familytreehouse.co.uk

I cant seem to find the energy or inclination right now to blog. I think i am just in soo much pain and Soo tired.

Asha is still loveing Gymnastics.

She is also enjoying her swimming lessons, especially now we have changed pools.

She is doing a week long course during half term as well. Its every morning but as I am paying for her lessons and this week is free! I thought.. Why not. Plus it will tire her out for the week, and as no one needs to go into the pool with her I wont be as exhausted!

She is still doing swimming with home edd friends on a Tuesday as well, which she loves.

She spent a day at the beach on Monday - Its mid october!

She is desperate to go back to Gwerin. I think we will try for January. Hopefully she will be over the food problems by then and I will feel stroger.

Steve is still looking for suitable work… He would like to be off benefits. Our OU course materials have arrived for L196- they look good.

I feel crap. I look crap, my balance is crap.

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My very earthy mummy jumps sometimes up neptune.

I will tell later…..

Did you guess?

wikipedia

1. Mercury
2. Venus
3. Earth
4. Mars
5. Jupiter
6. Saturn
7. Uranus
8. Neptune

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I have borrowed this from a home edd forum I am involved with. I think it says it all. I doubt it is totally up to date. The actual statistics are probably worse!

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than
600 employees and has the following employee statistics:-

• 29 have been accused of spouse abuse
• 7 have been arrested for fraud
• 9 have been accused of writing bad cheques
• 17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
• 3 have done time for assault
• 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
• 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
• 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
• 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
• 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

Which organisation is this?
It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that
cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest
of us inline. What a bunch of b*****ds we have running our country –
these statistics tell it all.

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john taylor gatto

I am really really interested in this guy right now. His thoughts behind the American school system are quite challenging. I just need to convince my library it would be a good idea to get his books in… Ummm…

So much of what i have heard about him is really interesting.

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My thanks to A, for this. Sorry i dont know the source of it, but we did it at CLAS today and the kids love it!

5 Min Chocolate Mug Cake

1. coffee mug

4 tbsp plain flour.  (it works fine with gluten free)

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp baking cocoa (i think we used less in the group)

1 egg

3 tbsp milk  (I used soya with Asha)

3 tbsp oil

3 tbsp chocolate chips (optional)

small splash of vanilla.

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well.

Add egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in milk and oil and mix again

Add chocolate chips if using and vanilla, and mix again

put mug in microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but dont be alarmed.

Allow to cool a little and tip out onto a plate.

Eat.

I reckon it would be great cut into slices, then turned into a yule log or caterpillar.. It certainly tastes o.k. and the home edd kids LOVED making it today!

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Your chance to support the New Statesman’s No Place for Children campaign: join Philip Pullman, Monica Ali, Nick Hornby and others in signing our petition calling for an end to the detention of children for immigration reasons

Dear Home Secretary,

We welcome the UK’s recent commitment to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in full. In the spirit of that convention, we call on the UK government to end the practice of detaining children and families for the purposes of immigration control.

The government’s stated policy has been to detain children “only when absolutely necessary and for the shortest possible time”. In reality, however, children are often held for long periods in centres with inadequate healthcare and education. Many have been deeply traumatised by their experiences. This situation is unacceptable in a country which claims to adhere to high standards of human rights.

Our clear message is that the UK’s policy of incarcerating innocent minors must stop. Immigration detention centres are no place for children.

Submitted by Alice O’Keeffe of New Statesman
Deadline to sign up by: 16 November 2008

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Some stuff we are soon going to get rid of:

Clwyd Limestone

Avignon to Croxteth

Mair Canny Tale Fae Aberdeen

Arthur Mee’s Cheshire

From My African Notebook

Norther Railway Enthusiast

North West Railway Enthusiast

Chambers Jouranl - 1922

How Babies Think (one of my favorite child development books)

Teach yourself Astrology

Calday Grange Grammer School

Assee Illustrated guide to the IEE regulations for the electrical equipment of buildings… (1966)

(HEHeheheh )  - so no not current

The Cassell book of the ford Consul

Start Now, a book of soul and spiritual exercises - steiner

Life beyond death = rudolf steiner.

We are starting to get rid. I am taking two box loads to home edd group this week and about 6 black bin bags of stuff to Air Ambulance Shop!

If anyone wants / is interested in any of these Let me know, as we still havent listed them!

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I recently wrote on a dyslexia forum

I am not a fan of schools as the child misses out on a lot of things they get to do at home… like camping during term time with home edd friends, swimming in lunch hours, playing in airport muesuems, spending time with a mixed age range of kids for days at a time….. the list is endless…..

Seriously, i think current schools encourage a pack mentality, nulify personal space and opinions and destroy a childs individuality.. but this rant is for another forum :d

Now for a percentage of children this is there absolute experience. I am sure, but is it a general experience? Is this why we are home educating? Or is everyone who works in the school system so blind and me not. If I am so off target, why are people so unsure about sending there kids at three or four. Why do they doubt doing it?

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bbc link

Round Australia the hard way.

Now I agree totally to the poverty and the charity book aid international however, what I also have seen is that those in areas which allready have good reading skills and the children have books are also given free books. Whilst this is “nice” it is also a great waste of resources when those same books given 6 months later to the children who need books, but have destroyed - due to useage - there original books would be far better used.

When we lived in a well off village and everyone asked there health visitor for the books… myself included i thought this is nice, and yes it was a lovely book, asha enjoyed it, along with all her other books! When we moved out here, onto an estate where no one uses the library, but the kids love books, we havent received anything.. nor have these kids.

These kids are the kids who need books given to them! Libraries don’t even visit the area at kiddy favourable times (3 o’clock on a friday once a month the community library comes here) gwynedd council

Mum isnt going to take the children to the library every week.. These are the kids who need targetting, not the ones who allready go to the library!

Vicki xx

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The nursery rhyme has an interesting history of its development linguistically and socially over the years.

Over the next few weeks I shall develop this post.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water:
Jack fell down and broke his crown
and jill came tumbling after

Then up Jack got and home did trot
As fast as he could caper;
And went to bed, to mend his head
With vinegar and brown paper.

That third verse

Then Jill came in,
And she did grin,
To see Jack’s paper plaster;
Her mother whipt her,
Across her knee
For Laughing at Jack’s disaster

taken from a chap book printed by James Kendrew c1820

The oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes edited by Iona and Peter opie.

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Asha at Penrhyn

A photograph a friend took earlier in the year at Penrhyn Castle

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We look after our most vunerable or loved ones with products such as this. Then some idiot spends

About the For the Love of God Skull
The Diamond covered skull by Damien Hirst is a continuation of the artist’s exploration of death and the way we react to it.

“For the Love of God” is covered with 8,601 real diamonds and has been valued as the most expensive contemporary work of art. Hirst spent about $20 million USD to create the diamond covered work and put a price tag of $100 million USD on it.

Update: In August 2007, it was widely reported that Damien Hirst sold “For the Love of God” to an investment group for $100 million USD or about 50 million pounds. Hirst is said to own a percentage of the diamond skull, but it was not reported how much he still owns. The buyers will be expected to exhibit the work for the next two to three years at museums around the world. The BBC reported that the investors planned to resell the work at a later date.

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Well nothing new, I guess everyone decides some stage they want to move to something else. Well there is a fantastic property come up for rent less than 5 miles away. It has everything we have dreamed off. Space, quiet, area for chickens. Enough space for us to educate at home, and have our own space. Near enough to friends so Asha wont miss out.

The problem? We dont have enough money to cover the deposit we need. Because of the DWP and us going bankrupt we need to have 6 months rent up front.

Donations to our pay pall accepted.

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I got up, early with daddy, and then when you got up mummy you and I had a bath mummy. I wanted one, so you poped me into you rs with you. I then got dressed and we went to Julies. You left me with my friends for an hour whilst you and daddy did some thing else.

After that you had to call in somewhere then we came home and I played with ff for a bit. I then did some maths and english colouring in sheets. You read me a few stories and we talked. I went to bed after a story from you and daddy.

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A red rose on a white background is regarded as the official flag of Lancashire. The red rose was the emblem of the Duchy of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses. The rose sits on two points which shows that the flag is the right way up.

Cheshire County flag

The cheshire flag is a banner of the arms of the county council. I will put more information online about the signficance of the county flag in due time.

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What a little hero she is. She loves it.

She rolled around, jumped around, followed the line around, played tick, and went on the horse thingy. She smiles, and lands with her hands together and has a great time.

I just hope she keeps on loving it!

The rest of the day wasnt as sucessfull, we think Asha is stuggling with milk and gluten in her diet, and as such is being a number one cling on. Which is tireing and hard work. Though she did play outside for a while with daddy, and she did have a small rest when we went for a drive, as she was so tired.

Education done today. Not loads, but we have talked, we have read a few stories and we did look at a big plan of a human body, and talk about teeth, blood cells and veins. We also looked at where our hearts were… My child is 4, and knows more biology than I knew at 16!

Its actually very hard for Asha not to get an education in our house, as we have SO many books of all kinds lieing around.. and with her toys as well!!!!

Oh we also melted some chocolate and added corn flakes to it. We then made some pepermint iceing up, and dropped it into the chocolate crispy cakes. Its really interesting what then happens.. you have after eight choclate crisp cakes!

Oh and before bath, Asha also played with ff.
Vicki xx

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We had a few problems getting our blog rings and our advert for Barefoot books to work with the last theme. Hopefully now we have it all working we will be far happier and familytreehouse can expand to take over erm…. My spare time!

Carry on enjoying the site wont you!

Vicki , Steve , and Asha !

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Yes, its that time of year again, but can i remeber it? for love or water!

If anyone can remeber the first verse to which witch, Please let me know!

However I now have a completed.

THE RIDE-BY-NIGHTS

Up on their brooms the witches stream,
Croocked and black in the cresecent’s gleam;
One foot high, and one foot low
Bearded, Cloaked and cowled, they go.

‘Neath Charlie’s Wane they twitter and twit,
And away they swarm ‘neath the Dragon’s feet.
With a whoop and a flutter they swing and sway,
And surge pell-mell down the Milky Way.

Between the legs of the glittering chair
They hover and squeak in the empty air.
Then round, they swoop past the glimmering lion
To where sirius barks behind hugh orion;
Up, then, and over to wheel a main
Under the silver, and home again.

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Cogs.

A friend of mine son wanted to know how a cog worked and why..

His experiment : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rciNzT_7bBI

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Monday - read to mummy in bed, had first gymnastics lesson at penygroes. Also went shopping in Caernarfon, and did asorted jobs.

Tuesday - Went swimming with friends in Portmadog.

Wednesday - Home Edd group. Did plaster of paris painting and played outside.

Thursday - did chores in Pwhelli, went to fair ground for a bit.

Friday - went to caernarfon air mueseum, played outside with ff, when I got home as well.

Sat Granny came to play, went to parc and picked blackberries, we also did some painting and reading.

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