A resting day!

Posted on January 24, 2010 by | 1 comment

we decided we were all needing one. SB was very definite about it, so stayed in bed reading until lunchtime! BB mostly watched cbbc, and i chased off a migraine and started sorting pics to catch up with so can get to centreparc pics! [our london pics going up right now]. however, having labelled the london set visiting london, it sits right with all the visiting little nanny sets. i miss little nanny hugely still, and can’t quite stop feeling that she is overdue a visit. SO i have looked at the sets, had a quiet weep at what we lose, but reminding myself that her life was lived to the full and filled with love and laughter as well as heartache and loss. I also plan to live similarly in length and in love!

Anyway, after lunch i suggested we should do a craft or science kit to get us moving a bit, and SB chose a science museum kit about flight, and made the helicopter [which we couldn't get to fly] and an aeroplane. BB also made an aeroplane and made a light circuit with her first electronics tool kit box – which she has loved for a long time! We then went head to head with cooking mama [banal game i can't see the point of, but they love!]. SB then did some recorder practice of her new grade 1 piece, and then we played it together on the piano. She very much enjoyed that, so played a new grade 1 clarinet piece too. this hurt her lip as she has a small ulcer, so i suggested we should defer clarinet prac till it healed! SB and i played ticket to ride whilst BB played a supplementary game on how well she thought each of us was playing. ALthough i won the train game [not by much] SB won BB’s game playing trophy! BB also did some earlibird 2a maths.

A bit more tv watching before tea, then book reading [absolute zero] and bed. both girls still awake at mighnight tho. sigh.

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, early maths skills, General, investigating, music, science, Stringbean's HE

little nanny, i miss you

Posted on January 24, 2010 by | Leave a comment


little nanny, originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

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centreparcs 2010!

Posted on January 23, 2010 by | 15 comments

this is the third year that we have gone to centerparcs for a january break with friends. more friends than ever also holidayed this year, so there was a home ed camp feel to it as well! SB in particular loved having lots of different friends to go down rapids and flumes with as well as general messing about in the water!

We shared with jax from ‘making it up’ this year, so got to enjoy lots and lots of lovely cuddles with soa, the gorgeous new baby. She is a total delight, and at that bit where she is smiling and laughing and being coy, as well as cooing and burbling – very cute! surprising us all, BB and small really did a good job of playing together the majority of the time, and big and SB had their usual tempestuous relationship – but this is starting to be far more boom than bust as well [which is relieving for me and Jax on the eardrum front! rofl!!] we adults had our chilled, wine enabled evenings after the hurly burly of camp life! we ate well – due to some pre-prep, thus , i think, enabling kids blood sugars to be better managed, and a more peaceful chalet as a result! big ate everything i cooked -so into my good books ! and small was surprised by liking some of it too!!

we mostly swam – surprisingly enough! we enjoy swimming, we enjoy messing about in water, and therefore we enjoy centreparcs! SB is fish like anyway, and was an intermittent visitor as mostly with friends – as mentioned above! i mostly played with BB, who has great confidence in the water, swimming over and under and really enjoying it. we got some zoggs seals that she had great fun with, as well as the noodles. we just loved it! also, whilst swimming, we adults got to chat with each other, share keeping an eye on littlies so we could go down various of the waterchutes and just chill. I really needed a holiday to chill, so this was ideal! i think i prefer elvedon for the pool rather than sherwood, but not a huge lot in it! i missed the salt hot pool, as the outside pool here not so hot, and had the rapids running off it, which BB permanently tempted to go down! I also missed the gentle ‘indoor river’. This year we did have a new ‘gadget’ a ‘nereus’ plastic bag for popping digital cameras in and using in the pool to a depth of 20m. remarkably successful i think! no leakage and the pics far better than i expected – main prob being the children actually staying where put!!

the playparks were enjoyed too, we had a couple of different sessions there, once predom with the deependers, and another predom with the sotp plus assorted other children brought along! and we did a nice cycle en masse round the complex. This was rather great, picking up a few children on the way – glad that B found her bike again – will not suggest here that she takes after her mother tho… Although i did take crafting stuff, we didn’t actually have anytime to do it, as most days we swam 2ce [morn and eve] and parked in the middle, or we did the cycle. we also had a mini birthday celebration for big and e and a meet at starbucks – so v sociable!

on the social front, the families [12 of them!] were divided into 3 areas, so i guess i saw the most of the ones in ours, and the families that we seemed to share a wavelength with for pool visits! so i missed mostly monsterteeny and manorborns [except for their all day endeavour!] and saw more of the portico, puddles, deependers, sotp, babs, jo, lovelyem and a sprinkle of ali!! me ‘n jax socialised out 2 of the nights, and ‘the boys’ 1 night – though they made the most of it, having a games and beer night and getting in at 4am!!

these poor unsocialised home ed kids! As a promise for the difficult sunday, both girls had agreed to do some home ed ‘work’ whilst away, which we did for 2 of the days! though SB did do recorder every day, and don’t think she will have much trouble with the grade 1 pieces. She also read loads of her new books…

so all in all a fab hol!! i will prob think of bits to add, but off to bed [probably!]

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Posted in BB-PE, General, music, Out and About, SB-PE, socialisation

Thelaw of home education

Posted on January 18, 2010 by | 1 comment

when you have been up, then you will be down.
I am going to draw a veil over the majority of the day!
me:
1. i was grouchy, ratty, and v upset/angry over the lack of care girls shown to possessions on finding lots of broken toys that should have been put away
2. i was more grouchy when they upended a prev nearly tidy room
3. moment of joy on reading that my tax owing reduced – now have to claim back the overpay [as i had already paid]
4. we kissed, hugged and made up and finished the day happy.
sb:
1. well, guilty as charged!
2. did then tidy beautifully
3. and did some home ed – journal for our time away and explode the code
4. baked buns and decorated
bb:
1. lucky to survive! in fact, v lucky to survive, unrepentantly guilty as charged and too tired/unable to tidy.
2. v lucky to still own any possessions – including ds found down side of sofa, though not missing games!
3. baked biscuits

the baking cheered us up, and kissing and hugging, and all friends by time watched dr who with pizza.

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an excursion to london

Posted on January 18, 2010 by | 8 comments

on friday, i had booked the day off work thinking that we would be doing a ww2 evacuation day, but it was cancelled. we decided to make the most of it though, and do an overnighter to london! we had a number of possibilities and a definite. the definite was tower of london, as we have a palaces pass currently, and possibles thrown open included the globe theatre, tate modern, museum of london, imperial war museum, something found on a leaflet… and bookshops! bookshops were picked out as the girls each have a lot of book tokens to spend!

so we started at the tower, we were a bit worried, as the day started off v bleakly rainy at our end, but london just dismal rather than overtly wet – so v happy!! SB picked up a ‘thing to do’ so off to the treasury [has it always been called the jewel house?] to do the sheet. SB loves doing sheets, and this one has a sense of humour. we looked for the frog for ages before sb read on and said it was a joke :roll: !! BB lost patience before SB had finished, so some dividing and conquering, but think the sheets are good, mostly info and v little writing! SOme serious lagging later and we went to the restaurant for lunch – that set us back a bob or 2! the weather was too cold and wet to picnic out in any kind of fashion unless truly masochistic – and although chris and i alone may have been, the addition of BB warrants gentler treatment! [SB is pretty much game!] After that we went into the Henry VIII armour exhibition and hands on area – which was really good and SB spent a long time looking, and even BB made a fairly impressive coverage. The annoyance for me was the no photography rule. grr! finally, we went for a walk along the ramparts, and really liked all the info and background noises placed along them. i did wonder if there was a leaflet for that actually. We were chased out by warders for it being closing time. so we did only do that one thing!!

mooched back to the travelodge, with BB falling asleep on the tube, a rest, re-invigoration and out for a meal at a nearbye italian where they made a fuss over the girls being lovely – and they were. the travelodge is directly over the circle line, and initially BB insisted on looking out of the window at every rumble, but the game eventually palled…

next day up and to brekkie, when surprised by BB shouting there is k-! and there she was!! on breakfast TV, so we cheered her on defending her educational choices. SB had chosen the globe theatre, and by a slightly devious route we got there. loads of the tube was closed, either whole lines or stations, so we had to do some extra thinking! we decided to get to st pauls and then walk across the millenium bridge. we checked on a map our bearings, and BB made other tourists laugh by saying she now knew where the toilets were – she knows the important signs! [aside - though not the letter p however hard we try, she insists it is an r or a t - although she can recognise those]. we meandered around st pauls garden, had a look at the fireman memorial and ambled our way to the globe, just in time, as it started absolutely chucking it down.

we loved the globe! we started with a look around the top information exhibition. thought it was nicely done, could be read at a number of levels – pics for bb, skim read for sb, bit more for chris and i had we had the chance! then a break in the middle of more display items and then on how built. we then had a 40 min guided tour of the globe, and although abslutely teeming it with rain, the guide was excellent, and so were our children. so much so, that i bought them home ed books in shop at end [well, they are still on a no museum money as spent 4 museums as one at hampton court - currently £1 a museum, but with poss of slight extra if needed, so usually better saved up!] I chose 2, and agreed to SB’s choice off 2 as well. [what a moment of weakness!]
SB’s choices:

my choices [a bb and an sb book]:

[I will not look at cheaper-by-far prices on amazon!!]

and we read them whilst having lunch there, which was good, as SB’s had a printing error, and it was easy enough to exchange! we went back and did the musical uppersection and then the ground floor of the exhibition, discussing printing presses with a demonstrator – SB is fairly happy with discussing printing presses, she has seen quite a few in action as well as having it on the inventors story cd! then we popped next door to the tate modern – the printer recommending the black box, so we went in it. not quite dark enough as lots of ppl held their mobiles out to see [headdesk!!] and then we peaked at a couple of the galleries SB and i had a chat about what she could see, what she liked, if she thought there was an emotion there, and how might the art have been created, but BB becoming tired, so we had a restorative cake before moving to a bookshop.

i am going to gloss over finding the bookshop, suffice it to say that chris and i had different ideas of where to go, i agreed to choose chris’s idea, and we both regretted it, and the girls did a fair bit of extra walking before we ended up at the known fabulous waterstones by picadilly… SB chose nearly all famous 5 books [£40 worth!] and BB was dissuaded from buying all dr who story books – mainly because she can’t read, they have no pics and she doesn’t want them read to her, just turns pages, so we found a variety of doctor who alternatives, and she then picked 2 fairy based books she was also happy with. we had passed a buffet chinese on shaftesbury avenue earlier, so made steps back there, stuffed our faces, staggered back – well, we were going to get a bus at girls request, but by the time had walked to leicester square, decided to tube it! BB sang a v cute and jolly looking for a bus song, complete with looking actions. just made the train, easy journey home and there you go, a lovely 2 days in london!

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Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, General, history, little languages, Out and About, pre reading, Stringbean's HE

bacteria galore!

Posted on January 13, 2010 by | 6 comments

today was a latinetc day, always enjoyable for all of us. we were still late, because somehow our kids don’t get out of the house, and my poor sleeping is making me just want to curl up in bed unless matter transported! We started with SB doing some music theory, which apparently she struggled to do there, but at home raced through the sheet, so as gina says, prob due to arriving half way thro. BB similarly shy in french, doing opposites, but got going, and for the rest of the morning toddling about quite happily!

I like being in the kitchen with michelle, though think she may have been a bit more dubious about our proximity as we were looking at bacteria! i reassured everyone that they were actually dead! fixed on a microscope slide in fact, and we had a peer at some, but my microscope not really powered quite highly enough. we did a fun bacteria division game with peas and paper ‘cells’ obviously these were intracellular bacteria! and that was enjoyed. then i got out the petri dishes and swabs and we all thought of somewhere that might harbour bacteria, swabbed and plated it. now, with any luck, the petri dishes are in airing cupboards gently warming! the plan is to look every day and draw what you see. we may, or may not, have the older group try and make a microscope slide depending on how well it goes! unfortunately, it used up way more agar than i imagined! so i have had to buy lots more, and am waiting for it before we do part 2 – grow bugs and then put in something we think is bacteriocidal – what do you think? teatree, lavender, breast milk, alcohol gel, soap?? oh and an antibiotic and see if we can kill them! so we will dissect a fish next time instead. we had lots of discussions about bacteria, and it is always great to see what info kids already have and can pull together, we had a bit of evolution, yoghurt making, pasteurisation, ‘good and bad’ bacteria…

latin and music also happened, tho not clarinet – will happen 2moro. we came home, and sb did the clarinet and theory sheet whilst BB got going with painting a plaster of paris frame she had made. she really paints v carefully, and acrylic paints are so much better for this!! just as SB was about to get a kit to finish out, we had the deependers arrive after baby music, so supplied tea and refreshments. M very taken by that maze ball thing we all have! J,K and SB played bohnanza for a bit, and L and BB played together v happily. apparently the frame is prob for L, but don’t get too excited, as BB often keeps the things she makes for others…

Other things this week – SB had and really enjoyed her first golf lesson. she has done loads of maths on angles. BB done lots of crafting and finally starting to learn some letters!! chris put up the new bookcases, so looks fab in hallway, and currently he has started on room of doom! work been stressful as always, but have some time off coming up – woohoo!! oh, and it snowed – somehow that is no longer newsworthy, and i have hardly mentioned this prolonged cold snap in the blog, but it hasn’t really affected us, not like so many others!

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Posted in Books, Butterbean's HE, General, investigating, language, little languages, music, noises and sounds, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

a kit finishing kind of day

Posted on January 10, 2010 by | Leave a comment

I apologise to all Kits out there, not Kits were maimed in the process of the day!

I was a bit blurgy with some droopy virus and am having problems with both insomnia and recurring nigtmares, not altogether sure that it isn’t the nightmares that are causing the insomnia. last night the cats bought it v unpleasantly. Anyhoo…

Girls started with watching some nature prog on the tv, then SB did piano with me – her new upgrade book, thanks sarah, and recorder. BB also did a bit of piano. Bit more ds-ing – mostly cooking mama – and then we got out the kits pile! SB has finished her egg cups and horses, and BB her dinosaur. SHe then started her zebra kit, though sand one unfinished, as she told me she was just going to pour sand over all of it. seemed like a waste – these kids foil me at every turn!!

Whilst they did their kits, i read some SoTW – Council of Trent, and we then had a discussion about all the pathways christionity has taken, and if we were to be anything, we would be on the protestant side and the more minimalist the better – quakers have always struck me as quite a good idea, but dad a methodist, and chris’s parents baptists [tho not so keen on that myself] and i have had friens of ‘all persuasions’ and they all now get on – as there were bits about catholics and protestants killing each other! We also read a nice book about a viking family [which i will link to when i get home]

I felt interacted out, so we then watched some walking with dinosaurs whilst chris sorted out the pipe leak in the garage – aargh!! luckilly nothing ruined, but a nuisance none the less, and v cold for poor chris. BB and SB both did some maths as well.

SB has her first golf lesson tomorrow, so hoping that goes OK!

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Posted in art and crafts, Books, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, history, music, noises and sounds, Stringbean's HE

pesky pixies

Posted on January 9, 2010 by | 4 comments

BB has a theory. she believes that pixies live in your nose. they have a corridor in your brain, and can at times poke out of your nose and say things that get you into trouble. i love bb’s theory. she has had it for quite a few months now, and i thought i should quickly blog it before it disappears!

well, i guess we have done a good week of HE from both girls. SB has finally got annoyed and grumpy with spelling mistakes, and has made a definite decision that she wants to improve all her english – handwriting, spelling and all. SO this week she has done a fair bit of getty and dubay, a spelling workbook and today she decided to restart explode the code. SHe stopped explode the code at book 4 about 3 years ago, having cracked reading, but still hating writing. it is a synthetic phonics scheme that worked really well for us. She is hoping that as she does the upper level ones, with the blends etc, they will fix into her head for spellings. i don’t know if they will, but we allready have level 6, so we might as well see. certainly this week she has plugged away at it. The other thing considering in the back of my mind is education city, as they have loads of word games. perhaps for her and BB?

SO, BB also been working hard this week. she is loving getty and dubay A, copying the letters and drawing pictures. I am hoping some of the letters of the alphabet stick there! we also do word games when i read to her at bedtime – we chose what is the best word, and she tries to find it on the pages. BB also did some maths today.

We also did some crafting today. There are loads of semi-abandoned craft kits in the house, and we have determined to decrease their number! BB painted some of her plaster of paris ‘statues’ and SB did a paint by numbers and also a paint an eggcup kit. All very relaxing. I read countless stories to them from the various barefoot books we have.

I think i bought the silk road book as one day i do plan to travel it! Anyway, i like reading and crafting, so a lovely afternoon! SB and I did some more prof layton. Actually i have finished, but missed out a few puzzles, so have gone back in to find them, but can’t find number 32, and 1 piece short for robot dog – grr!! BB cooking mama-ed. We caught up on postcrossing, looked at places on globe, tidied playroom and chris has been putting up loads of ikea bookcases for the hallway. looks much better than our higgledypiggledy ones, and they are being moved about the house. A bit of resource sorting – we have lost getty and dubay e – where i wonder? Also refilled the bird feeders again – we have lots of birdfeeders and they go down v quickly! also food on floor. happy to see long tailed tits, various other tits, finches as well as the allegedly rare starlings and more common garden birds!

BB and I played some find and match games with cards whilst chris tried to improve on his wii resorts jetski – lets not talk about that too much! BB has been a bit reluctant about the wii, which is as shame as it was bought for chris [so glad he is enjoying it!] but for whole family use. SO i tempted her with waveboarding, and in her first go was already better than chris. cheered up by this immensly [she really doesn't like not being the winner!] she did wii resort cycling. I really loved watching her do this, as there is a lot of arm effort involved, and she tried to make her mii cycle as frenetically as she does, though the mii got tired more quickly. so she is happy with at least these 2 games. we only have 1 wii motion sensor though, and think we will need to buy another for the 2 person games – slippery slope or what!

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An odd start to the day!

Posted on January 7, 2010 by | 4 comments

i was woken up [as having a lie in] by a friends dad – the gaffer – asking me a musical question for a newspaper!! do you know, it still seemed slightly embarrassing to be dishevelled in bed talking to a friend’s dad, even though he couldn’t see down the phone! [i am assuming even the gaffer doesn't have these skills!] i am hoping i gave him the right answer anyway!

so having then got up :blush: i went downstairs to play with girls, the plan was to home ed in the morning [as we were too snow chicken to go to london for the day] and then ‘do something’ in the afternoon. the girls have both got into the swing of normalling. BB is more or less choosing what she counts as home ed. today putting stickers in a sticker book, but also some piano practice [remembering where middle c is it has been that long!] some more getty and dubay – she is enjoying letter tracing, and then we snuggled together to look at the first few pages of a street through time.

SB also been going well, and today she did clarinet prac, galore park science [light], galore park english [write a story about a treasure island ]- which after a few false valiant starts we agreed she could dictate. she also did ‘smelly spellings’ for 7-8′s.

After lunch both girls decided to go outside to play with the ice and snow – brr as far as i am concerned – for ages!! tho we haven’t had so much in the way of snow. when they came in we sat and did some ds-ing [prof layton and i got stuck for ages on the valentine choc bar!] some general cuddling/tickling and messing about, and then SB went off to brownies. Chris and BB did some diy with ikea bookcases, and then we played on the wii – waveboarding. it appears to be my sport :lol: BB isn’t so sure about the wii at the moment, so feeling that the present isn’t so fab for her, but am hoping she grad gets to it!! [otherwise it won't be so much fun] i also found that i am far better at mariokart using the wheel [tho the bar is pretty low!!]

when SB returned, a bit of a tidy, and BB noticed her violin, and set to playing it [anything rather than tidy] and so SB followed suit!!! she got out the violin [now somewhat small] and the tune a day, and started having a go again. i kept my mouth most firmly shut, and carried on tidying, only stopping to agree that the V were upbows, and that like jazz clarinet, a violin is best held outwards for sound. she wants it added to her choices on her ticksheet. blow me down with a feather. Am going to continue not particularly noticing it unless asked, and carry on more nagging for recorder and piano [clarinet requires no reminder]

more dsing altogether, bedtime stories and that is the happy day. [i am not being sarcastic, it was just a happy flowing day at home]

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start of a new year, and a new home-ed leaf

Posted on January 5, 2010 by | 1 comment

i came home from work to find BB sitting at her desk, starting with getty and dubay A – awww how cute! because in my mind BB such a baby, that ‘doing work’ is just too cute! she made a good job of it too! she did some baking and ‘reading a box book’ [ie she looked at pictures]. i must sort out reading box books to her!

IMG_1210

SB had also done things – maths, recorder, piano [scales only as lost book :roll:] some fact books and then we read SoTW together and she read to me a short french story about what was for dinner, and then made me a pizza menu, looking up veg and ingredients she didn’t know in french.

they had both obviously done a bit of sylvanianing too, and after tea we wii-ed! well, bb didn’t , she had a total meltdown as that meant we were in the wrong room for her to eat sweets! [no, i didnt really understand either!] i am sooooo hopeless at mariokart [as well as bowling] ept coing 12th – not that chris much better, as a fairly reliable 11th!

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