Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Well… Bank Holidays!!!

We had the option of two fabulous days out today - Gladiators at Flag Fen or Jousting at Belvoir Castle - so we chose the Castle and got there to find the most enormous queue :~( Fran had been desperate to see it but it looked like an hour or so’s wait so we gave up and trundled off to my parents instead - where it just so happened my sister also was and we all had a lovely family day together instead. Girls ran madly about the garden all day, we chatted, bbq’d and generally felt better for it.

So all went well.

Moo the Tree

Fran called me up to see this the other night - Moo method acting as a tree - i think it was bothering with brown tights for the legs that killed me!

Much better weekend

All sorts of things seem to have improved this weekend. First the babe has gone from being silent to being a veritable can of wriggly worms and i can now feel it, enjoy it and commune with it :~) Had a lovely time today just half asleep on the sofa with my hand on my tummy feeling it move about. Detailed scan is in about 10 days and i think i will feel a lot better then and can hopefully start to look forward to having a new little person about. I really AM looking forward to that actually - i think a lot of my last pregnancy was spoiled by “needing” a girl and “needing” a homebirth - this time i am relatively cool about both boys and c-sections (frankly i am just quite glad its not twins!) and its a much more relaxing experience!

Girls have been good too - i came downstairs yesterday to find Fran doing a maths workbook, she has read loads (for money!), and played lots of good educational games on the computer. Moo got a long way through the Reader Rabbit Year One game today, not bad given she isn’t “Reception age” till September. Yesterday was a bit muggy and fractious but we all did relatively well i think and went to bed friends all round, despite me and the girls having a major face off about their room again! It used to drive my mum MAD that i was so messy but tbh, its not mess so much that bothers me,i don’t go in there a lot, but i hate seeing nice toys split up and trampled on. Still, we agreed on a policy and now i have to try and make it work - Moo is the biggest deal because she just CAN’T cope with a big load of split up mess to put away. It baffles her - so i need to work on both strategies for her, for me and for Fran to help her along. Fran is getting quite good at saying to her to “pick up those bits of lego” etc - in a way its unfair that she has to cope with that, but on the other hand she is just learning very early on that different people need different management styles ;~) And if its not a perfect scenario then tbh its just one we all have to cope with; she and Ammi have a sister with a slight disability, plenty of kids have siblings with far worse - and deep down i also know there is a possibility that this baby could be the same, or worse, in which case its just the scenario within which we all live. It certainly seems to have a genetic implication.

Ammi is just talking LOADS!!!!! She picked up a picture book yesterday and knew every word in it; egg, cake, breakfast, spoon, juice and more - and she is starting to string together sentences - yesterday she said “Poor Maddy, she cry” (”crwy” - her “r’s” are amazingly cute!!!!)Its such a completely different experience from Fran and Maddy too - I do firmly believe (based basically on them walking early and Ammi walking late really) that they are “wired” differently, just different types of children in their skill collecting. Of course its possible Fran was talking this early and the sounds were just garbled but i don’t think so. And i have Moo’s first words (apart from “Oh dear, oh no!” and “I don’t want ANYTHING!” blogged, so she has gone from being non-verbal to frankly excessively verbal in not much more than a year. (Actually - thats incredible, now i think about it!) Anyway - its rather lovely for Ammi to be so clearly talkative - and nice to be blogging it as it happens. She and i are getting on so well since HESFES (i think there must have been magic in Joyce’s gaelic songs) and when i was very upset the other day she sat on my lap, stroking my face and giving me enormous gentle bear hugs.

And on that note, thank you all for your concern and niceness in emails, texts and whatever. It was a bad row but its over now and not done lasting damage.

Sarah - if i can find any vehicle building lego in the morning, i will organise it - i’d forgotten :~(

AND - Max took them all out to the park today, so i got a couple of hours peace… lovely!

Moved Read Merrily
http://www.patchofpuddles.co.uk/readmerrily.htm

Write off the week

Well in the early part of this week, life just went very wrong in general and although its turned out okay, it completely knocked us all sideways. Its unbloggable but at least an acknowledgement of it as near disaster for future reference is probably appropriate.

The only good things in the second half of this week were a day spent with a friend which the children enjoyed and introducing the girls to Harry Potter films. Still, if the worst that happened was that not much educational went on, then thats not too bad to be honest.

We have played with a loom and a flower press too this week and the girls are both worknig hard at their reading, so it could be worse i guess. Oh - and the rooms are looking fairly tidy.

Happy Blogday

One year of regular posts. This blog is definitely the best thing i have done for myself - its lovely to read back, lovely to know its there for the future and a real kick up the bum sometimes too.

There Chris, you can say “thats nice” to that.

J.K.Rowling Official Site - Harry Potter and more

Too easy to blog!

Well today was simple. We covered personal and social development and domestic science. Or in other words, i made it very clear to the children that if they don’t start helping to keep the place tidy, i am going to make their life hell!

I am really really sick of walking from one room to the next tidying up their crap or asking repeatedly for them to do simple things to tidy up after themselves. So today i turned a bit more “purposeful” about it :~(

Anyway. We did get good sorting done and as well as that all three played very nicely together making a playdough shop and dinner party.

While Moo and Ammi were otherwsie disposed Fran and i did a load of sorting out in my room (i very nearly chucked all the pink baby stuff but didn’t in the end!) and for the whole time we did mental maths which was good. All the tables are still firmly in there! She also read another 4 Bob books to me (this could get expensive.)

Max has just got home and they are all cleaning out the rabbits. Button’s nest is HUGE. I’m off for a bath.

I facilitate, you facilitate, he, she and it facilitates!

Oh… today worked well! Maybe its a 6 thing ;~)

Got up fairly early and decided to cancel the house inspection due to it being… um… messy! This inspired me a bit so i did al the rest of the washing, tidied the two downstairs rooms and sorted the bathroom out. While i was donig this the girls were watching Brother Bear and when i came back down we had a really good chat about it. I think i will have to do a page on educational themes in Disney for MP! lol!

It was only 9.30 by then so we all found something to do - for Fran it was her new Harry Potter lego, Moo settled into some jigsaws and Ammi got out some books. Fran then astounded me by spending till 1pm doing the lego, following each pattern n her own with almost no help and building 3 of the smallish room sets. She worked so hard and for her this was a major achievement because neither detail nor concentration are her strong points!!!! (To say the least!)

She and i also agreed a bribery reading scheme and she earned her first 20p (curses on the Clarkes for all that paid employment at HESFES!!!!!!! She’s got ideas now!)

Moo was very tired but did go out to nursery and Fran finished the lego, painted a bird house she was given for her birthday in very “modern art” style (but took ages to do it so it counts!) and then finished the collage we started at the old house. We just need to do its animals now but i need to think about how! The blank bits are burrows and nest.

After we got Moo we popped home for a snack and then went out to the farm - the big girls looked after Ammi very well in the playground bit but she spent loads of time in the farm with me - she said “chickens” “ducks” “cows” (actually they were goats but who am i to be picky!) “rabbits” and “piggits” for the guinea pigs! She had a lovely time. Fran and Moo spent time chopping apples for the animal food - Fran had one go and despite having watched the other kids did a sort of random carving attempt. Moo on the other hand, carefully scored around the middle, pressed the knife through, turned them on to the faces, chopped each half in half and then into quarters. And then did the rest of the bucket load! its having access to that sort of insight that means i understand my kids - i begrudge neither “their way” but it so great to be part of watching them be so different!

They are still awake now - and they are shattered so i really don’t know why!

Not got many photos of yesterday as i forgot to take my camera - here are a couple of “pressie opening” ones.

How great it is when your chosen birthday item is on buy two get one free!

As well as Sunny Hunny and sunday lunch in (rofl!) tescos yesterday we also went to Norfolk Lavender which was lovely and a very pleasant and fragrant end to the day.

Quite bizarrely i burnt my scalp which is extraordinary considering it never burnt all last week!