The girls seem to like Education City. maddy spent a long time on it this morning, then Amelie did, and Fran and i spent ages together on it this afternoon. After the maths wobble of the other week, i want to see if she really did have gaps in what she understood, so i set her up with a “MyCity” full of the harder Year 2 stuff and sat with her as she worked through the games, so i could write down anything that was difficult or whatever. She sailed through them all, surprising me at times with her ability to understand new types of question and by the end of it, there were only 3 games out of about 30 she thoguht she’d like to do again to understand them better. Then she asked me to set her up a City of Year 3 stuff ready for tomorrow so i acquiesced to her request

It might be expensive-ish, but if they like it after a month, i might get it for them; it is a very easy way of keeping someone occupied and it seems to suit everyones style of leanring quite well, sort of Studydog-ish but for other stuff.

This morning Maddy and i looked at some Ladybird books together and she drew and DS’d. Amelie played Dora inbetween computer time. Fran read (Fairy Book 25 now!), did some handwriting and English and tootled about doing things she wanted to.

This afternoon they’ve painted suncatchers and played more with Fun Blox. I’ve sent most of the phenomenal number of parcels the last few days have yielded, new products and a newsletter having produced something of a rush and taken them dancing. And chatted to Kate and whittled about all the paperwork i haven’t done yet.

There are NEVER enough hours in the day. Why not?

Hurrah, my sinuses are my own again!

Got a shed load of stuff to achieve tonight so i’ll blog todays relatively meaningful achievements now.

Fran: spent ages on some English tests, then a handwriting book, then did some new knitting (dolly blanket squares) and then played on EducationCity doing this and that. She seems to quite like that and it is good for keeping them all occupied. I’ve got a trial till the end of March, so i’ll see how we get on.

Maddy: Did some more reading, but struggled with the number of new words in the books. I’m going to rethink tonight in time for tomorrow. She also did some EducationCity and also spent ages on Bear and Penguin maths; the timer on the higher levels upsets her unfortunately, wish it could be switched off. She can do what it is asking fine, but the pressure of the clock ticking throws her terribly, even on slow setting.

Amelie: read Dora books, counted in Spanish a lot, played with fabric, watched Dora, entertined Josie. I offered to start teaching her to read but she declined

Josie: noisy, snotty, smelly but curiously endearing. Slept a lot today so perhaps over the worst of her grumbly yuk.

Early afternoon my delivery of Fun Blox arrived so we broke open a few boxes of those, hid the rest before they could get too addicted and they’ve played with them all afternoon. They seem to have been in school of some sort, with Fran as teacher doing demos as if she has been to a QVC masterclass. It’s been terribly amusing to watch and listen to! I did take photos, but right now gym and about 6 million parcels (princesses are walking out the door!) beckon!

Max and i have been unbelievably coldy this weekend, to the point where just doing ANYTHING has felt like ridiculously hard work What a waste of a weekend. Still, in the interests of trying to do something, we spent yesterday in the car travelling the wilds of the fens and in doing so, visited some places we’d never even been before. What an odd area of the country i live in, i really don’t imagine i will ever feel like it is home.

Today we’ve feebly attempted to tidy the house, i went shopping and achieved forgetting the only thing i really wanted, while inadvertantly buying Touch an’ Go Monkey Ball for the DS. Maddy had some birthday money which she bought two other games with, then got completely upset with because she couldn’t play them so we agreed a sort of random swap with pocket money owing that meant Fran got those ones and Maddy got a new one. Scary game, Monkey Ball – gave me vertigo – it was like hanging over the Melrose Balcony! I couldn’t play it. (I really do have THAT much of a problem with heights!)

Josie and i had a nice time out together anyway and i got back to a much tidier house, which was good. I’ve spent the afternoon wimbling through papers, adding products to BeadMerrily, sneezing and supervising various crafty things being done of finished off. So here, in the absence of anything worthwhile to tell you, is a multitude of crafty bits to look at.

Amelie did this, from a pattern, with almost no help at all. It isn’t exact, but it is bloody good. She amazes me, that child.

Maddy has worked at these all weekend, again with almost no help. She is so careful and precise that girl and persistant too. She assumes she can do things, rather than can’t, and it is amazing what a difference that approach makes!

Not ot be outdone, Fran did the new princess board and also got it all sorted on her own. The bird is the same one as Amelie’s, so you can see how close she was.

Amelie was doing Magic maize earlier in the week; after i suggested she tried pictures, she did these, of flowers in my dad’s garden. I rather liked them.

These are the little plastic pudding bowls we did with pva and tissue paper; the picture doesn’t do them justice, they are really rather gorgeous.

Same method but on a paper, waxed plate and them peeled off to make suncatchers.

Fran has spent a lot of the weekend reading and, after a bit of a break over the last couple of weeks, has now got to the end of the 3rd set of fairy books. She’s discovered she can curl up under a duvet, near a radiator and read. Bliss Maddy is desperate for more reading; the next couple of books in her scheme are missing, which makes the jump a bit big, so i might hunt out some ladybird ones for her tomorrow, just for a change. Amelie i need to think about but she is enjoying a trial of Education City right now and we got our other computer back today, so hopefully we can all have plenty to occupy us next week. I so need a better week.

Finally, for those who might like to oogle – i did a page on BeadMerrily of most of the new and very gorgeous stock. Looking forward to selling it too, it is lovely. And i lost another 1lb this week, making 12lbs in 9 weeks. Very respectable.

Your wise quote is:
“Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life” by
Leo Buscaglia.

Yes, love is indeed what you desire in your

life. If you have it or not is another

matter, but it is in your eyes the most

important feeling. You tend to be a romantic

dreamer and want you and your love to have

that kind of perfect love that you hear about

in fairytales. However that can be hard to

find, but it doesn’t mean you are going to

stop looking.

What wise quote fits you? [pics]
brought to you by Quizilla

So come on you lot, love me!

This week has been one of the hardest weeks of ordinary mothering-grind that i have done in a long time. It was definitely comparable to being heavily pregnant and reminded me most of the unremitting toughness of being at home with 2 small and relatively boring small people. I never really did enjoy the bit where i had just a 3 year old Fran and a 1 year old Maddy; it was too much like being in service, all order-taking and not much coming back to enthrall me.

So this week has been characterised by tonsilitis, post-Melrose fatigue, the odd bits of upset tummy and a busy bead week while i was away following a busy bead week this week and back orders to send out when my stock delivery arrived (70 parcels have been sent out this week since Monday). Max was away for 2 evenings, i had no appetite due to a sore throat and then a cold which was great for the diet but i think has meant i’ve been way too low on calories to function properly and then keeping myself up one night coughing, Josie keeping me up the next night and Amelie having an attack of croup on Wednesday night that meant i had to sit her on my lap, surrounded by pillows and sleeping bags to prop us up and try and sleep like that. To add insult to injury, when Amelie finally stopped coughing at 4am, Josie woke up and howled for England. Some tough conversations got had on that night too, which left me feeling terribly flat.

Thursday was never going to be a good day. Looking back on the preceeding week in bald fact like that though, i might cut myself some slack

Anyway, we’ll gloss over Thursday because it was just unremiting weeping, wailing and shouting (And that was just me). This has just been such a long winter, hasn’t it? Long, cold and dark. I’m desperate for it to be over now. Roll on the camping season. I can’t even remember the details of it now, except that i was pathetically glad to get everyone to bed and then, thank goodness, everyone slept all night.

Friday though, following the rule of home educating life, was much better. I hauled willpower up from somewhere and everyone was doing something by 9am or so. In fact, my table looked like this

Fran thrilled herself by finishing her first ever bit of knitting, a scarf for her doll Olivia and she was just so proud of herself.

She has done ever so well, she’s had fairly limited help, aside from sorting out a few pickles and i’m delighted with her. She is getting so much better at working on projects to the end. She’s also been working incredibly hard on her joined up writing, something she has totally identified as wanting to do for herself. She decided it would be easier to control and she has worked every day on making it neater and more legible. She’s used Jolly Phonics books for guidance and then worked on freehand stuff of her own choice after that.

Maddy did some further reading with me; she is nearly past the first platform of readers in Rogerr Red-Hat now and doing very well. Then she sat down and worked through some pages of a maths book, her choice, and seemed very quick at sussing out what type of sum she needed to do to answer the word problems.

I’m trying to mutate our “normals” into a set of things they can choose to work on in the morning (reading, writing, maths, a craft that requires concentration) – they are both expected to do 2 things, their choice but they have to concentrate and do a reasonable amount. Seems to work quite well and it leaves our afternoons free. So anyay, we’d discharged that responsibility by then so they got to choose a new hama kit each and open it and then both of them worked at the new designs and boards from those. I’ll post pictures later when i’ve ironed them.

Amelie meanwhile had asked to do some magic maize (something i’m about to start stocking so i wanted to try out the sample) so she did that. After a few random splodges, i sugested she tried pictures and she did really well with those. I’ll do pictures of those later too.

After that we had lunch, went to Activity World and then came home so i could work and they did more beading. Stories have gone by the wayside lately, which i am really missing, so we need to get them started again. Otherwise though, it was a much better day. Thank goodness!

Today too awful to blog, reverted to worst sort of mother. Children hate me. I hate children. Have jax’s cold. This makes second cold in fortnight, separated only by bout of tonsilitis.

Day saved by Maddy who came home from Rainbows with a Dora the Explorer cut out they had made, then produced a second one for Amelie, having asked if she could do one specially for her or she’d be upset.

Maddy. Every home should have one.

Before i go and announce this on the main lists – i’ve been thinking about camp this year.

I’m thinking of charging an optional ticket price this year of £7.50 per actively participating head (so perhaps 3+). I wanted to do £5 a head but i can’t see the figures adding up. This would get you a welcome meeting with drinks and a biscuits (or whatever) will rent us a marquee, provide the disposible bbq’s for a midweek bbq and also the stuff for a couple of craft events.

I’m assuming i can speak to Wendy about a reasonably cheap marquee, i think £1.50 per craft ought to cover it, tea, coffee and snacks ought to be do-able and the bbq’s, if we get them at a cash and carry, should come comfortably into this price.

I’m thinking that we’d make it that people HAD to buy them beforehand, so we knew who we were catering for, we made it clear it was to faciliate inclusiveness and to make sure no one got left out of pocket.

I’ll organise that everyone receives a ticket before or on arrival, detailing their family so it should be foolproof and that you show your ticket when you turn up for the said 4 events.

What do you think? Too much, too little? Do-able? The right move to make it better and smoother? I’ve really railed against this sort of thing up to now, but i do feel it is proobably the only way forward. For the bbq people still turn up with meat/other to cook, any spare money goes towards salad/bread and of course, people will still be able to contruibute other general craftiness, party moments in the intervening period.

Comments please, with avengence. And then someone volunteer to do the collecting and organising of it, because i have as much skill at that sort of thing as a penguin.

My one concern about it is that the price of the statics is much higher this year, £170 and that was after i talked them down, so for those people, it will make it much more expensive.