Tasha, Toby and Vinnie came over today to see the campervan. I nipped to Sainsburys for fruit and veg supplies for Badgers before going to pick them up. They had the guided tour of the van including all of the ‘rules’ about taking shoes off, not playing in it etc. Then Tasha and I came inside to do knitting / crocheting and bitching :).
Poor Vinnie gets a bit of a rough deal when we meet up as Toby plays with Davies and Scarlett so he loses his big brother and isn’t really welcomed into their games. Scarlett particularly can be a bit vocal about not wanting to entertain the toddler and I struggle a bit with how to deal with it. On the one hand I know if we had friends where one of my two was repeatedly left out and made to feel unwelcome I simply wouldn’t take them there, but on the other I do understand that tolerating him for a while is a fair ask but changing games to accomodate him and giving in to his sometimes unfair demands (in their eyes) is a nusiance. I also think she struggles with not being the youngest sometimes. We are asking a lot of Scarlett at the moment in terms of growing up and maturing and dealing with stuff and the fall out happens every so often in ways she can still exhibit power and control when lots of areas of her life seem to be happening regardless of what she wants.
So we had to do some smoothing over and then she lost her temper because the boys were cheating at a lego creationary game by peeking at the cards so she yelled at them that she wouldn’t play with them if they couldn’t play properly and left the room. They did try to lure her back but she stood her ground and came and sat with us in the lounge for a while. She did some ‘potion making’ and sat on my lap and knitted a few of my stitches for me too.
We made some lunch for everyone followed by some of Tasha’s cupcakes and order was restored between the children who played really well together for the rest of the afternoon.
I dropped them off home and we got ready for Badgers. On the programme was making fruit and veg kebabs to talk about healthy options and how cold food could be appetising. I asked Davies how they’d done it when he did Hungry Badger last year and he said it had been all pre-prepared cubed fruit and veg that they had put onto skewers. So I packed a peeler and several knives with the intention of doing some peeling and chopping with the Badgers.
I had 8 children and 2 adult helpers today so we were good for knife safety ratios. First we got tables and chairs set up and I sent them all of to wash their hands. Next they all sat down and I laid out all of the fruit and veg I’d brought. I got their attention and told them to listen to me as I was talking and one of the lads asked why we had to listen to me and not him, so I got him up and told him to tell everyone what was happening instead :). I had to whisper to him what to say next but he led the group in identifying all of the fruit and veg and saying whether it was fruit or veg including the ‘trick’ ones such as peppers and tomatoes. He then sat back down and we talked about where the fruit and veg grows (on trees, plants, bushes, in the ground etc.)
We then set to work on peeling, chopping and dicing everything – I’d brought mushrooms, apples, tomatoes, peppers, grapes, strawberries, kiwi fruit, bananas and carrots. They all did an excellent job of that and then they put chairs away and we laid out the table canteen style for them to queue up with kebab sticks and get creating. I encouraged them all to try something new if there things they’d not had before and several of them liked stuff they’d previously thought they wouldn’t :). I also said they could make kebabs for sibligs or parents to take away and all of the fruit and veg went :).
We cleared up, I’d taken a compostable bag to bring all the waste home and we had a brief chat about compostable waste and landfill waste then it was time to rejoin the rest of the group for drinks and some games. I felt it went pretty well tonight and am much happier having gone with my own way of doing things. Next week we’re doing Diwali based stuff and the week after is supposed to be sandwich making so I’m taking in risen bread dough for them to shape bread rolls, ingredients to make flour tortilla wraps and cream in a jam jar to churn butter – I will do this my way! 🙂
Back home Ady had arrived and got dinner on for the kids – steak for Davies and the latest Sploosh egg for Scarlett. When cracked open it proved to be a triple yolker!
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She didn’t really like the taste of it just fried though, I think they are better in baking. I love the way all three yolks are different sizes :).
I read to them while they were eating which we were enjoying so much I ended up reading for nearly an hour with breaks to get into pjs / wash faces / clean teeth. We’ve over halfway through now and it’s quite a gripping story.
The kids went to bed (alas not to sleep, there was much reappearing with ‘a story I’ve drawn in 14 picture sections’) and we had dinner and watched Grand Designs.
hugs for s, BB had the prob of being the ignored one, and I have to say that i tried to insist for approx 1/ they tried to accommodate her, and for approx 1/2 i would accommodate her. obv now she is the more demanding of my 2, i am usually begging her to be reasonable!!
Comment by HelenHaricot — 30 September 2010 @ 12:06 am
Glad you are finding your own way of getting through the Badgers curriculum 🙂 We have it easier at BB – over a year they are supposed to cover certain numbers of activities from vague categories (Body, Mind, Spirit, Community, Creativity) so L and I tend to do whatever we fancy and decide later what went where!
So how different do duck eggs taste?
Comment by Alison — 30 September 2010 @ 10:54 am
I still struggle to articulate the difference between a fruit and a veg. In my own mind, a fruit is only something I would consider eating for dessert. I might also (peaches, apricots, apples etc) consider eating them with my main course, but I wouldn’t consider eating anything I call a vegetable as a sweet course. Which I do know is not the correct definition, but it worked well for me for more than half my life till someone broke the tomato secret to me! And I’m still not really convinced!
Comment by Joyce — 30 September 2010 @ 11:16 am