Hansel and Gretel

For our Christmas notebook this week we're looking at the fairtale of Hansel & Gretel. Found a lovely version to read to Katie and Ben on this website featuring Grimm's tales, but then found this Rik Mayall vid here - he read it 200% better than me, so much so that Ben wanted to watch it again!

We found some useful worksheets and pictures here; Ben chose to print out the ginger bread house with all it's fiddly bits and bobs so he could decorate it. I've asked the children to produce character boards for Hansel, Gretel, the witch and the house by the end of the week. Katie's made a start on Hansel and Gretel and so far they look very imaginative. We did this a year or so ago about fairies, and I was really pleased with the thought and effort put in to it.

Today we started making a gingerbread house using a recipe from the Daily Mail magazine that had huge amounts of ingredients - 1kg of flour, 450g honey, 350g sugar! Quite amazed to see there's no actual ginger in the recipe, just 8 teaspoons of mixed spice as well as almonds and hazelnuts. Sounds yum though. We've ended up with enough dough to make two houses. It's now sitting in the fridge waiting to be rolled and cut into shape tomorrow.

Just chatting really

Katie and Ben have started their Christmas notebook starting with polar bear facts and an interesting experiment on the insulating properties of blubber! Even Pepper took an interest in this one! We filled a bowl with water and ice cubes and used a thermometer at room temperature. In turn we wrapped a variety of materials, including a blob of playdough to represent the blubber, around the base of the thermometer before plunging it into the icy bowl of water to see which would be the best form of insulation for our artic furry friends. We tried cotton gauze, cotton wool, tin foil and bubble wrap as well as the playdough. Playdough came out tops - the mercury actually rose alittle before falling, but at a very slow rate compared to most of the others (which fell immediately) Equally as good was the bubble wrap (although I don't think polar bears would survive with this medium instead of their blubber). Good to know if you decide to take a dip in a freezing cold lake in mid-winter!!

We were looking forward to meeting more local(ish) families at a Christmas crafts get-together in our nearby(ish) town (from now on this group will be group 2) on Friday. Unfortunately, our new car continues to have its little problems (more on that in a mo) and so P was car less and needed our one for work. Katie so wanted to meet up with an MSN friend at the do, but hopefully we'll get to meet her sometime in the New Year.

So, "Bond". Still a fab car, but we bought it on the understanding that the garage would fix a rather annoying clunk that keeps happening on the front passenger side. At first they thought it was something loose under the bonnet, then they put in a new role bar (?), then new bushings and still the clunk wouldn't disappear. All along, because I'm just a hero, I kept saying it must be the shock absorber. Anyway, eventually P managed to drag the mechanic out for a run in the car and he immediately confirmed what I'd thought! We took the car in on Thursday morning for a new shock, and they rang at 4ish saying it was still on the ramp and wouldn't be ready until Friday sometime. That's why P needed our car for work. Anyway, they rang on Friday to say the mechanic was off sick and it wouldn't be fixed until the end of Monday earliest. A rather fuming P had a few small words to say about that! They rang again about half an hour later to say it was fixed and ready for picking up! Guess what, it still clunks just like before and from what we can see it doesn't look like any new parts have been fitted at all. All very strange ... the saga continues. Needless to say we're all getting rather p'd off with it all. Each time we take the car in it means leaving home at 7.30 a.m., having to take both cars in order to get home again, and returning again in the evening, therefore bringing two cars home again!

Gripe over!

Other things we are up to. Children are busy making presents for friends and family. I need to get card writing; they are piled up here next to the PC but I keep putting it off. I write notes every Christmas to everyone and that just take so long (as I can never really think of anything mega exciting to say!) Have taped a Morecambe & Wise 2 hour show this evening, so will write cards and watch that tomorrow afternoon! Have tried very hard (as I do every year) to take "the Christmas photo" to pop inside each card, but each time one or other of the children look silly/dreadful/half dead/eyes closed. I've given up! Will try and find a decent one taken some time during the year.

Thinking of starting afresh with a new blog next year. There's some brilliant blogger templates on the net that are very enticing. Katie is about to start a new blog so she can keep in with some of her young blogring pals and it's rekindled my interest! These and these look interesting. I got the fun snowglobe from the first link.

Another doom and gloom thing from last week. Boilerman turned up on Wednesday, 8.30 a.m. on the dot as arranged (wow) and spent the morning updating and fixing ailing boiler. This involved putting in new red drum thing, new tray to stop the top of the boiler from burning, new cut out valve in case of fire (the old one was manual and apparently against regulations) and new filter, put outside where it should have originally been put, rather than inside in a place you couldn't reach and upside down (so all the gunk wasn't being collected properly). During all this he discovered that the oil smell we are now getting since we'd filled the oil tank, was a leak which means a new something or other. He also promised to try and find the source of our poor water pressure - it seems the exchanger is completely limescaled (a limescale preventor had been fitted, but to the wrong pipe (sigh)) and therefore takes water forever to get hot and comes out at a very slow pace. He's coming again next week with these new bits. It's going to be costly ... not looking forward to getting the bill.

Nearly bagged ourselves another hen (or two!). P thought Gina had escaped a few days ago but we discovered a Gina lookalike roaming the roads. Didn't think any more of it until my neighbour popped by (just as I was having a right old go at Katie for not letting me show her how to do something on the PC - typical) saying I should try and entice the hen into my garden as it's right by our gate. I did have a try - it followed my grain trail nicely! Hens are so funny you know, they do have brains I'm sure, but they can take a while to twig something's happening. As this new hen arrived in the garden, the other two where nearby doing as they always do (eating) and didn't bat an eyelid! Within about 5 mins they'd decided something was up and started to really lay into the poor thing. Luckily for the new arrival, it managed to scarper under the gate to freedom. The noise my two were making for some time afterwards was truly amazing - like a couple of old ladies shocked at their lives being turned up-side-down! Anyway, as this one escaped I noticed another brown hen further down the lane. It turns out they belong, together with a beautiful white hen, to a family on the verge of moving out of their home. They apparently have no lock up for them or even a fence and the gate had been left wide open. Goodness knows how long they'll survive as they live on the busiest road in the village.

We were also offered a kitten today; it was very hard to say "no". Pepper is such a joy to watch. He's grown so much since July and has us in fits of laughter. He's started climbing the trees (only about half way up), and likes to wack me around the nose during the night if he's bored (not so good). Today, he sat inside the car as I gave it a much needed wash, trying very hard to catch the water as it ran down the windows. He was all over the place, up the seats, sliding along the dashboard, trying to climb up the back window - hilarious.

Off to watch a movie now and snuggle under a blanket by the fire. Will write cards tomorrow - yes, I will ... I will!

Victorian Christmas

Met up with a large group of HE families at Peterborough Museum yesterday for a whole day Victorian Christmas educational session. We needed a full house to afford the event, so the day was opened up to families outside our HE group. It was lovely meeting others from Norfolk, St. Noets and Cambridge. A lot of us travelled a fair distance, but the day was really interesting and good fun so it was certainly worth it.

We started at 10 a.m. and met "Dr. Walker". A wealthy gentleman from Peterborough's past who politely showed us his decorated Victorian parlour. The children learnt about life in a wealthy household, the foods that would have adorned the table at Christmas, and the general goings on - how the household employed servants to care for them and their children and how Mrs. Walker was exhausted with all the Christmas preparations, buying new winter clothes for the children as well as entertaining and purchasing gifts. He was very sad to hear the kinds of presents some of our children were expecting; obviously not as rich as himself! Soup and fruit - not that exciting! After the discussion, the children set to making mini Christmas crackers or decorating and writing inside a copy of the first Christmas card.

Moving from wealthy onto poor, we met Mrs. Kilburn who lived in a tiny terrace house owned by the railways in Peterborough. Her husband had badly hurt his leg and she talked to the children with concern about him possibly losing not only leg, but his job and the house too. She needed to find 6 pennies to pay Dr. Walker for treating him - eventually, having gone through all her household chores the children thought she could do laundry for the wealthy families to raise the money. Being able to have a go at using the different kitchen bits and bobs was brilliant. Striking flint (which would have been used to spark light the range or parlour fire), sitting in the old tin bath, using the mangle (I remember my grandma having one of those), trying out the irons and beating the carpets all kept the children, and the adults, busy.

"Mrs Kilburn's" kitchen


Making sparks by striking flint


Bathtime!

After a short lunch time break with some of us having Christmas crackers to get into the festive mood, we moved on to the afternoon session beginning with a Magic Lantern show (see also this link). We saw some of the museum's collection of hand painted glass slides, some of which had a lever to change the picture, used with a projector to make up a short film. Victorian children thought this idea was magic, which is how it got it's name. As the old projector no longer worked, we watched a few lantern shows from a Powerpoint presentation - traditional nursery rhymes and pictures of pampered cats, dogs and frogs (all with rather posh names).

Hand painted Victorian slides

The group set about either making a cornucopia to hold sweets or chocolates, or start a Christmas tree cross stitch before taking part in some traditional parlour games. The classic drawing game, known today as "consequences" was popular during this time. Other games which the children all enjoyed included throwing playing cards into an upturned hat (and trying to get them in), a thinking game named "earth, air and water" and "find the ring"

Finally, we all sang "O Christmas Tree" around the museum decorated tree.

Some of the children went to a lot of effort to dress in traditional Victorian wear - even down to one chap smearing boot polish on his face!

It was a full day and I must admit I was gasping for a cuppa by the time we came out. I'd intended on doing some Christmas shopping for a couple of hours, but there was no way my tired brain could concentrate on that.

This Victorian Christmas link tells you lots about the traditions and Christmas inventions of the time.

Remembering those ...

Why and when, etc. plus we did some lovely poppie pictures using paint and a variety of materials other than a paintbrush! Wrote some Haiku (much prefer this to other styles of poetry - can get a deep sense of understanding from a Haiku), discovered the 6 verses of the National Anthem (Queen lays the first wreath) and read Lt. Colonel John McCrae's moving "In Flanders' Fields" which can be heard here on You-Tube.

Art, Latin and other bits and bobs

Children are busy somewhere (Ben's doing Lego and Katie's making a house for her horse riding dolls). We seem to be ticking along nicely at the moment with few arguments (over work anyway) and therefore lots of interesting things have been studied autonomously as well as planned.

We are still all working from the KS3 maths book as well as doing mental arthimetic each week. Still seems easy (probably too easy, as Katie and Ben keep asking more questions than they need to just to triple check they've got it!). Also got a KS3 English book out of the library, again for Ben and Katie to tackle and again amazed how it's just recapping on everything they've (or KS1/2) have learnt. Perhaps we should move on to harder things (gulp).

We designed and wrote, in Latin, either a birthday card or invitation, decorating the work with Roman style mosiacs etc. Then we moved on to reading about the Roman army. Ben printed out and made up this Roman soldier and Katie made the peg doll Centurion before writing about their clothing and weapons. I'm getting more and more impressed with Ben's writing (or typing in this case); very descriptive and informative. How he's come along since he's reached 9.



We emailed our drawings of apples to Sketch Tuesday, although I wasn't able to finish mine. I initially thought that apple drawing would be a doddle, but it took me a long time (between interruptions) to get it finished, all those different colours just on a red apple - it really makes you observe things more closely. For this week we are supposed to sketch our State bird. As England doesn't even have a national bird, we decided to draw birds that we have seen locally (although I don't recall seeing a Kingfisher!). With encouragement, Ben really observed the photo of the Kingfisher he was drawing, and I thought his, and Katie's lovely pheasant, were really very good (pretty pleased with my half finished Barn Owl too actually).


Thought I'd just throw in these up-to-date sketches of horses by Katie. She's drawing lots at the moment and her art is coming along beautifully.

While we drew we listened to some classical music. Using Classics for Kids we chose Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Handel's Water Music.

Not sure how and why it started, but Ben has been going on about the Isle of Man for some time so we finally got around to looking it up (pitifully I didn't know where it was, mainly because it wasn't on our map!). Through Wikipedia we learnt lots about the culture, currency, language and the triskelion and meaning behind the motto "It will stand wherever you throw it". Went on to read about the darling Manx cats and then on to the Bee Gees (who live there) and naturally that lead to You Tube and various Bee Gee greats!

Finally, pic of mini Pepper sandwiched between "big Al" and "medium sized cat" (as we feel Pepper calls them) aka Allie and visiting cat Kan. They are his playmates and are very tolerant of his pouncing on them whenever they come indoors.


and a close up.


He's venturing outside more and more now, darting back indoors whenever next door's dog begins to bark! His pastimes are chasing the chickens (they've stopped laying now, probably because of this), catching flies, bugs, moths and the occasional hardy butterfly, running after thrown sticks and cones, eating leftover food put out for the chickens and pouncing on people as they walk past (usually from behind a big towel that hangs on the radiator if indoors, or from behind the car or logs etc., if outside!).

Some interesting links

Thought I'd pass these on:

Resources 4 home-education is jammed packed with links and ideas.

HE-Resources is another site with lots of interesting stuff.

Bowland Maths KS3 DVD-Rom came across this link in a recent TES and initally thought I wouldn't have much luck obtaining the free DVD-Rom of KS3 maths games as we aren't a school (in England only, sorry not Wales, N. Ireland or Scotland). Reading the FAQs I thought I'd try my luck (as non LEA schools were able to apply too). The link is for the order form and you can access more information from this page too. I put "0" in all sections asking about LA and then added that I was a home educator teaching a KS3 child etc,. etc., in the "special delivery instructions" section. Got our DVD-Rom this morning and Ben has been testing it out.

Potato Council register to get two varieties of seed potato early next year ready for planting to experience home grown spuds.

National Schools Film Week for free film viewings is next week. You probably have heard about this already. We're hoping to get tickets for the recent Narnia feel at our "local" cinema.

City Creator anything along these lines always goes down well with my two. Designing your own city etc. Good fun.

New experiences yesterday

Had a good day yesterday. We teamed up with some new HE families that live sort of close to us (no one seems to live that close to us anymore - wonder why?) for a game of ten pin bowling in Kings Lynn. Nice to meet some new people and different set of children for Katie and Ben to get to know. Bowling was good fun as the adults played too (miserably in my case) with Katie and Ben on seperate teams both coming second (by 1 point in Ben's case and 2 points in Katie's!). Tootled off to visit Kings Lynn library afterwards which took far longer than expected due to two things. Firstly I had a "doh" moment and forgot that Kings Lynn is actually Norfolk not Lincolnshire so our library tickets didn't work. Secondly they had just installed a new automated system which unfortunately, just as we were having our "doh" moment, witnessed teams of other people suddenly needing assistance one way or the other in working the new system. The staff of three seemed to go into overdrive running back and forth sorting out problems with us probably being the most awkward needing three new library tickets! All very pleasantly dealt with though but I did feel for them.

So, new families on the HE front and then Ben went to watch Cubs in the evening. Those who have read past blog entries will realise that Ben gets a bit worked up over new situations. Rightly so, I do too, I like to know exactly what's going to happen, etc., etc. Anyway, he was really, really brave staying cheerful until just before going in. Seeing all the other children in their uniforms, knowing they they all know each other and then they start stare at you because you're the "new boy" would turn anyone to jelly! He asked to watch rather than join in. Boy was it noisy (he's not good with noise he's just good at making noise!) - running around and doing games. Then things changed and it started getting interesting and Ben began to loosen up and want to join in (from his chair of course!). They are working towards an aviation badge and went to visit the local airfield last week. This week they were given the NATO phonetic alphabet to learn in about 20 mins. Now, I hardly ever boast about my children in my blog (although perhaps I should a little more), but I was seriously impressed with my son. The other children were constantly checking to see what the letters all stood for but Ben managed to just look through the A-Z and remember it immediately. The leader came over and asked if he could do his first name and he reeled off first and last name without a bat of an eyelid! Proud moment! Proud because at the start of the evening the leader had come up to Ben and asked what school he went to, to which Ben answered that he was taught at home. The leader when into commiseration mode saying to me "is he stuck indoors with you all the time, not getting out and meeting others, is that why he won't join in?" or words very similar. I'm not a violent women, but I did have to resist forming a fist! "Nope, we meet other people and children all the time" (grrr you silly man) "but he gets a little nervous in new surroundings" (grrrr). "These boys have had fun running around at school together all day, you should join them Ben" he says (double grrrrr). Anyway, Ben enjoyed learning all this stuff and started chatting to another cub and seemed quite happy. Next they had to try and guess the airline symbols which he joined in too although the other leader asked "have you ever been abroad Ben?" in a very sympathetic way (or am I just getting paranoid now?!) - "yes, I've been to Portugal" he replied really confidently - that's my boy.

He wants to go back and hopefully he'll take part properly next week. I certainly think it'll do him the world of good having fun with the other boys and they seemed keen for him to join them which was nice.

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