Thank you to the Portico
For a really lovely weekend!!!! Everyone had a ball - thank you for having us :~)
Archive for February, 2004
Cor - only took 4 years
I typed up Moo’s birth for my VBAC list so i have stuck a link to it on the side. Still not sure i can face typing Frans, if i can remember it! Still Scruff’s should be short and sweet; “wanted an hbac, both of us nearly died, had a section!”
How did my list do?
Tomorrow and the weekend will be busy so i thought i would see how i did with my “focus the mind” list….
Decorate dolls house - yep, made a good start and its really been used since too.
Use those leap pad books - history and smart guide ones have got used lots at bedtime.
Try and read a ladybird book a day - or something similar - PandJ 2b and related word play.
Keep going with “Alice” - every night this week - pats self on back!
Make that fish mobile up - just about to!!!!!
READ LIBRARY BOOKS AND GO BACK TO LIBRARY - oh yes 13 books out this week. GULP!
Rifle through all those workbooks/sticker books and do some if we like the look of them - dinos and insects.
Explore this months webland - yep - got a bit of a play anyway.
Ten Minute test books - not loads but a few pages used up.
Yes - i really think the list helped - and stopped me buying anything new too!!!
Oh and those Twist and Shouts have been a HUGE hit!!!!!
The recurring conundrum of colour
I can’t remember exactly how we got on to this tonight, but Fran and i were discussing this tonight. How pigments all mixed together makes black but all light colours mixed make white and how you can split white with prisms to see the colours separately again. Oh yes, i do now - it was becasue the moon was shining through a thin cloud and consequently fuzzy so we were talknig about blurring the outline the light made with water vapour. Fran “got” the pigments but discussing white as a “non colour” was very difficult. She grapsed “well its not nothing cos that would be clear” but if its not a colour, what do we call it? And frankly - i don’t know! I’m not sure the arguments have ever really convinced me! Light we talked about in terms of rainbows - it was enjoyable - i wonder if i can find some experiments to do? Joyce, wasn’t it you and Hannah who did this topic a while back? Got any decent links?
Apart from that it was a very busy day. I had a bit of a lie in, not asleep but just dozy and warm in bed and all the girls played really happily in the big bedroom. It sounded such a nice game. Then we read a LOAD of books, a beautiful one by Sally Morgan called Pet Problem but i can’t find it on Amazon - such a shame - it was one that really jumped out at me as a good starting point for an idea i have (or a few of us have had rather). And then an Easter book illustrated by Jan Piet… oh the Polish sounding woman! It was the actual bible text and was a bit much for the girls so i “edited” it a bit - but it was Moo’s choice from the library this week so we had to “do” it! its been a HUGE story week - we also read “Can’t you sleep, Little Bear” and Fran requested the Dsiney Ladybird book of The Hunchback of Notredame which i have to admit i feel profoundly uncomfortable reading to her, but she often asks for. Alice has now seen off Pig and Pepper and has met the Cheshire Cat. That girl talks to strangers way too much….
Moo went off and Fran and i looked at a great book by DK - Incredible Earth i think it was - another library book. I think we may have to get it - it was lots on volcanos, earthquakes, glaciers, limestone etc - i was fascinated. Then we did a few pages of the stamp album and found LAOS and HUNGARY on our maps. (I confess to having no idea where LAOS was!!!!! but Fran was delighted it was next to Vietnam!) We finished off with a clock face exercise from the 10 minute test books.
After that it was off to Speech therapy and Fran was amazing; came up with an ENORMOUS list of “P” words which the ST wrote down for her and pronounced all of them really well. She can even do “Poppy” now if she thinks! Much harder were the ones with “p” at the end so our next task is to find some of them and practise them - might also make the list into reading cards to play with. We got the giggles over “pencil” because her brain, which is now remembering to replace her “cuh” sound she used to make for “p” was trying to put a “p” into the middle of pencil too!!!
Then we got Moo and trundled off to return our library books, only to discover we had forgotten the cards! ARGH! Anyway, got them returned and the girls chose a huge pile to have put by for them, then we dashed home, bathed Fran to de tangle her hair (she was INSIDE her duvet this morning!) and picked up the books on the way to Rainbows. She seems to love that, i am so pleased its worked for her. While i was there i met a friend who runs ColourStrings classes and have agreed they can all go to one mixed session on a Thursday from next week. Am hoping that will work well for Moo and Ammi particularly. There is an NCT toddler group immediately after it in the same building we might try out. I don’t suppose it will bother Fran to go to it.
Was very chuffed to sneak up on the car after taking Fran into Rainbows and see Moo and Scruff playing some very cute game together and laughing uproariously! They are such sweeties :~) Have also been most impressed this week by several “books of writing” Moo has made, all squiggles but she can write her name without copying it - i had no idea she could do that!!!!! She has also brought home painting for almost the first time ever, paint and mess being an anethema to her generally. She is growing up so fast and is really ready for more input. I need to work out worknig her into the day i think. On the other hand, the bed time Alice reading has settled her much better than recently and she goes straight off to sleep again now.
Have been mulling over the possibilities of how i will approach getting this babe out when and if the time comes and am very surprised by how much i have changed. I don’t know whether is resignation or maturity but somehow the process seems to matter much less this time than the idea of the end result being alive and well. Maybe the very near miss with death over Scruff’s birth had am ore profound effect on me than i really took on board at the time.
Blergh
Cold is developing nicely - i have a sore throat, but its remarkably satisfying to just have a sore throat and be able to deal with it, rather than degenerating in a few hours to a sweating, infection ridden, pus filled blimp. To much information? Well anyway, i have a sore throat but i am not “really ill.” Tis good. They may have said the implant had nothing to do with it, but the last time i was on anti-biotics was the day it came out - and it had been every fortnight before that.
Anyway. Everyone is off colour apart from Moo, so i felt a bit bad taking them off for their jabs - but there is measles and german measles about and i really CANNOT face going through the chicken pox scenario of last year again. They did very well, especially Moo who had to have two and polio, most of which she spat out. But i couldn’t blame her really :~) Everyone got a “I was as good as gold at the doctors” sticker - i’m not sure Scruff stripping off to her nappy in the reception room, running riot in the nurses room and then kicking one needle across the room REALLY deserved that.. however… ;~)
Went in to nursery to see Moo’s “cord of ‘chievement” - really the bizarre things they use to group and type children are amazing (apparently Moo works to a trajectory, rotation and projection schema…..*rolls eyes*) - however, it had some nice stuff in there about her and good photos of her doing stuff, so i left feelnig it had been a good decision.
Fran wasn’t up to much but we did read her volcano library book, talk about deforestation, greenhouse gases, rainforests, natural disasters and so on. Then we did some more of her word cards and she remembered loads - she also sounded out “can” and “go” on her own and her favourite word is “jump” - funny that! Lol!
Doing pancakes tonight as we were a bit disorganised yesterday….
Belatedly occurred to me….
…to try ringing Hasbro to see if i could get replacement cards for the Guess Who game that Scruff chewed to bits after only 3 days in the house.
I can - for £1.50
Shame its too later from Scruff…..growl….
Proper today entry
I have a cold…. *fixes mrs hojo and/or scruff with stern stare* I have a fizzy nose and I can’t take sudafed - NOT fair!
So - today we started early with a large quantity of fights and teasing - fortunately Auntie Kate came round and largely dispelled such unpleasantness. Then i loaded up a Winnie the Pooh toddler game i “acquired” a while back and Scruff ADORED it. It always makes me laugh that our girls various speech quirks have produced such variations on his name - Fran called him “Coo Gare”, prissy prim Moo calls him “Winnie Ta Pooh” (maybe because his song has been her song since she was a tiny baby, Winnie the Pooh and Madeleine Moo fitting perfectly and interchangeably) and Scruff calls him “Pooh Dare.” Her little face at having her own game was a picture and the other two sat each side of her and helped her move the mouse, which she mainly just clutched to her chest. Not that that seemed to spoil the enjoyment for her! I was very proud of them for not barging in on it.
Then Moo went out and Fran and i did the house, including elements of IT, Dersign and Technology, Personal and Social Development and Art (Sniggers….) She just played with it after that.
Our (free!) addition and multiplication Twist and Shout’s also arrived after that and much fun was had - Fran has gone to bed clutching one :~)
Alice recited “You are old Father William” tonight - its odd you know- i remember ADORING this book - but i hardly recall any of the bits i have read out so far! Nutty caterpillar though!
Oooooooh…….
I didn’t realize that having my own blog space was going to make doing photos easier… hmmmmm….. jax… maybe i’ll be uploading photos after all!
New home
All things being equal - and dependant on Sarah explaining how to make the archives work… this blog should shortly appear at….
Like i say… shortly.
You may want to update your links… :~)
talk about keeping up with the Clarkes’s
Changing rooms in miniature!
Well - okay, not particularly radical but definitely on a budget. We are going to make some stamps into pictures for it next and find something to make into carpet rods for the gaps! She is really chuffed with this and hopefully it will mean it gets played with more.
First - the “educational bit” - measuring the rooms, planning on graph paper, making a pattern and cutting out carpet (does that count?)
Then the finished article - curtains are staple gunned on i am afraid - i am NOT a perfectionist! There is currently a very serious game going on. The attic still has to be done but we might do that next week.
Oh stuff the perils of positive labelling!!!!
i have a beautiful girl and i tell her so!
Last week we met another cleft child, his scars are quite red and it worried Fran. She said “sometimes i look in the mirror and i can see the white line.” She also started to cry because she wants her gap to stay because t is part of her.
Fortunately i suspect she will be well bored of gappy teeth by the time she is done!
Blimey - worn out already.
I can well see me being too tired to blog tonight (blog should have a new home in 24hours or so as well!) so i thought i would do it now.
Well - i am really pleased i did that brain dump - its focused my mind quite a lot - not least because i looked at that maths curriculum , thought “oooh - i could print that out” and then thought maybe i should use a few of the ones we have first! Lol!
Anyway, last night Fran ,Moo and i read some more Alice - they ask every night and can always remember where we got to - i try to do a bit of CM anrration there and get them to tell me it back - and they can. I’m really pleased that i am doing it and hope to get through a few of my “Big read” books this way over the coming year! Lol!!!! We can definitely do Pooh and Wind in the Willows that way and probably some others too. We aren’t reading a whole chapter each night as they get fidgety but we are gradually doing longer sections.
Today - firstly i did my household drudge routine and sorted the washing mountain so i can now see my floor again…. then we all came downstairs and played. My friend called which was lovely but it was quite a painful conversation in someways. Her eldest, who has a cleft, sounds like she has a pretty hard time in school and really wants to stay at home. I find that gradually a gulf of understanding is growing between me and some of my friends who “do school”. I completely understand they think my choice of HE is as profoundly “wrong” - but it saddens me because i don’t feel i can express my honest view about it anymore. Its not right for me to try to persuade people - unless they are already wavering and need courage but it is painful. I owe some of my sanity to the colleague of my mums who told her in no uncertain terms she had to get into my school and DEAL with the bullying i was suffering and its kind of painful to feel that i shouldn’t really perform that role for another child. Not least because i DON’T have any experience of schooling my children so how can i really make any sort of sensible input really. T - i can’t imagine you would ever read this - but if you do - i really would love to be a useful help and support about it without our different choices being relevant :~)
Anyway, eventually saw Moo off and then Fran and i started decorating the dolls house. We painted it all out in watered down paint and picked curtains and carpets for it all. Everything has come from the scrap store and it should really look quite nice when its done, as well as being free. The tester pots were all from there and the samplers of fabrics make excellent curtains and carpets. Tomorrow we are going to put those in, after making patterns for the carpets by measuring the walls etc and cutting it out using those. We haven’t done the attic yet but that can be done last - and hopefully when we move we are going to make a garden to sit it on.
After that we sat down with a Peter and Jane book and got most of the way through it - lots of new words too, which she did really well with including sounding out some words and getting them. Then we used another load of little bits of card from the scrap store, wrote the new words on them and then played with 9 at a time; we turned them face down and upturned them one at a time - if she knew it it stayed up, if she didn’t we learned it then turned it down again. Once all 9 were up, she picked 3 she knew well, discarded them and added 3 new ones to them.
We did that till the bead delivery arrive which she helped me unpack (its an excellent 10 times table practise!) and then we got Moo. Everyone is now eating breakfast in front of Cbeebies which has had a return to favour!
Chuckles at LEA
Well i think we have reached a decent compromise… I am very proud of myself actually. Stood my ground when EWO phoned and refused to let her get away with any of the “monitoring”, “SAO” and “assessment” malarky.
Explained my position that i was not actively against visits but i did not feel it was appropriate at this time for my 5 year old. After a fair bit of argy bargy, and boy am i glad i had the law at my finger tips, she agreed that i had provided suitable evidence of an education in the report which she would now look at to do a report back to us. *rolls eyes*
As a compromise (and to be honest she did seem reasonably nice!) I have agreed to meet, not in my home or necessarily with Fran, in September with the EWO. That suits me reasonably well - i’m perfectly happy to meet them at some point on my terms. As things stand, its likely to be as good a time as any to get it over for another year.
There was a fair bit of “we have to monitor”, “we have to question why you are refusing access” etc etc - but it was pretty much all said with a stutter, so i think she knew i knew!!!!
*Looks relieved at job done* I know i could be even stroppier and refused point blank, but tbh i think i have won a victory for our local area anyway and given that i want the LEA to be good to us in terms of Moo, its probably not worth being completely reactionary! Might well end up doing us more harm that good.
*Assumes slightly impressed face*
I appear to have discovered the art of code blagging, if not of colour style…..
Hm
Might abandon the attempting to tweak the Sqwarkbox template thing NOW - its going to drive me mad. How am i meant to tweak the colours if they are all in linked css files - its impossible to do it without wrecking the box generally.
Sulk.
Had a good chat with an HE friendly solicitor today who is going to be writing a little letter to my local LEA. Feel a lot more relaxed now.
Had a good long lie in and then a good spring clean today. Girls have all played happily, Fran did some work books and Enchanted Learning booklets today and is now sat in bed with the 3rd Grade LP book - she is delighted as it has Pocahontas and Romans in it and has told me various mythology bits she has found.
Do the Romans have readable myths? Or was it the Greeks who went in for the full on stories….. I seem to recall doing Norse Mythology at Junior School, Thor and so on. Can’t remember Jupiter featuring in stories in the same way Zeus does.
Just brain dumping…. i don’t require comments ;~)
We’ve got a load of things we keep saying “lets do that tomorrow!” and we don’t seem to do half of them. We also have piles of resources i would actually like to “put to use” and a load of things “to do” so i am just dumping it all here to remind myself to do some of them this week!
Decorate dolls house.
Do final piece of nature work for “badge” and get it sent off
Talk to Auntie Sue about tadpoles
Use those leap pad books
Look at project books together and pick something interesting to find out/do for each of the current “interests”
Try and read a ladybird book a day - or something similar.
Keep gonig with “Alice”
Start continent folders/ do more stamps.
Make that fish mobile up!
Use more enchanted learning books
Do the dolphin model
Put the spanish cd back in the car.
READ LIBRARY BOOKS AND GO BACK TO LIBRARY.
Rifle through all those workbooks/sticker books and do some if we like the look of them!
Present and explore the new monte materials
Play Caesar 3 some more
Explore this months webland
Get the country and spanish cards out
Use “learning is fun”
Finish the Bible sticker books
Use Slimey Science book
Get sewing out
Angelina’s
Winnie the Pooh Nature Trails
Ten Minute test books
Miquon
Singapore
Make Tudor dress
Do Tudor dolls
Moses basket weaving
Use up damn art straws
And then for me
Prepare HE group workshops, get ideas.
Make new materials
Read David G
Have another look at CM site
Make up Sea project page
Use quick links for roman stuff
