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Archive : August 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
I didn't discover Narnia but ....
Decided, on impulse (not entirely sure what came over me!), to clear out a cupboard in the bedroom today. I've been putting this off because it's dark, deep and so full of stuff that the door has to be opened with extreme caution in case everything comes tumbling out. Anyway, I was feeling brave today so in I ventured.
Well! I think the kids were glad I did because I re-discovered all kinds of gems amongst the utter rubbish! Witness ....
My plant cell model! I made this a year or so ago for Rosie - it's air
dry clay painted in acrylic and I put holes (in the right places) in it
before it dried and then wrote labels on sticks for it. I even carefully
drew a control chart to go with it and I'm VERY proud of this particular
piece of educational diy. What can I say, it's clearly a masterpiece 
April can't read the labels so she was looking at the chart and matching up the words so she could put the sticks in the right places on the model - clever girl! :) PS - no, I don't force my kids to do schoolwork on a Sunday - this was entirely voluntary!
Another exciting find - a cute little toy market stall. I brought this YEARS ago from Myriad for Rosie and it was much loved. We kind of mislaid it and I thought it had got thrown away but it turned out it was just broken and I'd shoved it in the cupboard to be mended "sometime". So, I mended it today and it's got a new happy owner who likes to make plastecine food :)
Also today, I decided to treat my lovely family and got up early to make cinnamon muffins for breakfast - very yummy (and no, they're not overdone! - I sprinkle the tops with demarara sugar and cinnamon before cooking)
Friday, August 28, 2009
Is it just me ....
.... or is it getting noticeably chilly first thing in the morning and early in the evening? There has been a distinctly autumnal feel over the last week or so!
We've been busy working here :) I've been busy planning our first home ed park days (getting a few people interested in coming along now!) and cleaning - lots! I don't know, however much I clean the place, I'm never completely satisfied with it - I never quite reach the impossibly high standards I set myself - *laughs* - I thought it was Virgo people who were supposed to be perfectionists, not us cuddly, homebody Cancerians!
.... No, I'm not into starsign gobbledygook by the way!
Anyhow, the kids have been busy too:
April has been learning letters with the initial sounds basket (I SOMEHOW managed to find an object for every single letter of the alphabet - it was like going on a treasure hunt around our house!)
She has also been working with (my version) of the spindle box and getting to grips with the concept of "0" (she kept trying to put sticks in the zero bit because she couldn't get "nothing"!)
Rosie has been doing some map labelling work (Japan)
.... and adding fractions
Oh, and for no other reason than it's totally cute, here is April's lunch today! She wanted a bento lunch (even her pudding got put in a little bento box!) I couldn't get the lids on because they are so full but she still wants them (*rolls eyes* - honestly!), so I just rest them on top!
That's all folks! :)
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Baffled
Oh dear, I've got a nasty bruise on my leg, just above my knee which (although you can't tell from this picture) is just over half as long my middle finger! (and a lot, lot darker purple than the picture makes it look). Ok, just a bruise you might think BUT I have NO idea how I got it. What's more bizarre is that I didn't have it before I went to bed last night and woke up this morning and there it was! How on earth can you bash yourself like this IN BED?!
I have no clue whatsoever *looks deeply confused*.
Anyway, today has been rainy and dark so we stayed in, played games and ate chocolate biscuits. Tim did brave the elements once to go out and buy a new riser rail for our shower because the other one, well, fell to bits the last time he had a shower. He came back, fitted it and then we did not much.
He's off to work tomorrow for his normal hours (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and then he's doing a whole week of overtime the following week and then (taa-daa!) he's on holiday for 2 weeks. I'm glad about that because there is much gardening that needs to be done and he's just the person to do it *giggles* (can't have him slacking on holiday!)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
File storage
Hello lovely people :) Feeling everso slightly groggy today - got a TINY cold thing going on (NOT swine flu!) so I'm a bit sort of not functioning properly.
I have, however, been working on some maths stuff (printable manipulatives, mini file folder games, lapbook/notebook booklets and so on) that I'm going to use with the kids and opened a Box Net account to store them on. I've put the little widget thing in the sidebar so that anyone can download the things if they want.
I've seen other people use Box but I've never investigated it myself before - it's actually pretty useful, particularly if you want to store stuff on your website (pdfs for example) - you can either make them available to the whole world or set the thing up so that only certain people can access the files (you set them up with a password). Quite handy :)
Got to go now ... help Tim cook chicken korma for dinner ...... bye, bye ;)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Big scarey plane!
We went for our walk up Hengistbury Head this afternoon - partly because we haven't been there for a long time and partly because it was the last day of the Bournemouth Airshow and we thought we'd get a good view of some planes - we were right!
I've got some piccies of the walk but first a VERY short video clip - the first bit showing a glider being towed by another plane and the second bit which we got JUST as we were about to get in the car to come home. I don't know what plane it was but it was loud and scarey! We would have had another BRILLIANT clip of something (again, don't know what sort of plane!) except, it was me that was supposed to get the video and I had a bit of a "WOMEN! Know your limits!" moment. Y'see, it happened really quick and Tim says "quick get that!", so I'm scrambling around with the camera, panicking because I want to catch it before it zooms off into the distance, started to video but then (somehow) switched the flipping thing off again and we ended up with about half a second of video of some empty sky! Brilliant. If Tim had done it that wouldn't have happened *rolls eyes*.
Anyway, here's what we did get :)
Here's a pic of the glider being towed and another of some bi-planes we saw - oh, and a photo of the big scarey plane! :
Now some general "walking about" photos. It was really hot and I started off with my hair down (how I prefer it) but, because of the heat I ended up putting it up (which I don't like much)
Lovely heather!
"I've got something in my shoe"
Big, blue dragonfly
Being silly!
Being sillier!
Clambering around in trees
Yum Yum! Ice lolly time
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Smile
Poem by Carol Batton - digital scrapbooking and dandelion painting by me :)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Photo heavy!
The last couple of days (apart from going to the dentist where we found out all our teeth are lovely and not in any way holey) we have mostly:
Enjoyed the summery weather by painting pictures of bits of our garden (top to bottom - April's, mine (!) and Rosie's)
Counted - with apple tree game and Cuisenaire Rods
Studied decimals
Studied more about Japan - this time bento lunchboxes and made a paper bento to go in the lapbook
Notebooked maths
Learned the letter "a" with the lovely stuff from Starfall
Wrote friendly letters using a dinosaur penpal theme
... and played a game called appetising adjectives by using a menu from our local Indian takeaway (yes, really!)
We picked blackberries in our own back garden ....
... and I digital scrapbooked this (for no good reason that I can think of)
I think that's about it ...... *laughs*
Tomorrow, we're (hopefully) going to stretch our legs with a walk on Hengistbury Head where we haven't been for aaaages!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Summer fruit picking
Oh! gorgeous weather today!
After lunch we decided to go to Sopley and pick some raspberries (and what was left of the strawberries) - just seemed like the "right" thing to do on such a beautiful afternoon. So hard was the sun beating down that me and the kids wore sunhats (poor old Tim probably has a burned head by now) and we all put on LOADS of suncream and wore not much :) We came home with a big box of raspberries and another of yummy strawberries.
Here are a few summertime-berry-picking pictures - the more observant will notice a) that one of the pics of me has been used to replace one in my blog banner (Tim made me do it!) b) there are no pics of Tim (wasn't allowed to because, apparently, he looks "tired and yuk") and c) there are no berries in April's box - she ate them ALL!
Not sure what Rosie's looking for in this picture!
Yuuuummy! (and no, she hasn't wet herself! She ran through a sprinkler they had going!)
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
On clutter
I'm a clutter hater - I can't stand tonnes of pictures on the walls, vases of flowers everywhere, pictures on every sideboard. They collect dust and make the place feel claustrophobic. That said, I do have a few things dotted about - one of our wedding pictures in a lovely frame, a sparkly crystal that Rosie got me for Christmas and some gorgeous candlesticks (also a Christmas present - from my mother in law). The candlesticks, I'm sad to say, have been ignored for ages - stuck on the top of our fridge/freezer along with about as much "stuff" as it was possible to get up there.
This little spot, for some reason, always gets overlooked in my tidy-ups - sometimes for weeks and weeks and weeks on end - no idea why. The rest of the house can be spotless but this area stays awful *embarrased blush*. So today, I braced myself, and waded in. I realised that the main culprit for the mess up there is none other than my lovely hubby - loose change, sunglasses, car keys, bank receipts, credit card, combs and wage slips. Oh my god ... the wage slips! They dated back to MAY and they were all jumbled up. In an attempt to help (force) him to be tidy, I found a nice box for all his bits and pieces - all he has to do is shove stuff in there instead of just plonking it on the fridge top. As for the payslips - well, the past-life-as-secretary in me came soaring to the surface and I spent ages going through them all, putting them in date order and filing them away.
Then, I could retrieve my beautiful candlesticks, dust them off and put them by the kids nature table. I even lit a couple of vanilla scented candles which is what greeted Tim when he got home from work :)
Also been busy over the last couple of days making "things". Made some gingerbread men (well, ladies, I couldn't find the man shaped cutter) and ginger biscuits. The kids iced faces on them - very nice :)
I also did some maths notebook/lapbook things - we get bored of workbooks all the time so we make little lapbook type pages occasionally. I made one for Rosie on converting decimals to fractions - I used Open Office for this one but I'm divided as to whether it's better than Word. Word is more user friendly (Open Office actually confused me senseless the first time I tried it but I've got used to it now) - Open Office has more features and a better drawing facility. I tend to swap between the 2 depending on what I'm doing.
Here's the finished decimals booklet (obviously, not stuck down because Rosie hasn't done it yet) - cute no? ;)
Tim is really busy at work this week - another 6 days of overtime. Yesterday, he had to take some new guy out to show him a route and he (Tim) said that the bloke's breath smelled horrid! He said he had to virtually drive around with his head stuck out of the side window of the van *laughs* I believe Tim is sometimes guilty of being a bit garlicky depending on what we've had for dinner the night before but at least that is garlic (and he is permanently chewing gum "just in case") and not ... well... god knows!
Thursday, I believe, the Air Show is starting (there has been a Red Arrow parked by the side of a roundabout in Bournemouth for the last couple weeks). Tim is concerned about how busy it's going to be because, in the past, he's ended up stuck in traffic for EVER. Hopefully, Thursday won't be too bad for him because he's finishing at lunchtime - we've all got to go to the dentist in the afternoon. Hmmm, lesser of the two evils I think - air show induced traffic jams or a visit to the dentist? Unfortunately, we can't avoid Mr Yilmaz and his implements of torture for more than 6 months at a time so the dentist it is.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Back to the shop with you!
Tim is off to church this morning and then, on the way back is going into Tesco with the utterly rubbish printer to attempt to get a refund. I shall be glad to get the old one back!
Last night I was a bit headachey (weird weather I think) but we had a nice meal, a glass of wine and enjoyed the Proms on telly. It was Handel's 250th anniversary so we had the rather lovely Arrival of the Queen of Sheba - which Tim says a lot of people have at weddings and I can't understand that because it's sooo fast! Surely the bride has to sprint up the aisle to that *laughs*. There was also Zadok the Priest (or rather "Zaaaaaaaaadooooooooook the Priiiiiiiieeeeesssst" - they REALLY drag that out!). I love the build up to that one with the choir suddenly exploding into the afore mentioned "Zaaaaaadoo........."
It was a really good prom (in my opinion!) - if you'd like to listen to it, you can catch it here.
Having a quiet morning while Tim is at the church - done some tidying (can't stand it getting messy in here!), hoovering, stuck some washing in the machine, cleaned the cooker top, done some washing up .......... ok, quiet but BUSY!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
New blog look
Bit of an overhaul gone on here :) Did a new blog banner (instead of the
sidebar pics) - took aaages to find pictures that were (a) recent and
(b) not hideous. Anyway, thanks to Photoshop and some digital scrapbook
bits, I got there in the end. Not too shabby 
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Thought for the day
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back, always
ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and
creation), there is one element of truth, the
ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans - that moment one commits
oneself, then providence moves all.
All sorts of things occur to help one that
would never otherwise have occurred. A
whole stream of events issues from the
decision, raising in one's favour all manner
of unseen incidents and meetings and
material assistance which no man would
have dreamed could have come his way.
~ W H Murray - 1913-1996 - Scottish Mountaineer ~
(Not Goethe as is commonly believed!)
Friday, August 14, 2009
HP Have made a monster
Remember how I said we brought a new printer not that long ago? We shouldn't have bothered, it's an absolute pig of a machine :( So, this is by way of a recommendation - if you are needing a new printer DON'T buy an HP F4280 All-In-One Deskjet.
Luckily, we kept our old one (also an HP but vastly superior) because we'll be going back to it.
The F4280 took FOREVER to install and when it finally did, we put paper in and it started to do the cartridge alignment printout. Then jammed. This did NOT bode well - it jammed printing the test page!!
Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short - here is the F4280's catalogue of crapness:
- The ink runs out at a ridiculous rate - I reckon the cartridges must hold about a teaspoonful of ink because I am VERY economical with my printing (do virtually everything on draft) and it's already telling me the ink has nearly run out.
- It jams every time the wind blows. I've had the back off the thing, carefully extracting mangled paper more times than I care to think about.
- It changes the settings all by itself! I had to manually KEEP setting it back to A4 from letter because it kept changing it!
- Finally (the biggest poo in the toilet), it routinely only prints HALF a page! What?! We have not been able to work out why it does this. We've been through all the settings, read the book and pored over forums on pc websites trying to find an answer. Nothing. It. Drives. Me. Potty.
So there you have it. Avoid. I'm going to dig our old one out and get some new ink for it - the F4280 will be forever consigned to the computer graveyard (i.e our garage).
PS - another point to mention, although this is just "me" and not a fault as such - I found the way it "spat" my printing at me VERY RUDE! My old machine used to casually roll out the finished paper - this one kind of shoves it violently at you as if to say "here's your printing, now sod off!" I was quite offended *laughs*
Thursday, August 13, 2009
"Mummy! I found a tiny frog!"
Edited: 15 August - It's a TOAD!! Carolyn mentioned it in comments, I looked it up and it is, indeed a toad. I guess he's not going to turn into a handsome prince - sulk, sulk - *laughs*.
This little pair of grubby, April-sized hands is holding the TEENIEST, TINIEST frog I've ever seen! It still had a bit of stumpy tail so was, not all that long ago, still a tadpole. Awww! cute!
On a different note, April has been very much entertained by a counting
game I made her based on the Montessori version. I made a (very simple!)
felt tree on a piece of card and wrote the numbers 0-10 on separate
pieces of card. She puts these face down, selects one at random and then
counts out the correct number of apples (or, in this case, red beads)
onto the tree. Here is a short clip of the game being expertly
demonstrated by my glamorous assistant 
She had done number 9, cleared the tree and was doing number 7.
PS - April also played this animal shadow matching up game which she rather enjoyed :)
PPS - I've got the prospect of a lovely peaceful evening with the kids in bed and Tim at church choir practice. Aaaaah!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
An oldie but still one of the best
Short diversion from homeschool stuff today :) I just LOVE this Pet Shop Boys track that I recently rediscovered - it came out in 1993 (oh my bloody god, seems soooo long ago now!) The video is just the usual Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe feast of strangeness, but I think one of the really noticeable things about it are the strong lyrics - the first verse just kind of grabs you :) Bet we've all had nights like this at some point ..... ;)
Another night, with open eyes
Too late to sleep, too soon to rise.
You're short of breath
Is it a heart attack?
Hot and feverish, you face the facts
You're in love.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
CVC flashcards
Still feeling a bit out-of-sorts from the overdose of sun yesterday so had an at-home day and made some flashcards for April - these are simple, 3 letter c-v-c words. I cut mine out and mounted them on pink card but you could just cut them out leaving the question and answer sides intact and then fold them over so the answer is on the back.
Here's the file:
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Lulworth Castle
Went to Lulworth Castle today for the Medieval jousting. Great fun (loved the jousting) but can't blog much because I had too much sun and feel a bit yuk :( Pictures and vid mostly (listen out for me laughing my head off when the "bad knight" chases another knight and pokes his bum with his lance - really funny.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Hands on maths stuff
Good job we went to the gardens yesterday - today it has been drizzling all day!
I decided we needed some more Cuisenaire rods today (how come is it that no matter how many you have it's NEVER enough?!), so, I made some :) These are exactly the same size - albeit flat - and (more or less!) the same colour as the proper ones.
While I was at it, I made some base 10 blocks as well - units through to 1000 cube:
Then I thought they might be useful for someone else so I'm posting the files here :) Will put them on the materials page when I get round to it ......
Anyway, just a note - the 10 rods and units in the base 10 set are slightly larger than the squares on the 100 flat and 1000 cube. This is because if I'd made them the same size they would have been sooo fiddly. I made mine different colours (because I'm like that!) but all one colour is ok. Also, I laminated the 100, 10 and 1's for durability but, again, it's not essential. For the 1000 cube, score along the folding lines as it makes it easier to fold.
The Cuisenaire rods benefit from being laminated too but, at the very least, print them on white cardstock and they'll last longer than paper.
Here you go ....
Hope they're useful to someone :)
Finally, if you've got a dinosaur nut in your house (haven't we all?), hop along to Currclick as their weekly freebie is a dino lapbook pack from Live N Learn!
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Compton Acres
We finally went! The weather was absolutely perfect today and we had the MOST gorgeous walk around these lovely, tranquil gardens - I could have quite happily stayed there forever :) There is such a lovely variety from pristine Italian gardens to wild, woody walks. We "did" most of it and then stopped for tea at a cafe at the top (with a lovely view out over Brownsea Island) and then finished up with the heather gardens and (my favourite!) the Japanese garden - got some lovely photos of the tea house and some statues for the kids lapbooks!
Anyway, here are some pictures and a short video - oh and look out for the very jolly country dancing that was going on (not that you can miss it - it's right at the start!) Also, try and ignore the rather dippy picture with me in it - only included it because Rosie looks quite cute! My hair does not look good all pulled back but it was very hot!
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Kokeshi dolls
We made Kokeshi dolls today - they turned out really cute!
April's doll is in the middle - Rosie's doll is the one in yellow and mine is the one in orange :)
I took photos of them individually so that the kids could put pictures in their lapbooks because we obviously couldn't put the whole dolls in there!
The weather is still looking ok for tomorrow so we should be off to Compton Acres after lunch (I've got everything crossed!) The whole place is gorgeous but they have a lovely Japanese garden complete with Tea House which will just be sooo appropriate considering what we're studying at the moment. Oh, and they've got a kids climbing play area too which is about the only thing that persuaded April and Rosie it was worth going! They moaned when they were first told they were going to "walk round some gardens" but I had to remind them that this was supposed to be my treat .... and make them feel better with the play area!
Friday, August 07, 2009
Playdough
Another post - I'm on a roll today 
I made playdough for April last night and thought I'd share the recipe because it's really, really gorgeous - so much better than the stinking shop brought variety.
To make a fairly big lump of dough you will need:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- mix all these dry ingredients together in a saucepan.
In a jug combine:
1 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon food colouring
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Gradually add this to the dry mix until you have a smooth liquid.
- Cook over a low heat, stirring continuously. It will appear to not be doing anything for a while and then suddenly it will start to lump together. Take it off the heat as soon as it comes away from the sides and continue stirring into a ball. Leave to cool for a bit (until you can handle it) and then knead unto a smooth lump. Store in the fridge in a plastic ziploc type bag (make sure you squeeze the air out) and bring out to warm a little before using. It should store well for WEEKS before you need to chuck it and make a fresh batch.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Yesterday and today
A few things the kids have done the last couple of days - photo heavy!
This obviously isn't the kids! Just wanted to show I've added a couple of sets of 3 part cards of Japanese musical intruments and Japanese animals. April loves these :)
Indeed, here she is! She matched up the pictures, as she usually does, but was obviously feeling clever today because she went on to carefully study the words and match them to. She can't read yet - she just studies the letters and finds the ones that are the same.
We're using MEP for maths but still throw in a few Montessori materials for variety :) Here's April with the red/blue rods.
... and doing the first lesson in her MEP book
In accordance with the MEP year 7 book, Rosie has been reviewing place value and rounding whole numbers. I did some stuff with her on the board first (well, copymasters stuck to the board!) and then she did some on her own. The Montessori decimal board actually comes in pretty handy for helping with this because it contains the whole and decimal numbers. We'll be using this for a while because the next topic is decimals!
I do use the decimal board slightly differently and have simple number cards rather than the different coloured squares that are normally with the board. Rosie gets MASSIVELY frustrated counting out the coloured squares (can't say I blame her, it would do my nut too!)
April sorting initial sound objects. The letters are the same as the ones covered in the first Jolly Phonics book.
Rosie working on vocabulary for her ecosystems lapbook.
Obviously, we've only just started the lapbooks, but here are the covers ... April's first (bit heavy-handed with the glue stick there!)
.... and Rosie's :)
Finally, April used watercolour pencils for the first time today and very much liked them! Here's her growling tiger.
That's all for now folks. Weather still looking ok ...ish for Sunday so fingers crossed for Compton Acres!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Ready!
It's been a nice few days here while Tim's been off (he's back to work tomorrow) - a pleasant mix of shopping, walks, play, chocolate (yuuuum!) and ..... tidying :) One of our (many) purchases this week was a new shelf for all the kids books - well, as many as possible, some of the bigger ones are still on another shelf elsewhere. I also used the very top shelf as a display area for a project we are going to do in homeschool - a sort of cultural round-the-world tour - starting in Japan! The whole room is looking beautifully tidy at the moment after our sort out .... here we go...
This is the area where April's little table is (Rosie works at the big table round the corner). We've got the new shelf, books and April's small shelf with tapes, basket of toys etc. She has got more toys than this, by the way, they're in her room!
The display area I mentioned above - lots of Japanese "bits" including artwork, fake blossom (wrong time of the year for this so we've got real twigs with tissue paper blossom!), origami, paper fan. Those funny little bead head figures at the front are going to be Kokeshi dolls when we've painted them. Took me aaages to work out the easiest way to make some - this is just a wooden bead glued on to a semi-circle piece of card as the body. We made, what will be, the hairbuns out of a bean glued on top the head!
Round the corner - I set up a general art area (we keep paints in a cupboard). This has got trays of felt tips, pencils, crayons, scissors, glue etc. On the bottom shelf are trays of scrapbooking paper, lapbook blanks and mini books I made because both kids LOVE making their own booklets on various topics.
They have been diving into their workboxes at regular intervals so we've decided to crack open (so to speak!) the new books and materials tomorrow and do some stuff. For those non-home educators who might be reading this - please don't think I'm a slave-driver who isn't giving my kids a "proper" summer holiday! They WANT to do it and they still get VAST amounts more spare, free time than the average school-going child EVERY day, ALL year - we'll take a week off here and there "just because" and they finish their "lessons" pretty early in the day.
I still guarantee they learn more, more quickly than a child at school
AND they enjoy their work 
Finally, on a different note, it looks like we may be off to Compton Acres on Sunday AT LAST!! I can hardly believe it!
Monday, August 03, 2009
Woohoo!
It got sunny today! How exciting is that?!
Went to Staples this morning and brought a usb cable so that we could connect our new printer (it didn't come with one and then one we already had didn't fit!) Whilst there, I had a look at staplers. Now, I wanted a long-arm stapler so that we could use it to make little books (instead of me having to actually sew the pages together which takes AGES). I completely failed in my mission though because they were over £20 and, much as I want one, I'd feel guilty about spending that much on a stapler :(
Anyway, came home for lunch and then, on impulse, decided to go to Avon Heath as it was such a beautiful afternoon. Lots of other people had the same idea as the place was pretty packed! The kids played on the climbing stuff for a while and then we went for a walk through the woods before heading back to play in the visitor centre for a bit. Lovely afternoon - gorgeous to feel the sun on my skin!
Oh, and this morning I wacked my little toe on April's scooter (serves me right for going outside with no shoes on) and TOTALLY ripped my toenail back to the base. I'm trying not to think about it. *Feels sick*
Monday, August 03, 2009
2 New Links
.... in sidebar! Dorset Home Ed Park Days - go on, join! :) Also Home Ed Group Forums - don't know who set this up but it's well worth joining (free) to find out what's going on near you. Lot's of stuff on there that I didn't know existed!
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Buyin' stuff
Dragged Tim out this afternoon to "Big Tesco" to buy some homeschool stuff (bet he was excited!) So, got there and picked up files, notebooks, crayons, watercolour paper AND a fab magnetic Europe map with flags and country/capital names to use with it for the very small price of £4.00! I have to confess it was VERY Montessori which means I haven't quite gotten over my Montessori obssession *laughs*. Here it is with April having a little play:
Anyway, we also spotted an updated version of our scanner/printer for half price! Oooo! tempting ... shall we/shan't we ..... Well, feeling saucy, we decided we would - whoosh! into the trolly it went :)
Then we got the hell out of there before we spent any more money *laughs*.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Rain, rain go away!
Oh my god .... so fed up with the rain! Do you know, I STILL haven't got to Compton Acres for my little birthday treat?! What with the weather and Tim working for like, EVER, it's just not happened.
Talking of Tim, he finished his mammoth work stint today (got 4 days off now). I cannot believe the length of some of the days he's worked recently and it's been sooo long - he did 3 days, took a day off and then did 6 days straight. He also had one day where they sent him out on a second delivery that was just ridiculously huge (stupidly so) and he said he actually came very close to refusing to do it! He did, in fact, get very angry about the whole thing - another guy there said "it must be bad if even Tim is getting angry" - Tim just doesn't really "do" angry.
Anyway, he finished work today and was asked if he wanted to come in for extra days next week (before his usual Thursday start). I think he's perfectly happy to help out whenever they want BUT after the last week, I think some time off is in order first!
I did my house cleaning ... apart from one day where I just felt so "blue" and fed up that I couldn't motivate myself. Done lots of clearing out and we're pretty much ready to start homeschool again - well, pretty much - still got a new shelf unit to buy (waaay too many books!) and some art stuff from Hobbycraft.
After a bit of rearranging and rethinks I've got the kids curriculum sorted for this year. Here's what we're using (with links in case you're interested):
April
Jolly Phonics workbooks plus some other stuff I'm making for her (worksheets, games etc)
MEP Year 1 book A (going to do book B next year) - she's a clever little monkey and reception level stuff is too stupidly easy for her BUT Book B of the MEP year 1 is a bit TOO much for this coming year.
Science - Lots of nature study, lapbooks on various topics (mostly nature/science type stuff - Autumn, down on the farm, the ocean etc). We get most of our lapbook packs here.
Art/crafts - obviously! Here is an excellent site for getting art lessons for all ages.
Rosie
Grammar - McGraw Hill Grade 6 (equivalent to our Year 7) book - free download from here.
Spelling & Dictation - Splashes from the River Homeschool Spelling course - free online. This is the last year we're doing spelling lessons as she doesn't really need them any more so this is really just for closure (I guess!)
Literature Study - Excellent, free, literature units for LOADS of books here. These really are brilliant and contain vocabulary exercises, comprehension and other activities to go with the books. We're hoping to cover, at least, the following this year (only because we've got the books already!): Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone (for some reason they've called it The Sorcerer's Stone) and The Spiderwick Chronicles Book 1.
MEP Year 7 - I do love MEP maths! I wish we'd started this sooner with Rosie (but at least April will get the full benefit).
History - This year we're doing the Tudors/Renaissance. Good stuff available here, here, here, and here.
Art/crafts - as before
Science - We're going to work through her chemistry set book of experiments (and probably totally blow the house up in the process), carry on with nature study and do lapbooks on various science topics. Again, we get our lapbook packs from Hands of a Child and the first one we're doing is ecosystems.
Computer stuff - problem I have is keeping her off the thing! A few of our favourites (for subjects and fun) are:
Well, that's about it. Off now for dinner :)
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