Posted by Joyce
Arghh! Worked at home today, as the car didn't come out of the garage till lunch time. Fortunately, all it cost was £14 for a new exhaust bracket, which had been ripped off. So given that on Tuesday I paid £300 to get it through its MOT, I was really pleased. Work horrible though - Tuesday's problem has not gone away. I've promised Hannah that it won't stop us going to camp, but that she and I might have to take some videos and go up to Edinburgh to the office for the day, for me to do something. I know I'm really incredibly fortunate that I have a 18 hour a week contract, so I'm keeping my hand in, having a bit of financial independence, combining HE with working etc etc AND I can usually work at 9 hours at home each week, but some weeks when there's a panic on, and suddenly my 18 hours becomes about 50, I feel a bit overwhelmed.

So didn't really see much of Hannah today, as she spent it at the childminders, but she seems in good spirits. She is slowly making her way through Harry Potter, about 6 pages a night. Which probably seems very slow, but like a miracle to us, so we are very pleased that all her hard work is paying off. We popped down to the library tonight to see if they had Philip Pullman on tape (no), but she did a bit of her Roman project at the childminders. The childminder likes her to "work", whereas I don't really, as I think the best thing for her there is the childminders little boy, who she loves like a brother, but I guess we were all happy today.

When she came home, Bob taught her to play charades, so I've spent the last couple of hours going "second word".

Sporting a fine set of bruises, so off for some more liquid painkillers. Tomorrow we are going to Glasgow to meet up with an HEer I "met" on the Scottish list. She lives about 100 miles away (though actually near Bob's dad), so we are meeting half way. Her dd is about the same age as Hannah, so I hope they hit it off, as I'd really like to expand our HE contacts. (either that, or move to Devon......off she goes again on a Devon daydream..........)

Posted by Joyce

Ouch - how did that ditch get under my car?

Left home at 6.30 this morning to drive to work, and it was cold but dry, and within 5 miles it was an absolute blizzard, with fresh snow on top of ice on the road. Fortunately I was creeping along because of the poor visibility, and the car slipped, and ended up in a ditch. I take a cross country route, and its quite isolated, and I then discovered also out of signal for the mobile. A knight in shining armour pulled up behind me in a tractor, and I was so pleased to see him I had a complete girlie moment and started to cry. Anyway, he hauled me out, and then hitched the car up and hauled it out as well, and by that time as I was snivelling about wanting to go home, even did the three point turn for me. Anyway, I'm fine, but I can't believe how sore I am - right arm, shoulder and all across my front is really bruised and I ache all over. Good job I'm not going in a bunk next week, as I can see no way I'd get up there right now. Car seemed fine, and I drove it home with no rattles or anything, and it had such a soft landing, I don't see how it could have done much damage, but it's in the garage having its underside checked out to be on the safe side. I'd hoped they'd do it today, but apparently they've spent the day dragging people out of ditches, so I'll get it back tomorrow.

Since I was at home, we decided not to send Hannah to the childminders in case the weather deteriorated further. I was glad about that, as she was surprisingly upset about my bump, and get asking me all day if I was "really" OK, and giving me kisses and cuddles. So I worked this morning, and she watched class TV and played some more with her solids (all nicely labelled now, thanks, Alison:-). Its interesting observing what kids do sometimes though. She had half an eye on the TV, and at the same time kept shouting out some other relationship she had noticed with the solids, and then at the end of the day, gave me a run down on Boudicca and Small pox vaccine, which she says was on the TV - not that I had noticed. Problem is, she's now decided she would much rather be Boudicca than a Roman next week.

When Bob got up, he made her tunic for next week, and then we all went for a walk to the beach - but it was so cold by then, it actually hurt to be out in it, so that didn't last long.

Brownies this evening, and they happened to do Chinese new year - I think they must have got distracted by Burn's night as well last week. They'd had a discussion about it, and apparently one little girl had said to Hannah "you can't know about that, cos you don't go to school". Hannah seemed completely unfazed by it though, and just said of course she knew about it - we'd read about it in Ottackers. I KNEW she thinks Ottackers is really our library.

I'm off to bed with some liquid painkillers........zzzzzzzz

Posted by Joyce
Had a few hours at work this morning, and then in the afternoon, Hannah wanted to play "geometry". LOL. Don't know if they still call it that in school, but we played with a selection of stuff, including those pegboard things you use with elastic bands, geo-strips, geomags, and a lovely set of relational solids. I really love these, there is something so satisfying about handling them. There is a big range of shapes, and some of the common ones (cubes, cylinders, cones etc) also have size gradations. You can fill them with rice or lentils and do all sorts of exploration about volume. Must ask Alison though - what do you call the one that has hexagonal faces at the two ends, and then straight sides? Hannah loves knowing all the proper "big" names for these, and hexagonal cylinder didn't do it for her. She insisted that cylinders always had curved sides. Is that right? She told me to ask "that maths lady that was in the next tent at HESFES". Your fame goes before you. She still also wants to know how many sides a circle has : one, none, or an infinite number? She reckons an infinite number, as she says each dot on the circumference would be a side, its just that we can't see them. I think I asked this question on MP some time ago, and no one knew, and I hoped she had forgotten - but she hadn't. And finally, what do you call a 3D hexagon - think Eden Project to get a picture of what I mean.

Anyway, having shown my ignorance in that department, we moved swiftly on to a Chinese Meal, as we didn't cook one last week as Chinese New Year got a bit mixed up with Burn's night, in terms of my ability to organise things. So we had noodles and vegetables eaten with chopsticks, and sweet dumplings, and Hannah got her red envelope.

She is in the bath reading Harry Potter and I am going to bed soon, as I am absolutely shattered. Problem with night shift is the bed is never empty!

Posted by Joyce
Monday, continued :-)

Well, Hannah managed about a page of A5 on her story, and though the spelling was very creative, its the first time she has written so much, so much cause for celebration here. She's been looking at another HE child's blog, and decided she wants to do one too, and so once I get it organised, says she is going to type it on there.

She then announced that "she supposed" she'd better do something in case the inspector came, and did the WHOLE of the cpg KS1 maths workbook in about 2 hours. There's about 50 odd pages. Now, I knew she knew all that stuff, but it did give me a warm and fuzzy feeling seeing it written down, so I felt pleased, but at the same time didn't want her to think I valued that more than all the other stuff she does (but oh, a completed book if anyone ever comes!). She did this once before, but hasn't felt the inclination to do it for ages, but it shows I guess that she is aware of the issue of the potential for visits somewhere in her mind. She did say at the end "well, I won't be doing THAT again for a while" LOL

I had a phone call tonight to say a work project is a bit on the skids, so I am going to have to go to work tomorrow, but fortunately with Hannah having a cold, and DH being on night shift, I can leave them to it.

Posted by Joyce
Not sure what to do with myself in the middle of the day, as I've been banished by Hannah to "play on the pooter".

We lay in bed today till about 11am, with the laptop, and some Disney DVDs, as we were both so choked up with the cold. We watched in French though, so we could feel mildly educational.....

Hannah was delighted to receive a letter from our MEP this morning. Last week when we were in sealife mode, she got very upset about the by-catching of dolphins, and was clearly feeling a bit powerless. I explained to her about the different levels of protest that were available in a democracy, and we talked about writing letters to your parliamentary representatives, marching, petitioning and lobbying, and direct peaceful action. Not only did we cover a bit about how parliament works, I think she also had one of those moments when you suddenly see your parent as someone other than mum or dad, and she was fascinated by my protest stories. Don't think she realised that although I might not be a computer whiz, or an expert on what was in the charts, etc, I was still a bit of an old radical. Anyway, don't know if I blogged this at the time, but she wrote to our MSP, MP and MEP, and she got a really full letter back from her MEP, saying he shared her concerns, and told her all the ways sea mammals could be protected, and the actions that Brussels were considering. It was really nice, as it was obviously toned down a bit for a child, but still gave lots of info, so she felt she's really been taken seriously. She now has a petition on the go, so may be bringing it to Melrose.

Anyway, after we got up, we watched the Story Writing programme on class TV. Its an area where she's shown little inclination in the past, but she seemed inspired, hence the reason I've been told to sit at the PC, and be her publisher, while she writes her story, as she's the author. Fingers crossed!

Posted by Joyce
Saturday was the usual round of drama and fitkid, so not much of excitement there. I usually go off for a walk when fitkid is on, though, but as my back is still sore, I sat in the coffee shop with a book, and it was a bit of an eye-opener speaking to the other mothers. Some of those kids just seem so overscheduled. One mother was telling me that her child has an activity ever evening during the week (swimming lesson, music lesson, dance class, Brownies, after school club), PLUS an hour of homework every night, 3 activities on a Saturday (more dance, drama, fitkid), and homework etc on Sunday. "But they really need it, to stop them getting bored". I don't know how people can afford all of that, often for at least two kids, but I also ask myself why. I certainly feel if Hannah was at school, I wouldn't be keen for all her out of school time to be so managed. When on earth do they just "be". Plus I know that I wouldn't be happy to be playing such a peripheral role in her life. Its funny too, as hardly anyone seems to have a good thing to say about schools. (Although a lot of it is to do with the school not giving the kids enough "work"), but there was stuff about bullying, supply teachers, kids shivering in the rain as they aren't allowed into school etc, and I just felt so glad I don't have to deal with all that. Sometimes I think I really miss the school gate support, but to be honest, I'm not convinced it would really be that helpful. Its funny though, that someone asks the "which school" question, and I say we HE, and then I get a litany of how they don't blame me, as school is awful, but always finishing with " but my ds/dd loves it". Hmmm.

When we came home, we tried knitting again, but even with a left hander teaching a left hander, we're having problems with that one. When Bob came home from work, he went out training for an hour, and Hannah went to on her bike, and cycled along beside him. The two of them were frozen and covered in mud when they came back, but seemed to have had a good time. Hannah's muscles are just soooo well developed with all the exercise she does. The rest of the day we just vegged out, watching crappy TV, and chatted.

Today I was full of the cold, and suggested we might go to the soft play, as I had vision of mugs of tea, trash novel, and peace, but Hannah begged to go to the Glasgow Science Centre. Its a while since we went, and I was impressed all over again, as it really is very well done. Although its different from the London one, I think it has as much going for it - and its in a lovely venue, literally right on the bank on the Clyde. Anyway, we decided to take out an annual membership again. We had one before, and I didn't feel we really got the benefit, but they were on special offer during January, and we only need to go another twice to be in profit. We went to the planetarium, and saw Mars, and then we went to a circuit workshop, and made a circuit board, after using the soldering iron. Hannah then spent ages constructing a child sized anatomical model, but there is always something poignant in it for me, as she only EVER uses one kidney when she builds/draws the body.

Since we came home, Hannah has been playing with a Plug and Play electronics set that I bought her in the sales 2 years ago, but had put aside as she was really too young for it. We also bought a transistor set from the shop, that was in the remainder bin. I'm trying not to be gender defined, and help her with these kind of things, but I really want to say "oh, get your dad to help". I'd much rather take her into the kitchen. (mind you, her dad does a LOT of the cooking, and the ironing, so maybe its not too bad ;-)

Posted by Joyce

Oh, sleekit, coorin' timorous beastie.......

A surprisingly nice day. The group was small today, and the Burn's lunch went really well. The children even ate the haggis, and it was all relaxed and pleasant. It all got a bit confused with Chinese New Year, I think, but Hannah learned and remembered the address to the haggis, and though we were short on bagpipes, someone brought a suitable tape.

I had a good chat with one of the other mothers, and turns out she feels that it might be good to have a few activities on for the kids as well, so maybe it will all improve a bit.

I've got as far as cutting the rectangles out for the Roman tunic, and am sweet talking DH into the actual sewing bit. Also picked up a length of stretchy spangly gold stuff, which will make a good belt, I think, and possibly even a head band. I suspect we aren't talking authentic here, though. We read Minimus today, which is a Latin comic style book, and I think I impressed her with my grasp of another language. LOL. She's "amo, amas, amatting" good style tonight, anyway.

The Bop It was a massive success with the group - they sat in the dining room playing pass it for ages.

We've sort of got lots of things on the go, but we don't ever seem to do masses in a day, if you see what I mean. I'm a real "completer/finisher" and I find it stressful that we never seem to see anything through to the end. We've got half finished workbooks, projects, arty stuff all over the place. On one hand, I'm saying "trust the process, if she's learned what she needs to learn, she doesn't NEED to finish it", but sometimes I do yearn for a few pieces of nicely finished stuff to look at. You can tell, probably that we had someone round for an hour after school, and her mother was showing me her jotters, all with this mass of neatly done writing. But it WAS formulaic, and I could just imagine thirty little kids all doing exactly the same thing, at the same time. I could almost hear the lesson in my head, just from looking at the jotters. As Alison said, a pretty homogenised experience.

Dh on early shift tomorrow, so DD usually creeps in beside me when he gets up at 5am, so hopefully, I'll get a long lie........lol. Anyway, she is sticking with the large print HP, so I'm trying not to look as if I care TOO much that she is reading a book.

Posted by Joyce
Was chairing a conference in Glasgow today, so a much easier working day -shorter drive for a start, and home at a respectable hour. Missed tea, but got bedtime, so a good deal;-). And that's me free again.

Popped into John Lewis, and bought a huge remnant of cream lining material, with which I am going to attempt to make something Roman. What DID the girls wear? Long tunic-y things, I guess. Maybe Bob will do it - my sewing skills leave a lot to be desired, but he made fantastic Halloween costumes.

I also found a large print version of Harry Potter in Ottackers. They didn't know how they had come to have it, but Hannah is delighted. Its not huge print - 16pt, I think, and 18 to 20 is really the best, but she seems chuffed with it. The fact that she knows Harry Potter off by heart from the tapes probably helps her confidence as well. I can't imagine not getting pleasure from reading - you could take away the TV, the radio, the PC (well, maybe!), but not to be able to enjoy books - that would be hard. I also bought myself some trash reading for Melrose for me.

Before bedtime, we used the re-cycled paper we made the other day, as it was finally dry, and then we made some fat balls for the birds. Though they never get a look in for the squirrels. Its getting to the stage where we can't leave a window open for them trying to come into the house, and on Tuesday one of them systematically dug up and ate every single crocus bulb it could find, and then threw the green shoot away.

Bob picked up the haggis for tomorrow, but I think the numbers are going down a bit. Someone else has decided to leave the HE group, so its getting to be not so viable. I really think it is down to people just finding it too much to have it in their homes, but no one seems easy about making the commitment for a hall either. I need to move to an HE friendly part of the country - Devon would do - get looking for a house for me everyone. Though the upside of Scotland out of the central belt is house prices. I can't believe I'm talking about house prices. I'll shut up.....

Posted by Joyce

Too, too boring........

Got up at 5.30am, drove to Edinburgh. Worked till 7.30pm, just got home. Missed Hannah dreadfully today. Are we meant to like being with them quite so much (even when I don't, if you see what I mean). I popped out of work for a bit to see the physio, and she says there is a massive muscle spasm in my lower back, so suggested I needed to get the GP to prescribe something other than painkillers. Gave me some ultrasound, but tbh, sitting with a hot water bottle under my desk probably did more. Off to bed. Hopefully have more to say tomorrow.

Posted by Joyce

Feeling a bit blue.....

I'm not sure if its been a good day or not :-(

Back still sore, and leg all tingly. Getting upstairs a bit hard. Feeling a bit panicky about the thought of the YH - not the camp itself, just the YH bit of it. Tried to talk DH into coming along, even in the caravan, but he can't get the time off work, and no way can I back out, as Hannah is completely committed to going. Ho hum.

I'm having a bit of a crisis again on the HE front. Today we did one of the kits from the Young Scientist, and made paper from old envelopes, and set up a compost bin. We did lots of chat about reuse/recycle/reduce, and she had plenty to say on the subject. But when it came to writing the findings down in the workbook, my heart sank. I keep thinking we are making progress with the dyslexia, and we are when it comes to reading, but the writing and spelling part is a night mare. She wrote three sentences, and creative wasn't the word for the spelling. We do all this flaming boring drilling every day, and it IS helping her reading, but its like it all goes out of the window when it comes to trying to write anything. She is probably in the same place now with writing that she was in with reading a year ago, where she would do almost anything to avoid it, and has a range of ruses to try not to do it. It wouldn't be so bad, but DH said today that maybe she did need more help (i.e. school) than we could give her. I know he isn't seriously thinking of school, but I know she worries him. On one hand, he acknowledges that because its one to one, she gets more attention than she would ever get in school, and that she is able to do much more interesting things, and not be held back because of her difficulties, but he says sometimes he wonders if it IS right to let her romp on in some areas, when she is struggling so much with core skills. Sigh.

On the subject of these science kits, I couldn't help thinking today that it was ironic that we were doing the re-cycling one, when its just about the most over-packaged product I've seen AND it comes 3000 air miles, so it is hardly exemplary. I do like them though, and they are OK value wise, but their lack of greenness is bothering me.

After that, we did a CPG maths workbook together for a couple of hours - again though, the dyslexia causes problems in that she is interested in quite challenging things conceptually, but I felt I was on the rack listening to her working out really simple number bonds with manipulatives, as she just cannot remember them.

Hannah then made me a "cheeriness potion" - maybe she was giving me a hint LOL, and played with her HP Lego for a bit, and we did some Roman reading. Dh bought a book called the Romans in Scotland from Tesco this morning, so he read that to her, while I caught up with some work.

And the bop it - well - what can I say? Sound hideous, drives me mad, but very addictive!

Posted by Joyce

Hannah at her dance class, so getting some time to myself. Today was better than I expected, given that she had been used to non-stop entertainment last week, but my back is still so sore, and I've been a bit miserable. Got a physio appt for Wed, but I'm never convinced it does much good. I feel a bit downhearted about it, as I'd been much better for months after the last episode, and suddenly its flared up again. I don't think it was the skiing, particularly, as I really only hung around the nursery slopes with Hannah, and didn't even fall, but my whole leg is throbbing, and I can't find a comfortable position to sit, lie, walk or anything. And the stairs are murder. Oh well. There's no reason to assume it will get really bad again, but every now and then I think about hobbling about on those elbow crutches, and just want to panic.

In the morning, I printed off a load of Chinese New Year stuff, and we spent the morning making dragons, lanterns and lions, and working out what year everyone was born in. Then we made a banner for the window which (I hope) says "good luck in the new year". I'm always a bit nervous about writing things in other scripts, in case I make a minor mistake and it means something truly offensive. Still, I think it impressed the teacher who visits the little boy next door, as he is taught off the premises. I was putting the bin out as she was leaving, and she asked me all about it.

Hannah's wildlife trust magazine had arrived while we were away, and so we read that after lunch. It was about Dolphins this month, and she got really fired up about it, and wrote a letter to our MEP. It was a bit torturous, and took her ages, but I was so proud of her for sticking with it, and it was very legible. She then made a petition, and took it round all the neighbours. Kid's getting used to lobbying already! And then the biggie for me - she been asking to go to the shop/post box by herself for months, and I keep saying no, but today I decided to let her do it. She was so pleased with herself, though I was sick with anxiety the entire time she was away. I just can't decide on my boundaries with this. Every instinct is not to let her, but I know I had a lot more independence at her age, and I do feel its come to the point where she won't learn responsibility till she gets given it. But we are so indoctrinated to believe that its dangerous out there, that its (for me, anyway), a really hard decision.

Then finally, we shot down to the library and got a couple of books on the Romans in Scotland, and also got the Bop It that she's been saving for. So for the rest of the week, its organising a Burn's Supper for the HE group, more sea stuff and Chinese New Year, Roman's, and we've printed off the Martin Luther King unit from School Express, but he may need to wait till next week at this rate. We've still got one of the Blue Planet cd to watch before Melrose as well. I can't believe really how much more we are doing now I've relaxed a bit, and dumped a lot of the schooly things - though the odd workbook would be nice, sometimes, but I think I may have to live without that.

Posted by Joyce
Comes back into the house, dumps bag on stairs, rushes upstairs to great internet connection, and blogs like mad :-)

Had a nice time. We got skiing three times over the week, which for Scotland, is really good. Hannah loved it, and was much more confident this year. As I didn't manage to sell her ski trousers, I shoehorned her into them for another year, and she had to lie on the floor to do them up. Hope that doesn't give her a complex for life.

Lodge had a lovely pool as well, so we went swimming at least once a day, and I was amazed how good Hannah is. Much better than me all round, and though she doesn't yet have Bob's stamina, she certainly matches his speed over short distances, and is has much better style.

What else did we do?? Did some hill walking on the days we couldn't ski. Ate a lot. Drank a lot - wasn't pg - sure I was, somehow, but I've had so many pregnancy losses, who can tell, but used it as an excuse to enjoy happy hour greatly every night anyway. I know, I know, too old, but I hate the thought of never again. Keep saying DH can get snipped, and then I can stop hoping, which might be good all round. I don't even think about spending money on pregnancy tests now, I just wait, saves a lot of anxiety, I find. Though embarrassingly, Hannah was picked up by the radiologist when I was having a kidney scan. I was doing my usual "well, I'll just ignore this for another 6 weeks", and she asked if there was any possibility I was pg, and I said, "no, absolutely not". Poor woman was mortified to tell me I'd got that one wrong.

Hannah even did a bit of work while we were away , and we saw the spelling twist and shout that she had wanted in a toy shop in Aberdeen, half price. We agreed that if she paid £10, I would give her the other £10. Its been remarkably successful, though it drives me bonkers. She also bought herself an electronic yahtze in the index sale.

Over the next week, we are going to do some Chinese stuff for New Year, and also organise a Burn's night, as that's on the 25th. Its not very authentic, but veggie haggis is just about palatable - especially with a whisky poured on it. Not for Hannah, obviously ;-)

OK, going to have an orgy of blog-catching up on everyone elses, and drag myself into the bath. Bum's numb after that long drive. We should have left earlier, but decided to squeeze as much as we could out of it.

Posted by Joyce

OK, I am going to do something really radical. I am going to go on holiday WITHOUT spring cleaning the house first. At nearly 46, I reckon it's time to crawl out from under some of the shackles of childhood. My mother is an obsessive cleaner. I mean REALLY, really clean. And before we went anywhere, ever, the house was scrubbed from top to bottom, tops of cupboards, skirting boards, clean sheets on every bed, fridge de-frosted, the lot. And its the most intolerable burden. She always says "well, what if I had an accident when I was away, and someone else had to come into the house, what would they think if it wasn't perfect?". It always seemed to escape my mothers notice that if that situation ever arose, then the person who would come into the house would be me. I just can't do it this time, though. I'll empty the bins so they don't smell, but that's the limit. I've finally decided that if I am killed in a car crash (another fav scenario of my mums, bless her, then a) I'll not be there to worry about the house b) presumably she will have better things to worry about than behind the back of my freezer. Phew. Must follow through on this one, as I suspect it would be a major liberation, but feeling a little stressed even thinking about it. But determined this is one thing I won't pass onto my daughter.

This will probably be my last blog before the holiday, (still haven't packed). Yesterday we went to HE group. Kids ran wild and played and the mothers drank tea. I'd be keen to have some activities on offer, but the other mothers are very against it. I don't mean anything compulsory, or over organised, but just one or two things every week. It is hard though, as there are 10 kids, and it rotates round our houses, and I think people just feel its too much. Hannah loves going to the group, but I know she finds it hard when everyone is here, to have so many children in her room and everything, when she is used to being able to keep it tidy - which she likes (shades of mum and granny already :-(. )The last time it was here, I did put out hama and geomags, and the kids used a lot of stuff, but offering anything more than that makes everyone very hostile.

We drove home round by Toysrus, and Hannah did buy the addition twist and shout, which really amazed me that she was willing to spend her own money on it. She toyed with buying the spelling version, and had almost decided to do so, when we realised that rather than the £12.99 of the maths one, it was £39.99, so beyond both our budgets. I guess it must have a much bigger memory built in. The memory card for the PS1 also arrived, in nice time for the holiday.

Today, its been a ghastly day, and we've just really slobbed about. I woke up this morning with a sore throat, and Hannah looks a bit peaky, so we've played playstation, then went to drama and FitKid. We braved town for an hour to try to find this beep bop thing she wants to buy, but its sold out everywhere. This afternoon we played Cadoo for a bit, and then Hannah fiddled with her Twist and Shouts for a while, watched Grease which we taped over Xmas, and now Hannah is eating pizza and watching ET with her Dad, while I sort through the skiing stuff.

Heading off for the wine very soon. Joyce

Posted by Joyce

Working again today as DH was off before he goes on night shift tonight, so thought I'd take the chance to knock all my hours off at once. Much easier today though, as I just locked myself in the spare room with the lap top. Hannah really enjoyed the day, I think - they went swimming, and to buy some ski trousers for Hannah for next week. DH and Hannah BOTH wore their School is Not Complusary T shirts today, as he insists it fends off constant questions.

When Daddy went to bed this evening, Hannah and I opened her Twist and Shout multiplication. She got given it for Xmas, and I really wasn't convinced, and its been sitting in a bag waiting to go back to Index, but after Alison said that her girls liked theirs, I decided to risk opening it. No chance of ever putting the leap frog stuff back in its packaging once its opened! However, it was a huge hit. In fact Hannah is negotiating to buy the addition one as well - though I have pointed out that she has enough Xmas money left to buy it, and I'm not sure she'll decide she wants it enough to spend her own money on it. She's been trying to beat the clock with it, and has used it to (yet again) complete her multiplication square.

So - after deciding I hated electronic gizmos, we seem to have ended up with rather a few, but she seems to be just starting to like them. Electronic Yahtze is also proving a big hit. Something called a Beep Bop (?!) is next on her wish list, but she says she will save up to buy that herself so she can't think it looks educational. LOL

I *should* be getting packed, but I always seem to find another displacment activity, but I must get thing sorted tomorrow, after HE group, as we want to leave early on Sunday, and SAturday is fully booked with drama etc. Hannah has amazed me though by asking me to print off some school express units to take away with us, "in case I get bored", along with Twist and Shout, Leap Pad, and Yahtze. So it's still holding - never suggested that before! She is also desperate for the journey, as she got hold of a set of Order of the Phoenix tapes recently, and has been saving them for a long car journey. DH read it to her once, when the book came out, but neither of us like Harry Potter that much, so she's been desperate to hear it again.

Posted by Joyce

Answering here rather than in squawk box, since I've been at work all day, and you don't want to hear about that, so nothing else to write!

Merry - Fishy Books. We used:

Usborne Beginners- under the sea.
Hodder: Dolphins - in the wild series
Watts: Walk about the sea shore
DK: Eyewonder - Ocean
Walker Books - The Emperor's Egg


All of these have loads of lovely pictures, and easy to read text, but with a fair bit of info. We also got the DK Eyewitness one called Whale, but she needs help to use that. The story books we used were "Night of the Moonjellies" - about watching the jelly fish trails, and "Very last first time", about Inuit people. Yes, we do seem to be mirroring you just now - mainly because I couldn't see where to start on School Express, Hannah wanted to do Otters, had since they didn't have that, we went for Whales, since I knew yours were enjoying it.

Sarah - FIAR. its Volume one we have, and I picked up all the books except "Who owns the sun" from ebay. As I say, had it a year, and only really starting to enjoy it now, and that's because its supporting other things we are doing, rather than selecting a fiction book and then building a project round it. But to be honest, I could, had I bothered, have built it up myself around more readily available books. Oh - and Body Book is in the post.

Alison - sure you can - I'll mail them to you

Posted by Joyce
Another productive day

This morning we were going to visit an HE friend who lives some distance away, and I had to stop off at my bank on that way, so Hannah asked the teller if she could have some forms. She got lots, plus a load of that printer paper with the perforations down the side, and a couple of blank passbooks, (albeit with "cancelled" stamped inside, LOL). So the girls played at "making money", and we talked about interest, share dealing and saving and borrowing for ages. Then for some reason we got onto diabetes, and we all had a long chat about the pancreas, blood sugar, and the purpose of insulin.

When we came home, we first of all got out the anatomical model we have, and looked for the pancreas, and tried to work out what it would do in response to us eating different kinds of food, and how that might make us feel. I think she might even be convinced that a slice of brown bread would be better for her than a cream egg!

After tea we carried on the fishy theme from yesterday by watching a couple of episodes from the Blue Planet DVD that Alison loaned us. We have to have it, I think. I am so amazed by the photography - has anyone watched the under ice sequences? How did they DO that. Fascinating. After that we read some books from FIAR : www.fiveinarow.com with a linked theme - Very Last First Time and Night of the Moonjellies, and did some of the activities from the FIAR handbook. Funnily enough, when we got these a year ago, they seemed a bit contrived, but now that we are doing some project work, and they have more of a context, I do think they add interest. Obviously don't use them in the way that FIAR recommends, but fun nevertheless. I think for us what is working is that we fit them into what we are already doing, rather than trying to build stuff around them. We also read a lovely book about Emperor penguins at bed time. Hannah is now in bed playing with her talking globe, and listening to a tape of whale music from my rather more dippy "in touch with myself" days. Haven't had the heart yet to tell her that Keiko died. Her globe isn't the leapfrog one unfortunately as it came out after ours, but she uses it a lot. Its by Geosafari. At the moment, I can here her trying to identify the latitude and longitude co-ordinates (is that what they are called?) of different places that were talked about on the Blue Planet. Can it be that hands off HE can work? Please someone remind me of these few days if we have another crisis in the future.

Tomorrow I work, and Hannah has assembled a pile of "projects" that she wants to take to the childminder with her, including her laminated tables sheets from yesterday, her butterfly project, and her ocean books that we bought yesterday.

Posted by Joyce
I am majorly hacked off at blogger. I cannot get it to show pictures whatever I do. It reminds me when I took a computer programming class in the 70s. We used to punch the programme out on these cards, and send them to the Uni in Dundee. The next day, you would get them back with a note that said "coding error in line one". You'd spend hours checking and fixing it, send it back again, and then the next day, another note would come "coding error in line 2". I'm giving up for a bit. But it is reminding me why I gave up my garden one - it wasn't all down to me being useless.....

Anyway, we've had a couple of days like you read about in American home ed journals, that just make you go "yeah, right". Hannah finished the butterfly unit, and we laminated covers for it that she'd designed, and then she read the Usborne pocket guide to Butterflies and Moths. She made butterfly shaped biscuits without any help from me at all, listened to Madam Butterfly, and then wrote and performed "a dance of a butterfly" REALLY! For anyone reading this for the first time, don't be put off, as its not the norm........We also discussed pollination, and the seasons, and looked at the instructions for the Butterfly kit we have. We tried to work out when we should send for our caterpillars, but identifying a time when we'll be at home for 4 weeks on the trot was a bit of a challenge, to be honest.

I then typed out all the tables in balloon script, and she coloured them all in, and then I laminated them, and she filled them all in with felt pen. By this time, my chin was on the floor. The ONLY thing that has changed is that just before Xmas we bought a small dining table and chairs from John Lewis, and put them in the living room, so she has been working on that. She says she loves it. If I thought buying a table would have made so much difference, I'd have squeezed one in years ago. Our kitchen is really small, so the only other table in the house is in the dining room, and it has really been converted into a play room, and I always expected her to use the table in there if she needed to. The room is a bit dark, especially in winter, as its north facing, but I didn't realise how much she disliked it. I think in the living room, she can see the street, I'm pootling around, and she can watch TV for a bit if she wants. She spent some time looking up words in her new dictionary, and testing me to see if I knew the meanings of them, and then used the Thesaurus to find difference ways of describing how a butterfly moves.

In the late afternoon, we watched Free Willy in preparation for looking at ocean Life, and then popped out to the library to see what they had. As usual, nothing, so we ended up with a rather expensive visit to Ottackers. We bought the Eyewitness Whale Book, the Eyewonder Ocean Book (both by DK), and a book about sealife by Usborne. I had Xmas vouchers, but we spent most of them:-(

I also can't believe the difference laminating stuff seems to make. Maybe its just novelty value, but she seems much more willing to write if she feels she can just wipe it off if she doesn't like it. Because I've got reasonable access to a photocopier, I've never bothered before, but the laminated tables went down a treat.

Her plans for the rest of the week are to find out about the Ocean, and to do the Science kits that are mounting up a bit. Fingers crossed it lasts.

Posted by Joyce

Didn't work :-(
Back to the drawing board ****

Posted by Joyce

Holds breath to see it it works. its only taken me about 90 mins to get this far with photos. If you can see it, its my girl playing scalectrix and doing craft earlier today - and also advertising that school is not compulsary :-)

Posted by Joyce
Someone had stolen my daughter and left a Stepford child in her place! (Had to explain what this meant to Hannah, and she informed me that "daddy was a stepford husband" (because he does the ironing, LOL)

Anyway, Hannah announced that it was time to "get back to work" - not something she has ever shown much inclination for in the past - and spent the day doing the units on butterflies and icebergs from www.schoolexpress.com After that we read the Usborne book of butterflies and moths together, and had a long enlightening discussion about how butterflies mate, and how that's different from humans. She also amazed me by reading really quite difficult words like migrate, species and antennae without any help, and practised looking them up in the dictionary. I need to get a new dictionary though, as her one didn't have any of these words in it, and she found the print size in mine really hard to cope with. So tomorrow we might try to find something more intermediate. But I was well impressed that she knew exactly how to use it. This all led on to a discussion about plurals - antenna/ae rather than "s" and also the use of apostrophes: body, body's, bodies. I knew all those years studying English language at uni would have a use one day.

I then spent about two hours trying to order the other units from the school express site, but it didn't seem to like my credit card (which is quite healthy), but I finally managed it when I used my stand-by card.

What else did we do today - took the tree down - and I must say although I've moaned for the last fortnight about how much nicer a real tree is, it was lovely not to have the mess of the real tree, or the weeks of negotiation with the council to have it uplifted. The living room looks huge without it, though we still have the xmas pressies lying around, as they are all getting played with regularly.

I'm still walking at least four miles a day, but its going to take me a while to get back up to my 5mph pace, but I want to achieve it before the Race for Life races start in May. I am really annoyed that after all my hard work training for the Dublin Marathon 3 years ago (which I power walked in just over 5 hours), I let all that fitness go, but I feel more motivated than I've felt for a while, and my thyroxine levels are better, so going to have another go. I think the other thing is that it is really hard to train with a 4-6 year old. Up until she was four, Hannah would go in the Baby Jogger buggy (wonderful thing), and enjoy bowling along at speed for a couple of hours. But then she got too big for the buggy, but couldn't keep up on foot. But now that she is on a full sized bike, with gears etc, she just cycles while I train, so we are both getting lots of exercise.

My other project is to get some web space, so I can start putting pix on the blog - but that might take a bit longer.

Posted by Joyce
Getting to the stage where it will be nice to get back to normal. Though we only have next week at home, and then we are going North to ski for a week (always assuming the snow stays, otherwise it'll need to be hillwalking). Then back for a week, and off to winter camp.

Today we had a long walk along the beach, and then we downloaded some of the free themed units from School Express, and Hannah spent ages working on the butterfly one. Her reading has improved enormously over the last couple of months, and on one hand I do think her dyslexia programme has made a big difference, though actually, we've done very little for the last three weeks, and she seems to have made big strides forwards over the holidays. I really struggled with whether or not to have her assessed, as I sort of felt that it wouldn't/shouldn't make any difference to her, and that avoiding the label was important. But tbh, I think having the diagnosis has done a lot for her self esteem, in that she couldn't understand why she found reading/writing etc so hard, PLUS I'm ashamed to say it has made me a great deal more patient. Writing is still an area where she has a reluctance to try, although over the last few weeks she has started leaving little notes for me, so maybe that will start to come as well soon.