arts, crafts and nature

Although Katie celebrated her birthday over the weekend, and opened her presents on the Sunday evening rather than on her actual Monday birthday (otherwise she would have had to wait until 7ish Monday evening in order for P to see her opening them), we still treated Monday as a special day and relaxed on the "work" - just doing maths first thing. Ben and Katie each had a friend over in the afternoon and I enjoyed a good old natter with their mum!

Tuesday continued to be a rather relaxing day work wise! Having said that, Katie and her friend managed to cram in alot of arts and crafts during the morning. They crafted with modelling wax, painted model horses, brushed up on drawing skills using Katie's new Usborne (naturally) "How to draw horses" book and did lots of Hama beading. In between all this there was a fair amount of PC playing (probably more so from the boys), but this did involved some maths I noticed, so not all bad.

Wax modelling - they must have roasted by that fire snuggled in sleeping bags!


More of Katie's drawings to follow - she's doing really well with this book.

The rain came down in droves on Tuesday and we discoverd a leak in the conservatory. By the next morning the rain had filled the whole washing up bowl. Luckily yesterday was glorious so I was able to get up on the ladder and see what was amiss. Some of the sealant between roof and wall has perished, just needs to be replaced (whew).

We made the most of the Spring like weather. Ben asked to do some nature study which was appropriate as the RSPB Schools Birdwatch package had arrived ready for our group birdwatch on Monday. We studied the poster full of garden birds and had a quick look at some other nature books before grabbing the camera to wander round the garden, and then later, round the park. We've decided to do a study of the garden, perhaps on a fortnightly basis, throughout the year, to see the changes close to home. This time, Katie and Ben have taken photos of fungi, mole hills, buds and the beginning of daffs. It was so peaceful in the garden too and we heard and spotted a Great Tit - his lovely song and all the signs of life lead us to hope that warmer weather is on the horizon. We read up on moles as we seem to suffer with them in the garden and found out quite a lot from this site. One web page suggested using the earth from mole hills for house plant potting compost, apparently very good soil for this. The park was completely waterlogged and the ditch that runs all the way around it was full to the brim. Lots more mole hills here too and Katie and I got hounded by a rather cute and fluffy Shih Tzu! BTY I'm not really up on my dog breeds and wasn't too sure how to spell the breed of this little fella - came across this site listing a huge number of breeds, just in case you're interested!

In the afternoon Ben helped me dig over the veggie area ready for early planting. It's fabulous soil to dig, especially after all that rain. The onion sets I bought before Christmas have started to sprout so I need to get them in asap. Also I was reading that garlic needs to be sown before the end of January too. Thought I may try a garlic bulb from the supermarket as I don't recall seeing any in the garden centres. Apparently they are really easy to grow - we shall see! I've decided to ditch my garden blog, it makes sense just to keep HE, gardening and crafting all on the one site, especially as the children are often involved too.