Support group Weds afternoon, and they were the only big children there, so they absorbed the 4 year old into their game and had a lovely time. And we were on time It’s a very relaxing session for me, and apparently we are welcome to other sessions run in the same environment, some which are staffed, so it’s acceptable to go and sit in another room with a cup of tea and leave your children without you for an hour! Tempting There’s even a sensory room we found out as we were leaving this week, so Small’s been promised that will be turned on next time. I may find it difficult to drag him out again

Weds evening is Brownies. Almost a disaster in that Big’s brown trousers were on the line and resoaked following the downpour while we were out at group. But I remembered in time, so they were spun and then shoved into the emergency tumble dryer (I hate using it, but needs must ) Set off on time, then she had to run back for her cress seeds, which she’d forgotten to plant last week, so were only demonstrating two days growth. She took her badge book as required, and apparently they didn’t even open them. Sigh. Think we’ll look at moving to guides in January.

I don’t mind doing badges with her if that’s what we are supposed to do, but I do think a little communication would be in order, I don’t actually know where I’m supposed to start with it. She came back with an excellent little craft – bit of paper painted and cut in such a way that when you fold the flaps over you’ve got a union flag.

Another successful tea, Small very much likes lamb chops now (I think basically as long as they are cooked plain!) and he accidentally got a bit of kale in with his cabbage, and decided he liked that too. He’s really broadened his horizons food wise, the veg box has been a huge success in that direction. Just got to keep up the momentum now.

Hm, I was going to do the whole rest of week in one post, but I’m already up to 400 words, think I might keep going anyway.

Thursday was momentous in that I slept in and it threw off the whole morning. Which doesn’t bode well for when we’ve a baby and I’m getting irregular sleep We had another very serious chat with Big about her attitude – the arguments were sparked because Small didn’t want to play with her as he was too busy reading a french book. Tbh, if he’s doing something like that, I don’t really want her trying to drag him away – he doesn’t get enough space to be autonomous in the way that I know he can be. But all that put her in a bad mood, and there was flouncing and shouting, and like I say, serious conversations.

She pulled herself around, and even did some extra maths, although I was evil with her handwriting practise and printed out a sheet of “I must not hit people or call them stupid” which didn’t go down too well

For third subject we did music appreciation, which meant they each chose something to listen to off the media centre, and then I chucked in something classical. It went really well, they started listening hard enough to pick out instruments and rhythms and even enjoyed Brahms and Tchaikovsky

Afternoon we went to the library, and then called in on S on the way home to see how her extension is going. It’s now a proper room, with walls, roof and windows, and the electrician has just been in, so there’s lots of wires poking out of walls. Small wasn’t quite sure he saw the point in that!

Friday I woke up with a stinking head cold, but soldiered bravely on until the afternoon, when I collapsed back into bed. It did help It’s not actually all that bad a cold I don’t think, but when the space your lungs should be in is already occupied, it makes the whole coughing and sneezing so much worse.

Big had a much better attitude to her work, and did double maths, along with mental arithmetic which is the now standard response to her making any silly mistakes in arithmetic. She did some spelling incorporated with handwriting, and Small complained that number patterns aren’t maths and wanted to know what they were doing in his book

And that, pretty much was Friday, which wraps up the week more or less.

Anyway, got up to find that the parcel from Amazon had arrived, containing Tim’s California Dreamin’ – The Best of The Mamas & The Papas, Big’s ACE Spelling Dictionary and Small’s KS1 Success Workbook: English. All seemed very happy with their offerings

Big showed Tim how the dictionary works – she looked up aardvark Small took a look in his workbook – the first topic was alliteration. I explained what this meant in a couple of sentences, and he then whipped through the two pages of revision exercises on it. I do sometimes feel like maybe I ought to spend lesson length time on these things, then I remember that we’re doing this one to one, he’s pretty bright anyway, and if he’s got it, he’s got it. No need to belabour the point for 30 minutes just to make a point iyswim I was impressed that he immediately understood the difference between alliteration and rhyming – some of the examples were of the latter rather than the former, and they didn’t trick him for a second. Tim came out and we told him what we were doing and he said “smart Small” and Small got that immediately too

After our English lesson (I think, it could have been before. Really ought to blog on the day!) Small and I had a GP appt. This was to follow up the one last week where I went on my own to talk about Small and I think to prove that he exists and that I’m neurotic, at least in the GP’s eyes. Our only slight hitch was in providing the sample – Small was quite firm that such things were only meant to be done in the toilet. Took about 20 minutes to talk him round, and I thought later I shouldn’t have bothered and should have let the GP encounter this type of resistance. Ah well.

Obviously once at the appt, Small behaved impeccably and was given a clean physical bill of health. Apart from the fact that his ears are slightly inflamed, which could be causing depressed hearing, which could in turn lead to awkward behaviour. There’s that solved, I just need to repeat myself more often and everything will be find. *headdesk*.

Hm. Back home, and the children had a quick lunch while Tim showered, then he and Big nipped out to pick up a swimming hat and cycling helmet for her. Must make sure she doesn’t mix the two up

Then the children and I had an afternoon tea invitation at S’s Aunt P’s just in the next village along. The weather was kind – it had looked slightly grey but as we arrived the sun came out and blazed down and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours in her beautiful cottage garden. I even took pictures, and you never know, one of these days some might make them to the blog! Children spent some time playing a rather older version of Tell Me Quiz – Aunt P didn’t think Small would be able to manage, but you won’t be surprised to hear that he was perfectly capable of reading out the questions for us, if not quite as capable of answering them. At least he knew what a member of parliament was – the topic had cropped up in conversation earlier on.

Afternoon tea itself was very pleasant – Small polished off a whole plate of banana sandwiches. Then it was time to dash for Big’s first swimming lesson, dropping S near home on the way back.

There’s a new system at the pool where parents have to accompany their child onto pool side. Many of the parents seemed to think this was rather silly, couldn’t say that it surprised me particularly. Apparently they used to just have the children sit on mats in their areas – changeover time is changeover time for I think up to 6 groups of swimmers, it’s a quite incredible place. We found Big’s group and I was slightly dismayed, apart from her friend C, I think the next oldest child was about 5. She towered over them all, including C, slightly embarassing. And then they were led off to swim in the shallow bit of the fun pool, which barely comes up to her waist.

Small and I sat in the cafe and tried to watch, but it’s difficult to do that because of a wall in the way. The parts I could see she was obviously doing well at, heard the teacher applauding her several times, and also saw her being asked to demonstrate. So that was a real boost to her self-confidence, much needed in the swimming arena. Got talking to the two parent substitutes sitting next to me (grandparents I think) and one of them was very vocal in her response to the home education review. She’d already heard of it even though they don’t home educate, and she wasn’t impressed with the child abuse slurs. I do think the government may underestimate public opinion on this one. Which would be good for us.

Big came out of her lesson with a big grin on her face, and told me I should expect a phone call during the week for her to move up. That’ll be a new swim hat then – they colour code them per group. Not a big problem though, they are only 70p. Her friend C isn’t quite ready, so we compared notes with her mother and are going to try to organise a practise session before next week so that she can move up rapidly. I don’t want Big to hang back so that C can keep up, so I’m perfectly prepared to take the two of them as often as it takes so that C can improve rapidly instead.

And then home, with a hot tired boy, who miraculously found an extra supply of energy when he realised his Spiderman 3 – Webworld Playset had arrived. I ended up sitting them down with boiled eggs while I spent the best part of an hour assembling it – I’ve rarely come across anything with as poor and confusing instructions! But it’s assembled, and it’s going down very well with them. So a slightly delayed bedtime while they got a little playing time with that, then they were quiet quite quickly, and I shouldn’t have been far behind, but I was.

So I’m tired again today.

After that they moved off into looking at more of the French books I ordered from The book people the other day. Big got out French Club: Bk. 1 but was disappointed to find that there was something wrong with the cd and even though I cleaned it, I couldn’t get it to play. I emailed them through their contact form and was very surprised when my mobile rang a couple of hours later – they have a copy in the office, will check that it works, and if it does, will mail it out on Monday, so that I don’t have to send the whole thing back. Excellent customer service.

Anyways, even though she couldn’t listen to that CD, she got out the Usborne French for Beginners and listened to that for a while, and Small worked his way through some of the Hide and Speak pack, including I Want My Banana!/Je Veux Ma Banane. Nice book.

Even once they’d done reading books and working through the activities in them, they went on playing partially in French, which was quite fun to hear. Castle games with characters speaking French

Managed to pry them out into the garden for a brief interlude, and then the tv went on, in time for me to realise I’d missed the tennis. Bother. Not sure what they watched after that, but Small also requested that I make him some more blanks for the comic maker, so I argued with Word for a while until it gave in and saved a template for further use.

And by then it was pretty much time to go round to D & S for a BBQ. Which was truly lovely, and we had a fantastic meal. Very late back, and the children are very tired, so I’m hoping that they are going to sleep in in the morning.

Hey, I can hope can’t I?

Courtesy of the book ppl, I ordered Usborne Internet-Linked French for Beginners with CD, French club, Hide and Speak French (Hide & Speak) (which comes with a collection of activity books, looks a bit young, but Small does like activity books ), George’s Secret Key to the Universe on Jan‘s recommendation and a bunch of Usborne Spotter’s guides because it includes Shells and the seashore as well as a bunch of others that will come in handy.

Looking forward to all that arriving, hope we can keep the momentum up til they do!

Anyway, I got up out of bed to get Big organised for Brownies, and we strolled down to find the assistant leader waiting outside. Now, I should wind back a couple of days, and note that Tim took a call from this woman, saying that contrary to what the Brownies would have told us, they weren’t going to the beach this week. Given that our Brownie hadn’t told us anything about it, we were quite pleased to get the call. But note the *not* going to the beach bit, because the first thing the leader said was “so do you want to go the beach then?”

No, I’m not following either. And neither was Big. When we’d quizzed her about the beach thing following the call she said that they’d said they might be going to the beach but not when, and we certainly hadn’t gone equipped this evening. She was wearing a gilet and short sleeved shirt, no cardigan and doodle shoes, not really beach wear for a cool slightly damp evening.

Anyways, when offered the beach, she looked decidedly less than impressed. The one other little girl there was bouncing up and down with excitement, and Big just started moaning that she didn’t have a cardigan. So I said I would wait with her and if all the other Brownies wanted to go to the beach, then I’d take her home, as we didn’t have time to go back to fetch a cardigan.

Helpfully at this point, the leader said they wouldn’t be going for 15 minutes, meaning that I *did* have time to go back, if I got a move on, so I promptly did, going home as swiftly as I could (which, let’s face it, is not very swift atm), chucking her coat, cardy and boots in her bag, then leaping (yeah, right) into the car and heading back to drop it all off.

Was really glad I’d had that lie down!

Dropped the bag off and was told in passing that I’d to pick her up somewhere else than usual, and came out a little less than impressed at the whole shebang. There was a group of mothers clustered at the gates having a very similar conversation, so I joined in, to check whether anyone else had known about it, and basically, no they hadn’t. One of them was very complaining but I didn’t join in with that bit. Beginning to wonder whether this Brownie group is just going to evaporate away from us though

Home and thought I’d pick up and deal with the swimming forms as I’d to pick Big up from near the swimming pool. Then of course discovered that we didn’t actually have the direct debit form So went early for the pick up, paid for her first two lessons and coastal card with cash, and picked up the direct debit form which I’ve to drop off tomorrow all filled in and signed up.

Picked up Big to find her in another negative spin, this time about the singing practises they’ve been invited too, which run from 5.30 to 7.30 on a tuesday evening for 4 weeks. Only slight hitch being that her swimming lessons start a week before that and are at 5. Given the practise is 2 hours long (2 hours? And they want Rainbows to do that too? I can’t see that that’s going to go down well with very many parents) I daresay she could get by with arriving half an hour late, but she’s not impressed with the idea. I’ll try to talk with Brown Owl next week.

So that was our evening. Got home to find Small listening to Meat Loaf again, think he really rather likes it

Not impressed with her, and wouldn’t listen to her excuse in which it was all his own fault, probably for existing. Instead, I separated them as soon as they’d finished breakfast, had them dress one at a time, and then set them to getting on with some of the stuff that they got yesterday.

And that was the pattern for the morning. Big moaned, wailed, rolled on the floor and generally performed, but was eventually persuaded to write up a few sentences about Victorian toymaker advertising in her learning journal. Small, during this time, worked his way through some of the CD-ROM that came with the usborne french book. He was very happy with that, and didn’t require any prompting or assistance.

I was quite cross with Big. I do not see myself as her teacher, but it would appear that for things she wants to learn, which are separate from things she just does, she does see me as her teacher, and as such, it’s my responsibility to make these things happen. School really wasn’t a good idea after all, if that’s the impression it left her with. Never mind, I have a long term plan for weaning her off the concept, and it started today with me refusing point blank to tell her what she needed to write, and insisting that she wasn’t allowed to copy either.

Once she’d done that, I read through it and wrote out the miss-spelt words on a separate sheet for her to copy several times. I doubt that it’s the best strategy for learning spelling, but it will do for now. And after that she copied two of them out again to get rid of the capital letters in the middle of words. Hohum.

Then she moved on to maths. This was a better attempt than normal, although still protracted and painful. At least she removed herself to the bedroom so that she could work at a desk for the duration! Small moved on to the Journey To The Moon (Maths Adventures), which turned out to be quite fun for him (at least, I assume that’s why he worked on it for an hour and a half ) but in desperate need of some proofreading. I thought he was struggling to multiply by 10 at one point, but when I reread the question carefully I saw the problem “if you run 3 kilometres in a morning, how many miles will you run if you run 10 times as far?”. Given that this is a very basic book, I don’t think they actually meant you to do the conversion!

After that, Big read the funny poem of the day to herself from Read Me and Laugh and eventually moved on to making a list of things that would be handy for an exploratory beach walk from the Usborne Nature Trail Seashore book. Once she’d got the list, she hunted for some of the things that we already had, and made a list of shops where we could get the others. So lots of writing today. We were hoping to get to the beach, but a Suffolk downpour (bit of a shower for you northerners) put paid to that for the day.

When Small had eventually had enough maths (thought he was going to go through the whole book in one sitting!) he did some reading, and then we had lunch

Oh, and excitement of the morning was a small bird cannoning into the french windows, and shooting off again, leaving a trail of little white feathers behind.

The afternoon started with a musical interlude, with Small choosing Bat Out of Hell (which obviously I had to sing along to, love that album!) while Big preferred The Immaculate Collection.

After that I read them both the poem of the day out loud, and then Big started to play computer games, with Small as her cheerleading section. As they seemed to be fairly well settled, I took the opportunity to go to bed!

Accordingly, her library haul included two books on toys, Toys (What Was It Like in the Past?)
and Look Inside a Victorian Toyshop.
I found Seashore (Usborne Nature Trail) which I thought might help with learning more of the area around where we live, and I must get around to ordering the ACE Spelling Dictionary which is what she used and loved last year at school.

It also occurs to me that doing some history of language to get her thinking about where words come from might help, and it was one of Small’s car questions, I think on the way back from offthepath, to ask how ppl decided which words had which meaning, so a Montessori great lesson might be in order.

We had long chats about which other language she would like to learn, and she’s very undecided. She wanted to know if I knew as much French as Daddy knows German, the answer to that being a definitive no. Tim did German up to and including during his degree and then lived and worked in Germany for a while, I have a French O level, and only a B at that!

So I’ve been perusing The book ppl site looking at their language resources, and kicking myself for not buying the new Muzzy while it was 50% off the five language version, but I think I’ll talk to Tim about what we launch into. We’d better get a move on, or Small will get ahead of us though!

For maths, she already has a Mega Maths (I Can Learn) and I want her to join in with some of the basic golden bead work I’m going to do with Small as I still don’t think she’s 100% comfortable in those areas.

Science, we have a couple of books of experiments plus the power house is finally in play, and craft we’re well away. I got poetry books and that will help with her handwriting too, although think will pursue calligraphy as she’d enjoy it for cardmaking possibly.

Oh, nearly forgot. Inspired by the Montessori learning journal idea I told her about, she bought herself a nice notebook while we were out to start keeping a diary. She will be keeping the learning journal as well though

Then there’s all the practical stuff that I’m going to do with both of them, getting them to be more involved and helpful around the house and in the kitchen, take more responsibility for their own belongings and so on. Gardening goes down well with Big, will try to get Small involved with her as well.

And there you go. Over an hour blogging this evening, hope you all think it’s worth it! Whether you do or not, I needed to record it all somewhere, here is as good as any

Yes, the last one made me laugh too.

I should point out that although I asked him to find pen and paper to write these down, he told me that he was already in the middle of making a tardis model and he would write them on the side. So he did. In blue pencil, with the spelling as you see it, and the letter c in ice reversed.

I did ask for some further explanation on what some of the questions meant, and was told that how lite is fire is actually how bright, how much of the room would it light up. How fast is the sun is a question about how fast it is at burning things and how slow is the earth is how slow does it move around.

So there you go.

In between writing these down and getting ready to go out, he also decided he wants to learn french, mainly because Big found her french exercise book from school and decided to speak to him in french, which unsurprisingly he didn’t understand.

So once at the library, he chose a number of books, which were:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid,
Quidditch Through the Ages,
Usborne Internet-Linked French for Beginners with CD (which he has taken to bed with him!) and I suggested
Journey To The Moon (Maths Adventures) which I thought he might find interesting.

Since we got home, he’s listened to the french tracks on the dvd rom (think maybe we shouldn’t have pressed play media when he put it in the media centre, but there you go) and then taken one of his new exercise books to bed with him, along with the Learn French book, so that he could write down in his new learning journal (a Montessori idea that I thought might inspire them) the french words he’s learned so far.

So that seems to be working well for him then!

We both think that maths should be a regular activity, as maths gets easier if you practise it.

She wants to do cooking, she’s looking through her cookbook again. I think it would be good if she cooked for us at least once a week.

She does plenty of reading, and I’m trying again with the suggestion that she should keep a list of what she reads, and perhaps review some of them on her blog as well. I’m hesitant to link to her blog from here but she would enjoy more ppl reading it, must have more of a think about that.

She is suggesting a tv/ computer free day once a week, which would probably work better when the weather is less cold. Boy is it cold out there. I walked past a house this morning with a heavy trail of ice outside it, looked like someone had poured a bucket of water down some steps and it had frozen instantly. It was thick and bubbly, wish I’d had the camera with me.

Poetry – I went to speech and drama and had to learn and recite a poem a week. I want her to do similarly, I think poetry is wonderful for that. We are however, negotiating this one. I’d like for her to copy out a poem each week for learning, which would also give chance to improve her writing, but she’s balking about the writing out bit of it. Hohum.

History is not something I need to worry about, as long as I don’t mind her only knowing about Victorians. She’s fascinated by them, and got yet another book out of the library yesterday on the subject. Still, guess that we can broaden that out as and when.

Science we’ll cover in projects – I think we shall be doing some horrible science this week. I’m not even particularly worried about them recording it, I think that will come in time. Languages we’re debating – Big has wanted to learn Spanish for a long time, and we’ve not done anything about it. I bought Muzzy chinese, which must rank easily as my most expensive pointless purchase, although I’m hopeful of getting some of the money back on Ebay (unless anyone knows anyone who wants to buy it direct? No? Didn’t think so ) Tim would prefer her to learn German on the premise that at least he can speak it, but I guess if we learn Spanish we can all learn it together.

Ah, I think the conversation is over, she’s been distracted by something Small is watching on cbeebies about how mummies grow babies in their tummies. Can I call that science?

In the middle of all of that, she read loads of poems out of The Oxford Treasury of Children’s Poems, including one of my faves, Escape at bedtime.