worked. i loved the addition of some pigs and veg gardens. unsurprisingly we were pretty much the last ppl out! will hopefully add some photos in to show what a fab day it was. we brought back c, so she got to choose car cd’s too. these were the ones played in the week:

back to a shared meal of camp curry and chat until late in the night! girls all playing v happily and just chilled really!

next day we went in the other direction to the victorian farm. I think this might have been BB’s favourite day. would again really recommend it! i loved the lengthsmans house, the milkable cow, and watching the shire horse plough! BB loved the piglets, lambs, ducklings and being able to explore. she had a minor ‘fairness’ moment about the blacksmith and a minor money moment in the shop, but otherwise was pretty happy. SB also loved it, and we mostly pootled round together. i love spending time with SB, as she talks as she thinks, so you get a stream of SB consciousness as you go round of marvelling, wondering and asking. she would quite like a drop spindle, but i have no idea how to use them – anyone?? i think we pretty much saw most things, and she was most happy to have a go at bellowsing for the blacksmith, and getting a piece of knotted iron as a reward!! [the bb not fair moment] and also chatting to the chap tht sorted the 4 calves to getting some milk, when only the biggest belonged to the cow. we were pretty much lasterers there as well [surprise!] and, somewhat mistakenly, sent chris and marcus to effect shopping whilst the rest of us went home in michelles car. unfortunately chris did his timewarp thing, and marcus had no powers to speed up the process!! late dinner of ken hom! but girls nibbled and played nicely, and me and michelle had cucumber sandwiches and tea followed by wine, so v civilised!