More food! For a celebration this time. And some maths

Today was M's turn to 'bake'.  I say 'bake' because she (with just a little bit of help) made Fridge cake, we went for sultanas and dried, sweetened cranberries along with mini marshmallows instead of a variety of sweets at they suggest.

Weighing the butter

Measuring the sugar

Licking the golden syrup spoon!

Melting the chocolate etc

Bashing the biscuits

Although we never need a particular reason to bake, this particular session is for a very lovely reason.  We are going along to a book launch coffee morning tomorrow, for a book compiled, edited and published by a friend to raise money for La Leche League GB.  For an idea of the book have a look here and if you're interested you can buy your own copy here!

Unsurprisingly I have also been playing more Phase 10, although today it has been with each of K & M individually rather than the three of us together.

In other news, quite a lot of maths has cropped up this weekend, both in baking and elsewhere.  You may not be aware that one digestive biscuit weighs just under 15g, which is quite handy when you need 150g of them to bash up!  A has the Twenty20 cricket on the telly, so K has been practising reading large numbers.  When they give the score off each ball in an over it looks as though there's a six digit number, which gives good practice reading large numbers, such as one hundred and eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven!  We've also talked briefly about the idea of brackets and 'BODMAS' in maths, since K came with a maths question to 'test' me.  She asked me what 'four plus four times four plus four' is.  So we talked about the differences between (4+4)x(4+4), (4+4)x4+4 and indeed 4+4x4+4!  K's answer was 36, so the question must have been (4+4)x4+4.  She has decided (as she usually does!) that she will continue to do things 'her way', but at least is now aware that most other people won't be joining her!

Oh and we've got a new camera!  So normal service has been resumed regarding photos on 'blog' i.e. I will add them unless M decides it's not allowed regarding ones of her or her work.  The new camera also does videos!

Food, food, food!

Still feeling unwell, so it was a good thing that it was Feed Yourself Friday.  Both girls went for baked beans and toast.  Then this afternoon after a trip to the library K baked.  The result was very good - chocolate brownie cupcakes from this book (it came with a dozen silicon cases).  I was reminded that it always takes longer than I think for K to bake, so I did need to help a little bit at the end so that she wasn't late for ballet!
While K was busy baking M and I had a couple of games of Phase 10, but since I'm feeling so grotty M kept score, adding multiples of 5 pretty competently!

My Mum is a star!

I've not blogged for a few days, as I've come down with a nasty bug.  Fortunately my Mum happened to be visiting, particularly fortunate as A has been away with work (back late tonight).  I have spent most of the first three days of this week in bed, and asleep for much of that time, being very well looked after by my lovely Mum, with a little bit of help (even if it was just leaving me in peace for much of the time!) by my girls.

I'm still not well and am very woolly headed, so I'm not entirely sure what the three of them got up to, but I do know that:
M has been done a 200 piece puzzle (twice).
K has made and written cards to invite her Uncle M and her Great Grandma to her birthday tea party at Granny and Big Grandad's house after we've been the RSC to see the Comedy of Errors.
M has done quite a lot of a maths work book.
M & Granny made M a WWII nurses outfit (because it was 'make do and mend' - made out of a pillow case!) so she could nurse me.

I'm sure there's been plenty more going on and unless I wake up tomorrow feeling *considerably* better than I do today, there will be some benign neglect going on tomorrow, as Mum went home this morning.  Fortunately it's 'Feed Yourself Friday', so I don't even need to worry about food (except maybe slicing some bread).

Granny's here! And other things.

If we want to see Granny during the summer, we usually have to go and visit her, but since the bowls season is coming to an end she is now available to come and stay.  This morning we stayed in waiting for her.  K was keen to go to church as usual, but since M's a little bit under the weather and I woke up with a sore throat and stinking cold to add to my woes, she said she didn't mind.  Usually A's around if one girl wants to go to church and the other doesn't, but he had gone to Cambridge for a college reunion dinner, so it was all of us or none today.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that while we were waiting we played Phase 10, and Granny hadn't long arrived and we were eating lunch when A arrived home considerably earlier than planned as he'd got a lift with a college friend who was driving and didn't have to make too much of a detour to drop him off. 

After lunch Granny took K & M to the park, so A & I took the opportunity to talk birthday things while K was out.  K did some touch typing on the computer.  Having got 100% on lesson 1 she has finally moved onto lesson 2.  I have suggested that 100% really isn't necessary before moving on, but she's adamant that's how she wants to do it!

Meanwhile M got out some workbooks that rarely make an appearance, but Granny always asks about them.  Both girls will happily do things that Granny suggests that are met with a firm refusal if I do so.  I think M did a few pages of various workbooks orally with Granny before we got out Boggle Slam! to show her.  Granny, M & I all had a few goes, using our co-operative method, before K asked for some company.  She wanted to do some more of the logicbox game on the computer, M came too and we all worked together.  We eventually got stuck on level 6, (even though I had managed it previously on my own!) and agreed to go back and try again another time after we'd wrestled with it for quite some time.

We returned to the two experiments we had on the go.  While all three lots of ice were cloudy, the boiled, filtered, carefully poured ice was much less so than the other two.  The glass that was supposed to separate into three distinct layers has only two, but that led to a discussion about solutions and emulsions as well as density at the dinner table, so while it didn't do what it was supposed to we still got plenty out of it.

We also watched Twelfth Night again as K wanted Granny to see it and finished off the evening with a few episodes of Bagpuss.  I believe it is very important to share our cultural heritage with our children!

Inside and out

Well, actually it was the other way round. This morning I took K & M to a friends' birthday party at Hicks Lodge in the National Forest.  Their bikes just about fit in the boot, so I stayed in the cafe and chatted to the birthday girl's granny, while her parents took 9 girls off on for about an hour and a half bike ride.  They came back in very high spirits, despite several tumbles by various girls, and all agreed it was fantastic, particularly the bumps.  We will definitely be returning en famille soon.  Not only because the girls want to, but I want a go too!
When we got back, despite the lovely weather, we spent most of the rest of the afternoon indoors.  A few days ago our latest dvd arrived from lovefilm:  Shakespeare - Animated - Comedy (handy that - since both girls won't go near any tragedy).  M watched an episode of The Secret Garden first (and then another afterwards), then K and I settled down and watched Twelfth Night, followed by As You Like It.  Sadly M has been put off Shakespeare somewhat by K's insistence on watching dvds, but I'm hoping she might be give these ago.  They're half hour adaptations of the story much of the original language rather than the full play, so I think she might.  I'm enjoying listening out for actors I recognise, so far there's been Willie Rushton and Hugh Grant.
The girls have also been listening again to the Paddington Bear cd (M's also asked the library to get another one in for her) and K has found Peru on our globe and we've pondered which part of Peru is likely to be the darkest.

All sorts of stuff!

The only thing on the calendar for today was ballet for K at 5pm.  Generally days like that go one of two ways, often we do very little but occasionally we do loads.  Today was definitely towards the doing lots end of the spectrum.

I think one thing that helped was getting the (currently obligatory) game of Phase 10 out of the way this morning, which admittedly started rather late (how do people get children to school on time!?).

We'd agreed that we would give Feed yourself Friday a go for lunch time.  I did help with cutting bread and opening tins (they both had a go, but we discovered that both using a tin opener and opening a ring-pull type of tin are rather tricky for small hands).  M had originally decided on 'cheesey toast and beans', but, on finding a tin of spaghetti in the cupboard, changed her mind and that with toast.  K had chosen tomato soup with toast and stuck with that.  Both girls went for the microwave over the hob when offered the choice, and both rinsed out the tins (having put what was left in a container in the fridge in M's case, and I'd had the rest of the soup in K's) and put everything in the dishwasher afterwards.  All in all it went rather well and we will stick with this.  I have said that I would like them to use the opportunity to try new things at least some of the time, rather than having the same every week, and we agreed 'new things' can mean either things they haven't got for themselves before or completely new things.

After lunch we went out to the library to collect the book that they had got in for K (both K & M have been enjoying the Witch Baby and Me series).  After a disappointing visit to M&S - H the lovely lady who is usually there with things to taste on a Friday and Saturday wasn't there - we came home.

We'd talked about getting out our Science Experiments book and choosing something to do.  As it turned out we chose three things to do. 
M decided she wanted to make paper aeroplanes (again), so she and I made one each (and K has decided to join in and is making one as I type!) and flew them against each other.
We also now have two other experiments on the go.  On the side in the kitchen we have a pint glass with oil, golden syrup and water (with green food colouring in it) mixed up and various small objects (chocolate drop, screw, plastic counter, button & balloon shaped sequin type thing) dropped in.  At the moment there are two distinct layers, but I think we may have mixed it a bit too vigorously and created an emulsion.  It's supposed to show density, which we have talked about, so we'll have to see how it looks in the morning.
We also have three containers of water in the freezer; one with tap water (very thoroughly shaken), one with filtered water (again shaken) and the third with filtered, boiled water (very carefully poured).  We're hoping that tomorrow we will see some cloudy ice and some clear ice!

As I may have mentioned just a few times, Phase 10 is hugely popular here.  M only plays with me, and K if she wants to, but K likes to play on her own or rather with an imaginary friend (she plays both hands though!).  She has been talking about making up a variation of the scoring rules and today she played her new way.  In the classic version you get points for any cards left in your hand at the end of a hand and points are a bad thing.  In K's new version points are good and if you do manage to put your phase down, you get points, but if you have any cards left in your hand you subtract them from your score and additionally you get the points of any cards that are 'hit' onto your phase.  If you don't manage to complete your phase you don't get any points, but you don't lose any, and get nought.

In addition to all the above, M has read one of the books she got from the library already (Dino Dog), and started another one.  Both girls have had another go at touch typing.  K has been to ballet and meanwhile M made the batter and in fact most of the rest of the work for the toad-in-the-hole that was for tea, as well as pulling carrots from the garden to go with it.  We've also talked about laughter releasing endorphins, which are pain relieving, when I made K laugh when she stubbed her toe and she's just gone to look up 'endorphins' in the index of our new Human Body encyclopedia.  Hmmm, it's not there, but 'laughing' is and endorphines are mentioned in a paragraph about laughter: 'Laughter triggers the release of brain chemicals called endorphins, which make us feel great.'  Finally, M & K are going to a cycling party tomorrow for a friend's birthday here, so A has got the bikes out and checked them over with M helping.

Looking back at all that - we've done even more than I thought!  Very annoying not to have a camera at the moment though, the shutter is not working, and it's going to take weeks just to find out if it can be fixed. :-(

Mostly about Food!

Apart from going into town to get a birthday present for a friend whose party they are going to on Saturday, most of today's activities have been food based.
I made an apple pie with some of the apples that we picked during our walk at the weekend, with a bit of help from M.
K made some more of the gingernuts that M and I made yesterday.  No, we haven't eaten them all already, she just really wanted to make some!
K & M have been listening to a cd from the library of Paddington Bear stories today and I had the idea of looking to see if there were any Paddington episodes on youtube - there are, so we watched several of those too, which K & M loved!  One episode did necessitate the explanation of why Paddington would say that it would be better to 'dial 111' than 999 because it would be quicker.  The foodie link here is, of course, marmelade sandwiches (and he makes toffee in one episode too).
Finally (and not food related), while M was at ballet K & I had a go at this logicbox game.  We really got into it quite quickly and were nearly late picking M up!

A pottering about day.

We've needed to be around the past couple of days, as we've been having solar panels installed, so have mostly been at home. 
M presented me with these pictures, when I came downstairs for breakfast, which she'd drawn using a book called I Can Draw Dinosaurs.

Parasaurolophus by M

Triceratops by M

We also had a chat about how when we're at home what we seem to do most of the time at the moment is play Phase 10 and K & M have a go on the computer and play Moshi Monsters, and how (from my point of view at least) it might be good to try to diversify a bit!  They agreed in principle, so we'll see how it goes.  We did also go to the 'teenager park' today and talked about how quite a few of the things there work the way they do because of where your centre of gravity is or is moved to.

We also had a conversation about 'Blog' as this particular blog is known and why I do it.  M has very definite thoughts about whether things, particularly photos or her or things she has done or made, should go on Blog or not.  I told her that I have three main reasons for doing Blog.
1. To keep a record of what we do for us
2. To tell and show family and friends what we do
3. To share ideas of things to do with other home educators
I also pointed out that I get ideas from other peoples blogs, so it's nice to be able to reciprocate.  For example, a couple of other things we did today came from blogs.
M & I made some gingernuts. 
Both K & M did their first lesson of touch typing from the first link there. 
And we've agreed to have a go at Feed Yourself Friday at lunchtime.  Both girls are perfectly competent at getting themselves sandwiches (although since we make most of our bread ourselves, either in the breadmaker or my sourdough I do need to slice it for them for now - I do let them have a go occasionally, but we'd only get half a dozen slices from a loaf!) and they get their own breakfast pretty much everyday too.  I've already said that they can be a bit more adventurous than sandwiches if they like, but we'll need to do a bit of planning for that to happen.

Disappointment.

We were supposed to being going to play and have tea with friends this afternoon, but unfortunately one of the girls (J, who is M's best friend), has come down with a sickness bug, so they had to cancel.  This led to two things, firstly grevious disappointment and secondly sewing.  Both K & M decided to make J a get well present, so they each got some felt out and M made a little stuffed teddy out of rectangles of felt and K made a stuffed cat's head using some tiger stripe patterned felt she'd bought a while back. 
We're having solar panels installed at the moment, so K & I had a very brief conversation about different types of energy today too.  Apart from that we played, no prizes for guessing, Phase 10.
Another quiet day tomorrow with just korfball after tea, I'll see if I can tempt the girls to do something other than Phase 10!

Walking the cousin

Uncle S and Aunty P came for the weekend and brought with them Meg, their dog, also known as 'our only first cousin'.  She's a lovely dog and K & M adore her, although she's fairly disinterested in them!  Yesterday afternoon we went for a good long walk in a country park, that's still in the process of being created where an old colliery used to be.  We were keeping a look out for blackberries (even though it's a bit late now) and didn't find any, but we did find a good apple tree, so brought home a good few of them.  K, M & I all climbed up both to reach apples and just because it's fun!  We weren't sure if they were cookers or eaters and actually it seemed as though some were one and some the other from their appearance.  We tried the ones that looked like eaters and they were good but rather tart.  That's 2 of the 'things to do before you're 11 3/4' in one (not that they haven't climbed trees before many a time, but it was the first time they'd eaten an apple just picked from the tree).
Unfortunately I discovered that our camera is broken (the lens cover won't open or shut properly), so I can't take photos at the moment, which is a great shame.

Life learning.

Today K & M learned about what you need to do when you discover that you have lost your bank card and that this discovery is rather stressful!

There's been quite a lot of maths crop up today too.  Both K & M needed new shoes (both shoes and trainers for K), so we went to our local shoe shop, where they have a customer loyalty card for children's shoes: you get the 12th pair free, as long as they don't cost more than the average price of the 11 pairs that you paid for.  So we had a quick reminder of what 'average' means.

Later we were sitting on a bench in the shopping centre eating ice-creams and they noticed sale signs in the shop opposite for 50% off, which lead to a discussion of how you wouldn't ever see 100% off, but you do sometimes see 100% extra free and a few correctly answered questions about how many would be in a packet of 10 with 50/30/100% extra free.

In Market Square in the town centre, there were some marquees up and things going on for the World Event Young Artists as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.  We were given a couple of t-shirts and I noticed a pile of cards for a 'Haiku' competition, so we've been talking about that and making some up.  There were some musicians in one of the tents playing, so we went and listened for a while and I encouraged K & M to try to pick out which instruments (some of which I'd never seen before, as well as some drums and guitars) were making which sounds.

Here are a few our our Haiku.
First M's:

I like toast with jam

It has to be summer jam

On sourdough bread

And some I came up with:

Home education

We learn so much just living

Why would we use school?

She likes dinosaurs

Climbing trees and playing out

My lovely M M

K my lovely girl

Lives with imagination

And her lively mind

I have two daughters

They are both so beautiful

They light up my life

A new card game.

While Phase 10 is still the top choice of game here, I did persuade K & M to give a different one a go this morning.  It's called Boggle Slam! and is (vaguely) related to the traditional Boggle that we also own, both in its traditional form (as in that link) and the jazzed up modern version with its built in beepy timer instead of the sand one.  The game is based on those word ladders that you sometimes see on the back of hula hoop packets (among other places), where you start with one 4 letter word and change one letter at a time until you get to a different 4 letter word, but all of the stages in between also have to be proper words.  In Boggle Slam! there is no given word to arrive at, but you have to try to get rid of all of your cards (which each have a letter on each side doubling your options) by slamming them on the previously agreed 4 letter starting word, making a new word each time.  It didn't really work for us as the competition that it's supposed to be, but we had good fun using it as a cooperative game trying to put down all of the cards as quickly as possible.  I don't think it will usurp Phase 10, but I'm hoping that it will be an acceptable alternative from time to time!

Not back to school picnic and Ice skating

We had our local 'not back to school' picnic and play in the park today.  I'd been rather concerned when I looked at the weather forecast for here last night and it said it was going to rain all morning.  Fortunately for us, they were wrong and it held off until the middle of the day.  There was a good turn out for the picnic, with probably a dozen or so families there and children ranging from a tiny baby in a sling to teenagers.
One of the many things about HEing that I love is that the children can play with whoever they want without anyone (adult or child) batting an eyelid, for example 3 girls aged from 7 to nearly 9 and an 11 year old boy - like this!

K & M with friends Z & D

Quite a few people went straight on to the monthly HE ice skating meet up, which both K & M really enjoy.  They both particularly like seeing their friends J and M (his mum), along with some others.  I have offered them both the opportunity of a bit of one-to-one/two coaching, but neither is interested and they are still making progress on the ice and gaining in confidence, although M gets a bit frustrated that she can't keep up with some of her friends.

 

K with M

M

M again

K - showing she can do it on her own!

A new joke and a bit of a ramble.

M is really quite into making up jokes at the moment and has moved on considerably from the time when both K & M would come up with variations of the same joke incessantly and fall about laughing at such gems as 'Why did the X cross the road?' (for X insert pretty much any noun you like)  'Because it needed a poo'.  Now she's very much into word play and although the jokes don't always work I think some are pretty good.  Here's her latest (with permission): 

What's a pirate puppet's favourite thing? 

An aaaarrrrr-m!

I should perhaps point out here, that one of the girls' favourite activities with Daddy is playing with Dr/Mr/Captain Fox, who is a puppet that you stick the whole of your arm in if you're small, rather than a finger or glove puppet.

Since the end of the summer the week seems to have filled up dramatically with activities of one sort or another and we now have a weekly activity (during term-time at least) every day of the week except Wednesday.  The majority of them, in fact all bar one, are 'after school' things so we still have most of the day free, but goodness me our 'What's on this week' A4 page that I put up on a Monday is looking very full!  We have:
Monday - Brownies - K & M
Tuesday - Korfball - K & M
Thursday - Gymnastics (the HE group) and Swimming - K & M
Friday - Ballet - K
Saturday - Ballet M
On Thursday afternoon, as well as gymnastics and swimming, K & M also usually have a piano lesson but C, our friend who teaches them, is having to take some time off for an operation this term.
Then on top of the weekly things, we've got one fortnightly group, another monthly one and monthly ice-skating.

So it's quite nice to have a day with not much planned, like today!  Phase 10 is still the dominant obsession, so of course we played a game of that.  M is still struggling when a round goes particularly badly for her, even if she's way out in the lead, which is rather frustrating, but ho hum!  We also made some more sourdough bread with K helping again, this time talking a bit more about bread making generally.  Both girls played on the Moshi Monsters website again, another of the current obsessions.  We also all had a go with the girls' prizes from the matchbox challenge competition yesterday, Coin Construction, which was quite fun.

M has been reading more of The 101 Dalmatians and was very reluctant to come and have her tea, because the puppies had just been kidnapped and she was very worried about them.  K's been having a bit of a break from The Starlight Barking by reading her Mr Men books but I think she's gone back to it for her bedtime reading.

Finally both girls came out of their second session of korfball looking very hot and sweaty and clearly having enjoyed it, which I'm quite pleased about.  A team sport was one of the few things that I felt was missing from what we do, which, while hardly essential in life, is something that both A and I have both got a lot out of at various points in our lives, including each other and the girls, since we met playing korfball!

Matchbox marvels.

Today was the first Asfordby group after the summer and both K & M had decided that they wanted to take part in the matchbox challenge - fitting as many different things as possible into a matchbox.  They also had to write a list of those things, which K was busy doing yesterday evening, calling down the stairs every so often to ask how to spell things.  M on the other hand was a bit less keen for a while, particularly on doing the writing, but she ended up doing most of it and even, when I spelled some things for her, telling me 'I know how to spell that Mummy!'  They'd started gathering items when we first found out about the challenge at the beginning of the summer break, but had all but forgotten about it until yesterday, then we had a last minute burst of collecting things from the kitchen cupboards (peppercorns, salt, flour, sugar, herbs, couscous, cocoa powder etc. etc. - the powdery things taped on to pieces of black paper to make it identifiable).  Although both girls were a bit secretive about some of the contents, they helped each other out with a few ideas.  In the end the grand totals were 67 for K and 68 for M (who found a couple of last minute items in the carpark when we arrived) and they came 3rd and 2nd respectively, which they were rather pleased with!



K's list and matchbox contents (minus the shark tooth, which she was very upset to have lost there)

As well as the matchbox challenge, there was Lilliputian box modelling - a small town with roads and a seaside for folks to make buildings for, which both girls enjoyed very much, and K insisted on bringing her buildings home with her along with quite a lot of the road.  She says she's going to set it up in her bedroom, although she'll have to clear some space on the floor first!

This evening is the first Brownies back after the summer and M is *finally* allowed to go.  She dived straight in when we got there, although she did manage a wave as I left!

Scarecrows!

Hickling is a small village in Nottinghamshire, that holds an annual Scarecrow festival and competition.  It's very popular and a good proportion of the village take part and make a scarecrow on a theme, with people coming from miles around to have a look and try to identify them.  This year's theme was 'The Best of British', so as you'd expect there were quite a few Olympians and we spotted one Paralympian too (Hannah Cockcroft).  These are some of our favourites:

Beatrix Potter

One of numerous Bradley Wiggins

The Beatles!

James Bond and the Queen

Mo Farrah running from a crocodile!

There are also various stalls and a field with a few activity rides.  K & M both decided to take some pocket money with them and both decided that, although it was expensive, the trampoline was worth the money....

The weather was hot and sunny (as it was when we went a couple of years ago) and it was a really lovely afternoon out.  If you're local, go and have a look next year!

Socialising and stories

We had a trip to the library this morning, necessitated by a phone message that they had something in for M.  The something was a cd of a BBC adaptation of The Secret Garden which she'd been impatiently awaiting.  She still working her way through the book herself, but she has also I have since discovered got another book on the go at the moment, The Witch Baby and Me - After Dark, a series which has been introduced to by K.  Not content with that, this evening she started another book, The 101 Dalmations which K has just finished reading and clearly enjoyed since she's recommended it to her sister and started on the sequel.  It's quite common for K to have several books on the go at one time, but at the moment she's only got two, The Starlight Barking, as mentioned above, and Mistress Masham's Repose which is by the same author as The Sword in the Stone and K found in our Oxfam bookshop and bought.  It's not a book I know at all, but K tells me that she's put that one aside for the moment because it's too complicated and she's waiting until I've got my voice back (6 weeks of laryngitis and still no sign of getting my voice back!).

So much for the stories.  A friend, I, who lives a few doors down came round this morning with a T-shirt for each of the girls as a thank you for looking after their cats while they were on holiday in the US, and she asked if K & M were free to play this afternoon.  Since I wanted to play here and K & M both wanted to play at her house, they played for an hour here and then an hour there, which worked out rather nicely!
Then pretty much straight after that we had arranged to meet up with the new friend K had made last weekend at the park.  M was rather grumpy on the way, telling me she didn't want to play with anybody except K, while K was really excited about seeing A, her new friend again.  As it turned out A, her brother (another!) A, K & M all got on really well and had a great time together with some other new friends they collected along the way!  Meanwhile S, their mum, and I had a lovely chat and got to know each other a bit.  They've recently moved here from Spain, although S is from around here and her family are here, and I really hope that it could be the start of a friendship, rather than a friendly acquaintance, for me as well as for the girls.

...and since then...

...we have had a look at the inside of the piano and talked to the piano tuner about it and seen the effects of pressing keys and pedals.  We've also seen that some notes have one string, some have 3 and 2 in the middle have 2 and that the lower notes' strings have copper wire coiled round them (2 layers for the lowest notes) and then compared them to the strings on my (much neglected) guitar.

...we did play that game of Phase 10 after getting side tracked by the internal workings of the piano though.

...M had a go on Thingdom

...K helped me to make a quiche for tea (I'll let her have a go herself another time, but it was getting rather late!)

...we watched some Paralympic action including a race that showed why they call it 'Freestyle' rather than 'Front Crawl' - something that we have been discussing recently.

....and I finished off the rest of the baking.

First attempt at Chelsea buns - a success!

The bread rolls that were left after our late lunch

The sourdough bread.

So far today...

...I have:

• started making some sourdough bread - K & M have each had a go at the stretching and folding stage
• made some bread rolls (using the breadmaker to make the dough this time) because I realised we didn't have any and can't go out because we're stopping in for various reasons (just the piano tuner to go now)
• put some enriched dough ingredients in the breadmaker because I fancied making some Chelsea buns
• done a bit of French with M
• looked at a £5 note with K, because she noticed it was from the year 2002 (I didn't realise they had dates on!)
• found out about Elizabeth Fry (and here) with K
• dealt with the man who came to service our burglar alarm
• dealt with the man who came to do the home energy survey

...K has:

• had a go on the computer - Moshi Monsters
• inspected a £5 note and various coins, looking at the dates and then finding out about Elizabeth Fry (as above), which led to a discussion about sexism
• Carried on using the computer to find about Florence Nightingale
• Had a go on Thingdom
• pounced on Puffin Post when it came through the door and had a go at deciphering the coded message, as well as reading bits of it and finding her outfit design for the cuddly puffin toy costume competition in there
• helped me with the breadmaking

...M has:

• had a go on Moshi Monsters
• done lots of colouring in a French vocab colouring book
• had a go at some French conversation with me (hello, how are you, name etc)
• listened to a cd of The Secret Seven
• pounced on her Puffin Post and deciphered the coded message, as well as trying out some of the jokes on me and looking at the choice of books this time

All this was before a rather late lunch, having got up fairly late and as a result of the lack of bread in the house!  Now we are off to play Phase 10, with the noise of the piano being tuned in the background and probably some Paralympic action on the telly too!

Getting back in the swing.

While we do have a couple of things that continue over the summer (swimming and gymnastics), most of the groups or activities that we (or just K & M) go to do stop.  Today was the first post-summer start back thing and later will be the first of a new activity for both girls too.

The first Tuesday of the month is Fun Club, which today meant a visit from Zoolab for the under 10s.  There was a little bit of talk and explanation and the opportunity to hold or touch most of the animals that the woman had brought with her, which included: a bearded dragon, a millepede, a hissing cockroach, a giant African land snail, a tree frog, a tarantula, a scorpion, a python and a rat.  There were also some questions and answers in both directions.  Since everybody in the group had the chance to touch each of the animals (except the tarantula and the scorpion) there was quite a bit of waiting about, but overall it was a pretty good session.  M sat on my lap for most of it and was happy to touch most of the animal, but didn't want to hold any.  K on the other hand surprised me by happily touching or holding all of them.  There was also plenty of time for playing and catching up with friends.

Later we're off to their first 'proper' go at korfball, rather than the tasters which just involved having a go at shooting.

Last of the summer? And a new Olympic sport.

Just in time for our school-y friends to enjoy a little bit of summer before they have to go back to school we have some lovely weather for a change! 

Yesterday afternoon we went to Rush4Health, a outdoor sporty/healthy event at Rushcliffe Country Park.  Lots of different sports clubs were there promoting their sports and letting children try them out a bit, in the hopes of recruiting some junior members.  K & M tried out a few, including korfball (which is how A & I met as we both used to play and he still refs, and a friend of ours runs the local juniors), hockey, rugby, fencing (spongy swords) and athletics (running).  We also tried to fly our kite, as the event has incorporated the Kite Festival that has been running there much longer, but it was (very unusually for the park) not windy enough to get it up.  They also had a good play in the playground there, which resulted in K making a new friend and the new friend's mum and me swapping phone numbers in order to arrange a further meet up.  K & M quite often 'make new friends' at the park, but it seems that most of the time the 'new friends' live miles away and I am not really inclined to follow up friendships of half an hour standing unless they are local!

While trying our korfball, which both K & M have decided to give a proper go starting tomorrow, M was asked by a couple of girls what year she was in (at school), as the height of the posts used varies depending on age/school year.  When she replied that she didn't know, the girl repeated the question more slowly and louder (to help her understand presumably!) and when she repeated that she didn't know and added that she didn't go to school, the girl's reaction was cartoon-like in her jaw-dropping amazement and disbelief.  Very funny!

Today we headed off to the local park this afternoon, which was very busy (schools go back tomorrow and Wednesday round here, so it'll be getting quieter again very soon) and we bumped into a few friends before walking home with ones that live almost opposite us. Once home they went straight in to the garden to play some more, although M had a little break to bake some plain vanilla muffins (both girls requested this sort after I made some really nice blueberry ones which both girls said were very good except for the blueberries!).  K & M are now in the garden training for a new Olympic sport:  Swing jumping.