Home Educating Mummy….
My new years resolution this year is to read the books in the Top 100 of The BBC Big Read, starting with the top 21 which are…
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien – READ IT
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (argh… jane austen… argh….)
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (Very much looking forward to this)
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams – READ IT
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling – READ IT
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (well i have read bits of it but i will again!)
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (scared of this)
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis – READ IT
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller (not really looking forward to this one)
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë – READ IT but reading it again cos it was SO long ago!
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks – READ IT and NEVER again.
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (on my shelf ready!)
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (i think i have but i will again)
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens – READ IT (thank goodness… i don’t wish to go there again!)
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres – READ IT
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (ARGH!)
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
I was a bit horrified by how few of these i had read really – i think i had read about 30 of the top 100 in all – i thought i was quite well read as well! Anyway, i fancy it as a challenge although i feel very negative about some of the ones that say “school” to me – its time to get over that i think!!!!
So – me and Fran went up to my parents house for a new year party – that was extremely strange as an experience. It was mainly a party for their neighbours, who have all changed since i lived there. Most of them we sort of a half generation between me and my parents – people who had got affluent and then had children rather than the other way around (like us! i hope!) and i was sort of rendered to a state of feeling about 15 by the whole thing! lol! What was even weirder was that some of them had children younger than mine and i had one conversation where i was chatting to someone who felt more “grown up” than me and was being told about how they get good behaviour from their child, and i was thinking *omg – i would NEVER do that to my kids* while nodding charmingly in a state of “must be polite to the grown ups”ness!!!!!!! Anyway, they were all lovely people (and one home educates! so funny! my parents had no idea they lived next to such a radical!!!!) and i also saw the wife and son of the family friend who died recently and that was lovely. Fran had a great time and played with two of the village kids very happily all evening.
So apart from that what else have we been doing? Fran has added Egypt to her list of topics for next year which is pretty good since i have a lOAD of resources for that! (I like it!) and we have been playing with the Glooze loads. I spotted a kit on the Science Museum site that is all about making Glooze, slime etc – so we might get it – we can do Polymers for our Science lessons this year – Granny will like that – her research is into Polymers!!!
Yesterday Fran and i sat playing a SATS Tuition programme for maths – its like a game really so not threatening and its one of my attempts to find something to replace EinsteinOnline. Anyway, we only did the first level, which is counting but she did very well – well actually – she did stormingly – she managed to listen to it giving her numbers anywhere up to 1000 and typed them into it, she had no problem with the place values at all, which considering no one has so much as broached anything bigger than 100 with her, i thought was quite impressive! Moo played lots of Zoombinis with Daddy and showed him how to play it (most amusing!)
Scruff has been walking around saying “shoes” all day… no idea why… do you think she might want to leave?
