Links and rants

We went to a local National Trust place at the weekend. It was lovely weather, and the place is great. Being National Trust members we could park the car for free, go around the hall for free but had to pay to go into the farm. We wanted to do the farm bit so paid. They quoted two prices for each kind of entry – a basic one and then one with a suggested donation added in. If you paid the donation they could claim back gift aid on the whole lot (not just the donation) which sounded a bit dubious to me, but it was all printed up on signs and everything. We had just enough for the basic family entry on us, but when I asked at the till for a family ticket the NT person assumed I wanted to pay the donation as well. That irked me – I’m already paying the NT money via the membership, I’m paying on top to make this visit and then they assume I want to pay a donation as well. I’m in favour of the NT and I’m glad it exists, but that made me a bit Victor Meldrew.

Enough grumbling – some links.

He can’t really be 6, can he?

I think so – and I should know!
K is 6 today and slightly schizophrenic about the whole thing, which I think proves he really is six 😆
It’s been a very busy day, which began fairly early as he woke up and wailed because he didn’t have any presents – I think he had expected a pile at the end of his bed or something 😕
Bob presented him with a couple, which he opened and suddenly it was the best birthday ever. Then he looked at the smallness of the pile and sobbed again that he had so few and it wasn’t fair 🙄 Still one to go, we reminded him, which was a Playmobil kit from us, and that was absolutely the best present ever (actually, both he and J have played with it an impressive amount today, especially considering how busy we have been) so the birthday was back on track 😉
In fact, the Playmobil kept them so busy that we had to have breakfast in the car on the way to CHEF Drama (previously only for 8+ but today was a trial session for 6-9s) because if we had stopped to eat before we left we would not have been able to ice the cakes we made yesterday to take with us…
Drama was great, apparently, then we came home via boring supermarket shopping and iced the rest of the cakes (for Badgers) and a bigger proper birthday cake (for us) and had beans on toast before heading out to gymnastics, followed by sandwiches while we watched the bigger gymnasts doing their thing and then a quick trek across the field to Badgers, bearing cakes to share.
Unfortunately neither Bob nor I remembered that we were supposed to be collecting the boys at 7 this week 😳 so Bob went to collect them at 7:30 and found a large group of adults and two small boys waiting for him…
Then we had cake and milk shake and now it’s bedtime and they’re tired but hyped – ho hum!

Yesterday was swimming, which we managed to be late for (again) so I dropped the boys off at the door while I parked. Somehow K managed to be in the pool several minutes before J, despite starting at the same time – I think enthusiasm may have something to do with it – so J missed about half his lesson and then spent the rest of it refusing to do what the teacher asked 🙄 *sigh* When they came through to the toddler pool I did manage to get him to do some of the things he’d missed 🙂 but I think I may need to talk to him about not wasting the teacher’s time and to her about it being okay to ask him to do something and then just move on and concentrate on the others if he doesn’t, because otherwise she’s going to be putting a disproportionate amount of effort into one child who won’t do it under pressure anyway 😕 I think I also need to make sure we’re there early too, no matter how hard J tries to sabotage that, so that he’s there for the whole lesson and possibly even a few minutes in the toddler pool first to get him started.
K is really coming on 🙂 He loves to show me what he can do and keeps begging for me to help him (as I spend a fair bit of each session “helping” (I call it that; he might not 👿 ) J to practise but tend to leave K to amuse himself) but A will only put up with going to someone else for a few minutes at a time and L needs help too. Mind you, I think by the time L is old enough to start lessons she will be raring to go as she is by far the most confident of the three in the water, despite having had the least exposure to swimming 😀

Much of the rest of the day was spent baking for K’s birthday, but we also managed to squeeze in a little Maths and English and some Bookworm Adventures

Old mud and pipes

I took the oldest three into town to go on a tour put on by the County Council archaeology people. The old library had been demolished and the archaeologists allowed in to excavate before the new stuff is put on top. We couldn’t go on the site itself due to the recent rain, but we went up to the edge, and then went into a listed building on the site (that wasn’t demolished) to look at the finds.

The dig itself was a bit boring actually – they’d uncovered a cobbled street and some buildings, but these had all been removed so that they could dig down further. All that was visible was a lot of mud with the occasional hole dug in it. They had been hoping to find the course of one of the local Roman roads but it hadn’t turned up. It’s funny how people (including me) go “Ooh! Roman!” and then are unimpressed by Medieval (unless it’s a big castle), Stone Age (unless it’s Stone Henge) etc.

Anyway, the staff seemed to want to talk to people about what they do (which appeared to involve a lot of mud – archaeology in the UK in winter = nice). It turned out that one of them ran the local Young Archaeologists Club, which we’ll look into for J in a couple of months. J correctly identified some coprolite as “poo” and we all learned that you could tell the age of a tobacco pipe by the size of its bowl – the older it is the smaller it is as tobacco was very expensive when it was first introduced but got cheaper over time and so people could afford to burn more of it. The mud had apparently had some benefits – it had preserved a Victorian leather shoe and a big Medieval wooden bowl used for dying clothes.

I’ll put this here so I don’t forget it or lose it. There’s a nice site for querying local history databases: the Heritage Gateway. Some County Councils appear to have put their stuff onto it, but not all of them so your mileage may vary.

Gruffalo!

Every other Friday is Friday club 🙂 J was actually ready at a reasonable time without any hassle so we got there without stress 😀 Even better, we were joined there by Big Alice, who had a day off and couldn’t think of anything more exciting to do than spend it with us 😉
We have a structure which remains the same for each meeting and then we take it in turns to organise what fits into each slot. We start with a few minutes of worship, which could be reading a Bible passage, thinking about it and then a prayer together, or looking at an area of the world where there are difficulties and then praying for the people who live there, or perhaps straightforward praise, with songs, prayer, even dance – it’s up to whoever is leading to decide. Then we have a few minutes devoted to music, which could be a chance to practise songs for worship next time, listening to music, singing nursery rhymes, playing instruments – again it’s up to whoever is leading to arrange it as they wish. After that we usually see if anyone has brought anything along to show or tell the rest of the group and then we have snack time – tea and coffee for adults, water for children and usually some kind of home-baked goodies to share – followed by a quick play (outside if weather permits) while we set the room up for the main activity. In theory this alternates between science and art/craft, but we are flexible so if there is something which needs a couple of weeks that’s fine and if we have a visiting teacher who can only make a particular date or a topic which we want to cover but which doesn’t really fit under either umbrella then we just squeeze it in somehow 😉 We try to do a nature walk at least once a season/term as well. The main activity usually lasts about an hour, then we clear away and one or two of the adults do games or stories while the rest sort things out for lunch, which we eat together in the building in winter and at the rec in summer; spring and autumn vary according to weather. Much of the afternoon is then spent at the local rec, where the mums huddle round a table with a flask of tea, setting the world to rights, while the children run wild in the undergrowth or play in the playground. We have a perennially recurring debate about sticks and whether boys should be allowed to “be boys”…
Anyhoo, this week we started with prayer and song, then music, which turned out to be singing along to a couple of songs from The Gruffalo songbook and doing lots of silly actions; it was great and fitted perfectly with what I had chosen to do as a text-based drama activity with the younger children later on 😀 Couldn’t have been better if we’d planned it!
We were running late, so did presentation time and snack together. Lots of yummy panettone slipped down very quickly while J talked about his new Murderous Maths books, L showed her sparkly heart teddy, R read her favourite poem and L’s friend K (who has Down’s Syndrome) showed us her newly acquired skill at hopping 🙂
Then we split into two groups, with J and a couple of older children looking at Julius Caesar with Helen, while I read The Gruffalo with the younger ones, then we talked through the story and thought about how each animal would be feeling at different points. I got the children to think about how a mouse moves and we each had a go, then did the same for the gruffalo and then put the two together, contrasting them at their first meeting and then at the end of the book and discussing how we could show the difference. We practised acting out different emotions and then worked in pairs taking it in turns to be gruffalo and mouse. After that I gave them a choice between drama and drawing and almost all chose drawing, so we thought about what a gruffalo is and then the children each drew and either labelled or described their own gruffalo, with pictures of what it ate around the edges – lots of mice seemed to feature here! By the time we’d got that far the older group had finished, so we never did get back to acting again. Helen wants another week, though, so we could follow on next time 😉 Meanwhile J has some Shakespeare to learn – I mustn’t forget!
A fell asleep on Big Alice while I was clearing up, so I wrapped her (wish I’d had a camera handy, as they looked great) and they stayed like that until we got to the rec and then a little longer 🙂 Lots of playing and chatting and then when we left the children asked BA to tea, so she followed us home, via supermarket for petrol (and Bob!) and kept them all busy while Bob and I got tea 🙂

Today A and I had a lazy morning, mostly catching up on washing, while Bob took the children into town to look at a dig site (I expect he’ll blog it himself) and then we all spent the afternoon pottering. J and Bob did a Famous Five jigsaw, part of a puzzle set he got for Christmas. J and K found and fitted the battery we’d finally got round to getting for K’s RC Dalek, so we’ve now all been well and truly located, annihilated and exterminated 😆

Keeping it up…

on the basis that it’s easier to do things a day or two at a time, A permitting 😉

So, it was a Latin Wednesday, but Bean-free, no Sarah and Z, no Anne and A – just Gina and hers, Susan with her K and our lot 🙂 We let them play first, while I finished making little picture cards I hadn’t been able to do the evening before, then we looked at the Latin alphabet and they all had a go at writing their name in Latin (E and L had to think about “y” alternatives; probably a good thing Z wasn’t here as no “z” in Latin) and made little ID cards which I think got incorporated into another game later. After that we learned some adjectives by acting them out (benigna/us, magna/us, maxima/us, improba/us, minima/us, strenua/us – there were to be a few more, but having such young children in the class I have to watch closely to see when they’re saturated) and then the bigger ones (J and J) matched up animal pictures with appropriate adjectives (ending and meaning). Talking to my J afterwards I think this activity together and then extension for a few is something we will do more often, as he liked having a bit more of a challenge.
No etc really, as they were happy just to play and none of us had had a chance to plan anything much. Susan made yummy soup and we attempted dippy dippy eggs, but I took too long making egg cups (from the egg box) and just overcooked them enough that the yolks were not really dippy but more sludgy 😕 Had to ladle it onto the soldiers with a teaspoon 😆
Susan had clay to haul so we kept K and took him to gymnastics with us when we went. In fact, I hardly saw him all afternoon, as I was busy making pizzas and trying to placate screaming A while he and our K were upstairs playing. Made J help me with A and the pizzas, as he had volunteered to take the things. While we were chatting about Badgers and the upcoming evening he casually mentioned that K had volunteered to bring sandwiches 😯 Nobody had told me! We had about 5 slices of bread left over from lunch and about 20 minutes before we had to leave for gymnastics, A was screaming, the last pizza was half-made – hoping we could get it in the oven for long enough before we went to be able to turn it off and leave it to cook while we were out. Then J disappeared off upstairs while the others got ready. Everybody else in car, safely strapped in, no sign of J 😡 Found him upstairs, not at all ready, swanning around as if he had all the time in the world 👿 Screamed a bit 😳 stood over him while he got ready, frogmarched him downstairs, threw wellies at him when he started to hunt for shoes, dragged him to the car when he protested 😳 and just made it to gymnastics more or less in time to send the boys in while I got the girls out of the car. Arrived indoors to find K (not ours) in tears because he had expected his mum to be there, sent L upstairs to save a seat (you have to hustle for one at times 😉 ) assured K that his mum would be there very soon and would watch from upstairs as she always does, sent him in happy, went upstairs, found L looking for Susan rather than for a seat (she’s usually already there when we get there) and so had to hunt around a bit to get one for me and one to save (I think it may have been already claimed really but I sat L on it looking too cute to turn off and then moved her to my lap when Susan arrived 😉 ). Phew! Meanwhile Bob bought bread, made sandwiches and gathered uniform so that as soon as gymnastics was finished we could dash home, get the boys into uniform (they don’t wear it for normal meetings, but this was a presentation evening), grab the pizzas and sandwiches and head out again.
The presentations were enrolments and badges being given out, so lots of clapping, which A joined in with very enthusiastically, but didn’t quite get when to stop cheering so carried on through the speeches 😳 😆 Then we all had food (Badgers having been asked to stay back and let the parents and important people have a go first!) and a chance to look at the work they’d been doing recently. A made lots of fans and had lots of cuddles, then suddenly decided she’d had enough so I snuggled her into a wrap and we worked our way to the door. Brought home a plate of sandwiches and a fair bit of pizza (perhaps I panicked and over-catered a little!) so that with the soup Susan left was Bob’s lunch and everyone’s tea sorted 😉

Late night meant late start this morning, so K, L and I decided it might be best to just get ready as quickly as we could, get to toddlers early and have breakfast there. We thought we’d communicated this to J, but apparently not, as he decided to stay in bed and read 🙄 When everybody else was dressed and he still hadn’t moved I took away the book and told him we needed to leave in 5 minutes and he said he’d be down straightaway. Hmmm. 25 minutes later we gave up waiting for him and I put the other three into the car. Went upstairs to find him on the landing doing a good impression of rushing round looking for clothes. It might have impressed me if I hadn’t heard the thud of his feet jumping out of bed as I started up the stairs. Or if I hadn’t asked him to hurry 25 minutes beforehand. Or even if his clothes hadn’t been in a pile on the landing already, waiting for him to put them on. So much for yesterday’s protestations and promises! Told him he’d have to come in his pyjamas and when he argued grabbed his clothes, put them in a bag and took them to the car. He said he’d freeze so I handed him a jumper and gave him 5 seconds to get his shoes on, walk to the car barefoot or be left behind. Amazingly, he was in the car by the time I got to 5 😉 Then he had a brush with death when I told him how angry I was that he had kept us all waiting for so long and he smartly replied “You could have had breakfast at home after all!” :slap: :wall: :rifle: :tomcat:
For once the A14 was on our side and we got to church only 2 minutes later than we should have opened up 🙂 Gina arrived at about the same time so I sent J off to get dressed and then we sat J and J down with some (fun) work to do together while K had a piano lesson and E and L did some painting (in theory tartan patterns in honour of Burns; in practice random patterns with lots of pink 😆 ). After his lesson K did loads of painting (at least 10 pictures!), J and J both did some too and the girls helped me to make porridge (again in honour of Burns, but also because we had had no breakfast!). Susan and K arrived, as did a couple of other families. Recorder happened. Lots of playing happened. Lots of chat and cuddling babies 🙂 We finished with some French: flashcards with (slightly dodgy – wish I could draw!) pictures of animals on them which I used to introduce vocab (again planned to do more than we did, thanks to saturated littlies, but that’s how it goes) of animal names and noises, then we put the cards on the floor and they had to run to the one I said. Simple but effective – except that I need to laminate the flashcards, which means I need to draw some worth laminating 😆
Tidied up and drove away past the front of the church – which is when I realised lots of ride-ons had been left out :slap: Turned round, went back, parked on double yellows, unlocked and went through to put them away, then could not get the key to turn to relock the front door. Visions of children in car being harassed, booked, ticketed… while I wrestled with church door! Fortunately I managed to do it eventually and the children were all fine, as was the car, but it did mean we were rather later back even than usual.
J did some English orally – couldn’t face trying to make him write while I was feeding tired grumpy A – then let them watch crud on tv while A dozed on my lap. Forgot to get K to read 😳 Must do that tomorrow! L insisted on doing some (Maths) work before she would allow herself to watch tv – bless!
Early night for them – and me too, I think, but first I need to prepare some text-based work for a group of up to 10 3-6 year olds for tomorrow. It could be a long night!

Swimming and stuff

Some complicated arrangements today, since Bob only had a lift home from work so we had to get him there. I seem to have suddenly been added to the local NCT email list and so found out that there was a coffee morning today which I thought might be a good chance to meet some local mums and littlies, so I took the children along to that while Bob worked from home for a couple of hours. We were the only ones there apart from the hostess, so I guess it was a good thing we’d gone, but it wasn’t quite the opportunity I’d hoped for 😆
Then we came home to collect Bob and swimming stuff, dropped Bob off at work and went on to the swimming pool, decided only the boys would swim today as the girls and I were tired and everyone a bit crabby and arrived with plenty of time in hand (for once) to find that the teacher was not there so no lesson 🙄 The children were all in the pool waiting by the time this was announced so the pool staff said they could stay and splash about for the time which should have been lesson without being charged, which meant that at least the boys got a chance to play and be in the water. K spent most of the time doing the things they normally do in class like swimming with floats; J skulked at the edge chatting to J, but did move around a little when reminded that he was in a pool 😆 and actually spent some time kicking around with his feet off the bottom 😀

Meanwhile the girls and I got to chat with Morag, who we haven’t seen for weeks, but managed to miss Gina and Susan, both of whom I had hoped to talk to about tomorrow – ah well! There’s always email 😉

Came home and decided the best place to be was bed, so we retired with a grumpy baby, a selection of books and a tin of left-over Christmas chocolates… K read me a first reader book (What a Bad Goat!) while J did a story-based Mathstart book with L (The Greatest Gymnast) and then we had a celebratory chocolate 😆 before tackling Ready Set Hop and Divide and Ride 🙂
Spent a fair while reading Write Around the World and fitting it in with what they already know eg about Chinese writing, hieroglyphics and Latin, then K decided to have a go at writing his name in different ways, J did his in gothic script and then tackled some code writing and L and I read The Three Billy Goats Gruff, whilst wrassling a grumpy baby :frog:

Spats and sports

Just enjoying a nice leisurely start to the day when I suddenly realised it was CHEF sports today! Called to children to get ready, leapt out of bed and went into headless chicken mode to get everybody breakfasted and ready to go… K got himself ready and then helped L, A was sunny and sat in her high chair smiling while we dashed around her, J stayed in bed reading 😡 and then took his sweet time over washing and dressing 👿 and ended up having to eat his breakfast in the car as we were already 20 minutes later leaving than we needed to be. The traffic was relatively kind to us, so K was only 15 minutes late for his class and I gave J work to do instead of letting him play with his friends during K’s class (he was allowed to play once it was done – I’m not totally heartless 😆 ) – the teacher let K join in with J’s class too, so he actually ended up doing two sessions for the price of one anyway 🙂
L did some work on shapes and colours with me and then some numbers and finding things with her friend E while the boys were wearing themselves out, so it was a useful session all round really 🙂 Plus I got to cuddle baby S for a bit 😀

After sports we went to the park with Susan and K and huddled in the drizzle eating Susan’s food while the children played regardless (and also ate Susan’s food 😳 ); when we could stand it no longer we grown-ups baled out and dragged the children away! Came home and made birthday cards for cousin E so Bob could post them when he got home. J very touchy, though, and ended up spending quite a lot of time in the porch calming down and learning not to hit people 🙁 I wish I had better tools than exclusion and counting but they’re all that seems to work just now. We’ve tried positive things, but he doesn’t seem to get the idea, so it usually comes down to warning, counting and then taking things away (computer time first – he’s banned until Thurs – and then threaten books – but so far haven’t had to do that one; you can tell where his priorities are 😆 ). Reward charts are a waste of time as he doesn’t care 😕 If anything they seem to make him worse in a “might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb” kind of way 🙁