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horsellian

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Everything posted by horsellian

  1. One question is are there actually places available at the schools near where you are moving? In England there's a 30 per class maximum for reception and years 1 & 2, and a shortage of school places in London so you might find that your Ker wouldn't immediately get a place at your local school, and possibly not at the same school as you 2nd grader, which could make school a huge hassle.
  2. It's pretty common to use 'Master' in the UK, we often have it as an option on forms. My son is 'Master' at the bank, doctor, dentist and library (off the top of my head). My grandfather was very formal, and for cards and letters, mine were addressed "Miss Surname" because I'm the eldest, and my sisters ones were "Miss Firstname Surname" which always seemed rather Jane Austen.
  3. My DH is very caffeine sensitive. For him it's a migraine trigger. He can't have coffee, chocolate, even black tea has enough to set him off. Sending you hugs! And virtual caffeine-free chocies.
  4. If he has a bicycle then surely he could go a bit further out? A mile is about 15 minutes walk, but you can cycle about 4 miles in that time.
  5. I can do it, as can DD. DS can't quite, as he can't do the treading water yet, but he is not quite 4, and he can do the rest.
  6. Or to be really pedantic, you could include 3.1 and 3.11 between 3 and 95!
  7. I have 5 wisdom teeth. Yes, really! The bottom two are rather wonky, the top two are normal, but I've got a second (probably partially impacted) one behind one of the top ones, which is still coming through (gotta love teething in your 30s).
  8. No, you aren't the only one! And I read it all, but didn't stop laughing at all. I prefer William Morris's " Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Most things in my house fall into the useful category. If I only kept stuff that "sparked joy" I'd have an empty kitchen and almost no clothes at all. Can't say toothbrushes or the vacuum cleaner have much joy to them, but I definitely need them.
  9. Another vote for "only when broken". Never occurred to me to do it more often.
  10. I would suggest The Guardian, The Independent, and The Telegraph or Times to span most political opinions. These are all "broadsheet" newspapers, rather than tabloids.
  11. I generally find that ads on the internet are pretty pointless, as they are mostly for products I've just bought (or things DH has just bought)! Currently I've got car jacks and trainers following me around the web, but the advertisers are wasting their money as we've got them now, and I don't imagine we'll buy another jack for decades.
  12. Actually, some shops in the UK do sell 1 litre plastic bottles of milk, because it's a bit less than 2 pints, but looks very similar in size, and most people won't check and assume it's 2pts. Usually they're dollar store type places, or local corner shops: the corner shop at the end of our old street sold milk either in 1 pt or 1l bottles. How's that for confusing!
  13. There is a yahoo group you can join that has the progression for sets 1-3 in it's files section, I think: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Beginning-Reading-Instruction/info And if you e-mail Dick on that group then I think he'll e-mail any set to you in pdf a few at a time. Hope that helps you.
  14. I'd second the I See Sam recommendation: they're the easiest readers I can think of, as the first few use about 6 sounds. However, I'm not sure how the progression of skills compares to Dancing Bears.
  15. I'm not a fan of watching it myself, but my 3-year-old amazed the staff at the sea life centre last week with his knowledge of all sorts of sea creatures. I had to explain to them he'd learnt it all from Octonauts!
  16. horsellian

    Ugh.

    But at least jeans are optional - I've given up on them entirely, and just wear other trousers that I can get to fit properly. Swimwear on the other hand ... you gotta have a swimsuit or something, because you get very odd looks in the pool otherwise!
  17. Other: We all have cereal for breakfast, so we pour our own cereal, but an adult pours the milk for the kids (because I can't expect my youngest, aged 3 to lift and pour from a 6pt milk bottle yet). So if you've taken too much cereal it's your own fault - I expect first helpings to be eaten, but seconds are available.
  18. Thanks for reminding me about this. I got some nice books last year.
  19. Definitely agree with this: my DH has degrees in French and Theoretical Linguistics, and he is currently working as a conductor, and an executive education provider (although this work actually includes conducting as well!). He has plenty of musical experience without having a degree in it.
  20. Agreed, but some two-year olds can blend; you can find out by playing at blending orally. DD could turn 3 or 4 sounds into a word at that age: I would say "can you find your h -- a -- t ?" And she would shout "hat" go get it! "We need to go to the sh -- o -- p" etc. After a while it also turned into a good game for driving ("I can see a t -- r -- ai -- n").
  21. Got a bee in your bonnet much? I didn't say all kids read easily at age 5 (incidentally, I didn't say my kids did either, I said they spent 5 minutes morning and night learning, but never mind) and I didn't say that there is anything wrong with kids who don't learn at age 5 (again, you're the one who brought up age 5!) However, most kids do not require years and years of an hour a day one-to-one attention to learn to read. My original point was that for MOST kids there's not a conflict between learning to read and outdoor time.
  22. Agreed - HMRC aren't very good at dealing with 'non-standard' situations. The year my DH had 15 employers was okay, although we were lucky as we found out that 15 is the maximum number of employers the online filing will cope with (and we'd already missed the paper filing deadline). However, two employers plus two separate sets of self-employed earnings was a nightmare. Also, we've learnt never to file your return too early. One year we paid them what we owed in full in June, and on 31 July they incorrectly refunded half of it to us (which fortunately I spotted) so we had to give it back to them again! We've also just had to fix their incorrect tax coding notices for DH's employers for this year - they'd set it so his occasional employer would never deduct tax at source, but his main employer (his own company) would have to charge him tax which we'd have to reclaim at year end. OTOH, if you've just got a single employer then Pay-As-You-Earn is a piece of cake, and you never have to file a return, it "just works".
  23. But who needs to spend an hour a day teaching reading one-on-one? My kids learned in about 10mins a day: 5 in the morning straight after breakfast and 5 in the evening, before bed (they loved reading me a bedtime story before I read them a bedtime story).
  24. When living in Nigeria my FIL had the opposite signature problem to this while trying to open a bank account - he was told his signature was not allowed to be legible. Apparently that was just writing your name, not a signature!
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