Chatting and Stepping! Stepping and Chatting! (and the odd rant!)

[carrotsandcelery]

Come inside for a and a and maybe even a if the mood takes you.

A thread for chatter and nonsense

Just to add - if any of you have dcs in the 4-7ish age range who are still working with phonics and learning to read, I have put together a booklet of fun ways to practice words and phonic sounds - disclaimer some wacky and slightly subversive ideas using trampolines and kitchen doors! (Hope maybe to get it published one day?). I'm happy to send a copies (word document) to anyone here who pms me an email address! (Also to those with younger dcs who think it might be useful in a couple of years!)

Not using trampolines and kitchen doors together you understand!

Arti the lego times tables is a genius idea. Thank you I am pretty good at coming up with ideas for learning things usually but I had drawn a blank here. I think it is because I can't do them myself and just panic at the mention of them.

Tomorrow morning we will be legoing away

I am home from the party (I am not so dependant that I now have to mumsnet from parties - yet) and really glad I went.

Now I just have to wind down enough to be able to sleep

Glad you like the idea ( I have plenty more ) and I am happy to have helped! I've just managed to get everything sorted for my lessons tomorrow so I must take myself off to bed now. Glad you had a good night out and hope you wine wind down soon!

Let me know how the lego tables goes tomorrow. I'm not too sure what stage your ds is at, but if he is still at the stage of actually trying to remember a times table (as opposed to increasing speed of recall or doing random recall of facts) then I'd advocate taking it slowly (a couple of weeks on each table or even more if he needs it ) but doing a variety of activities.

You might also like

www.bigbrainz.com/ This is a great free programme for actually learning times tables. You have to get your little green goblin out of the dungeon without being bopped by the tables Ogre too often. It doesn't allow you to progress untill you have mastered a particular set of facts.

And tux4kids.alioth.debian.org/tuxmath/download.php This free programme is great for rapid recall of tables facts ( and other arithmetic facts) once they have been learned (can practice each table separately). You have to put in answers quickly enough to shoot down times table space invaders. If you don't do it quickly enough, the space invaders hit the bottom of the screen and melt the igloos that are protecting little penguins. If you get lots right in a row, you get a little snow cloud that will mend melted igloos. You have to try and get to the end of the game without losing any of your penguins!

Night night

Thank you Arti again I am downloading the bigbrainz one just now. He more or less knows the tables but is REALLY slow so I thought we would start there.

You are a mine of useful information!

I am still in my pjs and enjoying the knowledge that I have very little running around to do today.

Dh and dd are off to choose a birthday gift for me and then dd is going to the stables. Ds is playing Skylanders with a new character I bought him yesterday for doing so well at the hospital (I didn't offer anything beforehand but was so chuffed with him I decided I would).

I am running a bubble bath so will escape in there in a while with a

What is everyone else doing today?

Morning all, I have just showered and got dressed. We are going to do some food shopping as we are running out of a few things.

We have lovely sunny weather here today which is a good job as there is a charity walk (40 miles) going on today in our county. Might go and cheer people on later.

It is beautiful here too Cats. It definitely lightens the spirits

We will be dog walking later on when dh gets back so I am relieved we can finally have a sunny walk. I have also put the heating off. Yay! It was only 4C yesterday but it feels really warm today.

It's been quiet on this thread today! I have been out most of the day.

What has everyone else been up to?

DD seems to be off her food today. I think she has a cold cause she has had a runny nose and a cough.

Hi Cats. We have been on a long dog walk as it was beautifully sunny.

Hi, sorry I've not been on much lately - have been busy thinking about my return to work, nursing a poorly DD2, getting DD1 to use the loo & we had some unexpected news in the week which left us reeling for a few days.

Anyway, my sink has been shiny every night, even though the rest of it has gone a bit wonky. DH has told me I need to assign him some more jobs to do when I go back to work, so I'm off to sort out my Control Journal now!!

bessie ((((hugs)))) Sometimes it does all just go a bit haywire.

It's good news that dh will take on his fair share when you are both working again. Get scribbling in that control journal!!!!!

Oh dear bessie, hope your news wasn't something really bad.

Carrots We had lovely weather too but a cold wind.

Dh and ds have been singing the blues today. Ds is proving quite creative on the blues about poos

bessie did DD1 manage a poo on the toilet today? (another question I never imagined ever asking anyone) Maybe you and dh could try some free form blues to encourage her

No poo on the loo here - she seems happy enough to sit on the loo, but is having trouble relaxing (I suggested she pooed on the potty before she went to bed & she ran into the bathroom!) - I think we will be doing lots of wee & poo songs here tomorrow!

I will see if we can commit some of ds's more amusing ditties to print then for your (or her) hour of need!

Oh my! I just had a peek and youtube is full of appropriate songs. I would have linked some but...

I can see an exciting Saturday night ahead for you

We were out today, taking full advantage of it being National Mills Weekend. Toddler was IN HEAVEN going to see windmills and getting to climb to the top of them. I have one exhausted Toddler, though, we just cried and cried with tiredness at bedtime and stayed in his bed.

Sorry, HE just cried, not we. I was in control of my emotions.

I was worried there for a moment Scout. I am glad you had a good day. Were they the old fashioned style windmills? You don't really see them around here.

Yes, old fashioned ones. Two hundred year old ones. One of the two we went to today still produces flour so Toddler got to see the sails turn outside then got to watch all the wheels and belts turn inside. Honestly, the boy was in heaven.

DH has gone to bed so I am all alone! I will have peace and quiet soon if DS goes to sleep. I can hear him shouting.

I will have to pull my socks up tomorrow and get some laundry done. Today was like a day off as we were out a lot of the day.

I'm trying to download pictures from today so I can email my parents and BFF/Toddler's Godmother and tell them new pictures are up. I took way too many pictures today. I do tend to, though.