Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Well maybe just a little.

BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire | Pupils get sea-plus from syllabus

Can we all give the schools a clap on the back for a truly brilliant innovation… lol…

Had to take an exhausted, overheated, wailing Josie to bed last night, so the blogging went by the by. Its so rare for her to be bad-tempered that its a bit of a shock when she reverts to full on angry baby. Slightly horrifying to remember that Fran was like that ALL THE TIME!!!! Although not at this age but still - thank goodness i’ve not had one like it since!

TT was here for the day, which meant that i could reclaim my bedroom and start packing for the holiday (feeling horror-struck by weather forecasts atm… although, having looked at that, the wet seems to be disappearing in favour of just plain cold. Cold i can deal with. That type of cold anyway.) So anyway, i have a pile of sleeping bags and fleece and stuff downstairs and a tidy room. I also had to go to the Dentist for a checkup; aside from the two temporary fillings, i need two small other ones, so it could have been worse. I’m such a wimp over it, he was pressing my teeth with his prong thing and i was leaping out of my skin with fright. I really do NOT like lying on flat things under bright lights having stuff done to me. What a wimp.

Anyway, in the morning Fran asked to do more Nezert adding up - she really likes these but i’m struggling to explain carrying over 10’s in a way that sinks in. I’d be more than happy to leave it really but she is desperate to do it. We had rods out yesterday but even so it was a bit hit and miss. I do find it odd the way it can sink in for 4-5 sums then just go again! Ah well.

During the day TT had helped them out in the garden and they got all the potatoes topped up and various other things planted - they also ate the peas off the bushes and we had a fairly intelligent conversation about seed pods and pollen. Probably made having done the whole garden thing worth while I’m REALLY struggling with the allottment, i think i am going to have to go and just cover what remains and leave it to rot away so its in better shape come autumn. The weather is hopeless atm; either its too hot to take Josie there or too cold! Hopefully what i have planted is still alive

Maddy and i did some Explode the Code - she is doing really well at recognising beginning sounds, she is much better than Fran is at it! lol! Must bring her reading books this week so we can have quiet time doing that. And Ammi and i took some time together as well; she loves writing and i spent a bit of time showing her her name, she was doing really good “A”s - yet another different kettle of fish - i reckon i could teach her to read now if i tried.

I’m actually determined to teach her to write her own name because the one thing about nursery that has really annoyed me is the “marking making” malarky. This is the “total swing back” from writing worksheets, which were the norm at the time Fran would have gone there (which is why she didn’t.) Fran learned her name at playgroup where i think a practical approach, from leaders who were mums, meant that children learned proper letter formation with people who sat down and taught them. Now “mark marking” (they have a “mark making area”) is totally different, children are just left to approximate their name, or whatever, by coping what is around them. So if they want to write their name, someone gives them their name card and they work it out for themselves. This might be fine for most kids (or possibly not, i’ll let you know when Ammi has been!) but for Maddy it means she has learned an approximation of the letters in her name and come up with circles with sticks added into them and now she is utterly resistant to changing it in any way. Which is a mite frustrating, or is going to be. So anyway, i’m attempting to head this one off at the pass

Finally managed to get our keyboard out last night and the girls are making up little tunes on it; Ros if you swim by, i need some piano books (and i also need to ask Tony something!) - i’m sort of hoping i might be able to illicit some piano lessons out of sarah during my jaunt to Exeter!

SO much to do today - ARGH!!!!!!

BBC NEWS | Business | Tax credits backfire on families

Surprise.

Managed to wake up less than 2 minutes before Maddy’s taxi arrived today but still get her into it, fully dressed and breakfasted Sometimes i’m just too good

Today has been a bit “thingy” somehow - managed to reduce Fran to tears over a map - she’s been asking me for weeks to show her how to “draw sea” after a chance remark i made about it. So today i got her to do another Australia poster (with Aboriginal Art on it) and showed her how to colour tiny lines around the edge of the land to show sea. Only to discover her silently sobbing a fewm inutes later because she wanted to colour it all blue, not leave any white. (Ummm.. and why is this a problem? I asked. Did she think i was going to remove limbs if she disobeyed me????) Sigh.. so that went well. We also abandoned normals when it all started to go a bit mental and settled for general garden play instead.

Spent the afternoon recouping the morning and went for a swing, then collected Maddy, had a strange conversation about schools, did the dancing run and came home feeling ill.

Ants are still very impressive (hmm… photo hasn’t worked, i’ll do another tomorrow…)

Got some clay out for them in the evening. Maddy made Stonehenge (surprise)

Fran repaired a pot

Oh - and here are Ammi’s teepee’s from Friday.

Hohum. Tomorrow is another day.

Maddy is into her last few weeks at nursery, she’ll have just 3 more weeks after we get back from holiday. Today i went in to sign off all her achievements, as the class teacher wanted my input given she is home for more than half the week. I assume this is some form of baseline testing thing; it was a form that goes on to a database. Wasn’t really expecting to avoid LEA notice with her anyway but i guess that makes it impossible :/ Anyway, mostly it was filled in but they wanted to ask me about some stuff ; she’d got her scored as a child with predominantly year 1 abilities anyway, which i guess is good *assumes slightly patient expression*. I appreciated that they wanted my impressions anyway, so much more encompassing than the “handed dowen from on hiugh” approach. This particular teacher has been very pro-HE all year. We talked for a while about Maddy and she was very positive about her; did say she felt she would cope okay in school, and maybe she would, but wasn’t pushy in any way.

Then i signed Amelie’s forms ready for when she starts, which felt rather odd. She is extremely excited about it though, which i am glad about. its gonig to be a good deal easy to manage with her as the missing child than with Maddy out; trying to accommodate Fran and Ammi in one activity has proved very hard this year and its been nothing like as good as last year. I’m guess though that next year will be significantly better although i am going to have to put Ammi into some late clubs i think otherwise all we will do all day in rush in and out. Its going to make more sense if she stays for Late Club and then i collect her while the other 2 are at Ballet or Rainbows or whatever.

Fran had a fairly good day. Her main achievement was discovering Google and independently googling “book” (she got Amazon!) “cook” (she got a page of vegetables!) and “King Arthur” - she was absolutely thrilled with it! I was really pleased to see her suddenly being so aware of what is now available to her. This morning we sat down to do some sums - she polished off a page of addition very quickly - it was supposedly showing you how to split a set of numbers up logically so it was easier to add; like 6+3+7.. find the onbes that make 10 then add on to that type stuff - all far too easy (is that really year 3 stuff?) but we did a bit of it with maths rods to reinforce a concept Barbara and i talked about the other day (that 10 is actually 1 thing as much as it is 10 of something when you talk about a 10’s column) and then that led on to vertical adding again. She enjoyed that so much that i got her out a Nezert book and she did pages and pages of that; in fact, i kept finding her sat down doing more of them through the day. She also did a lesson worth of “Explode the Code” which she professes to hate but actually laughs the entire way through, is very quick at and is getting much better at reading because of. So no idea what that is about *lol* Possibly thati ‘d got into the hbit of doing other stuff while she does these things and she likes me to be with her. Oh well, whatever. The she played Lego Chess and beat it, did some sewing, played in the garden and asked to learn more on Henry. So tomorrow we are going to start out Book of Time and map out the Tudor Years.

Maddy had brought home more of her patent, finicky drawings from nursery and told me all about them - i love her art, its such a window into her head.

Ammi and Josie have played happily together all day. Josie was a good decision Oh yeah, and i’m addicted to the Ant World. Get one. All of you

Designed on the Hama bead programme by Fran and i together but actually being cross-stitched in her first ever cross stitch pattern. Its good, having bigger girls. I could get used to it. I’d probably better

So. Friday was group day - went largely well i think (thank you thank you thank you to Tammy who pulled off a marvel considering how totay disorganised i was!) - i think we had too much available in some ways but i saw lots of happy children dipping in to things so i think that is pretty good. It was the first itme that Amelie was really actively interested in taking part in the activities; she keenly enjoyed the teepee making and the clay. Maddy made Stonehenge (Stonehedge as she calls it) so perhaps didn’t quite get hold of the Native American theme, but we live in hope that it will all come together.

Fran had Musical Theatre (its entirely possible i will run out of enthusiam for Zippidi doo dah) and then, Ammi having conked out, we had a lovely tea with just the big two. it was an amzingly different dynamic osmehow, Ammi is fairly good at the table but without her, the conversation seemed to verge on being somehow grown up. It was a bit scary.

Saturday we had plans to be considerably more interactive but it was so hot that all they did was play in the garden and paddling pool. Sounded lovely and allowed us to beg indoors reading. Bliss.

Today we went off to my parents. Had a slightly freaky journey involving a lot of completely lunatic drivers putting us and several other people at considerable risk. We fairly patiently sat behind the not very slow but apparetly deeply offensive caravan and quite possibly owe our lives to it as shortly afterwards we found a grim faced policeman turning people around from a closed road and a smashed up car in the background. Sometimes you have to be very grateful for the extra minutes everyone took going to the toilets AGAIN at home. Car accidents freak me out more than they do some i suspect, with good reason but by the time we got home tonight, having been driven at by several more loons, i was a nervous wreck.

Aside from that we had a lovely day. Rowan was gorgeous as usual and it was pleasant to be among family. Missed Uncle Rich though, its funny having him so far away.

Got a lot to ponder now; Max and i are considering what we will do “next” and the possibilities are very wide and mean a lot of compromise for both of us. It feels like a big milestone to negotiate for us all somehow. We are going to have to manage to work out a way that makes everyone happy. I know we can do it but its going to mean a lot of thought. Shorter term, there is another possibility coming up which, while something i would like to do very much, needs careful handling so it works as it should. Big stuff.

Fran looked at least 7 today. Dressed in carefully chosen pink top and skirt, with her hair gripped at one side, moving through Sainsburys to find ingedients for the cake she wanted to make Granny, i saw glimpses of a girl i don’t know yet but who is arriving fast. having thought “oh please not yet” when a friend remarked on her own daughter’s changing body shape the other week, i looked at Fran splashing in the paddling pool today and realised rather a lot has changed since this time last year. She is not the half-outgrown toddler she was by any means. And almost more strangely, she knows it; suddenly she has more perception, more forethought, more of a sense of herself; i start to see that very shortly it will be inappropriate to share my every thought about her with the world - for one thing, she’ll be able to read them.

Maddy announced today that she is beginning to feel too big for nursery and that she is ready to “give it to Amelie” - she questioned me closely on what happens next for her. Maddy is the one who has really changed this year; not least physically. Amelie was wearing clothes yesterday that Maddy was wearing only a year ago - she has grown so much this year, no longer a shrimpy toddler either but a hefty, athletic built girl who is too big just to be lifted up out of harm or be sprawled all over me. That place has been taken by those who come behind her. This weekend she has awed me with her understanding of the world and her readiness to move forward. On Friday night we watched a hot air balloon over our house; Fran asked “how does it work” and Maddy replied “the fire makes it work.” Fran asked “how can they make it come down and Maddy replied “they have to stop the fire”. Something in the way she said it made it clear that she didn’t know it before but she looked and computed. The differences in them are so acute - Fran, fed with the information that hot air goes up and cool air goes down couldn’t translate that into useful information when i asked her how a bath would feel if you ran hot and cold into it - yet Maddy could say instantly that the bath might feel colder at the bottom. I watched Maddy watch E reading the other night; yesterday she came to me and said “E can read like Frances, i think that means i could do it too. I’m ready for you to help me learn”. She makes me so proud. I worry my heart out over her, but she makes me so proud. She has been writing herself sums and finding ways to work them out, listening to beginning and ending sounds and copying writing for all she is work. She is fascinated by the tiny and intricate. In many ways she seems to be reverting to the baby i once had in her, fascinated by the engineering of her life. In a way i think that as she gradually makes sense of the things she fought so hard to control, the real Maddy, the one i knew briefly before the world began to frighten her, is coming back. I feel so relieved, its only a few weeks since i feared we were reaching another crisis, but now i think its that we were at a gateway.

Amelie slept the clock round last night after falling asleep in the car at 6pm and slept, in my bed, curled around Josie, till 8.30 today. Her day has been much happier for it. She is still such a little girl but so bright and clever. All her 2 year old rage is disappearing fast and i don’t feel like i am fighting her anymore. She is a joy to be around, a slightly stubborn and noisy joy, but a joy. She adores Josie, can more than keep the big two to heel and thrives when we make a speical effort to give her real one to one time. Its been our main goal lately and its really worked. We watched her experiemnting the other night; she had a water toy with a colour change jacket and was carefully holding it under the hot and then cold tap, time after time after time. Its going to be one of those thngs i will always remember, like i spotted a tiny keyhole into the future girl. If Fran is my historian, and maddy my engineer, is Amelie the future scientist? Certainly she loves her Granny so maybe its a secret bond. Not sure where it leaves Josie? Languages?

And as for Josie. What to say? She lay asleep in my arms tonight and i saw a glimpse of the emerging little girl, face rounder and more full of mischief (help!), hair beginning to take on a shape, in clothes, tired out from a day of beginning mobility. In just a couple of days (its that R’s influence) she has figured out how to tip from sitting to a half crawl and can rotate on her tummy and move about to get to new toys. She laughs in the funniest little grunts and i promise faithfully to remmeber the beautiful loving, laughing eyes she has for the rest of my life. As i lifted her tonight she flicked them open and awoke just enough to focus on my face. This beautiful expression of sheer delight and safety flitted across her face, it was really beautiful. its a bittersweet moment, my baby is becoming something else so fast, but it is amazing. She knows what she wants, she is beginning to do what she wants. This morning i woke up, lying on my front, to discover that she must have got bored waiting for me to wake up and had wriggled down and latched on for a drink for herself - i’ve never had a baby do that before! She holds her arms up to be carried, especially to daddy, knows her name, drinks juice, chomps on a rusk and wields power over all her sisters like the miniature princess she is.

I shan’t blog anything else tonight, its all mundane and boring anyway, i just thought it would make a nice change to celebrate these little people we made for who they are just at this moment in time.

… except surely you can’t be an unschooler and follow the herd? *confused*


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For Hrvest Moon, the GameCube farm game:

“Sure, living on a farm, watering plants, milking cows and chatting up the local townsfolk may not seem like the most thrilling prospect to ever emerge from a computer game, but it’s strangely compelling. In time you’ll come to realise that you could almost certainly quite effectively run a farm in real life.”

Well sure, snuggled up on your sofa twiddling buttons gives you a perfect feel for what a real life farm would be like!!!!!!

Shame the weather took it quite so seriously, wall to wall cold, rain and wind. *rolls eyes*

I’m actually completely shattered (too much staying up late!) so i really can’t face a blow by blow account - suffice to say its been a lovely couple of days, the kids have all got on great and naturally, so did Barbara and i.

Highlights for me were the kids playing geomags together, the games of barbies or whatever that went on for hours, the general noise of 7 happy children, Barbara sorting out the mini hama beads of mine that had fallen over and got mixed up, Fran starting a “proper” cross stitch and doing very well at it, Barbara producing the first ever bit of maths for me that caused me to lie awake with glee, playing with figures in my head and finding maths fun, Josie watching R closely to see what moves she could capture, Princesses everywhere; it was lovely.

What else, our Ants have started to tunnel and its extremely fascinating, Fran is loving Neopets, Maddy has been writing out and doing her own sums, the globe is a huge hit, Brownies was enjoyed again, Fran’s tooth is through but at the moment seems to be at an extremely odd angle.

I’ve ordered 250 bookbags - i’m waiting to see what the colours are like when the samples arrive tomorrow but i may just revert to ordering them in yellow because i just don’t think the printing is going to look nice with yellow and green bags - maybe i’ll do a different design Mudpud bag next year on green.

Tonight, i’m extremely pissed off with my bank who seem to have managed to make some sort of unfathomable clerical error with £50 of mine that neither i, nor they, can explain. At the moment i’m alterating between hopping made and baffled with amusement.