Blue Peter badges.

Following a FB conversation with a HE mum friend (thank you L!), in which she told me about how these days Blue Peter badges are not quite such the rare and coveted commodity they were in my day (at uni I lived with a girl who had one having been on Blue Peter because her dad had trained all the Blue Peter dogs from Goldie onwards and I was rather envious even then!), and also that being in possession of one allows free entry into over 200 attractions (including Shakespeare's Birthplace!) I suggested that K & M might like to see if they could do something in order to procure one of these for themselves. 

Although they were aware of the cultural icon that is Blue Peter from conversations about children's television, it's not actually something that they watch, so we thought perhaps we should do something about this.  To this end we watched the two programmes that are currently available on BBC iplayer, which happened to be the programme about the first ever selection of a new presenter that included a public vote and a compilation programme about various World Record attempts that Blue Peter has been involved with.  They enjoyed both of them and really liked the new presenter, although were sad that Helen Skelton is leaving and have decided that they would quite like to start watching it.  As a result I think it is perfectly reasonable (although given the money saving aspect I would have thought it reasonable anyway!), for them to try to earn themselves a Blue Peter badge.

As I said things have changed somewhat since I were a lass.  Now there are a variety of different coloured badges awarded for different things and it seems that as long as a reasonable effort is made, when you apply for a badge, which means telling them what you have done to earn one in at least 50 words, you will be awarded one.  K & M agreed that it would be a good thing to have one of these badges and both of the decided they'd like a blue one.  M already had something that she thought would be a good thing to send in, since poems are specifically mentioned as something that can earn you a blue badge, which was the poem she had written about her favourite cuddly toy Christopher.  So she wrote them an email with the poem and then (as it wasn't entirely clear at first glance that you could apply for the badge by email too) wrote a letter to apply for the badge.


The letter ready to send with the subject of the poem

M originally wrote the poem for a Puffin Post competition, but Puffin Post sadly closed between the advertising of the competition and the closing date and we never found out whether the competition continued despite a couple of phone calls and an email to try to find out, so I think it's good that something that she is rightly proud of can be used for this.  K is also planning to send something, but it has yet to be decided what.

This afternoon we had friends come round to play and almost as soon as they'd walked through the door the girls had decided that they wanted to continue the dressing up game that they had started shortly before we left their house at our last meet up a couple of weeks ago.  This necessitated dressing up clothes from their house, which fortunately is literally just across the road, so after suggestions to play something else for a while, J agreed to go and get them after she'd had a cuppa.  They do have some great costumes from when J did dance and gymnastics shows, which her mum had kept and the four girls all had a lovely afternoon dressing up and role playing.

In other news, that I forgot to mention, K & M have both decided that they want to learn the recorder, so yesterday I gave each of them their first lesson.  They can both read music already, from their piano lessons, so it was mostly about holding the recorder properly, how to blow it and the note B.  Given the book we happen to have, since they can read the music they could probably teach themselves if they wanted to, particularly now we've talked about and practised the blowing technique and how to make a good sound rather than a screechy one, so we'll see how it goes.

Geography - sorted!

Today, on the suggestion of a friend, E, who has also signed up, we signed up for Postcrossing.  I have finally been allowed to remove the alphabet freize that has been up on the wall in the hall for years, along with some pictures and certificates, and I have put up the new world map that arrived recently from the Book People along with a lovely big Geography book.

We have got 5 postcards ready to pop in the post tomorrow, heading for France, Germany, the USA, Russia and Belarus, all of which we have located on the map.  The plan is to stick the postcards we receive up around the map with thread linking them to where they came from.  In our profile we've asked for postcards about the countries, either the geography or the culture, cuisine, wildlife etc. and asked for the senders to tell us something about their country.

The geography book has sections on everything from Planet Earth with physical geography, to Rocks and Minerals, Water, Climate and Weather, Life on Earth with ecosystems and habitats, The Human World covering population, industry, farming and pollution among other things, Mapping the World with the atlas part of the book and finishing with Country Factfile.

In other news K made these today out of those cornstarch packing things and tissue paper.  The thing on the left is a person sitting in a chair on wheels and the thing on the right is a cross between an giraffe and I think she said a cat.

Feminism and a fun day out.

I was woken up this morning by K, who had brought something to show me that she'd done.

You've got to admit, she's got a point!

Just in case it's not clear, she put stickers over the word 'Girls' and wrote 'for anyone who likes cooking'.  When I posted the picture on The Everyday Sexism Project group on Facebook, it got some lovely comments including one that said 'Girls like her will change the world', which I shared with her and M.  They were very taken with this idea and it has lead to a discussion about sexism and feminism generally, from things like this to women not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.  We talked about how we can change things, bit by bit, by not allowing sexist comments without challenging them.  K & M like this idea and K told me about a conversation she had today with a boy, who had said that he felt sorry for a boy because he was the only boy in a particular class and K had said that it shouldn't matter because boys can be friends with girls too.  They also decided to enrole A in their mission to change the world, which lead to more talk about how it's just as, if not more important for men to challenge sexism when they encounter it, as due to that very sexism, some people will listen to men but not women when confronted, which he happily agreed to.  We finished off with the ideas that something that could be perceived as sexist, for example our very traditional family set up, with Daddy working and Mummy staying at home to look after the children, is because it was a choice that we made together and not something that we did because it had to be that way or because Daddy decided; and also that people can be sexist without realising it, because of the way society is set up in a certain way because it was done so at a time when it served men to be that way and it can disadvantage women and this needs to be challenged too.

Today we met up with friends we hadn't managed to get together with all summer.  It was 'one of those days' in trying to get there, satnav wouldn't work, I was reasonably confident I could get us there without, took one wrong turning, wasn't far out but a road closure meant retracing steps rather a long way, but eventually we arrived at Belton House and met up in the adventure playground.  After the children played and the mums chatted and we'd all had our picnic lunches, we moved on and there was more chatting and more playing in the indoor play area for a while before we had ice creams and a wander round the garden and the orangerie.  We all spent quite a while looking at the variety and huge number of bees in particular on the flowers.

Honey bee?

Huge bumble bee!

Sharing with a butterfly.

A little pause.

After a quick game of hide and seek, we, both families, had to get back for swimming lessons, but we have arranged another trip there when it'll be much quieter after schools have gone back in a couple of weeks on a day with no swimming lessons.

Finally finished and some slightly strange conversations.

This evening we finally finished our major tidy and clear out of the playroom.  Hurrah!  It's certainly taken long enough, but K & M have agreed to part with quite a lot of 'stuff', which is something of a relief.  We have an agreement that they can sell it at a home ed group annual table top sale, but that if it doesn't sell, it goes to a charity shop or is recycled or thrown away.

The pile of 'stuff'.

Now the only issue is that we need to store all of this until the next Fun Club sale, which used to be every November, but the last one was changed to February.  I'm really hoping that it'll be November again this time!

We also finished reading Boy and K & M were very interested to hear that a HE mum friend, was related to one of the people portrayed in it.  Prepare to be quizzed when we next see you C!  The very last couple of pages of the book recount the voyage that Roald Dahl took when he left England for his first overseas job with Shell in East Africa.  So K & I got the globe out and followed his journey from London to Mombasa, via the Bay of Biscay, Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and Aden.  We also found Newfoundland, where he went on a expedition between school and starting work, and Norway, where both his parents were from and where he went on holiday every year as a child.  If Boy has opened up some discussion about what was in effect child abuse, perpetrated by adults and other children, encouraged by those adults, then Going Solo is certainly going to continue in this, and we started reading it this evening.

This morning the girls had their piano lessons, which they are both very much still enjoying and they are both doing practice, particularly in M's case when I have asked her to do something she doesn't really want to do, such as help with tidying up!  K had her lesson first as usual and M & I went to the park, then K & I went for a walk along the canal while M had hers.  During our walk we talked about various things, such as growing up (K would really rather not just yet), death (she thinks that she wouldn't be so bothered by it if she knew what it was like) and the universe (neither of us can get our heads around the idea that the universe is expanding but there isn't anything beyond the limits of it for it to expand into and K is clear that she doesn't want to study theoretical physics at university).  On the subject of conversations A told that recently he was talking to K and, in response to something he'd said, but he can't remember what, K told him that she could murder someone if she wanted to, but she doesn't want to murder anybody, so she won't!  I'm really curious as to how that subject came up!

Finally, M has been very busy today, making things.  She is, apparently, going to Hogwarts on the 1st September and is preparing things ready to go.  Today she made a telescope, by painting a kitchen roll tube and she made a cage for her owl, Pig, which she is 'very proud of'.

Inside there is a bowl, with half for water and the other half for food and a perch for Pig to sit on.  It is much bigger than the cage that K made for her owl, Wom, but that is apparently because Pig flies around madly a lot, so need more space.

Lovely day out.

Yesterday, A went into work as though it were a normal working day, in order to get on top on the mountains of work he seems to have, so that we could spent today, Bank Holiday Monday, together as a family.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that's it's a family tradition, but most years since we found out about it (probably 2006/7), we have gone along to the Wood Fair, which is about half an hour's drive from us.  Part of the reason that A spent Sunday, rather than Monday, in the office, was that this was on today, the other part was that the weather forecast was better for today, although in the end both days were pretty good!  So we headed there and had a great time.  As soon as we arrived, we asked if there was anything in particular that K & M really didn't want to miss out on and the only thing that they came up with, well M in particular, was the climbing wall, so we went there first and queued for about half an hour, during which time we talked about how it's much more important to have a really good go and to feel that you've done your best, than it is to succeed in reaching the top.  They each had a go and got about 2/3 of the way up before deciding to come back down, which they were both happy with.

K on the climbing wall

And M's turn

By the time we'd queued and they'd each had a turn, it was time to find some lunch and then we headed into the main marquee.  There was lots to see, including some beautiful wood carving, this chain caught our eye, for example.

Very clever!

After a look around, we decided an ice-cream would be a good idea, but since the queue was very long, A waited there while the girls and I returned to the marquee and queued elsewhere.  K & M have both had a go at pyrography before, both here in previous years and at Fun Club, so they decided to spend some of their money on having a go again.  They each chose to do a coaster this year, having done plaques for their bedroom doors previously.

M at work

And the finished article

And K concentrating

And the result

After this, we had a wander around the rather large site and among other things saw demonstrations of....

....horse logging

and chainsaw wood carving.

Something that K & M hadn't done here before, was having a go in the corricle.  It looked very trickly to control, but really good fun!

K went first,

then M had a go.

Finally, before heading home, we also watched a demonstration of bushcraft, match-less firelighting.

 

Flames appeared shortly after this photo.

Once home, at K & M's request, I continued reading Boy, finishing off the section about his time at prep school, which included another gruesome medical incident, although this time it was one that Dahl witnessed rather than underwent.

Then M & I continued with The Cavern of Clues, a Maths Quest book, on the topic of calculations, that we had started to read together this morning.  We had tried earlier this week, but M really wasn't in the right frame of mind at the time, not being willing to listen when she went wrong to explanations or suggestions of ways to try to solve the puzzles.  Today, she was happy to listen, and we talked about carrying when adding and multiplying, borrowing when subtracting and what to do when multiplying by 10 and its multiples.  She still got a few things wrong, but we have now addressed the ideas of writing down sums (she's pretty good at working things out in her head, so was a bit resistent to the idea of putting pen to paper) and how to set things out.

K had been listening in while M & I were looking at the Maths Quest book, as she was waiting to re-read it herself, but M really didn't want to try things with K around, so I suggested that K might like to do a bit of piano practice, which she did and obviously quite enjoyed, as she then returned to play a bit more a while later, after tea.

Boy and medical progress!

K & M are really enjoying Boy, despite rather a lot of gruesome incidents that Roald Dahl recounts in the book.  There are also three deaths touched on in the first few chapters, which I had completely forgotten about, having read the book a long time ago, it hasn't been a problem though, as I would imagine it would have done when we had our Roald Dahl obsession a few years back (before I started blogging).  So far we have encountered an adenoidectomy (performed with no warning for the child and no anaesthetic!), an appendectomy (performed with anaesthetic - chloroform and ether - but in the home with the patient on a table covered with a sterile cloth) and the sewing back on of a nose that was almost entirely severed (as above).  This has led to a discussion of changes of norms regarding the removal of adenoids and tonsils, both in terms of how frequently and where it might take place, and indeed looking up where the adenoids are (they're not mentioned in our body books, so we had to look them up online).

K has dug out a book about Roald Dahl, D is for Dahl and, by looking at the quiz in it, is finding out what is coming up from the chapter titles.  So far she's predicted the adenoid removal (although not the circumstances) and that he was going to get his nose almost severed from his face in a car accident.

In other news, we are nearly done with clearing and tidying the playroom.  It's a relief that they are finally feeling that it's okay to get rid of things and I'm really hoping that this will mean that we all find it easier to keep a bit tidier as we go along now.

Picnic, Potter and bits and pieces.

Today was our annual LLL group's Summer Picnic, so we met up with folks in our local park.  K & M had a lovely time playing hide & seek among other things with some of the other older children there while the mums chatted.  K, M and a couple of the others found the most enormous caterpillar I have ever seen while we were there, with a startingly blue horn like protruberance on it's head.

It was identified as a Hawk Moth caterpillar by one of the mums.

Once home, K & M chose to watch a Harry Potter dvd, The Goblet of Fire, which we've also got out of the library on cd at the moment.  I forgot to mention that yesterday in the car on the way home, listening to Harry Potter sparked a conversation about adrenalin and the 'fight or flight' response, which K & I followed up today, having a look at what it said about it in one of our non-fiction books.

We're making slow but steady progress with the playroom and, having finished the Charlie Bone series, this evening I started reading Roald Dahl's Boy.

In other news, M seems to be rather interested in spiders at the moment.  She called me into the garden this morning, before we headed off to the picnic to show me the spider and its web that was preventing her (because she didn't want to disturb it) going down the slide.

And finally, here's M's needle book that she made yesterday.