Yep, at last the 100 Easy Lessons has arrived 🙂 🙂 🙂 Had as much of a flick through as small loud people would allow and it looks pretty basic but exactly the sort of thing to start a routine of small periods of concentration with. Hurrah! Will have a go at snatching ten minutes with Davies later to try out the first lesson.
They have been playing quite well today – they have had out the toy animals (we have a massive array of dinosaurs, jungle creatures, farmyard animals and some life cycles sets of butterflies and frogs) which always feels very educational 🙂 They watched Dangermouse and Davies has requested an eye patch so we took a trip to the local factory outlet place on the nearby industrial estate – it’s a big warehouse with a massive area for party goods like cups and plates, cheapo toys and stuff (same sort of puzzles and arty things you get in The Works) and so on. But before we left we observed and discussed the very odd weather conditions here today. It is very very cold and the sky was all sorts of funny colours, in the playroom there was bright sunshine through the windows but out of the lounge window it was pouring with rain and very dark, so we looked for the rainbow and found it. It kept fading and reappearing too which was interesting. Then came a massive downpour of rain which turned into hailstones. We tried to collect some but they were melting instantly. We also got a jug out to measure rainfall and then it promptly stopped raining! It has been bright sunshine ever since. I really have been meaning to do some sort of project with D on weather so I really must sort myself out and dig out some of the resources I have been squirreling away on the topic.
So to the Wizard store where we did not find an eye patch but for under a tenner we did get loads of other horrid plastic stuff which is always good for keeping them quiet for an afternoon and then disposing of when they aren’t looking 🙂 Scarlett got a set for her baby doll comprising baby bath, bottles, flannel, pretend soap and shampoo, a dummy, a potty and so on – which she has played with for over an hour very happily, Davies got a remote control robot which is is walking up and down the hall with and I picked up some more animals for the toy box – a set of sea creatures, a set of pets, some more bugs and insects and a couple more zoo animals. Also the biggest bargain was a massive box of beads – 49 different little compartments with all sorts of beads in shapes of butterflies, flowers, animals, shells and so on all in lovely bright colours which will be fab for all sorts of activities like threading, sewing, collages and so on – a bargain at it’s orginal price of a fiver let alone the £2.99 I paid for it 🙂
Home again and I had a phonecall from the Usborne Books lady who will be ‘looking after me’. She has been doing it for 14 years and says she makes more from this than she did from teaching full time before she had her 4 children! Her brother has two HE children so she was all full of that and very interested too. I have not even really looked at the pack that came through this morning and she is sending me some further information too. I have looked into these sorts of selling businesses before and always found a lot of holes in them, the plus of this one does appear that there is no pressure to sell any more than you manage to sell really, and I do think I am in a good position to have a captive audience for selling to so fingers crossed for this one eh? And if nothing else I get to buy more cheap books 😉 Don’t think it’s about to be something that can support our whole family but any additional income is nice 🙂
So that’s me so far today. Kids are a bit on the rowdy side and I am feeling a bit neglectful of them at the moment HE wise – I seem to have their socialising covered and the amassing of resources is going well 😉 but I perhaps need to spent a bit of time directing them.
Good afternoon Nic. I signed up yesterday and on Thursday 4 other HEers are signing up in my name! They, like me, are doing it to buy cheaper books for themselves but I may do a party or two if I am asked. I have been offered a school on World Book Day in March so I might do it with another person as it is a lot of work.
Comment by Karen b — 25 January 2005 @ 2:21 pm
BTW Nic are you bringing some resources to the resource fair at Melrose? I would like a look at the 100 easy lessons.
Comment by Karen b — 25 January 2005 @ 2:45 pm
I’m an Usbourne books lady! Must place an order…..
Comment by Roslyn — 25 January 2005 @ 2:51 pm
yeah, I’ll bring 100 easy lessons and my Bob books, which are the only two ‘formal’ resources that I have really. We have two full shelves of books to be used for HE and I have various HE books or books about children and learning which I will probably bring too.
Are you Ros? How long have you been one and how have you found it? I’ve just been reading the literature they sent and although it looks promising I always feel bad trying to make a living from selling stuff to people I know so if it is going to work for me I need to find another outlet for them really – also not sure how competitive they are in relations to the book people on their prices either…
Comment by Nic — 25 January 2005 @ 3:32 pm
I did DK books for ages, before they went bust as an independent. I think they are an imprint of penguin now. They lost vast amounts of money by mis-estimating Star Wars. Invested heavily in promo stuff, and made themselves very vulnerable for takeover. (don’t have time to blog right now, but I though commenting on your would go some way to meeting your objective c) at least ;-). I did build up an excellent home library, through taking adventage of their sellers offers, and using my agents discount, but never made any real money. TBH, I think it might even be harder nowadays, as Amazon had only just been born then, and the net book agreement (which allows books to be sold at a different price than the cover price), had yet to come into force. That was of course what led to companies like the book people. I’ve been thinking of Usborne myself just for the lib building aspect, as Hannah has grown past the DK stuff that we have, but I’m not sure about it as a business. I do love all the books though. Enjoy it, I would say. Had an exciting offer from work today – will blog about it later. Or maybe put it on the code placidly discussion thing. But I’m sort of dancing. Not quite like Sid Vicious or Fred Astaire, but maybe – em – like Darius 🙂
Comment by Joyce — 25 January 2005 @ 3:47 pm
pmsl @ Darius dancing 😀 and thanks for reminding me about the CP discussion place – let me know if you do put it there though otherwise I will forget to go and check – or better still C&P it in email to me 😉
Comment by Nic — 25 January 2005 @ 3:56 pm
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! I’ve been doing Usborne for the last yr, you could have signed up via me. I’ve mainly only been doing it to get cheap stuff for me although its marginal sometimes when Amazon
undercut what you can get them for. Tell me about the work thing tomorrow? I need cheering up!
Comment by Jenny — 25 January 2005 @ 4:48 pm
Where’s the CP discussion place? Let me know if you’re chatting there.
Comment by jan — 25 January 2005 @ 4:49 pm
CP discussion place is a forum Jax sorted for us as a result of a post about how between all of us we were bound to have all the right skills to do well in some sort of business. It has been a bit neglected after the initial flurry of activity died down but I reckon a few discussions at Melrose might resurrect it again 🙂 Jax is the woman for sorting out access to it though.
Comment by Nic — 25 January 2005 @ 8:15 pm
I think that too Nic – about becoming busy after Melrose. I used to sell DK books too Joyce I just spent what I earned on books LOL I do have a good library now including the Millennium Encyclopedias which I got for a song.
Comment by Karen b — 25 January 2005 @ 9:05 pm
Oh, Yes, we’ve got them as well, Karen – I think they were going for about half price, plus the agents discount on top. I err – haven’t used them that much though. I like the Usborne internet linked ones.
Comment by Joyce — 25 January 2005 @ 10:48 pm