Ways to warm up ...

... when the heating's not working (still no call from the boilerman - I'll give him one more day!).

1) wear plenty of layers to keep warm;
2) hoover the house, you'll soon be peeling off those layers;
3) get outside (which was actually warmer than being indoors strangely) and do some gardening. In our case, "trim" the hazelnut trees which haven't had a hair cut for several years it seems. Can now see the neighbours (is that a good thing?) and they're happy because they have more light pouring through their windows!
4) Clamber all over the branches littering the ground now they've all been chopped down. It's amazing how much a few branches suddenly looks once they are lying there ready for further chopping and storing (that'll take a month of Sundays);
5) make this chilli side dish* (as made and recommended by P this evening) and eat alongside a steaming bowl of chilli and rice or spag or pasta or whatever takes your fancy;
6) huddle round the fire and snuggle under fleecy throws preferrably with a cat (or two) on your lap for extra warmth;
7) retire to bed with hot water bottle and plenty of warm blankets, lots of reading material and tissues for your cold nose!

I see it's going to get colder as the week progresses - so perhaps these warming tips will help you out! Katie's friend in Wales was experiencing snow this morning and I see it's forecast for parts of Scotland tomorow where our other friends now live. Brrrr.

* Quick Pickled Chillies with Olive Oil and Garlic (2-4 people) (from Daily Mail mag)

1 garlic clove, 1 tbsp honey, sherry vinegar (about 75ml or to cover), 4 red and 4 green chillies, a little olive oil.

Smash the garlic and remove the skin. Put garlic in a small pan with the honey and half the vinegar. Cut tops off the chillies, slit them lengthways and scrape out the pale pith and the seeds (which you could keep to grow your own next year). Please take care with these little seeds, wash your hands straight after handling them and don't put fingers near your eyes - you'll regret it big time! Cut the chilli into strips. Bring the pan of honey and vinegar to a rolling boil, stirring. Put in the chillies and just cover with the rest of the vinegar. Reduce heat and simmer until the vinegar has just about evaporated and the liquor is shiny and sticky but still liquid, ensure the chillies are only slightly crunchy. Transfer to a small dish and add a little olive oil before serving.

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.

Back on track - a good day

I put up a simple timetable for the week which is good for Ben (he likes to know exactly what's going on all the time), although we didn't actually start Latin today as planned, but did get everything done!

Started with maths - no angry words or sour looks. I prepared three worksheets for both of them and they chose one to do. Ben's looking at polygons, including symmetry, so I rediscovered the Show Me website and found the Victorian tile design game and kaleidoscope games for Katie and Ben to have a go at. This one was preferred though.

After a quick snack (it's a habit now, get maths done to enjoy a snack!) we started learning A-D of the deafblind manual alphabet. I was given a sheet with this alphabet on when I was working at the pre-school 3 years ago and knew it would come in handy. Katie and Ben were enthusiastic about it today and quickly picked up the first four letters.

I wanted to continue with some kind of music appreciation this term. The "Music Monday" idea - taken from the Petits Haricots blog kind of died a death, mainly due to the fact that although we listened to classical (or thereabouts) music weekly, I was rubbish at blogging about it. Anyway, have scheduled to listen to decent music at least once a week and read abit about the composer. Found this musical website with lots of classical music to listen to and also information on the orchestra etc. I remember when I was very young owning a Ladybird book about the orchestra which was absolutely brilliant. Had details on all the key instruments etc. Must look out for it. I came across a stack of Ladybird books in two second-hand shops recently - I shall return for a hunt! Today, having read about the orchestra and listened to the different sections playing their piece to the opening of "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" by Benjamin Britten, we realised just how clever the composer is to make compile such a fabulous piece of music when it's all played together. We listened to the full verion on You Tube while the children played around on the above website making their own music etc. Katie dug out the simple piano tune she composed about this time last year. Perhaps she, or Ben, will get back into playing the piano.

Part I and Part II.

To finish off the morning I introduced Katie and Ben to a bit of physics, thanks to the "by other means" blog. Ben was completely hooked! Katie said she wasn't hooked but couldn't seem to be dragged away from it! I think she was quietly chuffed to have completed level 4 way before Ben!

Finally, both children had a browse through the Brownie badges to see which one(s) they'd like to start with. Naturally Katie's chose the horse riding badge as well the friend to animals. Ben's starting with the designer badge and has started designing his ideal bedroom using the free 3D room designer software I recently blogged about.

After lunch Katie and Ben helped me with some gardening. I've got a basket full of veggies - five small cabbages (un-munched by caterpillars), loads of chillies, the remainder of the dwarf beans and a green pepper. Have stacks of dwarf beans ready for seeds next year! We also discoverd our "butter bean" plants had produced some amazining beans which look like mangetout. Now, not sure if butter beans come from big mangetout looking pods, of if these actually are mangetout. Any ideas?

A full day - I'm happy. P's away tonight, hence the reason I'm blogging at nearly midnight!

Have also had a chance to find some new graphics; here's one of them:

Art and veggies

Katie continues to enjoy art at the mo and is learning lots from her new book "How to Draw and Paint the Outdoors" by Moira Butterfield. Here's some horse pics and a lovely sunset:





On the veggies front the garden is looking brill. We've pulled and used all the onions and have now pulled all the shallots too (some were nearly as big as the onions). Tried pickling some, but they don't taste quite like the ones from the shops - perhaps they need to sit for a while to absorb the flavour.

The cabbages have been attacked big time by caterpillars which means we have a constant supply of butterflies for the cats (and chickens) to play with! I couldn't bear to squash the caterpillar eggs as suggested by websites and gardening books in order to save the produce. It's been fascinating watching them grow from tiny slithers to chunky crawlies; we're even watching one turn into a cocoon on the swingball pole! I did result to digging up four white cabbages which were really looking worse for wear in order to get some extra light to the corn and beans.

Obviously a little naive, but the dwarf beans I bought are dwarf in plant size, not in fruit! Having put in 6 foot poles for the plants to grow up, I was rather surprised to see them stop at about 45/50cms tall! The beans themselves are fabulous, real whoppers in size and taste wonderful! So, dwarf beans are great if you only have space for large tubs in your small garden/patio etc.

We still have some potatoes and carrots left in the ground/tub; saving them for a "rainy day" so to speak. Leeks are fattening up very well and certainly survived their thinning out a few weeks ago. Next lot of spring onions are coming along well too. The corn, which I'd only left space for 6 in two rows (needed so they can pollinate each other), are doing well but only the two middle ones are growing a good size. We'll see what happens. The "honesty box" in the village is selling individual corn-on-the-cobs at 30p each, so if mine don't produce, it'll not be the end of the world! Next year I'll dedicate a larger area for them, rather than putting in cabbages with lots of holes in them! Finally, the chillies and peppers. The indoor chillies are growing longer by the day but attract the hover-flies! The outdoors ones still have some flowers but no chillies as yet, probably due to the unpredicatable weather, but the peppers outside are now small chunky balls!

Thought I'd just post abit about some of the things we've been up to lately.

The weekend after our visit to Wales, Katie went along to one of her model horse shows which was close to my parents home in Essex. I think she's getting a bit of a pro at this now; I believe this may well be her third year of showing! Anyway, for those who aren't "up" on the model horse showing world, enthusiasts (most belong to model horse forums and know each other through this virtual world) bring along their model horses and enter them into a huge variety of different classes in the hopes of winning a rosette and 1st or certificate to 6th place and possible entry into an overall winner's class. Katie has always been the youngest enthusiast, but we noticed this year that others seemed to include her more in their conversations and she even asked, and was accepted, to help judge two of the classes. I must admit, it's a bit of a joke among the close family members about how "boring" it all sounds, sitting around watching grown-ups (mainly) preening and presenting model horses, but actually, it's a pretty interesting day (and just becomes a little tiring towards the end when time is ticking on and the judges can't decide the best model of the day). It was a long day too. Katie was up and ready by 5 a.m. and we left home at 7 in order to arrive in time to set up ready for the first class at 10! P and Ben had a fab day at a couple of local parks; the weather, luckily, was gorgeous. So, Katie's models did well. She came away with a few first places and we were especially chuffed that her new and prized resin Fresien took one of these too.

Not one of Katie's horses (she didn't take any photos of her models!), but a lovely example of some beautiful Arabian tack, probably hand-made.

After the show, Katie went to stay with my parents for the week. Again, she's a pro at this as we worked out she'd been having holidays with them since she was 6! Can't believe the time has flown by so quickly.

Weather, as I recall, wasn't bad that week. They got up to lots of horsey things, highlights being the annual visit to her favourite shop "Utterly Horses" and also a trip to the Essex Ada Cole horse sanctuary.

Feeding one of many very friendly squirrels in Belfairs Woods.

Ben and I enjoyed time together and did lots of bits and bobs around the place. He was actually willing to continue with some work without any of the usual hassles that I have to put up with so we did maths, handwriting and some catching up of topic work during the week. Other times we potted around in the garden and have started to reap the rewards of all the veggie sowing earlier in the year. We've now planted our last seeds for the time being - sweetcorn. Just a little space left for them! The cabbages are taking over the whole patch!

Thinning the leeks.



Nothing like fresh veggies!

This week we've continued with norms and topic work learning about the Rainforests using some pretty good websites plus the books that we've borrowed from the library as a brilliant source of information (see side panel). The Serious Survival book is an interesting read as it involves expeditions to various places in the world (polar regions, Amazon etc) by teams of young people and experienced guides. We've been doing some drawing using the fabulous art work of Beatrix Potter as our inspiration; this week we studied and drew moths and butterflies. We've also updated our nature notes for June (a little late, I know). Katie has had another cooking frenzie and made some strawberry oat bars and hummus which we shared with friends today.

Hummus, strawberry bars and home grown tomatoes - yum!

Natural Dyes and other things

We have been experimenting with natural dyes at the beginning of this week in preparation for a group session we are running with two other families later in the month. We found a list of natural dyes from one of Katie's books and we also sourced some from an article written on the new Home Ed Wiki.

As cold dyes we used the juices of mixed summer fruits (making deep purple) and beetroot with vinegar (making pink). The following were all boiled to extract the dye:

Tomato - yellow/orange
Tea - light brown
Coffee - dark brown
Earth - darker brown
Yellow onions - yellow
Turmeric - deep yellow/orange
Dock leaves - very pale green
Dock leaves and nettles - pale green

Katie and Ben use the dyes to paint on paper and materials (cotton and linen were the best) with some lovely results.





Other things

More socialising than ever seems to be occurring at the moment - we're all enjoying it but it makes getting back to our normal learning routine harder and harder. Anyway, Katie and Ben stayed away on Monday night so P and I sneaked out for a delicious curry in the evening. Friends came on Tuesday from lunch time so I had the house to myself Tuesday morning. I missed my kiddies big time and mooched around the house which was such a waste of valuable "me" time! Having breakfast all by myself (as P leaves early) was the worst part; it was just lonely.

My mum has knitted this lovely winter jumper for Ben, he's really chuffed with it. I think she's going to have a go at knitting something for Katie too.


On the (diminishing) work front, we've continued with maths as much as possible doing workbooks and the fractions poster. Katie and Ben were impressing P with their knowledge of mixed, proper and improper fractions as P had forgotten what they were (just shows you much all this is used in the adult world)! In our geography project we're still looking at weather - understanding different cloud formations and what they mean weatherwise. We did an experiment to make a cloud in a bottle which sort of worked but not brilliantly and didn't seem to impress either of them! We've also made a rain gauge and put it outside just as the rain stopped and the sun came out! At least, using our cloud guide, we'd been able to predict this would happen. Just found this cloud guide which is good too.

The doll's houses have been rediscovered and Ben has done a new paint job on some of the walls before putting in the furniture. The visiting cat "Kandar" wanted to try a room out for size, but ended up snuggling on Ben's bed in the end.


On the garden front I've managed to find space for all the chilli and pepper plants in the end; they couldn't have lasted any longer in the conservatory. We have two tiny apples appearing on our baby Granny Smith. We've noticed, by chance, a collared dove nest in one of our trees - visable from one of the benches so we can keep a quiet eye on what's happening. Lots of new ducklings have appeared and seem to be healthy. We've named one "Wanderer" as it likes to go off by itself, running like mad to catch up with the rest of it's family once they've moved on. It got left behind the other day and we found it sitting in the middle of the road, still strong and healthy and such a darling to pick up and stroke and totally weighless. Managed to track down the mum and reintroduced it to the rest of her brood. Mum wasn't happy with me being so close and came running out of the bushes to have a mega nip at my feet to keep me away! Discovered these two acting as a hoover in my kitchen the other day - cheeky pair!

Finally, spotted this tiny baby bee having a suck on a left over grain of cereal.