Guitar practice - both acoustic and electric. I am wanting to devise a guitar practice reward scheme. Often when she and M do practice together they have a really good session and can be playing for an hour. However, she does not like practicing on her own so much and really she does need to Mon-Fri when M is working. I think incentives may be the way forward. Am pondering financial reward linked to number of repetitions accumulated over a week. This will be very much in her control and I will point out that she will be perfectly able to cheat herself and tell me that she's done more than she has but all she will be doing is cheating herself. She may be financially better off but the goal is to improve the guitar playing through regular practice, not "earn" money, which quite frankly she gets for nothing anyway through M emptying his pockets of change every night. Any ideas welcomed as rewarding this way doesn't sit brilliantly with me but am trying to find a way to make the solitary practices more appealing.
Chloe planted her potatoes for schools spuds. The bags provided are much bigger this year. I have subsequently recycled the potato weather chart as the day was both rainy and sunny and so not easily categorised into one place. Then we (this was just M and I having this discussion!)decided we just couldn't be bothered.
Chloe and Marcus played French shopping game several times, M did work (employer work not DIY work!), they both played a sports day game, M set up another blog for me (we are moving the blog to our own site for password enabling reasons) and I scrubbed several blackened pans and tins.
C had a bath!!!! Whilst in there she read another Heartlands book and I then washed, conditioned and french plaited her hair.
We all went out for a family dinner (sans Shereen - wish she would be included in with the "children" more generally) at Dad's. Home at 11pm. C fell asleep in the car. Always makes bedtime a little trickier.
Showing posts with label languages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label languages. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Monday
Swimming first thing followed by history - starting the Romans today so she was happy. She loves the Romans :-).
Tennis was cancelled as her coach is in Rome doing the marathon. She didn't want to go out to Club Night. So she made a little fabric horse and stuffed it;
We then played a French game a few times before we decided we were both tired so slumped in front of the television to watch a programme about rats. The four legged variety.
I'd decided too long a break from guitar has been had so have booked a lesson for next week to galvanise practice. She did consequently do some.
Tuesday
She got a Bond Maths paper finished and did guitar practice. Not altogether happily :-(. Too long between practices so it's frustrating.
Then the day improved immeasurably as we visited Merry for the day. I oohed and aahed over lots of fabulous Djeco stuff, drank tea and chatted all day long. Children did their usual disappearing act. Some lovely Djeco mosaic type craft kits were employed - made me laugh when I went in at one point to see they'd turned the art into a production line with each child doing a different colour square. Appealed to my desire of ensuring time is used to maximum efficiency :-).
They then spent all afternoon playing some convoluted game in the sunshine. C never wants to leave, so it is much easier that they have to leave the house to get to their evening things.
Wednesday
Latinetc. Chloe didn't want to do French so she read a book and then was floating in that irritating way until I told her to get her needlework out as I think the sampler work should be used as a filler activity rather than the loitering she was doing. Or she could be using the time to reinforce music theory as we'll attempt grade two next term (whether she's passed grade one or not).
Science was excellent. Helen had brought some rather fancy flowers for putting in dyed water. I usually use celery as cheaper and Katy said she normally uses daffodils for the same fiscal reason so these were very pretty :-). After observing the white flowers turning pink or green as the morning progressed, Helen then put segments of the stems on the microscope to look at the stained cell structure.
The Beans had been growing a bean maze that they brought along to show us, demonstrating how the plant will twist and turn to access the sunlight only entering the box through a small hole in the top. We will recreate that.
Also in science the children finished bacteriology, looking at the bacteria growth or mould in their petri dishes (those which had had nitrofurantoin on them had grown bacteria. those with amoxycillin had grown a mould - discussed again antibiotics and effectiveness on different bugs), and then each child made their own slide from what they'd grown (bacteria slides easily off the agar whereas the mould was more difficult as it grows into the agar)to look at in detail under the microscope.
Chloe and I then got home and had 20 minutes for a quick pick up and vacuum before Rachel arrived to give us our first Yoga session. Was good. Have booked a series of 6. Am hoping for C's posture to improve - it was when looking at Rachel's daughter at maypole dancing that I noticed how lovely her posture was compared to the other children. I can only put it down to having done lots of yoga with her mum.
We then headed down to attend an IoP Faraday lecture;
"The lecture on the life and work of Michael Faraday will be given by Frank James.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) is one of the major scientific figures of all time. His discoveries, made in the basement of the Royal Institution, of electro-magnetic rotations and induction laid the foundations for electrical engineering. His discoveries of the magneto-optical effect and diamagnetism paved the way for his enunciation of the field theory of electro-magnetism which became and remains one of the cornerstones of modern physics.
But Faraday was also heavily involved with the practical application of science and in communicating science to a wide audience.
This illustrated talk, with a couple of demonstrations of his key discoveries, will examine all these aspects of Faraday's life and how they relate to each other.
Frank James is Professor of the History of Science at the Royal Institution and editor of the Correspondence of Michael Faraday."
Was very good, we all enjoyed it. Nice to see lots of home edders there. C then spent ages talking with the chap from a local astronomers club.
Thursday
Ruby arrived nice and early as she and Beccy were brought in by someone who lives on their slip that has a daughter at our village school. The girls played with the musical bells set, then did a piggy line up, uploaded photos and started printing them out. During the printing process, a mum who is newly HEing her 8yo son arrived for coffee. C took the opportunity to ask to make polymers so the borax was got out again and all three children were very happily occupied. They stayed for lunch too and I was given more school horror stories for my collection, this featuring a school that I have not heard bad things about before, so a bit of a surprise there. She is also taking her 13yo out at Easter from his school (for completely different reasons). Was very interesting chatting to her. I have a project for her 13yo that I hope he wants to drive and run with. It's a make your own film box that M wanted to do but quite frankly he just hasn't got the time and the box has been sat in the dining room for over two years, so if the 13yo is keen, I think it will be a good project all round. To mollify M I have said he will be needed as camera assistant and tech support, so he still will have involvement in the bits he wanted to do the most.
After they left, C&R continued to play with their silly putty, cutting it into shapes, pressing it through kitchen tools. They also did some of a Makit and Bakit Jewelry set. I followed instructions but the pieces did not melt and turn glass like as in the picture, I upped the temperature a little and kept putting them back in, eventually I ignored the instructions and shoved the tins in the roasting oven where the beads melted to perfection.
Took R to Spanish, then C&I went to Morrisons where things were more expensive than Waitrose. I was buying Taut glucose drinks that Waitrose were selling for 99p and Morrisons sell for £1.11!!! Don't anyone tell me Morrisons is much cheaper now!
We then went to Lidl as the man from the astronomy club C spent so long talking to the night before had said a large number of people in his club had bought the £15 binoculars from Lidl for star gazing as they were excellent magnification for an excellent price. Sadly however there were no binoculars in stock - they are onto garden related items and motorcycle gear.
This short shopping trip took far longer than it should have so we got home driving through rush hour traffic and were very tired when getting in. C immediately started watching one of the two DVDs she'd bought Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories by Disney. She laughed a lot. It's lovely hearing her belly laugh :-).
Swimming first thing followed by history - starting the Romans today so she was happy. She loves the Romans :-).
Tennis was cancelled as her coach is in Rome doing the marathon. She didn't want to go out to Club Night. So she made a little fabric horse and stuffed it;
We then played a French game a few times before we decided we were both tired so slumped in front of the television to watch a programme about rats. The four legged variety.
I'd decided too long a break from guitar has been had so have booked a lesson for next week to galvanise practice. She did consequently do some.
Tuesday
She got a Bond Maths paper finished and did guitar practice. Not altogether happily :-(. Too long between practices so it's frustrating.
Then the day improved immeasurably as we visited Merry for the day. I oohed and aahed over lots of fabulous Djeco stuff, drank tea and chatted all day long. Children did their usual disappearing act. Some lovely Djeco mosaic type craft kits were employed - made me laugh when I went in at one point to see they'd turned the art into a production line with each child doing a different colour square. Appealed to my desire of ensuring time is used to maximum efficiency :-).
They then spent all afternoon playing some convoluted game in the sunshine. C never wants to leave, so it is much easier that they have to leave the house to get to their evening things.
Wednesday
Latinetc. Chloe didn't want to do French so she read a book and then was floating in that irritating way until I told her to get her needlework out as I think the sampler work should be used as a filler activity rather than the loitering she was doing. Or she could be using the time to reinforce music theory as we'll attempt grade two next term (whether she's passed grade one or not).
Science was excellent. Helen had brought some rather fancy flowers for putting in dyed water. I usually use celery as cheaper and Katy said she normally uses daffodils for the same fiscal reason so these were very pretty :-). After observing the white flowers turning pink or green as the morning progressed, Helen then put segments of the stems on the microscope to look at the stained cell structure.
The Beans had been growing a bean maze that they brought along to show us, demonstrating how the plant will twist and turn to access the sunlight only entering the box through a small hole in the top. We will recreate that.
Also in science the children finished bacteriology, looking at the bacteria growth or mould in their petri dishes (those which had had nitrofurantoin on them had grown bacteria. those with amoxycillin had grown a mould - discussed again antibiotics and effectiveness on different bugs), and then each child made their own slide from what they'd grown (bacteria slides easily off the agar whereas the mould was more difficult as it grows into the agar)to look at in detail under the microscope.
Chloe and I then got home and had 20 minutes for a quick pick up and vacuum before Rachel arrived to give us our first Yoga session. Was good. Have booked a series of 6. Am hoping for C's posture to improve - it was when looking at Rachel's daughter at maypole dancing that I noticed how lovely her posture was compared to the other children. I can only put it down to having done lots of yoga with her mum.
We then headed down to attend an IoP Faraday lecture;
"The lecture on the life and work of Michael Faraday will be given by Frank James.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) is one of the major scientific figures of all time. His discoveries, made in the basement of the Royal Institution, of electro-magnetic rotations and induction laid the foundations for electrical engineering. His discoveries of the magneto-optical effect and diamagnetism paved the way for his enunciation of the field theory of electro-magnetism which became and remains one of the cornerstones of modern physics.
But Faraday was also heavily involved with the practical application of science and in communicating science to a wide audience.
This illustrated talk, with a couple of demonstrations of his key discoveries, will examine all these aspects of Faraday's life and how they relate to each other.
Frank James is Professor of the History of Science at the Royal Institution and editor of the Correspondence of Michael Faraday."
Was very good, we all enjoyed it. Nice to see lots of home edders there. C then spent ages talking with the chap from a local astronomers club.
Thursday
Ruby arrived nice and early as she and Beccy were brought in by someone who lives on their slip that has a daughter at our village school. The girls played with the musical bells set, then did a piggy line up, uploaded photos and started printing them out. During the printing process, a mum who is newly HEing her 8yo son arrived for coffee. C took the opportunity to ask to make polymers so the borax was got out again and all three children were very happily occupied. They stayed for lunch too and I was given more school horror stories for my collection, this featuring a school that I have not heard bad things about before, so a bit of a surprise there. She is also taking her 13yo out at Easter from his school (for completely different reasons). Was very interesting chatting to her. I have a project for her 13yo that I hope he wants to drive and run with. It's a make your own film box that M wanted to do but quite frankly he just hasn't got the time and the box has been sat in the dining room for over two years, so if the 13yo is keen, I think it will be a good project all round. To mollify M I have said he will be needed as camera assistant and tech support, so he still will have involvement in the bits he wanted to do the most.
After they left, C&R continued to play with their silly putty, cutting it into shapes, pressing it through kitchen tools. They also did some of a Makit and Bakit Jewelry set. I followed instructions but the pieces did not melt and turn glass like as in the picture, I upped the temperature a little and kept putting them back in, eventually I ignored the instructions and shoved the tins in the roasting oven where the beads melted to perfection.
Took R to Spanish, then C&I went to Morrisons where things were more expensive than Waitrose. I was buying Taut glucose drinks that Waitrose were selling for 99p and Morrisons sell for £1.11!!! Don't anyone tell me Morrisons is much cheaper now!
We then went to Lidl as the man from the astronomy club C spent so long talking to the night before had said a large number of people in his club had bought the £15 binoculars from Lidl for star gazing as they were excellent magnification for an excellent price. Sadly however there were no binoculars in stock - they are onto garden related items and motorcycle gear.
This short shopping trip took far longer than it should have so we got home driving through rush hour traffic and were very tired when getting in. C immediately started watching one of the two DVDs she'd bought Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories by Disney. She laughed a lot. It's lovely hearing her belly laugh :-).
Friday, 12 March 2010
The bits I can remember or can see from diary that we did them!
Monday
Clo had history in the morning. We had been told it would be Romans but instead it was American Indians. It was also a rather noisy session and although I'm sure it wasn't chaotic - she felt it was out of control and she didn't like it. Then her tennis coach failed to show for her 1:1 as he'd put it into the wrong date. She didn't want to do Club Night.
So we came home earlier than usual and decided to use the time to watch the excellent "Empire of the Sun" programme, part of the "Wonders of the Solar System" series presented by Prof Brian Cox that we'd recorded the previous night.
Tuesday
Took C and Megan for a long promised trip to a pottery painting studio. I'd promised this 6 months ago when Meg couldn't attend C's swimming party due to breaking her arm. Finally fulfilled this promise :-). Was good although getting to the school to pick her up - AND NOT BE LATE - was particularly stressful. We ended up running for the last bit then she was one of the last out anyway.
Wednesday
Latinetc. Went well. More bacteria growing stuff in science, C joined the French class as there wasn't anywhere else to go as J&M are not here and SB was having an extra recorder session as she had an exam that afternoon. Usually, C would have been doing music in that group of four. C did say she enjoyed doing the French so she wasn't unhappy about it.
C and I then met my Dad to enjoy a 10 mile bike ride.
I hired a bike so I was driven to pedal hard by the desire not to end up having to pay extra because of exceeding the agreed 2 hour rental period.
Did the distance in plenty of time - I think 1 hr 45mins. Was good.
Cafe was shut for refurbishment. Not good.
Dad came back to our house and we had tea and hot cross buns at home instead. Was very good. :-).
Thursday
Italian - not much washing up for me to do this week. They took a gas camping heater we'd bought so we could camp non hookup in colder weather and didn't like, deciding electric heaters far less scary than anything gas related. So we'd never used it. So no charge for the lesson.
Stitch and Sew. Turned out unexpectedly to be the last session. The ladies who run it have been noticeably less enthusiastic in recent terms and think they just didn't want to spend their time doing our session any more but didn't have the courtesy to just say so, making excuse after excuse. We used to get print outs of dates and plans for the term and what the girls would be making but that all dropped off after a while and we'd received no communication, not even being told until the day before this term started that the session would be running. It's always been a bit odd as they want 6 children - having 3 attending, but they (the ladies who run the session) don't both need to be there and indeed, regularly only one turns up. They don't have to pay to use the rooms so are saving on costs there and taking £18 for the three children. They said it wasn't viable. I dunno £18 for an hour and 15 minutes ain't bad. So think there's some other reason. They gave B lots of excuses about it not fitting in with school (we could bring it earlier so they come straight after school drop off), not enough children (yet they refused to accept some who would have come as they didn't want them there) and essentially I think they see other avenues more interesting to pursue, not wanting to run the group for HE any more. They owed both B and myself money but said they'd send a cheque rather than having the money ready to return there and then. Would have been more professional to have been able to provide that at the time.
B asked them to explain to the girls as otherwise they would have just left without even saying goodbye - even ruder.
Then I received an email (as I hadn't been there for pick up) which annoyed me so much I decided not to respond as if you can't say anything nice then you shouldn't say anything at all. (blogging it here to the world instead ;-) - not that many people read here anyway).
To crown it, the cheque (when it arrived 2 days later) was accompanied by a "with our complements from X and Y" (sic) compliments slip. So I really can't respond as I would feel obliged to point that out too. I know typos get through here a lot but this is written quickly and difficult/time consuming to edit so I don't worry about it. It is not a professional piece of communication.
Just annoyed by lack of honesty and mixed messages. X sent an email saying they would expect C, R and new girl at start of term. Then at the first session they said "oh we weren't expecting you" to new girl and her mum.
However, has to be said - I think it is the activity that has always given the poorest return on investment, so I'm not sorry it's stopped, just think the situation could have been handled a lot better.
C was with B&R all afternoon, collecting her at R's Spanish time. C and I then bought a mirror to go in the back of the wardrobe. This will bounce some light around to make it easier to see in there as M couldn't be bothered to run lighting into it when he rewired the room. It will also prove to be a useful full length mirror. Once it gets put up . . .
C got very upset at my suggestion of watching Lambing Live slightly delayed by 20 minutes to enable her to eat our still not near being ready to serve out dinner with us before watching. "But then it wouldn't be Lambing Live!" went the wail. So she had a microwaved up pot of leftovers as that was quicker, managing to eat that before the 8pm start of the programme.
She's really enjoyed seeing that series, watching every episode live. (Handily enabling her to maintain her late bedtime choice).
Friday
Lazy morning. Lunch all together as for once we are all working from home (nice). C had tennis with Alex and then tried club night again as A had said he'd spoken to the people who run the club night sessions to try and stop the bullying. This made me nervous as I think intervention can make things worse. In the end club night only had children she likes in it so there were no issues anyway.
To T's then took girls to Badgers. I didn't have to collect :-).
Maths - she's done a couple of Bond papers this week. I do want to try getting into a little bit more regular practice on doing maths as we've let it slip again - as we have also with the guitar practice. Once the Science Festival is out of the way I think we'll do some reviewing of how to get to where we want to be.
Clo had history in the morning. We had been told it would be Romans but instead it was American Indians. It was also a rather noisy session and although I'm sure it wasn't chaotic - she felt it was out of control and she didn't like it. Then her tennis coach failed to show for her 1:1 as he'd put it into the wrong date. She didn't want to do Club Night.
So we came home earlier than usual and decided to use the time to watch the excellent "Empire of the Sun" programme, part of the "Wonders of the Solar System" series presented by Prof Brian Cox that we'd recorded the previous night.
Tuesday
Took C and Megan for a long promised trip to a pottery painting studio. I'd promised this 6 months ago when Meg couldn't attend C's swimming party due to breaking her arm. Finally fulfilled this promise :-). Was good although getting to the school to pick her up - AND NOT BE LATE - was particularly stressful. We ended up running for the last bit then she was one of the last out anyway.
Wednesday
Latinetc. Went well. More bacteria growing stuff in science, C joined the French class as there wasn't anywhere else to go as J&M are not here and SB was having an extra recorder session as she had an exam that afternoon. Usually, C would have been doing music in that group of four. C did say she enjoyed doing the French so she wasn't unhappy about it.
C and I then met my Dad to enjoy a 10 mile bike ride.
I hired a bike so I was driven to pedal hard by the desire not to end up having to pay extra because of exceeding the agreed 2 hour rental period.
Did the distance in plenty of time - I think 1 hr 45mins. Was good.
Cafe was shut for refurbishment. Not good.
Dad came back to our house and we had tea and hot cross buns at home instead. Was very good. :-).
Thursday
Italian - not much washing up for me to do this week. They took a gas camping heater we'd bought so we could camp non hookup in colder weather and didn't like, deciding electric heaters far less scary than anything gas related. So we'd never used it. So no charge for the lesson.
Stitch and Sew. Turned out unexpectedly to be the last session. The ladies who run it have been noticeably less enthusiastic in recent terms and think they just didn't want to spend their time doing our session any more but didn't have the courtesy to just say so, making excuse after excuse. We used to get print outs of dates and plans for the term and what the girls would be making but that all dropped off after a while and we'd received no communication, not even being told until the day before this term started that the session would be running. It's always been a bit odd as they want 6 children - having 3 attending, but they (the ladies who run the session) don't both need to be there and indeed, regularly only one turns up. They don't have to pay to use the rooms so are saving on costs there and taking £18 for the three children. They said it wasn't viable. I dunno £18 for an hour and 15 minutes ain't bad. So think there's some other reason. They gave B lots of excuses about it not fitting in with school (we could bring it earlier so they come straight after school drop off), not enough children (yet they refused to accept some who would have come as they didn't want them there) and essentially I think they see other avenues more interesting to pursue, not wanting to run the group for HE any more. They owed both B and myself money but said they'd send a cheque rather than having the money ready to return there and then. Would have been more professional to have been able to provide that at the time.
B asked them to explain to the girls as otherwise they would have just left without even saying goodbye - even ruder.
Then I received an email (as I hadn't been there for pick up) which annoyed me so much I decided not to respond as if you can't say anything nice then you shouldn't say anything at all. (blogging it here to the world instead ;-) - not that many people read here anyway).
To crown it, the cheque (when it arrived 2 days later) was accompanied by a "with our complements from X and Y" (sic) compliments slip. So I really can't respond as I would feel obliged to point that out too. I know typos get through here a lot but this is written quickly and difficult/time consuming to edit so I don't worry about it. It is not a professional piece of communication.
Just annoyed by lack of honesty and mixed messages. X sent an email saying they would expect C, R and new girl at start of term. Then at the first session they said "oh we weren't expecting you" to new girl and her mum.
However, has to be said - I think it is the activity that has always given the poorest return on investment, so I'm not sorry it's stopped, just think the situation could have been handled a lot better.
C was with B&R all afternoon, collecting her at R's Spanish time. C and I then bought a mirror to go in the back of the wardrobe. This will bounce some light around to make it easier to see in there as M couldn't be bothered to run lighting into it when he rewired the room. It will also prove to be a useful full length mirror. Once it gets put up . . .
C got very upset at my suggestion of watching Lambing Live slightly delayed by 20 minutes to enable her to eat our still not near being ready to serve out dinner with us before watching. "But then it wouldn't be Lambing Live!" went the wail. So she had a microwaved up pot of leftovers as that was quicker, managing to eat that before the 8pm start of the programme.
She's really enjoyed seeing that series, watching every episode live. (Handily enabling her to maintain her late bedtime choice).
Friday
Lazy morning. Lunch all together as for once we are all working from home (nice). C had tennis with Alex and then tried club night again as A had said he'd spoken to the people who run the club night sessions to try and stop the bullying. This made me nervous as I think intervention can make things worse. In the end club night only had children she likes in it so there were no issues anyway.
To T's then took girls to Badgers. I didn't have to collect :-).
Maths - she's done a couple of Bond papers this week. I do want to try getting into a little bit more regular practice on doing maths as we've let it slip again - as we have also with the guitar practice. Once the Science Festival is out of the way I think we'll do some reviewing of how to get to where we want to be.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Putty in your Hands
Italian first - I'm still doing washing up (their dishwasher broke) in exchange for the Italian lessons. Still don't think it's equitable but she's insistent and I'm very grateful. I'll buy her a coffee sometime :-).
Stitch and Sew was good. We have a new child starting who has been HE-d since Jan. Unfortunately we have lost one of the original girls who has re-started school this term, though it seems to have been a bit of a sudden decision so I have a feeling she'll be out again. And yes, the new girl is another 9yo only child. Must be something in the water around here. Need more children who want to learn to sew!
New girl and her mum came back to mine for lunch - we had Ruby today and all 3 girls had fun with pva glue, hot water, food colouring and glitter. With the addition of recently banned household cleaner Borax. As acquired in bulk by another Home Edder and split ten ways :-).
We reviewed what we remembered from Mad Science where the children had been in lines and then holding hands to become a polymer and less fluid.
New girl and her mum had to leave and Chloe and Ruby did nothing but play with their putty until it was time to get C to Chatterbooks and R to Spanish.
C was only able to enjoy half her Chatterbooks session as she was having her Grade 1 Music Theory exam at 5pm. The exam is taken at a large imposing brick Victorian school building perched on the top of a hill. I've not been there before and as we walked up to the front door we felt as if we were shrinking! C held my hand very tight, we found toilets and she then settled in - she was the only one doing Grade 1 and she was looked after okay. She says her bottom lip was trembling all the way through and the lady kept asking her if she was okay - she was but she couldn't stop her lip trembling!
She came out after 40 minutes when they said you could leave if you were finished (though an hour and a half is allowed), she felt even littler afterwards and needed cuddles. She won't commit to whether she enjoyed the experience or not - I'm guessing she's holding back on making an opinion until she knows whether she's passed or not. A 6 week wait for results.
Stitch and Sew was good. We have a new child starting who has been HE-d since Jan. Unfortunately we have lost one of the original girls who has re-started school this term, though it seems to have been a bit of a sudden decision so I have a feeling she'll be out again. And yes, the new girl is another 9yo only child. Must be something in the water around here. Need more children who want to learn to sew!
New girl and her mum came back to mine for lunch - we had Ruby today and all 3 girls had fun with pva glue, hot water, food colouring and glitter. With the addition of recently banned household cleaner Borax. As acquired in bulk by another Home Edder and split ten ways :-).
We reviewed what we remembered from Mad Science where the children had been in lines and then holding hands to become a polymer and less fluid.
New girl and her mum had to leave and Chloe and Ruby did nothing but play with their putty until it was time to get C to Chatterbooks and R to Spanish.
C was only able to enjoy half her Chatterbooks session as she was having her Grade 1 Music Theory exam at 5pm. The exam is taken at a large imposing brick Victorian school building perched on the top of a hill. I've not been there before and as we walked up to the front door we felt as if we were shrinking! C held my hand very tight, we found toilets and she then settled in - she was the only one doing Grade 1 and she was looked after okay. She says her bottom lip was trembling all the way through and the lady kept asking her if she was okay - she was but she couldn't stop her lip trembling!
She came out after 40 minutes when they said you could leave if you were finished (though an hour and a half is allowed), she felt even littler afterwards and needed cuddles. She won't commit to whether she enjoyed the experience or not - I'm guessing she's holding back on making an opinion until she knows whether she's passed or not. A 6 week wait for results.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Sound Waves
Italian - they talked more on sound and redid the metal coat hanger suspended by string, the two ends of which are in your ear. Hit with different objects (they used metal teaspoon and a pencil), C noted sound differences.
We then spoke about high-frequency radio wave technology in surgery as this was a technique our doctors surgery used on a mole on M's neck last year. (the link has photos as you scroll down so be warned!). A few days previously, C had asked M what radio channel the doctor had used, wondering if it was radio 2. M said "Yes, I think so" (standard fatherly response when he a) wasn't really listening to understand the question properly or b)doesn't really know the answer himself), so I re clarified to M what she was asking, to find that although a) had been the reason for his response, b) also then came into play. Google hasn't really helped - I need a child (and parents of the child) friendly explanation of sound / radio waves really. Think there's a book or few around her somewhere . . .
Stitch and Sew. C then went home with Beccy afterwards so I had time at home. Not sure what I did with it!
I do remember trying to renew library books online and finding out the library server was down. So I ended up driving into town to the library as I couldn't remember when the books were due back and I was fretting about fines. Collected M's work coat from the dry cleaners as he needed it back ideally for Friday when he wanted to look a bit smarter.
Rang Jol for a long chat.
Collected C, took R to Spanish and then C and I hit the supermarket. By now it was after school time and it was packed. Would think parents would do the shopping during the school day rather than collect tired children from a long day at school and then go to the supermarket. The children don't want to be there and it was rather horrendous for C and me. Not used to so many people in there!
I'm sure we did lots of fascinating and educational things in the evening but they all escape me now.
We then spoke about high-frequency radio wave technology in surgery as this was a technique our doctors surgery used on a mole on M's neck last year. (the link has photos as you scroll down so be warned!). A few days previously, C had asked M what radio channel the doctor had used, wondering if it was radio 2. M said "Yes, I think so" (standard fatherly response when he a) wasn't really listening to understand the question properly or b)doesn't really know the answer himself), so I re clarified to M what she was asking, to find that although a) had been the reason for his response, b) also then came into play. Google hasn't really helped - I need a child (and parents of the child) friendly explanation of sound / radio waves really. Think there's a book or few around her somewhere . . .
Stitch and Sew. C then went home with Beccy afterwards so I had time at home. Not sure what I did with it!
I do remember trying to renew library books online and finding out the library server was down. So I ended up driving into town to the library as I couldn't remember when the books were due back and I was fretting about fines. Collected M's work coat from the dry cleaners as he needed it back ideally for Friday when he wanted to look a bit smarter.
Rang Jol for a long chat.
Collected C, took R to Spanish and then C and I hit the supermarket. By now it was after school time and it was packed. Would think parents would do the shopping during the school day rather than collect tired children from a long day at school and then go to the supermarket. The children don't want to be there and it was rather horrendous for C and me. Not used to so many people in there!
I'm sure we did lots of fascinating and educational things in the evening but they all escape me now.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Mackerel Dissection
Step by step guide here.
My mum first studied Zoology, but gave up and changed to botany after feeling too nauseous by the smell from a dogfish.
At Latinetc there are 5 adults, 2 vegetarian and 3 non vegetarian, 13 children who participate in science, 7 are vegetarian, 6 are non vegetarian.
Starting this activity were 2 vegetarian and 1 non vegetarian adults, 5 vegetarian and 5 non vegetarian. One of the non vegetarian children (Chloe) had to leave part way through the dissection as she felt very sick. Guess zoology is not going to be a course for her either.
Not an outcome I would have predicted. Life is full of surprises.
Excellent music (theory and bells) and fab Latin as always.
I stayed back to chat with Helen as the children were all playing particularly nicely and I was not motivated to start my journey home. This was great :-).
Chloe remembered a DS game she was bidding for on Ebay so we managed to bid and win that just using the phone. I love my phone :-).
Katy and Gina got back so we stayed for more tea (and biscuits - thank you!) before departing. Got home and paid for said DS game to find M paid at same time as us from his phone app. So we've paid twice and now need to seek a refund of one of the payments. Couldn't have managed that if we'd tried. Had one of us tried paying 3 minutes before or after the other, only one payment would have been made as the later person would have seen it marked as paid already.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Life Returning to Normal
- or as near to normality as we're able to manage!
Thursday started off with Italian (on time - I find it slightly worrying that my only measure of my own self worth and importance is whether I am on time for something or not. Especially when that something is for C and not anything for me at all!)
Then up to Stitch and Sew. C isn't keen on this term's project so is not very enthusiastic about stitch and sew atm.
I scuttled off for coffee and brioche with Mimi (as I quite often try and arrange to do on a Thursday morning). Even better, Beccy and I are trialling swapping the play day to Thursday so I didn't have to leave my friend's excellent company (praise wasted on her as she doesn't read this - not because she isn't allowed or able to for whatever reason, just life is y'know, too short to waste precious moments reading about what Michelle had for breakfast. I admire that :-)).
So a very lovely morning, I picked up a couple of mini pizzas the bakery does for M and I have for lunch, getting home just perfectly in time for us to warm them through and enjoy them. The rest of the day is a blank for me.
Picked B, R and C up (after watching a comedy sketch show the girls had prepared - funny), took R(with B) to R's Spanish lesson and C and I returned home.
M repaired his and my shoes with the Shoe Goo that had arrived in the post. Quite nasty toxic stuff but if it works then it will keep three pairs of shoes going longer than they otherwise would have done.
C drew day 1 of her bacterial growth in her petri dish.
Friday started with us all up for the gas man who was due any time from 8am. The boiler has been unreliable. Sometimes it starts, sometimes it won't. In between times we have cold water and a cold house.
It seems that when the boiler had its service and 4 pins installed as a safety prevention (some of these boilers have been burning out at the back if a specific fault occurs), something got broken. Of course, they didn't have the parts so taped it (!) and agreed to return Monday morning (they wanted afternoon but that didn't suit us).
Chloe wasn't going to have tennis as although everything was melting with the rain, it wasn't tennis weather, so she had a guitar lesson (90mins Gad gave her! She was tired.). After that we headed off for chat and tea at Trish's then I took both girls to Badgers, T kindly collecting them for me.
C drew day 2 of her bacterial growth in her petri dish.
Enjoyed hearing friends on the radio on our journey to guitar. Was excellent timing :-).
Thursday started off with Italian (on time - I find it slightly worrying that my only measure of my own self worth and importance is whether I am on time for something or not. Especially when that something is for C and not anything for me at all!)
Then up to Stitch and Sew. C isn't keen on this term's project so is not very enthusiastic about stitch and sew atm.
I scuttled off for coffee and brioche with Mimi (as I quite often try and arrange to do on a Thursday morning). Even better, Beccy and I are trialling swapping the play day to Thursday so I didn't have to leave my friend's excellent company (praise wasted on her as she doesn't read this - not because she isn't allowed or able to for whatever reason, just life is y'know, too short to waste precious moments reading about what Michelle had for breakfast. I admire that :-)).
So a very lovely morning, I picked up a couple of mini pizzas the bakery does for M and I have for lunch, getting home just perfectly in time for us to warm them through and enjoy them. The rest of the day is a blank for me.
Picked B, R and C up (after watching a comedy sketch show the girls had prepared - funny), took R(with B) to R's Spanish lesson and C and I returned home.
M repaired his and my shoes with the Shoe Goo that had arrived in the post. Quite nasty toxic stuff but if it works then it will keep three pairs of shoes going longer than they otherwise would have done.
C drew day 1 of her bacterial growth in her petri dish.
Friday started with us all up for the gas man who was due any time from 8am. The boiler has been unreliable. Sometimes it starts, sometimes it won't. In between times we have cold water and a cold house.
It seems that when the boiler had its service and 4 pins installed as a safety prevention (some of these boilers have been burning out at the back if a specific fault occurs), something got broken. Of course, they didn't have the parts so taped it (!) and agreed to return Monday morning (they wanted afternoon but that didn't suit us).
Chloe wasn't going to have tennis as although everything was melting with the rain, it wasn't tennis weather, so she had a guitar lesson (90mins Gad gave her! She was tired.). After that we headed off for chat and tea at Trish's then I took both girls to Badgers, T kindly collecting them for me.
C drew day 2 of her bacterial growth in her petri dish.
Enjoyed hearing friends on the radio on our journey to guitar. Was excellent timing :-).
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Bacterial Science
Woke up to yet more snow falling, but with the roads looking quite clear (despite solid traffic jam through the village in the opposite direction to where I needed to head, caused by a road closed about a mile away in town!) we headed off to Latinetc. I like the new timetable as I don't have to be there until 10:15 and haven't been late since :-). I still aim for a 9am departure but the usual faff in actually getting up and out means arrival is bang on. Long may this last.
Helen hadn't got there yet so a slight delay but somehow - and I'm not quite sure how - all sessions were run efficiently enough to not overrun.
C had Music Theory, Group Music with Bells (cunningly was designed to be more theory work :-)), Latin and Science. I'm not sure if she did Craft (sewing). I did spot her chatting for ages to someone in the front room (Fran?), often would love to earwig so as to know what they were talking about!
Science was bacteriology, Helen discussed what bacteria is, examples of (good and bad), how it multiplies, had brought petri dishes with agar for the children to take swabs of surfaces around Katy's home to grow their own bacteria and had brought slides of many different types of bacteria.
They played a bacteria division game with peas and paper cells that all children enjoyed greatly:
Chloe acquired a Horrible Histories book on WW1 and WW2 from Gina - the first thing she did when getting home was to start reading it. She loves Terry Deary books and as regular readers will know, she is very interested in the world wars, WW2 particularly. She has been for years, ever since asking why the poppy wreaths were laid at the war memorial. Hitler was her first example of a "common enemy".
After that we did some music theory work and I then read her biographies of Roald Dahl and Hans Christian Anderson. We reminisced about visiting Dahl's house, garden and seeing his grave, also meeting his widow and a couple of children from his first marriage.
I'm sure more happened after that but it escapes me for the moment.
Probably has escaped me forever lol. That's why I should blog daily!
Helen hadn't got there yet so a slight delay but somehow - and I'm not quite sure how - all sessions were run efficiently enough to not overrun.
C had Music Theory, Group Music with Bells (cunningly was designed to be more theory work :-)), Latin and Science. I'm not sure if she did Craft (sewing). I did spot her chatting for ages to someone in the front room (Fran?), often would love to earwig so as to know what they were talking about!
Science was bacteriology, Helen discussed what bacteria is, examples of (good and bad), how it multiplies, had brought petri dishes with agar for the children to take swabs of surfaces around Katy's home to grow their own bacteria and had brought slides of many different types of bacteria.
They played a bacteria division game with peas and paper cells that all children enjoyed greatly:
Chloe acquired a Horrible Histories book on WW1 and WW2 from Gina - the first thing she did when getting home was to start reading it. She loves Terry Deary books and as regular readers will know, she is very interested in the world wars, WW2 particularly. She has been for years, ever since asking why the poppy wreaths were laid at the war memorial. Hitler was her first example of a "common enemy".
After that we did some music theory work and I then read her biographies of Roald Dahl and Hans Christian Anderson. We reminisced about visiting Dahl's house, garden and seeing his grave, also meeting his widow and a couple of children from his first marriage.
I'm sure more happened after that but it escapes me for the moment.
Probably has escaped me forever lol. That's why I should blog daily!
Thursday, 10 December 2009
NotLatinetc
Wednesday. We headed out to drop M off at the station and head to Latinetc but with half the group not attending, we changed our minds, had McD's for breakfast and returned home.
Latinetc is fab and C enjoys it massively but I reckon all in it costs about £10 per session (which is an absolute bargain when it all runs as it should) and is a fair bit of driving so in order to justify the time and money (resent how much fuel is), I really need to be able to tick quite a few boxes (metaphorically speaking of course). With Science not happening, Latin looking sketchy and C's peers for music/play not being present, I decided not enough boxes were ticked.
I later got a message that Gina would've dedicated some time with C to bring her up to speed on music theory. This would have been worth doing. Ah well.
Instead she spent all day in the dining room making secret things. This meant I got the kitchen, which, having the Aga and us not putting heating on during the day, was far warmer ;-).
She also started her Club Penguin 1 month membership she'd received for her birthday but I'd stopped her using it until we had a month without any plans to be away. The next month is perfect. So she spent a lot of time on that.
Today, Thursday, she started with Italian, then off to Stitch and Sew, where she finished an appliqued cushion they'd been making. There's a zip in there too. Meanwhile I went to the library where I was a bit surprised by the entire front desk having been replaced by two self service computers with overly blue lights for library users to return books. I still had to seek a member of staff about a fine though. Seem to be two machines up and two staff members down . . .
I then did a hefty supermarket shop before picking her up.
After lunch and Nezert maths, we went to see a space exhibition with Jol and Ams. The space thing "was rubbish" according to the girls so we went outside to the play area where they played and Jol and I partook of tea and cake. Was a bit surprised to find the place started closing at 3:45pm but at least that meant we didn't get caught up in the rush hour traffic.
Back home again she did a very good guitar practice, then went through her emails and deleted ones she wasn't interested in keeping any more, sent a couple out and then went back on Club Penguin (bar a trip with me to collect Marcus) until dinner.
Dinner was very late again, on the table at 9pm so yet another late night.
Latinetc is fab and C enjoys it massively but I reckon all in it costs about £10 per session (which is an absolute bargain when it all runs as it should) and is a fair bit of driving so in order to justify the time and money (resent how much fuel is), I really need to be able to tick quite a few boxes (metaphorically speaking of course). With Science not happening, Latin looking sketchy and C's peers for music/play not being present, I decided not enough boxes were ticked.
I later got a message that Gina would've dedicated some time with C to bring her up to speed on music theory. This would have been worth doing. Ah well.
Instead she spent all day in the dining room making secret things. This meant I got the kitchen, which, having the Aga and us not putting heating on during the day, was far warmer ;-).
She also started her Club Penguin 1 month membership she'd received for her birthday but I'd stopped her using it until we had a month without any plans to be away. The next month is perfect. So she spent a lot of time on that.
Today, Thursday, she started with Italian, then off to Stitch and Sew, where she finished an appliqued cushion they'd been making. There's a zip in there too. Meanwhile I went to the library where I was a bit surprised by the entire front desk having been replaced by two self service computers with overly blue lights for library users to return books. I still had to seek a member of staff about a fine though. Seem to be two machines up and two staff members down . . .
I then did a hefty supermarket shop before picking her up.
After lunch and Nezert maths, we went to see a space exhibition with Jol and Ams. The space thing "was rubbish" according to the girls so we went outside to the play area where they played and Jol and I partook of tea and cake. Was a bit surprised to find the place started closing at 3:45pm but at least that meant we didn't get caught up in the rush hour traffic.
Back home again she did a very good guitar practice, then went through her emails and deleted ones she wasn't interested in keeping any more, sent a couple out and then went back on Club Penguin (bar a trip with me to collect Marcus) until dinner.
Dinner was very late again, on the table at 9pm so yet another late night.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Lots of Science
Chloe wanted to do the painting of the Christmas paper (we paint our own onto plain brown paper), however at 4:30pm I didn't have the energy to do that. Mildly annoying that she didn't want to do the paper painting earlier when I wanted to, but she wanted to make chocolates at that time. So I'm a bad mother and suggested she might want to watch some television instead. Had no arguments about that!
This leaves me free to blog :-).
Tuesday
Mad Science day. B organised a double bill of Mad Science. I'm not a Mad Science fan really. I've seen two presenters do the sessions and was left with the impression that it's a franchise business and not necessarily run by people with a great deal of science knowledge. One was a birthday party which was good but so many kids there it was more crowd management with a bit of science thrown in - so I guess not the best experience from which to make an impression. The other was a HE event where one child (an aspie kid and I'm always blown away with how much knowledge aspie kids have - no wonder it's reputed serious academia is full of Asperger adults) in the audience clearly knew more than the chap running the session. In the end the man running the session (they are all called "Cosmic . . .") just waved his hands in the air and said it's all magic. C enjoyed it but then she was 7 and just enjoyed the pretty colours.
B arranged for someone who is known to have worked extensively with a nearish Home Ed group to come up and spend the day with us. He was good :-).
He also provided the following info, which saves me much effort thinking about what to type.
MORNING SESSION 10.30am – 12.00pm Forces
DEMONSTRATIONS: Various fascinating demo's showing Forces at work using certain children coming up to help, and the whole group in discussion and predictions.
ACTIVITY 1: Overcoming Gravity with Balloon Rockets
Using balloons, straws, sellotape and thread in small groups to make balloon rockets.
This activity is designed to show Newton's 3 laws of motion in action.
ACTIVITY 2: Mad Science Stunt Planes
Following the special Mad Science Delta Dart design, each child makes and decorates a paper stunt plane. Designed to travel far and fast this streamlined design can be flown across the hall.
DISCUSSION: The Four Forces of Flight: Thrust, Lift, Gravity, Drag. It will be shown that these forces should be in balance for an aircraft to fly. Movement in three dimensions: It will be shown that all aircraft manouevers are a combination of PITCH, YAW (side to side movement) and ROLL.
ACTIVITY 2 continues: Modifications to wing and rudder can then be made creating flaps which will cause the dart to move left or right, pitch up and down or execute a roll.
DEMO: The Bernoulli Effect . Using such objects as a hair dryer, leaf blower, balloons and beachballs we show in a dramatic way how difference in air pressure creates LIFT.
AFTERNOON SESSION 1.00pm to 2.30pm States of Matter
DISCUSSION : Solids Liquids and Gases: definitions. States of Matter - how materials can change between solid, liquid and gas states. Nature of normal fluids.
DEMO: Non Newtonian fluids: 'Magic Mud' Cornflour and water gets thicker 'under stress', ie when stirred or prodded. We discuss other liquids that do something similar or in some cases the opposite.
ACTIVITY 1: We mix two chemicals: PVA and Borax to make 'Mad Science Slime' - a weird halfway house between liquid and solid states. Each child makes a small amount to take home with them.
DEMO / ACTIVITY 2: Dry Ice.
We explore the special nature of frozen carbon dioxide: 'a special kind of ice which never melts'. We demonstrate what happens when the material is heated: clouds of vapour appear and we show Harry Potter style bubbling potions. We discuss how the stuff is used in films and TV to make cloud effects or spooky graveyard scenes.
After all that we collected AL who came back to our house. They made some bird food from a book C bought on Sunday, the Amazing Flying Bird Bread. Then they played.
After AL had been collected and we had dinner, C spent a lot of time playing with the silly putty she'd made at Mad Science:
Referring to the"Solids Liquids and Gases: definitions. States of Matter - how materials can change between solid, liquid and gas states." element of her Mad Science day, she shared with me an insight; "even the food in your body turns from a solid, to a liquid to a gas".
Wednesday was another early start. We took M to the station and returned home for breakfast and for C to play some more with her silly putty. She made some excellent bongo drums and an amazing extending necklace:
Then a mad dash to get dressed and in the car to go to Latinetc. We arrived exactly on time :-). Following Gina's revised timetable to account for Katy being out working, we rattled through all subjects other than Latin and French. I particularly loved listening to M reading in his group for the musical stories. His english is extraordinary seeing as he's only been here a couple of months:
C enjoyed Music Theory - had no problems at all. She has some homework from that that she is happy to do. Science was not as successful as Helen would have liked but C enjoyed it anyway. After lunch, Katy returned and Latin was done followed by Parachute Games in the field, in French. Katy persuaded children to come in by bribing them with hot chocolate (it was a sunny, blue sky day but very nippy!), which was our cue to have to get to guitar.
Got there 10 mins early so refuelled and grumbled about the cost of that, before standing on Gad's doorstep freezing, getting back into the car and texting him to see where he was. He was still in town (having decided to do some shopping), so we brought him home and C still got a 40 minute lesson, which, to be honest, is all she was up for as she was coming down with a cold. I had prepaid for this lesson so he is giving her her next lesson for free in compensation.
C&I were originally going to go home but she wanted to go to the shops, mooched around John Lewis and Marcus met us there in the toy department:
That's Chloe with a Lego basketball player, not Marcus ;-). She bought herself the piggy she's holding.
We then treated ourselves to dinner in the JL restaurant as I wanted to minimise the amount of cold air C was exposed to. A visit to Waitrose and then it was time for M's guitar lesson. I read more of "Who Runs Britain" about Philip Green's success and C read the National Geographic magazine she'd picked up at Waitrose.
Today, Thursday, we didn't go to Italian as I'd texted the night before saying C was sniffling and snuffling. Deb didn't get the message and rang to see where we were and said in future she doesn't mind about colds. Especially as her children are either in school or nursery. She also said most people aren't worried but I am about other people bringing bugs to us so try not to do it to other people. Anyway, C had cried about missing Italian so I will just take her bugs and all next time.
Did take her to Stitch and Sew as that's not in someone's home - also told the lady running it that C was sniffly with cold and to isolate her if necessary. C was happy to get to that, home and in the car I suggested cancelling tennis tomorrow as it's outside and I want to keep her chest warm. So she was mad about that, tried to storm into the house, found M had gone to work so had locked the door and had to come back to the car to ask for the door key. Unlocked the door and dumped my keys on the side before storming up to her room and shutting the door.
I made a lovely cup of tea :-).
Then went up to ask why she was mad at me when I only want her to not get really ill. Made up and left her there reading (she finished the fifth Heartlands book) and I tidied up downstairs.
Then when she'd finished we had lunch.
C made some chocolates after lunch and we wrapped her Secret Santa present. Then she played the Playmobil Egyptian CD-ROM picked up for free at JL last night, then watched some tv (after me not wanting her to do the painting as first mentioned above), then I remembered Beccy had lent us "Victorian Farm" and "Tales from the Green Valley" so suggested she watch one of them. She chose Victorian Farm.
I'm researching Shoe Goo to fix my much loved very comfortable walking shoes. The uppers are fine but the soles have holes that allow water ingress. (I do have another pair that don't leak but am still wanting to not throw something away if it can be repaired). Thinking it may fix M's Timberlands too that have both cracked across the sole.
Also this week we have been watching "Shackleton" as I wish to return it next week. We've stopped evening watching now as I'm worried about her seeing something disturbing and consequently having bad dreams. Saturday morning will be a tv morning.
This leaves me free to blog :-).
Tuesday
Mad Science day. B organised a double bill of Mad Science. I'm not a Mad Science fan really. I've seen two presenters do the sessions and was left with the impression that it's a franchise business and not necessarily run by people with a great deal of science knowledge. One was a birthday party which was good but so many kids there it was more crowd management with a bit of science thrown in - so I guess not the best experience from which to make an impression. The other was a HE event where one child (an aspie kid and I'm always blown away with how much knowledge aspie kids have - no wonder it's reputed serious academia is full of Asperger adults) in the audience clearly knew more than the chap running the session. In the end the man running the session (they are all called "Cosmic . . .") just waved his hands in the air and said it's all magic. C enjoyed it but then she was 7 and just enjoyed the pretty colours.
B arranged for someone who is known to have worked extensively with a nearish Home Ed group to come up and spend the day with us. He was good :-).
He also provided the following info, which saves me much effort thinking about what to type.
MORNING SESSION 10.30am – 12.00pm Forces
DEMONSTRATIONS: Various fascinating demo's showing Forces at work using certain children coming up to help, and the whole group in discussion and predictions.
ACTIVITY 1: Overcoming Gravity with Balloon Rockets
Using balloons, straws, sellotape and thread in small groups to make balloon rockets.
This activity is designed to show Newton's 3 laws of motion in action.
ACTIVITY 2: Mad Science Stunt Planes
Following the special Mad Science Delta Dart design, each child makes and decorates a paper stunt plane. Designed to travel far and fast this streamlined design can be flown across the hall.
DISCUSSION: The Four Forces of Flight: Thrust, Lift, Gravity, Drag. It will be shown that these forces should be in balance for an aircraft to fly. Movement in three dimensions: It will be shown that all aircraft manouevers are a combination of PITCH, YAW (side to side movement) and ROLL.
ACTIVITY 2 continues: Modifications to wing and rudder can then be made creating flaps which will cause the dart to move left or right, pitch up and down or execute a roll.
DEMO: The Bernoulli Effect . Using such objects as a hair dryer, leaf blower, balloons and beachballs we show in a dramatic way how difference in air pressure creates LIFT.
AFTERNOON SESSION 1.00pm to 2.30pm States of Matter
DISCUSSION : Solids Liquids and Gases: definitions. States of Matter - how materials can change between solid, liquid and gas states. Nature of normal fluids.
DEMO: Non Newtonian fluids: 'Magic Mud' Cornflour and water gets thicker 'under stress', ie when stirred or prodded. We discuss other liquids that do something similar or in some cases the opposite.
ACTIVITY 1: We mix two chemicals: PVA and Borax to make 'Mad Science Slime' - a weird halfway house between liquid and solid states. Each child makes a small amount to take home with them.
DEMO / ACTIVITY 2: Dry Ice.
We explore the special nature of frozen carbon dioxide: 'a special kind of ice which never melts'. We demonstrate what happens when the material is heated: clouds of vapour appear and we show Harry Potter style bubbling potions. We discuss how the stuff is used in films and TV to make cloud effects or spooky graveyard scenes.
After all that we collected AL who came back to our house. They made some bird food from a book C bought on Sunday, the Amazing Flying Bird Bread. Then they played.
After AL had been collected and we had dinner, C spent a lot of time playing with the silly putty she'd made at Mad Science:
Referring to the"Solids Liquids and Gases: definitions. States of Matter - how materials can change between solid, liquid and gas states." element of her Mad Science day, she shared with me an insight; "even the food in your body turns from a solid, to a liquid to a gas".
Wednesday was another early start. We took M to the station and returned home for breakfast and for C to play some more with her silly putty. She made some excellent bongo drums and an amazing extending necklace:
Then a mad dash to get dressed and in the car to go to Latinetc. We arrived exactly on time :-). Following Gina's revised timetable to account for Katy being out working, we rattled through all subjects other than Latin and French. I particularly loved listening to M reading in his group for the musical stories. His english is extraordinary seeing as he's only been here a couple of months:
C enjoyed Music Theory - had no problems at all. She has some homework from that that she is happy to do. Science was not as successful as Helen would have liked but C enjoyed it anyway. After lunch, Katy returned and Latin was done followed by Parachute Games in the field, in French. Katy persuaded children to come in by bribing them with hot chocolate (it was a sunny, blue sky day but very nippy!), which was our cue to have to get to guitar.
Got there 10 mins early so refuelled and grumbled about the cost of that, before standing on Gad's doorstep freezing, getting back into the car and texting him to see where he was. He was still in town (having decided to do some shopping), so we brought him home and C still got a 40 minute lesson, which, to be honest, is all she was up for as she was coming down with a cold. I had prepaid for this lesson so he is giving her her next lesson for free in compensation.
C&I were originally going to go home but she wanted to go to the shops, mooched around John Lewis and Marcus met us there in the toy department:
That's Chloe with a Lego basketball player, not Marcus ;-). She bought herself the piggy she's holding.
We then treated ourselves to dinner in the JL restaurant as I wanted to minimise the amount of cold air C was exposed to. A visit to Waitrose and then it was time for M's guitar lesson. I read more of "Who Runs Britain" about Philip Green's success and C read the National Geographic magazine she'd picked up at Waitrose.
Today, Thursday, we didn't go to Italian as I'd texted the night before saying C was sniffling and snuffling. Deb didn't get the message and rang to see where we were and said in future she doesn't mind about colds. Especially as her children are either in school or nursery. She also said most people aren't worried but I am about other people bringing bugs to us so try not to do it to other people. Anyway, C had cried about missing Italian so I will just take her bugs and all next time.
Did take her to Stitch and Sew as that's not in someone's home - also told the lady running it that C was sniffly with cold and to isolate her if necessary. C was happy to get to that, home and in the car I suggested cancelling tennis tomorrow as it's outside and I want to keep her chest warm. So she was mad about that, tried to storm into the house, found M had gone to work so had locked the door and had to come back to the car to ask for the door key. Unlocked the door and dumped my keys on the side before storming up to her room and shutting the door.
I made a lovely cup of tea :-).
Then went up to ask why she was mad at me when I only want her to not get really ill. Made up and left her there reading (she finished the fifth Heartlands book) and I tidied up downstairs.
Then when she'd finished we had lunch.
C made some chocolates after lunch and we wrapped her Secret Santa present. Then she played the Playmobil Egyptian CD-ROM picked up for free at JL last night, then watched some tv (after me not wanting her to do the painting as first mentioned above), then I remembered Beccy had lent us "Victorian Farm" and "Tales from the Green Valley" so suggested she watch one of them. She chose Victorian Farm.
I'm researching Shoe Goo to fix my much loved very comfortable walking shoes. The uppers are fine but the soles have holes that allow water ingress. (I do have another pair that don't leak but am still wanting to not throw something away if it can be repaired). Thinking it may fix M's Timberlands too that have both cracked across the sole.
Also this week we have been watching "Shackleton" as I wish to return it next week. We've stopped evening watching now as I'm worried about her seeing something disturbing and consequently having bad dreams. Saturday morning will be a tv morning.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
A chip off the old block?
Not really a chip off the old block, she generally seems like a Mini Auntie Geni than a Mini Me. She definitely has a love of craft and practical work that I don't share.
Started with guitar - she enjoyed a good practice with M, then she had a light Italian lesson before Stitch and Sew, so light Deb felt she couldn't charge me for it. I continued trying to be brave enough to get people to sign the petition I'm touting around for a couple of weeks. Managed to get two schooled children's parents to sign with only a brief discussion about the whys and wherefores, personal freedoms and restriction of liberties. I find this hard as I get too emotional and also don't really want to have an argument about it with people whose views have been largely informed by the media (so should that be misinformed?).
One parent even told me Ofsted are right to require parents to be CRB checked before they are licensed to Home Educate. I questioned this asking should I have a check to spend the daylight hours with my own child? The response was that it wasn't for your own children, but because I leave her in the care of her friends' parents, and those parents should be CRB checked. I have left my child in her care to play with her child. Should I have CRB checked her? I don't want to have these ridiculous discussions, I just want to be able to get on with my life educating my daughter as my daughter wishes.
Then managed to escape the suffocating atmosphere of my own home town and visit Grit for lunch :-), after which we set the children loose in a health and safety executive's nightmare situation of a woodworking studio. Was ace :-).
Started with guitar - she enjoyed a good practice with M, then she had a light Italian lesson before Stitch and Sew, so light Deb felt she couldn't charge me for it. I continued trying to be brave enough to get people to sign the petition I'm touting around for a couple of weeks. Managed to get two schooled children's parents to sign with only a brief discussion about the whys and wherefores, personal freedoms and restriction of liberties. I find this hard as I get too emotional and also don't really want to have an argument about it with people whose views have been largely informed by the media (so should that be misinformed?).
One parent even told me Ofsted are right to require parents to be CRB checked before they are licensed to Home Educate. I questioned this asking should I have a check to spend the daylight hours with my own child? The response was that it wasn't for your own children, but because I leave her in the care of her friends' parents, and those parents should be CRB checked. I have left my child in her care to play with her child. Should I have CRB checked her? I don't want to have these ridiculous discussions, I just want to be able to get on with my life educating my daughter as my daughter wishes.
Then managed to escape the suffocating atmosphere of my own home town and visit Grit for lunch :-), after which we set the children loose in a health and safety executive's nightmare situation of a woodworking studio. Was ace :-).
Thursday, 12 November 2009
A Fractionous Bedtime
Italian. 30 minutes just fly by sometimes. Other times they drag. This was a flying time.
Stitch and Sew - it gives me just enough time to run around town doing errands that are quicker to complete on my own. So went to the cleaners, cobblers and chemist. Then had time to pop into a couple of charity shops as C says she's low on trousers that fit. Loads of skirts and dresses in her wardrobe but she won't wear them. No joy so popped to eBay instead later.
Bought 27 books in the Scout sale. 10 pence a book so I couldn't resist. Lots for M for train reading too. Adds to the ongoing bookshelf problem.
After Stitch and Sew Beccy had arrange a glazing session so the children could glaze their biscuited clay creations. C has now run out of biscuited pieces so I think I'll try and fit some pottery sessions in in the new year.
Home and C went on Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin until Marcus finished work and they set to making pasta.
She did a teeny bit of guitar practice, halted by her finger hurting and she remembered she'd burnt her finger on the iron at Stitch and Sew earlier. (I had been properly informed by the ladies who run S&S but had also forgotten). However, I reckon that once it's stop hurting it should be tough and she should have no problems pressing hard on the guitar strings ;-).
Eventually ate dinner and C read a few chapters of a Jeremy Strong book, then spotted the fractions magnet strips on the radiator upstairs en route to her bedroom. "Mummy! A third and a sixth make a half!". I told her to get into her pyjamas, an instruction that was duly ignored followed by "And a quarter, a sixth and a twelfth also make a half!".
Late night.
Stitch and Sew - it gives me just enough time to run around town doing errands that are quicker to complete on my own. So went to the cleaners, cobblers and chemist. Then had time to pop into a couple of charity shops as C says she's low on trousers that fit. Loads of skirts and dresses in her wardrobe but she won't wear them. No joy so popped to eBay instead later.
Bought 27 books in the Scout sale. 10 pence a book so I couldn't resist. Lots for M for train reading too. Adds to the ongoing bookshelf problem.
After Stitch and Sew Beccy had arrange a glazing session so the children could glaze their biscuited clay creations. C has now run out of biscuited pieces so I think I'll try and fit some pottery sessions in in the new year.
Home and C went on Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin until Marcus finished work and they set to making pasta.
She did a teeny bit of guitar practice, halted by her finger hurting and she remembered she'd burnt her finger on the iron at Stitch and Sew earlier. (I had been properly informed by the ladies who run S&S but had also forgotten). However, I reckon that once it's stop hurting it should be tough and she should have no problems pressing hard on the guitar strings ;-).
Eventually ate dinner and C read a few chapters of a Jeremy Strong book, then spotted the fractions magnet strips on the radiator upstairs en route to her bedroom. "Mummy! A third and a sixth make a half!". I told her to get into her pyjamas, an instruction that was duly ignored followed by "And a quarter, a sixth and a twelfth also make a half!".
Late night.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Tudor Day
M was working from home, so of course we were out all day from 9 until nearly 6pm. Often seems to work out that way, where our diaries seem to mirror each other :-(. Lie ins rarely happen around here any more because of various people's commitments.
M worked from the kitchen as that is the only warm room in the house. We have these gadgets that plug into a socket, so as long as you can plug the laptop in he has access to the broadband and then through to log in to the work intranet. Bit clever all that. Still holding off on the heating until December, though M would give in now if I suggested it. Hardy Canadian? Hah!
C made me scrambled eggs on toast, not wanting any breakfast herself. She then had Italian first thing, after which we collected Beccy and Ruby and headed to Hatfield. Having *just* an hour spare and our Tudor Day being scheduled from 11:45-1:45pm, over the usual lunchtime period, I suggested going to The Galleria where I could get C some food. She ordered a smoked salmon sandwich and ate all of it. I hadn't ordered anything for myself as had had breakfast and thought I'd get a quarter - but no! I ate Ruby's crusts from her packed lunch instead.
I bought a new pair of jeans from the M&S store there for £17.50 reduced from £25. Long enough to go down to my boots properly :-). I left the jeans I had been wearing in the M&S bin as I keep wearing them because I have them. I never feel good wearing them as they are too small in all directions so if I don't have them I won't be able to wear them any more. Wasteful but made me feel so good just being freed from owning them any more.
Chloe found a fossil place and spent quite a chunk of her birthday money on a Monosaur Tooth and a geode. I think I'll clear out one of the linen drawers in the downstairs unit as she now has a number of pieces that need storing more safely. I also must try and organise myself to pass a message on to a friend's Cambridge attending sister's friend who is studying geology at Cambridge to see if I can arrange some time for C at the Sedgwick with her.
We were getting to the point of needing to leave so I said I needed to go get the car and told her to use my card (not enough cash on me) to buy them and I'd meet all of them by the back doors. When they came, C was upset as the fossil stall didn't take cards. So, rummaged through purse, bag and my carpark stash of cash kept in the ashtray to come up with enough money for her to make her purchase. I was hovering in a drop off area so didn't want to leave the car. Beccy went with C and R stayed with me but had to put up with me muttering about how long this was all taking.
We were late for the Tudor Day session. I HATE being late. Grump. Made C apologise to the guide taking us to join our group and dropped her straight in it with the kind lady who'd organised the session for us. I shouldn't have said yes to the fossil purchases but equally didn't want a wailing child. It was unfortunate that they didn't take plastic.
Moving on . . .
Hatfield House Living History
The Old Palace and the Knot Garden where we were told about life in Tudor times:
A stone tableau of the Elizabethan Court used to tell us a bit about Tudor costume:
Hatfield House (not part of the tour) with a nearly 400yo Mulberry Tree in the foreground:
Meeting Princess Mary:
A court musician:
A child knight:
Meeting Henry VIII. This was probably the part I liked most - he brilliantly outlined the background to his coming to power and his previous wives, he gave an overview of the Wars of the Roses and the strong desire not to return the country to the times of the conflicts between the Houses of York and Lancaster was what drove his need to have a son to maintain a country at peace. Chloe says she liked this bit most as she asked the question. Princess Mary had asked us to petition her father to ask what would happen to Princess Elizabeth if the Governess was transferred to care for the new born son, Prince Edward. Chloe was pleased she felt able to ask the question, especially as she'd been too terrified to go into the Hall with the other children so had skulked at the back with me.
Nicolas, a Tudor Armourer:
The session was two hours long in total, then we had an allotted slot in the shop at 2pm. I bought nothing :-). I would have bought a cup of tea had one been for sale but sadly freshly brewed and ready to drink tea was not forthcoming. There was an interesting looking trail but we were hungry and it was bitterly cold, so decided to drive (not walk) to see the Queen Elizabeth oak. It transpired we had misunderstood. We had thought we were looking for the tree Elizabeth I was supposedly sitting under that she learned she was now Queen, but that tree has long gone and the Queen Elizabeth Oak is an oak tree planted in 1985 by our current queen, Queen Elizabeth II). We then back to Beccy's for tea there.
I thought the Living History at Hatfield House day was an excellent session and recommend it. However, I felt exhausted afterwards as they run it to an extremely tight schedule, with lots of school groups all being run in one day and rotated around the areas. They did deliver an astounding amount of information. Ironically, this is what I would change. I would slow it all down as you don't get a chance to absorb the information you're given - it is rattled through at an astonishingly fast pace.
I felt as though I were a ball in a pinball machine.
After tea at Beccy's the girls had Chatterbooks. Our library has underfloor heating and the floor was really hot. Too hot to sit on comfortably. Apparently they can't do anything about the heat! The girls were delighted to get a bag of bits - a rather decent kids Chatterbooks rucksack and the books they were given to read had been wrapped in tissuepaper with little stars affixed, then put in a coloured paper bag and sealed so it was a real surprise.
Chloe received a Heartlands book. She read half last night and half this morning. She was supposed to fill in a questionnaire a) upon seeing the book, b) after reading the first chapter and c) after reading the whole thing. She did the questionnaire in one go after reading the whole thing. She wants to read the whole series now.
Dinner was late. So late I had an interim bowl of cereal to keep me going. Chloe didn't want to make short cuts so they roasted and ground spices to make their own powder, and from that powder made a paste that would be a sauce for the lamb.
Has to be said it was delicious :-).
M worked from the kitchen as that is the only warm room in the house. We have these gadgets that plug into a socket, so as long as you can plug the laptop in he has access to the broadband and then through to log in to the work intranet. Bit clever all that. Still holding off on the heating until December, though M would give in now if I suggested it. Hardy Canadian? Hah!
C made me scrambled eggs on toast, not wanting any breakfast herself. She then had Italian first thing, after which we collected Beccy and Ruby and headed to Hatfield. Having *just* an hour spare and our Tudor Day being scheduled from 11:45-1:45pm, over the usual lunchtime period, I suggested going to The Galleria where I could get C some food. She ordered a smoked salmon sandwich and ate all of it. I hadn't ordered anything for myself as had had breakfast and thought I'd get a quarter - but no! I ate Ruby's crusts from her packed lunch instead.
I bought a new pair of jeans from the M&S store there for £17.50 reduced from £25. Long enough to go down to my boots properly :-). I left the jeans I had been wearing in the M&S bin as I keep wearing them because I have them. I never feel good wearing them as they are too small in all directions so if I don't have them I won't be able to wear them any more. Wasteful but made me feel so good just being freed from owning them any more.
Chloe found a fossil place and spent quite a chunk of her birthday money on a Monosaur Tooth and a geode. I think I'll clear out one of the linen drawers in the downstairs unit as she now has a number of pieces that need storing more safely. I also must try and organise myself to pass a message on to a friend's Cambridge attending sister's friend who is studying geology at Cambridge to see if I can arrange some time for C at the Sedgwick with her.
We were getting to the point of needing to leave so I said I needed to go get the car and told her to use my card (not enough cash on me) to buy them and I'd meet all of them by the back doors. When they came, C was upset as the fossil stall didn't take cards. So, rummaged through purse, bag and my carpark stash of cash kept in the ashtray to come up with enough money for her to make her purchase. I was hovering in a drop off area so didn't want to leave the car. Beccy went with C and R stayed with me but had to put up with me muttering about how long this was all taking.
We were late for the Tudor Day session. I HATE being late. Grump. Made C apologise to the guide taking us to join our group and dropped her straight in it with the kind lady who'd organised the session for us. I shouldn't have said yes to the fossil purchases but equally didn't want a wailing child. It was unfortunate that they didn't take plastic.
Moving on . . .
Hatfield House Living History
The Old Palace and the Knot Garden where we were told about life in Tudor times:
A stone tableau of the Elizabethan Court used to tell us a bit about Tudor costume:
Hatfield House (not part of the tour) with a nearly 400yo Mulberry Tree in the foreground:
Meeting Princess Mary:
A court musician:
A child knight:
Meeting Henry VIII. This was probably the part I liked most - he brilliantly outlined the background to his coming to power and his previous wives, he gave an overview of the Wars of the Roses and the strong desire not to return the country to the times of the conflicts between the Houses of York and Lancaster was what drove his need to have a son to maintain a country at peace. Chloe says she liked this bit most as she asked the question. Princess Mary had asked us to petition her father to ask what would happen to Princess Elizabeth if the Governess was transferred to care for the new born son, Prince Edward. Chloe was pleased she felt able to ask the question, especially as she'd been too terrified to go into the Hall with the other children so had skulked at the back with me.
Nicolas, a Tudor Armourer:
The session was two hours long in total, then we had an allotted slot in the shop at 2pm. I bought nothing :-). I would have bought a cup of tea had one been for sale but sadly freshly brewed and ready to drink tea was not forthcoming. There was an interesting looking trail but we were hungry and it was bitterly cold, so decided to drive (not walk) to see the Queen Elizabeth oak. It transpired we had misunderstood. We had thought we were looking for the tree Elizabeth I was supposedly sitting under that she learned she was now Queen, but that tree has long gone and the Queen Elizabeth Oak is an oak tree planted in 1985 by our current queen, Queen Elizabeth II). We then back to Beccy's for tea there.
I thought the Living History at Hatfield House day was an excellent session and recommend it. However, I felt exhausted afterwards as they run it to an extremely tight schedule, with lots of school groups all being run in one day and rotated around the areas. They did deliver an astounding amount of information. Ironically, this is what I would change. I would slow it all down as you don't get a chance to absorb the information you're given - it is rattled through at an astonishingly fast pace.
I felt as though I were a ball in a pinball machine.
After tea at Beccy's the girls had Chatterbooks. Our library has underfloor heating and the floor was really hot. Too hot to sit on comfortably. Apparently they can't do anything about the heat! The girls were delighted to get a bag of bits - a rather decent kids Chatterbooks rucksack and the books they were given to read had been wrapped in tissuepaper with little stars affixed, then put in a coloured paper bag and sealed so it was a real surprise.
Chloe received a Heartlands book. She read half last night and half this morning. She was supposed to fill in a questionnaire a) upon seeing the book, b) after reading the first chapter and c) after reading the whole thing. She did the questionnaire in one go after reading the whole thing. She wants to read the whole series now.
Dinner was late. So late I had an interim bowl of cereal to keep me going. Chloe didn't want to make short cuts so they roasted and ground spices to make their own powder, and from that powder made a paste that would be a sauce for the lamb.
Has to be said it was delicious :-).
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Chocks Away and Chocs Away!
"Chocks Away!" by flying planes says her t-shirt today (gift from Dad at the RAF Museum yesterday).
She finished reading her book, Mare in the Meadow, pulp children's reading but she enjoyed it. Raced through it though so not exactly a challenging read.
She then wanted me to play a game with her but I wanted her to do something useful such as guitar or some maths, so she stropped off and tidied her room for a bit. She's done quite a bit of tidying in her room - even tidying the shelving and sorting out a few things.
She then came down and did some Nezert sums, then finished off another workbook as the bag was getting rather full and weighed down with books. We then had lunch - I grossed her out by making a fish, chips, peas and tomato ketchup sandwich out of my food. I like it!
We then headed out to the chocolate tasting session. It was very good, going over the history of chocolate, harvesting and production, what is chocolate, how it is made, difference between dark, milk and white chocolate. We all had a hot chocolate to drink too. It was very good but she was disappointed as originally it was going ot be making chocolate but the lady concerned felt that under tens wouldn't be able to so didn't include chocolate making. It was good and I think maybe another chocolate making session could be organised in the future.
Some samples were more bitter than others :-)
It was very local being just 5 minutes from home. Fab having things so close :-).
We then came home and did some gardening tidying as C wanted to check on her tomatoes (harvesting 3 that were surprisingly delicious) then gathered lots of leaves up to try and minimise the risk of disease. In a small garden you need to be extra careful about tidying up fallen leaves.
C then did some Italian, working through some puzzles in an Italian magazine Deb had brought back with her. This was difficult to translate so we've left a few gaps.
She then wanted to do some Bond papers - non verbal reasoning and one of the maths papers, talked about the Primary Maths Challenge paper which is due to arrive any day now and how I'm not expecting her to perform anything other than her best as she is young to take it really.
After that she watched some television whilst I cleaned the standard lamp and put the new energy saving bulbs in. We had been unable to source the bulbs we used to have so have had to change. Not bought more than the 5 we needed for the lamp as they are so expensive. You wouldn't believe the size of box and the amount of packaging was deemed necessary to deliver 5 lightbulbs for us! The light generated is cooler than the other bulbs. We'll get used to it I guess. The ceiling pendants will also have to have new bulbs eventually but we need to change the switch as currently it is a dimmer one. Nothing is ever straightforward.
We were then discussing our day tomorrow and C decided to make a Tudor tabard (as was suggested in the Teacher notes), designing her own shield with tapir, pig, bat and flying lemur. Looks good. There are some songs we seem to not have learnt. Ah well.
Chicken Tikka Biryani in peppers with spinach rice and bombay potatoes, topped off with leftover sauce from the dinner two nights ago. Nan to mop up the sauce.
She finished reading her book, Mare in the Meadow, pulp children's reading but she enjoyed it. Raced through it though so not exactly a challenging read.
She then wanted me to play a game with her but I wanted her to do something useful such as guitar or some maths, so she stropped off and tidied her room for a bit. She's done quite a bit of tidying in her room - even tidying the shelving and sorting out a few things.
She then came down and did some Nezert sums, then finished off another workbook as the bag was getting rather full and weighed down with books. We then had lunch - I grossed her out by making a fish, chips, peas and tomato ketchup sandwich out of my food. I like it!
We then headed out to the chocolate tasting session. It was very good, going over the history of chocolate, harvesting and production, what is chocolate, how it is made, difference between dark, milk and white chocolate. We all had a hot chocolate to drink too. It was very good but she was disappointed as originally it was going ot be making chocolate but the lady concerned felt that under tens wouldn't be able to so didn't include chocolate making. It was good and I think maybe another chocolate making session could be organised in the future.
Some samples were more bitter than others :-)
It was very local being just 5 minutes from home. Fab having things so close :-).
We then came home and did some gardening tidying as C wanted to check on her tomatoes (harvesting 3 that were surprisingly delicious) then gathered lots of leaves up to try and minimise the risk of disease. In a small garden you need to be extra careful about tidying up fallen leaves.
C then did some Italian, working through some puzzles in an Italian magazine Deb had brought back with her. This was difficult to translate so we've left a few gaps.
She then wanted to do some Bond papers - non verbal reasoning and one of the maths papers, talked about the Primary Maths Challenge paper which is due to arrive any day now and how I'm not expecting her to perform anything other than her best as she is young to take it really.
After that she watched some television whilst I cleaned the standard lamp and put the new energy saving bulbs in. We had been unable to source the bulbs we used to have so have had to change. Not bought more than the 5 we needed for the lamp as they are so expensive. You wouldn't believe the size of box and the amount of packaging was deemed necessary to deliver 5 lightbulbs for us! The light generated is cooler than the other bulbs. We'll get used to it I guess. The ceiling pendants will also have to have new bulbs eventually but we need to change the switch as currently it is a dimmer one. Nothing is ever straightforward.
We were then discussing our day tomorrow and C decided to make a Tudor tabard (as was suggested in the Teacher notes), designing her own shield with tapir, pig, bat and flying lemur. Looks good. There are some songs we seem to not have learnt. Ah well.
Chicken Tikka Biryani in peppers with spinach rice and bombay potatoes, topped off with leftover sauce from the dinner two nights ago. Nan to mop up the sauce.
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