The Brick House

Nobody is really up to par even today (with the possible exception of K who was sick for about five minutes on Tuesday afternoon), so we haven’t done much. B didn’t go out to the farm on the grounds that we don’t want to infect Nannie with leprosy a couple of weeks before she heads up to Darwin to help Rachel and Al with the latest addition to the family, so Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday were spent quietly at home. On Wednesday she helped me test out a couple of spelling programs online. As a result, we found one which she enjoyed a lot, and which I think looks like it would definitely be worth the investment of US$10 per month as a trial.

We didn’t go the the HENCAST get together on Thursday as it wasn’t something we were interested in even if we hadn’t been sick. There wasn’t much on TV so B spent most of her time at the computer. On Tuesday, the science documentary she watched was called Naked Science: Birth of the Earth. Today she watched BTN Specials on Egyptian antiquities and who should have the right to own cultural heritage, Waterworks: taps and toilets, and two back to back episodes of Animal Camera: Surveillance on Survival. Waterworks really is brilliant! I can’t find it referred to in the on-line guide, but I know she also watched a repeat of Mendeleyev’s Dream: The Periodic Table either yesterday or the day before, because I remember listening to it.

This morning we got back into our groove and did some more Smartkiddies while K was watching Play School and before B’s shows started. We realised that every time I had said the next step was to spend 10 minutes at the Master Class level, she was getting intimidated by the big long list of things to do, so when I explained this morning that actually all she was expected to do was pick one thing she got enthusiastic again. I decided that she should go back to the level 3 work and see if there was anything there she had missed which we would need to go over, so she did the first Master Class unit there. She didn’t manage to get it under 2 minutes, although she happily did it twice over and got her speed down by a minute the second time (while getting 25/25 then 24/25 right, so she knows her stuff). Then she pootled around on the Year One level and breezed in a couple of those units – as one would hope! Meanwhile, I have printed out the Revision Worksheet for the first two modules which she has completed, and she assures me she will do them this afternoon when Nannie gets here. Then we can get on with Module Three next week, which is 3D shapes and looks like fun.

While B was watching her TV, Katy got out her button board again and did a couple of patterns (flawlessly) while I washed up, then wanted to do something with me so we went through the puzzles crate and did a couple of those together. She really likes one fractions puzzle we have, fitting half and quarter circles together to make wholes. This time, after we’d finished the puzzle she spent a while exploring what happened when you took different pieces out of their colour-matched positions and put them into different slots. She and B have also been playing with Duplo (B made a run for the rats), and doing some painting and collage-making. After the BTN Special on Egyptian antiquities, B got down the globe and was figuring out where Egypt was, then pulled out some of her books on Egypt. Nannie should be here soon to take over the reading, as Katy decided to amuse herself by disassembling my laptop keyboard…grrr!

B woke in the night with a fever, and she’s still mildly feverish this morning but seems happy. She got up before any of us and was reading Goblet of Fire in front of the heater when I got up *g* I asked her to read me a couple of sentences (from part of the book she’d already worked out) and she did so flawlessly. Since then, she’s made K a “robot dog” out of K’Nex, which inspired her to pull down the Lego Mindstorms and investigate how to make a car. She went back to HP as the Lego is still a bit much for her unaided, I think. After the schools programs came on, she watched TV for two hours: BTN, a poetry program, and a science documentary on the origins of the earth. Her cold is apparently getting worse as she has now retreated to bed. She has said she feels too crappy to go out to the farm, so she MUST be sick!

K asked for her button board down from the top of the shelves when B was up there getting her Lego, and did a couple of patterns while I was out feeding/watering the animals; then it was time for Play School. We played Duplo together while B was watching TV. After apparently deciding to to annoy the heck out of me in the most creative ways she possibly could, she settled down to do some drawing at the kitchen table, then wandered off and could be heard telling herself a long and involved story about dinosaurs, dragons and various other beasties having adventures. Sometimes I wish I had a portable tape recorder so I could keep a record of these stories. They are so creative and funny *g*

The gap in my blog last week actually does have a reasonable explanation this time – I had the lurgi first. Thursday morning we did do a bit more maths – B breezed through another repetition of the Smartkiddies 4-digit addition module so I marked that off as being done. Since she did it so quickly we also did the 2-digit shapes unit, where you had to count sides/corners/angles and name the shape. She picked up instantly that the number of sides/corners/angles are the same (which I presume was the point of asking them to count all three, otherwise it looked a bit clunky?!) and was able to use logic to deduce the name from the number of sides. We did have to discuss parallelograms and trapeziums (trapezia?) though. She knew with the first one (octagon) that “oct-” meant eight, which gave her the key to the whole pattern.

That was about all I felt up to for the rest of the week, so she basically amused herself. Since that involved reading quite a lot of Harry Potter I don’t feel that she was “neglecting” her “education” without me there to crack the whip, seeing as this week her “English” work has consisted of…reading Harry Potter. Frankly, the idea of pulling her away from a book which she is voluntarily reading to do some make-work reading exercises struck me as the silliest idea imaginable! There is nothing I could possibly do which will improve her reading as much as reading something she’s passionate about will do…

B has the lurgi so stayed home from pottery today. She spent a fair bit of time on her puter searching Youtube (mostly for Goodies episodes, I think), and playing Rune Scape, but also tucked herself up in bed this evening for a couple of hours reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She isn’t really asking for much help in working out words, but has once or twice asked for some clarification why they are being used in that particular way. I’m staying out of her way, now that she’s finally reading voluntarily *g* She was writing email yesterday and getting frustrated that she can’t spell as well as she wants to, so I might suggest we do some work in that area if she’s interested (although it was noticeable in some notes she was writing over the weekend that her spelling is improving quite a bit; almost everything she wrote was either spelled correctly or a logical attempt at spelling out the sound she was looking for).

Nannie looked after her at home while I took K to playgroup, and Grandmoogi came over as well for a while. We discussed the sundress pattern I found at the Salvos last week, and both gms agreed it looked like a good simple pattern to start learning dress-making. Nannie offered to help B make one if she wanted to do some sewing this week, so we might look out some fabric if she feels up to going anywhere tomorrow. Nannie also Explained to B why she needed to be more responsible in making sure the chickens are fed everyday, given that since I’ve been sick no one’s been checking their water bowl or pellet dispenser at all. I don’t think that the effect of the Explanation was too counter-productive, fortunately, as B seemed chirpy when she was explaining to me what Nannie had said.

After lunch K let herself into the garden so I wandered out too, and it was such a nice day I ended up doing some weeding. B came out to help, and we discussed what I plan to plant where. She has agreed to help me with the planting. She also did a little bit of transplanting of bulbs, although it’s probably the wrong time of year. After that, B came inside for her TV show, then retreated to her room. I did loads of washing up and cooking, most of which K supervised. All in all it was a very relaxed and pleasant day.

ABA meeting in the morning meat it was 12pm before K and I were doing anything together. We built a tall marble run and had fun with that for ages. Read lots of books. Took a nap together (and for several hours afterwards in K’s case). Sang lots of songs in the car on the way to pick up B – K sang some, like “Incy Wincy Spider”, “Twinkle Twinkle” and “Mary Had A Little Lamb”, then wanted me to sing to her for the rest of the trip. I’m coming down with a cold so was losing my voice by the time we got there and had to stop. At dinner time we played K’s new favourite game – a variation on “I Spy” where the person thinks of something of a particular colour. A good half hour of whole-family hilarity ensued.

B: reported that she did a couple of hours work this morning at the farm, then pootled. Horse-riding 5-6pm, then watched Rollercoaster before dinner. She took a torch, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and a couple of Dr Seuss books to bed with her, and after being able to hear her muttering to herself through the door I think she read for a fair while before going to sleep.

• fed chickens
• did the Quiz at the end of Module One on Smartkiddies (scored 9/10)
• read 1 paragraph Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (HPGF) – she hated reading aloud, so sat and read to herself and asked for help with the tricky bits.
• made a mandarin and OJ smoothie with breakfast
• ran a sinkful of water and washed up some breakfast dishes
• read 2 paragraphs of HPGF (reading to herself in the living room and asking me for help when necessary)
• did the first unit in Module 2 (adding four digit numbers). Scored 15/20. Generally remembered the principles of addition with remainder but the unit had no means of physically recording the carry above the column so I think she was just getting confused most of the time. The unit should be done every day this week so we will see how she goes.
• 10:15 – break time. B and K are playing dress-ups and making a car out of a box.
• played on her computer (Rune Scape and a horse SIM game – I could hear her reading game instructions etc out loud)
• played Junior Trivial Pursuit – she won
• helped me tidy the playroom
• stayed discreetly in her bedroom while I had an almighty barney with K. That girl is getting much better at chucking a tantrum, and indeed at chucking things while chucking a tantrum. She is also every bit as stubborn as her Big Sister when she wants to be. Oh God, not two of them…
• made an omelette from her birthday cookbook (well, a scramble anyway, we don’t have a proper omelette pan)
• close examination of the “worms and bugs”; fed them more oatmeal
• more ‘puting, then afternoon TV

In draft form because I’m knackered. May come back and expand some other time…

Monday: out at farm all day and overnight because she had a brief tummy bug on Sunday night while she was out there. I don’t think Nannie expected her to do any work.

Today

• played in garden for hours while I did laundry.
• got in rabbit cage to give them some attention
• watched recording of Rollercoaster from last night
• set up a new Runescape account – asked me to help her read the instructions on Tutorial Island but got quite a bit of it herself (I tried to hold back and only read when she got impatient with the amount of time things were taking)
• other stuff wot I forget…
• watched Rollercoaster
• helped me put away the drying up
• watched Hogfather in her room
• was sensible enough to listen to me when I suggested showering and getting her things together tonight, so she would be ready to be picked up by Nannie at 7:45 tomorrow to go to the airport and pick up Jim
• reading to B: Body and Mind ch 1
• watched last Doctor Who episode with E

K:
reading aloud: Kipper’s Monster
played in garden with B; jumped in shell full of water and got very wet boots; visited bunnies
watched two or three Play School episodes during the course of the day
played with soapy water in the sink
played with her button board
played with tissue paper
played with small cars

On Friday morning we spent ages wrestling with reading. Her feelings of being scared of books came up to the surface and I tried to get her to process them (not sure how successfully). She said she wanted to try reading something that wasn’t a book, because that was less intimidating, so she read “The Wooden Horse” on starfall.com. Then, after further discussion, she read a chapter of Tai’s Penguin. We had worked out that it came down to her feeling like she could mow through words quite efficiently but wasn’t necessarily getting the meaning behind them. So we focused as much as possible on making sure she understood what she had read, and any time she felt confused we stopped and went back over the confusing part. I had to promise not to read it back to her with inflection because I was giving her all the clues she needed to figure out what the author meant, but without going through the process of working it out for herself whenever she got confused, it wasn’t “sticking”. The promise to focus on making sure she understood seemed to increase her confidence, because she absolutely flew through the chapter and only needed to stop once or twice to puzzle over a confusing construction. She also seemed to be paying more attention to punctuation when she was reading explicitly for meaning rather than just ploughing through words. I think that even though she could knock over most of the words in Harry Potter, it was simply too much for her to comprehend what was going on at the same time. So we will stick to books at the Aussie Nibbles reading level until she feels more confident. We also played a number of games of Connect Four, all of which I won comprehensively, even after I told her to stop playing like a wuss and letting me win *g* K watched some Play School, then dragged out the musical instruments basket and experimented with all the noise-makers therein.

Nannie came round to look after them for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and I went off to do the (extremely attenuated) monthly shop. It was sunny out, so K wanted to play in the garden, and Nannie sat out there in the sun with her paper, and B knitted. They went to the park a bit later on, but it rapidly got far too cold to stay out for long, so they came home again and played games. After Nannie went home, B wanted to open another Rune Scape account, but on reading the agreement we came upon the dilemma that under-13s are not supposed to open their own accounts and when C had opened the original one for B she had lied about B’s age, specifically violating one of the terms of the user’s agreement. We discussed the ethics of the situation and the reasons behind Rune Scape making that rule, and came up with the compromise that we wouldn’t make her close her account, but that she wouldn’t open a new one, so it would be easier to keep track of her online presence (if we ever felt the need). I also made the point that we trust her to do the right thing and that her current free and virtually unsupervised access was conditional on her continuing to do the right thing. Then she discovered that the thing she thought she couldn’t change with her current account and was the reason behind wanting a new one actually could be changed, so she didn’t mind too much.

B was keen to play some games with me on Friday night, and we managed to include K in them by choosing Tummy Ache! and geography twister. That one has been out a few times over the last few days, with various handicaps being applied to B to make it more interesting. After she has played for a while she gets bored with the random spinner results so we specifically give her difficult moves to make. In the meanwhile, K runs around like a loon and when it’s her turn, we tell her to put feet or hands on a colour. E made things a bit more interesting for B last night when he started telling her to figure out which continent had a particular city or country he mentioned in it.

The weekend has been pretty quiet. Yesterday B went to the shops with E and K to spend her pocket money, did quite a lot of crafty stuff in her bedroom, knitted, played Duplo with K, played more Rune Scape, watched Doctor Who episodes on her computer, and helped me bake muesli bars. I’m pretty sure she did something else in the afternoon but I can’t remember what…I do know she wasn’t around to help me cook the cake which K and I made after the muesli bars. K also watched one or two episodes of Play School, played in the kitchen with a basin of warm soapy water and some pouring toys, and generally pootled about in the playroom. While B was helping me assemble the lasagne for dinner, E took K off to check the mail and pick up some salad veges, and they came home with a new Kipper book he had won off eBay! So while dinner was cooking, both of us read that several times to K, who adored it. After dinner, everyone except me watched Doctor Who on ABC, although they’d already watched it before. Then B and I cuddled on the beanbags and had a Girly Chat while E put K to bed. It seems that Girly Chats are becoming more important to my almost-a-woman these days…

This morning B got up and had a long conversation with E about operating systems (E, can you elaborate please?) and decided she wants to switch to Linux. There was more Rune Scape, and then B and K got out the busy box and B brought out the craft materials she’d had in her room, and they did some craft together (and made a mess all over the floor, despite having a plastic sheet to sit on!). They also started a shop-keeper game which they didn’t have time to do much with. B finally did her homework in the hour before we had to leave for horse management, and chewed through the questions quickly and with no fuss at all. When we left for Gooroomon Park K was just settling down in front of Play School, while E was doing a phone consult with one of his Luca clients from the living room. I had coffee with Nannie while B was at her course, then B went out to the farm for the night. She took her big chemistry kit with her, and will hopefully get to explore it with Pa. She rang in the evening to say that she had talked to Russell on the phone and seemed very excited and emotionally a little overwhelmed by it. Nannie has arranged a meet-up with him on the 9th July, and B is counting the days…

After coming back from horse management to find K in the bath having paint washed out of her hair, I took her off to the markets with me to do some fruit ‘n’ veg shopping, so E could get some more work done. She helped him clean out the mouse cages while I cooked dinner, but she also came downstairs to feed apple slices to the rats, and managed to drag one of them out of the cage while I was distracted at the stove. I made her put it back, and it looked a bit squashed and shaken but generally all right. From the sound of it, she and E are currently playing Duplo in the playroom.

The knitting day was lovely, if a bit slow to start. We early arrivals huddled around the fire as Graeme struggled to get it burning, but eventually it warmed up, more people arrived, and everyone could relax into the knitting and cuppa-drinking which was the business of the day. B had a couple of Mums helping her get the hang of knitting, and she managed a number of rows before she headed off to play with Julian. He and Lauren were late arrivals – I had managed to keep K occupied inside for the first 45 minutes or so, but when J and L arrived and Julian headed outside, she insisted on going out with him. J kept her occupied outside for quite a while before B got bored with knitting and went outside too. Eventually they brought K back in because they wanted to be a bit more adventurous than is possible with a two year old in tow, but K found a tennis ball inside and started playing with another, slightly older kid. Fun was had. I was surprised at how hands off I was able to be with K. I had assumed she would insist on going outside and I’d have to follow her around as I usually do, but she was mostly happy with being told to stay in, and amused herself quite well. I’d have been able to get some embroidery done…next time, perhaps! When it was time to go home they both had to be stripped from the waist down, as the large puddles in the car park had proved irresistible *sigh*

There was TV when we got home, but there was also B finding a songbook and asking me for a “lesson”. I waffled my way through explaining note values and why the song was using certain notes rather than others because they fit in the chord, and came to the conclusion that my ability to explain music is just as flawed as my ability to explain English grammar *sigh* There is a lot to be said for letting kids pick it up and have an intuitive relationship with knowledge…but there’s also something to be said for actually knowing why things work as well as how. I don’t necessarily believe that I would have remembered any of this even if I had been taught it explicitly at school, but I wasn’t, and since I got the how working nicely I never bothered to learn the why for myself. Maybe I need some extra edumacation…

On the other hand, once I’d finished explaining the chord and demonstrating how it all fit together, she got it immediately and was able to play it. So the how was enough, for today at any rate.

After working on that song, she played me “The Entertainer”, and has gotten pretty good at the main part. She was playing it on the setting where the wrong notes actually sound wrong, and she didn’t hit many of them. Her timing was getting pretty good too. Then she pootled around on the keyboard a bit longer, while I went out to play with K when Play School finished and she lost interest in the subsequent shows.

K had a rather fraught late afternoon- she was either frenetically happy or “sad and cwoss” (as she put it). No idea why, I just tried to ride the waves as they came… There were various sibling spats over the TV, and eventually I took K into the playroom while B finished watching Rollercoaster. We played with the Duplo (or rather, she built with Duplo and I lay like a stunned mullet on the beanbag next to her and occasionally pried apart Duplo bricks as needed), and she bounced on the trampoline. She also played with one of the rats, and investigated the mealworms. Eventually she switched permanently into manic and raced around with a torch teasing the dog, interspersed with leaping off the trampoline onto my beanbag while giggling like a loon. All in all it was rather exhausting! I’m hoping that all the exertion will tire her out sufficiently to have an early night, although she did tell me that she’d fallen asleep on the beanbag while watching Play School. We shall see…

In possibly unexpected news, we actually did do the Acid Rain experiment this morning! K slept in, so I suggested that we do it before she got up and decided to “help”. B was not terribly excited when the darned pH paper kept coming up as “neutral” in tap water and rain water, and even me pointing out that this was A Good Thing since we drink this stuff mollified her much *g* She cheered herself up afterwards by using the last of the pH testing strips to measure all the other household items she could think of. I now know the pH of my morning coffee… She also got down the Bath Fizz kit we bought a while back, but there wasn’t anything in there which was particularly interesting, and she didn’t want to make another bath bomb, so she just mixed chemicals together to see them fizz. We may get around to setting up the crystal-growing experiment this afternoon as well. Beloved, if you have an hour or so free on the weekend for some Daddy-daughter time, could you revisit your youthful enchantment with chemistry and get down the big experiments kit we got her for her birthday last year? I suspect you will be much more fun to do it with than me!

B has played a bit of Rune Scape as well, but I convinced her that it might be a good idea to have breakfast and a shower before we ended up in a mad scramble to get out the door to the knitting day (starts at 11). K has awakened and is having her breakfast, so I will go and scrounge some clothes together for her now…