It's fairly easy to have enjoy reading: even without all the word jigsaws, make-a-word games and so forth available, the very act of reading is in itself fun*.
In addition there's plenty of material out there to teach reading: even basic workbooks tend to provide twice as much reading support as mathematical, because they treat reading and writing as two different subjects, despite the fact that they support one another.
Science and even maths workbooks still support reading because, well, they're books, you have to read them to use them.
So home-education-wise reading is not a problem.
Maths, on the other hand, is.
There are workbooks out there, of course, and we can always write out our own problems as well.
We can set sums using handfuls of raisins** or small toys, we can demonstrate on an abacus or on our fingers, we can sing Ten, Twenty or Two Hundred Green Bottles***, there are a lot of things we can do but, in the end it all feels a bit, well, mathematical.
It lacks the enticing air that a good book, or a game of Flag Man**** has without even trying.
We recently bought a copy of Games for Mathematics, by Peggy Kaye, having found her Games for Reading very enjoyable, but even here the games tended to be of the solve-all-the-sums-to-climb-the-ladder variety, which does little to inspire a reluctant mathematician.
We've found a few things that do work though, so I thought I'd share a few here.
Games
I've said this before, I know, but playing games is wonderful for developing basic maths.
They don't need to be Games for Mathematics, although Orchard Games make some lovely ones, just playing games, counting spaces and spots on dice, developing simple strategies, and following the rules of the game can help to strengthen essential skills.
Change the number of dice and require players to add them together, or subtract one from the other***** to throw in a few sums without making it too obvious.
A beetle drive****** is always a good way to practice simple maths, and can be re-themed to suit any project or obsession as needed: house drives, car drives*******, viking longship drives and so on all work very nicely.
Trains and Automobiles
You can play counting and addition games with any small toys, but it can easily turn into just an exercise in bean-counting.
The advantage of playing with cars or toy trains is that the maths can creep in without being obvious.
Set up a garage with room for a few cars at a time and, as the cars go in an out, ask how many more can go in before it's full, or how many there will be when the next one goes in.
Try racing them across the dining table or down a hill and keep track of which colour car wins most often: do red ones really go faster?
Hopefully the addition, subtraction and basic probability (when you start guessing which car will win this time) will go entirely unnoticed.
With trains you can add or subtract carriages, compare long and short trains, estimate how many carriages it will take to carry a particular number of things, use carriages as a unit of measurement (how many carriages is it from that bend in the track to the tunnel?) and do just about anything you could with the cars.
The trick with all of these is not to stress the maths: if the child doesn't want to add up all the blue cars on the track, don't worry about it, just add them up yourself and move on.
World Building
Blocks are great things for basic maths.
Again you can just count or add them, but it's more fun to play around with it.
Build a tower, then without counting, try to estimate the number of blocks needed to make another one the same size.
Or build two and try to guess how tall they'll be when you put one on top of the other.
Or add the two towers together, or see how many you'd need to remove from one tower to make it the same height as another.
The maths is more overt here, the trick is just to have fun, and build an amazing city, while you do it.
A good idea is to separate the blocks into their various colours and try to guess how many are in each pile, then build towers as you count them.
Once they're up you can see which tower is tallest, how much bigger it is than the next tallest, what tje difference is between the tallest and shortest towers and so forth.
If all else fails you can always just try to build a tower to the ceiling.
Colouring by Maths
We got this idea from Nicky, who got it from someone at school.
They're sums, but attractively packaged.
Find a picture or two to colour in on the internet, or use an old colouring book.
Then decide what colours you want to use to colour it in, and assign a number to each colour.
Then label each section with the appropriate colour but, instead of just writing in the number, use a suitable sum.
So to colour a duck green, the child would first need to decode 8-3 or 2x2 to get 4, then look up the number four on their list of colours to find green.
It's far more appealing than it sounds, and again you can choose pictures to suit your current project, or a child's particular interests.
Alternating colours on flags, rows of flowers, or other repetitive images is a good way to introduce some simple pattern-recognition as well.
We've also learned that the people who produced Reading Eggs are in the process of bringing out a new offering: called Mathseeds.
They seem to be offering free trials, so once it's up and running we'll give that a go too.
I'll let you know whether the sound effects have improved********.
*Unless you're reading Mein Kampf or something.
**Subtraction, obviously.
***Or the multiplication version: Ten Green Tribbles
****Apparently we shouldn't hang people because it isn't very nice.
Running them through with pirate swords is A OK though.
*****If you want to avoid minus numbers try buying dice from a specialist games shop: you can get ten, twelve, or even twenty sided dice, which make subtracting a standard six-sider far less likely to cause problems.
You can even get dice numbered in tens, although using these might mean that you finish your game of Snakes and Ladders a little sooner than you intended.
******You know: roll one (or make ten) to draw the body, roll two (or make eight) to draw the head and so forth.
*******Yes, it does.
********Surely they can't be worse?
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Friday, 25 January 2013
Frying Pan Pieday
We made broad bean and feta quesadillas*.
This recipe looked like an excellent one for cooking with kids, until we actually started, whereupon I realised just how much slicing with sharp, pointy knives, and frying over frizzling flames was involved.
I'm happy to say that Eleanor survived the experience with all her fingers intact and unburned, but if the though of endangering your darlings digits calls forth a frantic frisson of fear, then you might want to make something else.
Or just cook it yourself.
The recipe, by the way, comes from Cook Vegetarian magazine, but we've simplified it somewhat.
Broad Bean and Feta Quesadillas
Ingredients
A packet of tortillas
About half a packet of feta
Some grated cheddar
Some frozen broad beans (a big handful should do, we used last spring's: the very last of our home-grown** frozen vegetables)
Some frozen peas (a smaller handful)
Half an onion
A clove or two of garlic
A chilli, red or green, (or just half if you don't like heat)
Olive oil***
Some fresh mint, chopped.
First chop the onion finely, mince, squish, or otherwise obliterate the physical integrity of the garlic, and chop the chilli.
Put them all into a frying pan with a splosh of olive oil and cook until everything is golden brown except the chilli.
Put the broad beans into a saucepan of boiling water, cook for a couple of minutes, then throw in the peas and cook till they are done.
Drain the beans, put them back into the pan, crumble in the feta, and add the mint.
If everyone in your family is fine with chilli, then add the contents of the frying pan, if not then remove a portion of the bean and cheese mixture to make an unspicy quesadilla or so first.
Then bung in the fried onion, garlic and chilli, add a little more olive oil, and stir it all together.
Don't worry about keeping all the broad beans intact, but don't go out of your way to squash them all either.
Now add a little more oil to the frying pan and put it back on the heat.
Be very careful at this point if cooking with children, if you're nervous, do the hot part yourself.
Take a tortilla and spread some of the bean mixture on one half, sprinkle cheddar over the top of this, then fold the other half over.
Put it in the frying pan for a minute**** then flip it over and cook on the other side.
Repeat until you run out of tortillas, beans, cheese or all three.
Cut the quesadillas in half and serve, making sure that any un-chillied ones go to the heat-averse.
Eat
*I realise that I'm pushing the boundaries of pie somewhat, given that this is really more of a tortilla-toasted-sandwich, but it has a crust, it has a filling, and if I was utterly strict about the definition of pie we'd have far less fun making them
**Actually I think these were from Richard's parents' home, but it's still a home.
***Do I have to have another rant about using non-virgin?
****Poking occasionally with a spatula so you feel that you're doing something.
This recipe looked like an excellent one for cooking with kids, until we actually started, whereupon I realised just how much slicing with sharp, pointy knives, and frying over frizzling flames was involved.
I'm happy to say that Eleanor survived the experience with all her fingers intact and unburned, but if the though of endangering your darlings digits calls forth a frantic frisson of fear, then you might want to make something else.
Or just cook it yourself.
The recipe, by the way, comes from Cook Vegetarian magazine, but we've simplified it somewhat.
Broad Bean and Feta Quesadillas
Ingredients
A packet of tortillas
About half a packet of feta
Some grated cheddar
Some frozen broad beans (a big handful should do, we used last spring's: the very last of our home-grown** frozen vegetables)
Some frozen peas (a smaller handful)
Half an onion
A clove or two of garlic
A chilli, red or green, (or just half if you don't like heat)
Olive oil***
Some fresh mint, chopped.
First chop the onion finely, mince, squish, or otherwise obliterate the physical integrity of the garlic, and chop the chilli.
Put them all into a frying pan with a splosh of olive oil and cook until everything is golden brown except the chilli.
Put the broad beans into a saucepan of boiling water, cook for a couple of minutes, then throw in the peas and cook till they are done.
Drain the beans, put them back into the pan, crumble in the feta, and add the mint.
If everyone in your family is fine with chilli, then add the contents of the frying pan, if not then remove a portion of the bean and cheese mixture to make an unspicy quesadilla or so first.
Then bung in the fried onion, garlic and chilli, add a little more olive oil, and stir it all together.
Don't worry about keeping all the broad beans intact, but don't go out of your way to squash them all either.
Now add a little more oil to the frying pan and put it back on the heat.
Be very careful at this point if cooking with children, if you're nervous, do the hot part yourself.
Take a tortilla and spread some of the bean mixture on one half, sprinkle cheddar over the top of this, then fold the other half over.
Put it in the frying pan for a minute**** then flip it over and cook on the other side.
Repeat until you run out of tortillas, beans, cheese or all three.
Cut the quesadillas in half and serve, making sure that any un-chillied ones go to the heat-averse.
Eat
*I realise that I'm pushing the boundaries of pie somewhat, given that this is really more of a tortilla-toasted-sandwich, but it has a crust, it has a filling, and if I was utterly strict about the definition of pie we'd have far less fun making them
**Actually I think these were from Richard's parents' home, but it's still a home.
***Do I have to have another rant about using non-virgin?
****Poking occasionally with a spatula so you feel that you're doing something.
Sunday, 20 January 2013
January Home Ed update
I want to start doing a weekly update, but i'm not sure of the format, so for now the format is a ramble.
Mostly this is about Ellie still as Phoebe is still very iccle.
For Maths or English in the morning, we're mostly using the Letts books. She's working her way through the "Magical" series, we talk her through each exercise and then let her get on with it.
The new word wall is up but with a new improved format, Ellie writes the entire word and then she decorates around it so far shes' put up "Vikings" with various pictures cut out, and "Thing" with a drawing of people having a "Thing" and then various things :)
Books this week have a Viking theme, we've covered Viking Maths, and how they dressed (with accompanying craft activity to dress the family) .
Amelia's printed out some colouring sheets as well, and thanks to Nicky created a colour by sums game (i.e.. Blue = 9, the sea is 6 + 3) which is great.
In February we're going visit Dig & Jorvik centre, and then going to spend a whole day at the Jorvik Festival
The plan is to finish the project with a Viking feast in full costume (Amelia, Phoebe and I already have the right kit) so Ellie is going to help Amelia design and make a tunic for her.
Phys Ed wise Ellie has started 2 new Ballet classes (well moved up to older group).
Also I think I've reached the limit I can of teaching Ellie to swim myself so signed her up to the new classes starting at Sun Lane in Wakefield, and she starts in a few weeks.
Phoebe, is doing really well, she's started say a few words, demanding books, and is on the way to mastering the art of building towers, however hasn't grasped the fact that once it gets to a certain height she can carry on by standing up!
I think she's also decided that strangers aren't evil by default, I even caught her smiling at an old man this week rather than her usual expression of suspicion and disdain.
Fish Pieday
Right today was my turn again to cook with Ellie, she's retained all her fingers and only burnt one of them so WIN FOR ME!
This was a pretty basic pie, but turned out really nice, I don't think Ellie was sure but Phoebe absolutely loved it.
So ingredients:
Now onto the hot stuff. we put the onions, tomatoes and some flour into the pan, added the fish and seasoning then cooked for 5 or so extra miniutes, so it started to look like fish pie!
This was a pretty basic pie, but turned out really nice, I don't think Ellie was sure but Phoebe absolutely loved it.
So ingredients:
- Cheese
- 8oz Salmon Fillet
- 8oz Cod Fillet
- Onion
- Some butter
- Some milk
- Parsley
- 2 tomatoe,
- Potatoes
Ellie started by grating the cheese, while I did the mandatory "Sharp knife" work, you know, dicing the onion, parsley, potatoes and such and stuck the potatoes in..
.
We then weighed out the fish* and cut that into pretty sizeable chunks.
Once the potatoes were done we mashed them (I think Ellies favourite part as she got to use her new masher)
Now onto the hot stuff. we put the onions, tomatoes and some flour into the pan, added the fish and seasoning then cooked for 5 or so extra miniutes, so it started to look like fish pie!
The ingredients could make dishes, we topped with the mash, glazed with egg, put one of them in the freezer and cooked the other.
* The fish had some extra value, the salmon had it's skin on still so I was able to talk to her about fish scales and she could feel them.
Reading Eggs: a review with ridiculous emotive bits.
Eleanor loves books.
She is not so good with computers.
Naturally enough we want to encourage her affection while preventing a descent into complete luddism, so we thought we'd try Reading Eggs.
Reading Eggs is an online learning tool*, using games and computer based activities to develop reading ability.
It is colourful and friendly and, best of all, it offered us** a free trial, so we could see if it was any good before we handed over our money.
So, we made an account, bought a shiny new tablet***, and off she went.
To begin with I was not terribly impressed.
Before a child can start using Reading Eggs they have to complete a test: there are an awful lot of levels, or "maps", to choose from and the system needs to know where to start you off.
So they run a little test, with some easy questions and some harder ones, to get an idea of each child's ability.
Unfortunately, some uncreative genius decided to greet every right answer with a happy "Ping!" noise and a big green tick, and each wrong answer with an obnoxious "Uhuhhhh!"***** and a big red cross.
Which would be fine for adults playing a game, but is not so great for children.
At least, not for Eleanor, who really cares about getting things wrong.
To make matters worse, while the ticks disappear from the screen, the crosses remain at the top, dropping into a row of boxes that make it clear, to any bright child who can count at least a little, that there is some kind of three-strikes-and-you're-out system working here.
I don't know how well this has been received by other children: perhaps they greeted the ticks with squeals of triumph, while the crosses merely spurred them to try harder next time.
For Eleanor, however, this was not the case.
She did not care at all about the ticks, she considers ticks, if anything, to be her due.
The crosses were another matter.
The first time a cross appeared with its blaring klaxon she looked up in shock.
I explained that this meant that she had got something wrong, and encouraged her to try again.
She returned to the test, but was now visibly wary and nervous, eyeing it as one might a pet cobra that probably won't bite.
One right answer, another right answer, then a trickier question appeared: she paused, went to enter her answer, then stopped.
What if she got a cross?
What if the computer shouted at her again?
She pulled back from the screen and screwed up her eyes.
Carefully I explained that if she wanted to use Reading Eggs she had to finish the test first.
So she poked a finger quickly at the screen.
Big red cross.
Klaxon.
Little girl hiding behind her legs refusing to look at the screen.
After some more coaxing she looked out enough to finish the test, but she was no longer paying attention to the instructions.
Her whole purpose, now, was to make the test go away as quickly as possible.
Several random jabs and a klaxon or so later, the test was finished.
Finally she could play.
Unfortunately, having panicked her way through most of the test, she had given no real indication of her actual abilities and was now expected to complete a number of activities designed to teach her that O says "O".
Her expression much akin to Sara Crewe on being informed that "La Mere" means "The Mother"****** she pushed the tablet away again.
At this point I wondered if we should just abandon the whole thing but, after a little discussion, Eleanor agreed to try the test again.
This time we went through very slowly, taking care to listen to the questions properly before selecting an answer.
She was still very twitchy and nervous, but she made it through, and this time the activities presented were much closer to her actual ability.
Hurrah! On to the games.
The first game was a whack-a-mole style affair in which she had to explode space-invaders with a particular word written on their ships, while letting others through.
All of which sounds like fun, and would have been, were it not for two problems.
The first was that, as it transpires, Reading Eggs is not really designed for tablet use and at times a perfectly valid poke at the screen would go unregistered, allowing a space invader to get through.
The second reason is that whatever berk******* added a klaxon to the test had clearly been at work here too.
Every time a Space Invader got through, a dolorous voice, sounding much like the unholy offspring of a Cyberman and a Dalek, intoned "Oh No: One Got Away".
This, not surprisingly, further unnerved the still unsettled Ellie, till she again refused to touch the screen, resulting in whole fleets of escaped space invaders, along with a litany of cross-species metallic woe.
Alas, Reading Eggs demands that you complete each activity before moving on to the next, so, if she wanted to play at all, she had to defeat the space invaders.
No longer entirely sure that she did want to play Eleanor nevertheless consented to try one more time.
We turned off the sound, I read out the word to be sought, located and destroyed, she hunted down words and, when the enemy refused to explode, called in the mothership to jab the things to digital death.
We defeated the evil invaders and finally moved on.
Fortunately, once this strangely terrifying experience was behind her, Ellie did have fun.
The system is still occasionally unresponsive, so that she sometimes needs me to help out, or even to complete a game for her, using the mouse-equipped laptop, but the games are fun and, if unchecked, she would happily play for an hour or more.
There are still weak points: the voices and sound effects are horribly grating, and from a purely adult point of view the characters********* and stories are thoroughly irritating, but the games are engaging, the progression, though prescriptive, is steady and comfortable, and Eleanor seems to build ability and, most of all, confidence, every time she plays.
She finished the trial about a week ago and has been pestering us to pay up ever since.
In fact, with her new found computer-awareness, she has located the pay-button on the screen and told me what to do next.
This is a good thing, right?
So, if you're wondering whether to try Reading Eggs, I'd say go ahead.
But, if your child is as lily-livered as Eleanor the erstwhile Terror of the High Seas, I'd suggest that before taking the test, you tape a piece of paper over the top of your screen to cover up the Xs, stick on a set of headphones so they can't hear the klaxon, and ask the questions yourself.
There is another system, called Mathletics, made by the same company and dealing, unsurprisingly enough, with maths.
We've been wondering whether to try this, too, but alas, they haven't offered us a free trial.
And if they read this, I fear, they never will.
*Am I the only one who envisions some kind of complicated, sprockety device for adjusting brains here?
**Not us specifically: they just happened to advertise where I could see them.
One day this blog may be the kind of internet phenomenon that can influence the decisions of multitudes, so that all manner of corporations queue up to offer us their goods and services, in the hope of a kind word, or a hint to our adoring fans, but that day has not yet come.
Thank goodness.
***This is a slight exaggeration.
Ok a huge exaggeration.
We**** wanted a tablet computer so that Eleanor could use various computery things that are more awkward with a mouse.
We did not, however, think it was worth buying one for a four year old.
Then I changed to a mobile phone tariff that offered a free tablet, or, to put it another way, a tablet installment plan that came with a free phone and internet service.
The whole Reading Eggs thing kind of followed on from there really.
****Ok, ok, I wanted it for educational purposes: Richard was just hypnotised by the lure of new tech.
Too bad for him that it's mine, really.
*****This sound doesn't really transcribe well: imagine a wrong-answer sound-effect from an eighties games show, but played right up by your face, and you should have some idea of the grating, distracting, unsettling quality of the noise in question.
******Look! Literary references!
If children's classics count as literature.
*******"Feed Me!"
*********Seriously: I may be a vegetarian, hippy peacenik, but if Sid the Kid ever turns up on our doorstep he's going to be curried.
No, not like a horse.
She is not so good with computers.
Naturally enough we want to encourage her affection while preventing a descent into complete luddism, so we thought we'd try Reading Eggs.
Reading Eggs is an online learning tool*, using games and computer based activities to develop reading ability.
It is colourful and friendly and, best of all, it offered us** a free trial, so we could see if it was any good before we handed over our money.
So, we made an account, bought a shiny new tablet***, and off she went.
To begin with I was not terribly impressed.
Before a child can start using Reading Eggs they have to complete a test: there are an awful lot of levels, or "maps", to choose from and the system needs to know where to start you off.
So they run a little test, with some easy questions and some harder ones, to get an idea of each child's ability.
Unfortunately, some uncreative genius decided to greet every right answer with a happy "Ping!" noise and a big green tick, and each wrong answer with an obnoxious "Uhuhhhh!"***** and a big red cross.
Which would be fine for adults playing a game, but is not so great for children.
At least, not for Eleanor, who really cares about getting things wrong.
To make matters worse, while the ticks disappear from the screen, the crosses remain at the top, dropping into a row of boxes that make it clear, to any bright child who can count at least a little, that there is some kind of three-strikes-and-you're-out system working here.
I don't know how well this has been received by other children: perhaps they greeted the ticks with squeals of triumph, while the crosses merely spurred them to try harder next time.
For Eleanor, however, this was not the case.
She did not care at all about the ticks, she considers ticks, if anything, to be her due.
The crosses were another matter.
The first time a cross appeared with its blaring klaxon she looked up in shock.
I explained that this meant that she had got something wrong, and encouraged her to try again.
She returned to the test, but was now visibly wary and nervous, eyeing it as one might a pet cobra that probably won't bite.
One right answer, another right answer, then a trickier question appeared: she paused, went to enter her answer, then stopped.
What if she got a cross?
What if the computer shouted at her again?
She pulled back from the screen and screwed up her eyes.
Carefully I explained that if she wanted to use Reading Eggs she had to finish the test first.
So she poked a finger quickly at the screen.
Big red cross.
Klaxon.
Little girl hiding behind her legs refusing to look at the screen.
After some more coaxing she looked out enough to finish the test, but she was no longer paying attention to the instructions.
Her whole purpose, now, was to make the test go away as quickly as possible.
Several random jabs and a klaxon or so later, the test was finished.
Finally she could play.
Unfortunately, having panicked her way through most of the test, she had given no real indication of her actual abilities and was now expected to complete a number of activities designed to teach her that O says "O".
Her expression much akin to Sara Crewe on being informed that "La Mere" means "The Mother"****** she pushed the tablet away again.
At this point I wondered if we should just abandon the whole thing but, after a little discussion, Eleanor agreed to try the test again.
This time we went through very slowly, taking care to listen to the questions properly before selecting an answer.
She was still very twitchy and nervous, but she made it through, and this time the activities presented were much closer to her actual ability.
Hurrah! On to the games.
The first game was a whack-a-mole style affair in which she had to explode space-invaders with a particular word written on their ships, while letting others through.
All of which sounds like fun, and would have been, were it not for two problems.
The first was that, as it transpires, Reading Eggs is not really designed for tablet use and at times a perfectly valid poke at the screen would go unregistered, allowing a space invader to get through.
The second reason is that whatever berk******* added a klaxon to the test had clearly been at work here too.
Every time a Space Invader got through, a dolorous voice, sounding much like the unholy offspring of a Cyberman and a Dalek, intoned "Oh No: One Got Away".
This, not surprisingly, further unnerved the still unsettled Ellie, till she again refused to touch the screen, resulting in whole fleets of escaped space invaders, along with a litany of cross-species metallic woe.
Alas, Reading Eggs demands that you complete each activity before moving on to the next, so, if she wanted to play at all, she had to defeat the space invaders.
No longer entirely sure that she did want to play Eleanor nevertheless consented to try one more time.
We turned off the sound, I read out the word to be sought, located and destroyed, she hunted down words and, when the enemy refused to explode, called in the mothership to jab the things to digital death.
We defeated the evil invaders and finally moved on.
Fortunately, once this strangely terrifying experience was behind her, Ellie did have fun.
The system is still occasionally unresponsive, so that she sometimes needs me to help out, or even to complete a game for her, using the mouse-equipped laptop, but the games are fun and, if unchecked, she would happily play for an hour or more.
There are still weak points: the voices and sound effects are horribly grating, and from a purely adult point of view the characters********* and stories are thoroughly irritating, but the games are engaging, the progression, though prescriptive, is steady and comfortable, and Eleanor seems to build ability and, most of all, confidence, every time she plays.
She finished the trial about a week ago and has been pestering us to pay up ever since.
In fact, with her new found computer-awareness, she has located the pay-button on the screen and told me what to do next.
This is a good thing, right?
So, if you're wondering whether to try Reading Eggs, I'd say go ahead.
But, if your child is as lily-livered as Eleanor the erstwhile Terror of the High Seas, I'd suggest that before taking the test, you tape a piece of paper over the top of your screen to cover up the Xs, stick on a set of headphones so they can't hear the klaxon, and ask the questions yourself.
There is another system, called Mathletics, made by the same company and dealing, unsurprisingly enough, with maths.
We've been wondering whether to try this, too, but alas, they haven't offered us a free trial.
And if they read this, I fear, they never will.
*Am I the only one who envisions some kind of complicated, sprockety device for adjusting brains here?
**Not us specifically: they just happened to advertise where I could see them.
One day this blog may be the kind of internet phenomenon that can influence the decisions of multitudes, so that all manner of corporations queue up to offer us their goods and services, in the hope of a kind word, or a hint to our adoring fans, but that day has not yet come.
Thank goodness.
***This is a slight exaggeration.
Ok a huge exaggeration.
We**** wanted a tablet computer so that Eleanor could use various computery things that are more awkward with a mouse.
We did not, however, think it was worth buying one for a four year old.
Then I changed to a mobile phone tariff that offered a free tablet, or, to put it another way, a tablet installment plan that came with a free phone and internet service.
The whole Reading Eggs thing kind of followed on from there really.
****Ok, ok, I wanted it for educational purposes: Richard was just hypnotised by the lure of new tech.
Too bad for him that it's mine, really.
*****This sound doesn't really transcribe well: imagine a wrong-answer sound-effect from an eighties games show, but played right up by your face, and you should have some idea of the grating, distracting, unsettling quality of the noise in question.
******Look! Literary references!
If children's classics count as literature.
*******"Feed Me!"
*********Seriously: I may be a vegetarian, hippy peacenik, but if Sid the Kid ever turns up on our doorstep he's going to be curried.
No, not like a horse.
Friday, 11 January 2013
Snail Pieday
We made Schnecken*.
Anyone wishing to do the same should be warned that these are very sweet and very rich.
We made them as a breakfast treat for Eleanor's birthday***, and may feel up to eating them again by the time it rolls around again.
Ingredients
Half a batch of danish pastry dough (see the danish pastry recipe or, if you made some before, fish it out of the freezer and defrost it overnight)
A lot of butter, softened
Ditto syrup, maple and golden both (actually, our golden turned out to be maple-flavoured by mistake)
Ditto sugar, soft brown, and caster
Nuts, (walnuts or pecans are good)
Ground cinnamon.
I haven't given exact amounts here, as it will depend on the amount of danish pastry you have, or whether you just make or buy puff pastry (which also works) instead.
Besides, tastes vary, go with your instincts.
You will also need baking parchment, or, failing that, paper muffin cases.
Do not attempt to use cases designed for fairy cakes, it will not work.
I must confess that Eleanor was busy signing cards when we made these, so her assistance was largely limited to supervising, and giggling when things went wrong.
The recipe is very child friendly however****.
If you're using frozen pastry, take it out of the freezer two nights before you intend to eat it, and place it in a covered bowl to defrost.
Next morning either make your pastry, or heave the now defrosted mass out of the bowl and get it into a roughly rectangular shape.
Roll it out, and, if you haven't already done this, go through the whole folding and rolling and turning and folding routine*****.
Now cover it and leave it to rise till early evening.
Take the butter out of the fridge and leave it to soften.
Got out to the park or something.
Come home and uncover the dough.
Roll it out again into a decent rectangle.
Now combine soft brown sugar and caster sugar in equal quantities until you think you have enough to cover the dough with a reasonably thick layer.
Stir in a tablespoon or so of cinnamon, till you have a golden, sandy mess.
Sprinkle said mess evenly over the dough and press down gently in a futile attempt to prevent it all escaping later on.
Roll the rectangle of dough up lengthwise, so you have a long fat sausage.
Next, mix the syrups in equal quantities******, and stir in enough of the softened butter to make a deeply unappealing, gooey, blobby mess.
Line a deep baking tray with baking parchment.
Now line it again.
Now pour the syrupy gunk all over the bottom of the tray.
If you don't have baking parchment then just share the oozy, splodgy stuff between muffin cases instead.
Crush the nuts and sprinkle them over the syrup.
Now cut the sausagey thing into thick slices and watch in dismay as all the filling drops out.
Do your best to scoop it back in, then place the slices on top of the nuts and syrup so they look like snails lying on their sides.
Snuggle them up to each other and sprinkle any remaining escaped cinnamon-mixture over the top.
Leave them to rise overnight.
We just left them in the cold oven, and by morning they were thoroughly puffy and squidgy.
Take them out of the oven (if that's where you left them), turn it onto a lowish heat (we used 180) and let it warm up a little before putting them back in for twenty minutes or so.
Remove when they're thoroughly glorious and golden brown, leave for five minutes, then flip the whole tray over onto a big plate and peel off the paper.
Leave for another five to ten minutes before serving.
Eat if you dare.
If in need of entertainment: feed one inch of unsyruped snail to toddler.
Watch as toddler careens off the furniture for two hours, giggling madly, then falls over and goes to sleep.
Repeat as needed.
*Which means snails**, but who would want to say snails, when they could say schnecken?
**Not real snails, they're just called that because they look like snails.
Really they're curly, sticky, cinnamony, nutty, oh just read the recipe.
***The festival previously known as Christmas.
****Also messy.
Supposedly children like that sort of thing.
*****You know, the one you have to do for puff pastry, and for danish pastry, as if it's a letter you need to roll into submission.
******Or, if you have weird, artificially maple flavoured, golden syrup, just use the actual maple syrup.
Which turns out to be amazing with salted butter.
Anyone wishing to do the same should be warned that these are very sweet and very rich.
We made them as a breakfast treat for Eleanor's birthday***, and may feel up to eating them again by the time it rolls around again.
Ingredients
Half a batch of danish pastry dough (see the danish pastry recipe or, if you made some before, fish it out of the freezer and defrost it overnight)
A lot of butter, softened
Ditto syrup, maple and golden both (actually, our golden turned out to be maple-flavoured by mistake)
Ditto sugar, soft brown, and caster
Nuts, (walnuts or pecans are good)
Ground cinnamon.
I haven't given exact amounts here, as it will depend on the amount of danish pastry you have, or whether you just make or buy puff pastry (which also works) instead.
Besides, tastes vary, go with your instincts.
You will also need baking parchment, or, failing that, paper muffin cases.
Do not attempt to use cases designed for fairy cakes, it will not work.
I must confess that Eleanor was busy signing cards when we made these, so her assistance was largely limited to supervising, and giggling when things went wrong.
The recipe is very child friendly however****.
If you're using frozen pastry, take it out of the freezer two nights before you intend to eat it, and place it in a covered bowl to defrost.
Next morning either make your pastry, or heave the now defrosted mass out of the bowl and get it into a roughly rectangular shape.
Roll it out, and, if you haven't already done this, go through the whole folding and rolling and turning and folding routine*****.
Now cover it and leave it to rise till early evening.
Take the butter out of the fridge and leave it to soften.
Got out to the park or something.
Come home and uncover the dough.
Roll it out again into a decent rectangle.
Now combine soft brown sugar and caster sugar in equal quantities until you think you have enough to cover the dough with a reasonably thick layer.
Stir in a tablespoon or so of cinnamon, till you have a golden, sandy mess.
Sprinkle said mess evenly over the dough and press down gently in a futile attempt to prevent it all escaping later on.
Roll the rectangle of dough up lengthwise, so you have a long fat sausage.
Next, mix the syrups in equal quantities******, and stir in enough of the softened butter to make a deeply unappealing, gooey, blobby mess.
Line a deep baking tray with baking parchment.
Now line it again.
Now pour the syrupy gunk all over the bottom of the tray.
If you don't have baking parchment then just share the oozy, splodgy stuff between muffin cases instead.
Crush the nuts and sprinkle them over the syrup.
Now cut the sausagey thing into thick slices and watch in dismay as all the filling drops out.
Do your best to scoop it back in, then place the slices on top of the nuts and syrup so they look like snails lying on their sides.
Snuggle them up to each other and sprinkle any remaining escaped cinnamon-mixture over the top.
Leave them to rise overnight.
We just left them in the cold oven, and by morning they were thoroughly puffy and squidgy.
Take them out of the oven (if that's where you left them), turn it onto a lowish heat (we used 180) and let it warm up a little before putting them back in for twenty minutes or so.
Remove when they're thoroughly glorious and golden brown, leave for five minutes, then flip the whole tray over onto a big plate and peel off the paper.
Leave for another five to ten minutes before serving.
Eat if you dare.
If in need of entertainment: feed one inch of unsyruped snail to toddler.
Watch as toddler careens off the furniture for two hours, giggling madly, then falls over and goes to sleep.
Repeat as needed.
*Which means snails**, but who would want to say snails, when they could say schnecken?
**Not real snails, they're just called that because they look like snails.
Really they're curly, sticky, cinnamony, nutty, oh just read the recipe.
***The festival previously known as Christmas.
****Also messy.
Supposedly children like that sort of thing.
*****You know, the one you have to do for puff pastry, and for danish pastry, as if it's a letter you need to roll into submission.
******Or, if you have weird, artificially maple flavoured, golden syrup, just use the actual maple syrup.
Which turns out to be amazing with salted butter.
Friday, 4 January 2013
Not Actually a Pieday
We haven't made many pies lately.
Blame Eleanor's birthday, or Christmas, or the umpteen evil lurgies with which we have been beset, but, one way and another, we haven't been able to keep up Pieday every week.
This will be amended, I promise, and we actually did make a pie-ish thing one week, which I will probably write about soon, but this week I fear you must go without pie*.
In the meantime, however, lest you starve for want of internet-based, child friendly recipes**, I thought I'd share the method behind the potato-skin boats I forgot to serve at the Pirate Party.
Potato Boats
Ingredients
Baking potatoes, (one for every two boats, unless they're particularly big or small, in which case you may manage as many as three, or just one).
Cheese (I used a mixture of gruyere and cheddar, the amount depends on the number of potatoes)
Spring onions
Olive oil (the less virgin the better)
Salt
Plain tortilla chips
Creme fraiche
Absolutely No Bacon****
Bake the potatoes.
This is best done the night before (and if you trust your oven you could even turn it right down and leave them there till morning), I just pick out their eyes, rub them with salt*****, and wrap them in foil, then put them in a hot oven for half an hour, then turn it down and leave them there for another hour or two.
I left mine in the oven (turned off) overnight, and they were still warm the next morning.
Forget hand-warmers: next time we go for a long walk in winter I'm going to put baked potatoes in my pockets!
Next morning unwrap the potatoes, cut them into halves (or thirds if they're enormous) and scoop out their innards with a spoon, taking care not to break the skin.
You should end up with a lot of little, boat-like, shells.
Rub the skin with a little oil and place them, skin side up, on a baking tray.
Pop this into a high oven for two or three minutes to crisp the skins up a little.
Now grate the cheese, chop the spring onions, and mix them all together.
Pile this lot into the skins and, about twenty minutes before you're ready to serve, put them into a highish (200 for us) oven for, well, twenty minutes.
To serve, place a small dollop of creme fraiche in the middle of each boat, then insert a tortilla chip, standing up, so that it looks like a sail.
And that's it, really.
To be honest, you don't have to go to all the trouble of making the boats yourself: you could probably just add creme fraiche and tortilla chips to ready-made potato skins and still get something that looks cute and tastes pretty good.
The home-made version is definitely superior however.
And, of course, you don't have to stick to the cheese and spring onion filling, either.
Pretty much anything which works on a baked potato****** will work here: you could use chilli, you could use mushroom stroganoff, you could even -horrors- use bacon.
Likewise you can swap the creme fraiche for proper sour cream, or salsa, or anything else that appeals.
Smoked cheese with jalapeño, and chilli jam sounds rather good right now.
Ok, I'm off to the kitchen
*You did last week too, sorry.
**Also because they were my own idea*** and I'm rather pleased with them.
*** If I look them up on google, they'll be everywhere, won't they?
****Sorry, I get annoyed when an otherwise vegetarian delight is ruined by the addition of pig parts.
You may bacon if you wish.
*****(This helps to prevent them getting soggy, you can rub it off when you unwrap them, if you're worried about salt in food.
******Although I hae me doots about baked beans.
Blame Eleanor's birthday, or Christmas, or the umpteen evil lurgies with which we have been beset, but, one way and another, we haven't been able to keep up Pieday every week.
This will be amended, I promise, and we actually did make a pie-ish thing one week, which I will probably write about soon, but this week I fear you must go without pie*.
In the meantime, however, lest you starve for want of internet-based, child friendly recipes**, I thought I'd share the method behind the potato-skin boats I forgot to serve at the Pirate Party.
Potato Boats
Ingredients
Baking potatoes, (one for every two boats, unless they're particularly big or small, in which case you may manage as many as three, or just one).
Cheese (I used a mixture of gruyere and cheddar, the amount depends on the number of potatoes)
Spring onions
Olive oil (the less virgin the better)
Salt
Plain tortilla chips
Creme fraiche
Absolutely No Bacon****
Bake the potatoes.
This is best done the night before (and if you trust your oven you could even turn it right down and leave them there till morning), I just pick out their eyes, rub them with salt*****, and wrap them in foil, then put them in a hot oven for half an hour, then turn it down and leave them there for another hour or two.
I left mine in the oven (turned off) overnight, and they were still warm the next morning.
Forget hand-warmers: next time we go for a long walk in winter I'm going to put baked potatoes in my pockets!
Next morning unwrap the potatoes, cut them into halves (or thirds if they're enormous) and scoop out their innards with a spoon, taking care not to break the skin.
You should end up with a lot of little, boat-like, shells.
Rub the skin with a little oil and place them, skin side up, on a baking tray.
Pop this into a high oven for two or three minutes to crisp the skins up a little.
Now grate the cheese, chop the spring onions, and mix them all together.
Pile this lot into the skins and, about twenty minutes before you're ready to serve, put them into a highish (200 for us) oven for, well, twenty minutes.
To serve, place a small dollop of creme fraiche in the middle of each boat, then insert a tortilla chip, standing up, so that it looks like a sail.
And that's it, really.
To be honest, you don't have to go to all the trouble of making the boats yourself: you could probably just add creme fraiche and tortilla chips to ready-made potato skins and still get something that looks cute and tastes pretty good.
The home-made version is definitely superior however.
And, of course, you don't have to stick to the cheese and spring onion filling, either.
Pretty much anything which works on a baked potato****** will work here: you could use chilli, you could use mushroom stroganoff, you could even -horrors- use bacon.
Likewise you can swap the creme fraiche for proper sour cream, or salsa, or anything else that appeals.
Smoked cheese with jalapeño, and chilli jam sounds rather good right now.
Ok, I'm off to the kitchen
*You did last week too, sorry.
**Also because they were my own idea*** and I'm rather pleased with them.
*** If I look them up on google, they'll be everywhere, won't they?
****Sorry, I get annoyed when an otherwise vegetarian delight is ruined by the addition of pig parts.
You may bacon if you wish.
*****(This helps to prevent them getting soggy, you can rub it off when you unwrap them, if you're worried about salt in food.
******Although I hae me doots about baked beans.
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