Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

I HAVE LOOP AND LOOM REFILLS IN MY CATALOGUE!!!!!!!

When i went into town on a present buying expedition with Gwenny and Violet, i bought some candles in Hawkins Bazarr that burn with different coloured flames. You only get an idea of it here, but they really were rather lovely.

While i was at work yesterday (yes, yes, i really just like saying that!) Max and the girls did some (rather a lot!) of work on the classification of animals. I’m not quite sure what brought it on but when i got home, this is what they were up to.

Max looking his flu-ey best.

Thinking.

Posing.

Sorting.

Understanding?

I took over to help them with invertebrates and we stumbled through that while i realised how much i don’t know about things without spines! Ended up with lots of sheets that look great though and we are going to paper the wall in the “resource” room with them. Around the dinner table that night we played “Yes/No Guess the ANimal” and they had to try and use what they’d learned. Cue lots of “DOES it have a BACKBONE!!!!????!!!!” through gritted teeth but it was good fun. Amelie asked the best questions though.

Today i did Nature/History sticker books with them when i came home which was lovely as all 5 of us (girls) sat on the floor and did them together. Fran did a quite detailed Usborne Horses one, Maddy did Times Tables and Egypt, Amelie and Josie did Appletree Farm ones. It was nice and we all seemed to enjoy it.

Didn’t manage stories tonight as i had to see an accountant about taking over our books in preparation for having a Payroll and also probably becoming Limited at some time in the near future. That feels a bit big and scary! I’m working all day tomorrow (am going to be ordering a ‘proper’ sign for the unit) but i am finding the 5-8 slot quite a nice time to do more meaningful/less prosaic stuff with them and Mrs Frisby is going down really well; i’d forgotten how much i enjoyed that book as a kid. It seems, much like Charlotte’s Web, to have lots of naturally occurring ‘educational’ stuff in it.

Title of the blog comes in homage to my 4 year old self who once called over to a sheep (or so the story goes) “Excuse me Madam, do you know that you have a blue bottom?”

How the blooming heck did all this ever fit in my house?!?!?!?!?!?!

The Hama Beads, desk and (ahem) admin area, plus packing tables. (You would not believe how happy those packing tables made us!

The Corolle Dolls, Wonderworld, Aqua beads, The Bead Shop, Great Gizmos and Alex Crafts section.

More Hama Beads and the Fimo section (with a little parcel weighing area tucked in at the end.)

The “behind the door” area we try not to think about which includes “stuff we won’t stock again” plus Le Toy Van, Papo, Schleich, Melissa and Doug, games and plasticine. And yes we have run out of space already!

And the rather exciting sign

Tags: beadmerrily, playmerrily business premises,

It’s been a very quiet weekend; everyone is ill now, except Maddy and i’m not HORRIBLY ill and hoping it will stay that way. Amelie has had a temperature for a week, Josie has had one on and off but now mainly just has snot and Max is REALLY unwell. In fact, i’ve wired him up to the central heating system and we’ve been running off his body heat for 2 days. Fran is just generally droopy with a sore throat, but not too awful. Bit cross though

The odds and sods that come to mind are these; Amelie decided to stop wearing pull ups at night once she realised Buttercup didn’t and did really well, till she got ill. Josie then did the same and has been dry at night for 2 nights running, so long as we lift her. Josie is just being adorable, she and i seem to be having endless mornings (and occasionally middles of nights ) where we just lie nose to nose talking about all sorts of things. She’s doing that “waking up” into childhood thing that is now so familiar to me and i just love watching it. We’ve been chatting about lots of things, my favourite this weekend was trying to persuade her that the plural of foot is feet, not foots. She told me i was “just silly.” She’s never particularly been a toddler for tantrums (mainly because we just laugh, or worse don’t really notice!) but she has been fairly demanding, though not in an annoying way just in an ‘i’m no wallflower!’ way. Suddenly i’ve noticed that she is much more openly sociable and is forging relationships with other adults (Alison and my family members being the ones that spring to mind) but she’s also much more determined to be heard. This week i’ve had 2 occasions where i’ve got cross with her, told her to go downstairs and she’s stood and yelled back “NO I WON’T!!!!!!!!!!!” to which i have done no better than yell back “YES YOU WILL!!!!!!!” I quite like it though, the relationship we have is changing and it’s fun. We’ve even begun to negotiate a “no groping mummy’s milks unless we are still in bed” standpoint. (Did i roll my eyes already?)

Fran has been reading the “Naughtiest Girl” books; she’s finished the originals, which she loved and has started on the Anne Digby follow ons, which are ‘okay’ - however she has decided we should have a monthly family meeting to dole out pocket money and air any problems Must get her on to the Chalet School ones, that should solve room tidying and wanting to learn languages! Earlier today we were sorting their room, packing it up ready to decorate it and talking about getting new furniture and she suddenly told me exactly how we needed to plan out the room, how to draw it, scales it and how to make sure all the furniture they wanted would fit. Weyhey - practical real life maths without me even asking!

Fran looks frighteningly grown up all of a sudden; she has been wearing a pair of very slim fit jeans that Alison gave her, which give her curves and make her look leggy and the result is she suddenly looks all of her nearly 10 years old. Where’d that little small girl go???

Maddy is deep in a pile of books we bought her for her birthday, I Can Read Level 2 and 3 books and mainly Amelia Bedelia, who lives her life in a highly literal and very entertaining fashion which is right up her street. She’s been drawing lots and playing far more with the younger 2, which is nice to see. She’s a bit quiet at the moment but being very creative, which suits her extremely well.

Amelie has mostly just drooped all week, with no energy or effort for anything, sleeping through the days and nights and zonking in front of the tv. She does play scrabulous over my shoulder at times and she and Josie have both played Reader Rabbit and Jump Ahead Phonics lots. Josie is a whizz at it now and it’s great to see them playing on it (we need more computers though!)

I worked on Friday again and am beginning to feel much more at home with that. I think, in all honesty, that after 10 years at home i needed a change and the children are getting more of me than they were when it was the 5 of us 5 days a week. I’m almost a happy mum again now, instead of feeling weighted down by it all. This weekend i’ve taken stuff out of their rooms and the dining room and we’ve altered the shelving in the old stockroom so it is now a toy/resource room, with lots of floor, lots to do and all of it easy to get to. We need a desk in there now and then it will be ideal as an extra space. It’s a bit amazing having an extra room.

Oh, in rather remarkable fashion, all the kids have packed their suitcases with clean clothes ready for Melrose - a week early! Good or what?

Tags: packing, school stories, reading, computer time, tantrums, illness, growing up.

Ha.

The only thing that would work at this point, would be spotting an “sh” on a board that is currently falling off a cliff.

Tags: scrabulous

So it finally happened, my maths ability ran out right in front of a daughter. I’ve been politely tolerated ever since, but actually unraveling it together today has been fun. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a nearly 10 year old seeing that mummy is not in fact full of answers but that a bit of effort together worked it out. When we did, it was very pleasing and regardless of what she learned, i’ve discovered another part of maths that was previously unfathomable to me!

We abandoned the maths book to actually do this and used brains, paper, maths, rods and much talk of cakes on plates to do so. In the end, Michelle’s explanation the other day was the one that got me there (i’m keeping the piece of paper!) after Max flummoxed me and Alison threatened to charge me! We did a bit of work on the concept of a whole number still being the same if it was written 10/1 (oneths!) and then got on with the dividing by fractions bit. She got it instantly (phew) and then we made up real life scenarios to imagine how we would use this piece of maths. I think this is the thing that really floored me at school; by the time i got to this level i had lost all grip of why i needed to be able to do these things and i’m really a very visual person, i need to be able to visualise what i am doing and why. Fran and i spent some time establishing a pattern to the sum and then working out which bit of the life problem fitted where. It was fun.

The rest of the week has been good too. Max was away from Sunday lunch time so once i had the girls back from the grandparents we paced ourselves to get through. We worked fairly hard on Monday morning at things and then in the afternoon we got out some of the new 3D aqua bead packs and played with them. I was very impressed with the quality of them; too often a pack opened isn’t as nice as the box makes it seem, but the fold out scenes in these are really lovely. Makes me proud to be selling them. That kept us all occupied for ages and was suitably quiet and uneventful, a good thing given they were all shattered and Amelie was definitely rather unwell.

Tuesday we had a visit from Michelle and Chloe and aside from feeding them and occasional visitations, we didn’t see a lot of the children. I was glad to see Max back by midnight though; it’s been a long time since i was regularly home alone with kids. Max being part time and the presence of MF here up till Xmas means i’m rarely the only adult. Still i managed 72 hours of only eating mainly only fruit and nuts, which i was pleased about and feel much better for.

Yesterday i worked 9.30-6.30, my first full day there and got lots done. It is beginning to feel like a workplace now. Max and the kids did various Narnia related activities (mainly Narnia Risk and the film i think!) and when i got home i read the first Chapter of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh to them. They seemed to like it.

Today we are Happy Streeting, mathsing, storying and about to start some sewing craft stuff. Amelie was up half the night with earache and i’ve got it too, so i don’t think it is going to be a very taxing day.

Tags: maths, Fran, craft, sewing, aqua beads, Narnia, work, stories