Wisley

We finely made to Wisley, we had a lovely time, that lovely I want to go again. M had my camera and she had a lovely time taking photos, I was on crutches, easiest way for me to manage hip pain and walk, so M became our photographer for the day. I do love coming home and loading up the photos she has taken, as you really get to see what she likes. 

The fruit gardens are amazing, I do love a walkway with the fruit trees, trained over it in an arch, I dream of having a garden big enough to do something similar in, a girls got to have her dreams.

The girls loved the herb gardens, so many different varieties to look at and smell, that moment where you realise you never knew there were so many different varieties of mint and sage!

The glasses houses had an amazing array of cacti.

The stunning bird of paradise in flower.

Finished L's top, she is really pleased with it, the cotton yarn was so lovely to knit with, hoping it washes and wears well, as I've not used this brand of yarn before.

We have read the first part of Sassafras Zoology and have spent time reading and learning about lions and as our Atlas of Animal Adventures had a lovely two page spread on the wildebeest, in Kenya, we added them into our animal studies.  We've watched a variety of you tube videos on the wildebeest migration, lions and cheetahs and some lovely videos of the Oloip Maasi dancers, I've put all the links at the bottom of this post as there are a rather a lot! Art we've had the chalk pastels out to draw some lions, while listening to Putumayo Kids African Playground

We had looked at the beaded necklaces of the Pokot people and used paper plates to sort of recreate them.

Savanna sunset, using chalk pastels and then created the animals using stencils and black paint.

Max's new hobby is watching the washing machine, he sits there with his head going round and round as the machine spins, I am amazed he doesn't seem to get dizzy! When he's not watching the washing machine, he has discovered a lovely place in the sun to curl up in.

You have got to just love the kitten ability to just fall asleep where ever you are, even in mid play!

You Tube Links

 Wildebeest migration

 lions

Wild Kratts Hear the Big Cats Roar

Oloip Maasi Dancers  

  Maasi jumping dance 

Cheetah facts

Wild Kratts Meet Blur the Cheetah

Books Used

What on Earth? Life on the Grasslands

Usborne Discovery Big Cats

Destination Detectives Kenya a lovely book covering some of the places in Kenya, lots of photos

A Kite's Flight a kite's journey over Africa seeing some of the different landmarks

We All went on Safari

Animal Atlas

A World Full of Animal Stories used the story from Kenya

Easter

Happy Easter everyone, we've had a lovely but very busy couple of weeks, we joined a friend for a visit to the Living Rainforest, the armadillo was out and about this time, which was great for the children to see. This months Eco Kids magazine has been on plants, lots on meat eating plants, so great for L to see the pitcher plant in real life and I had fun talking about and demonstrating some of the other meat eating plants. At home we spent some time watching some you tube clips on the venus fly trap and sundew as well as reading the rest of the magazine. We've also been reading Enid Blyton's Nature Lover book, monthly nature walks with Uncle Merry, I know I can see the difference in the dead nettles and a true nettle and how animals avoid the dead nettle as they think its a stinging nettle. This week we learnt that the stem of the dead nettle is square not round, luckily we have some in the garden to look at explore the stems and compare carefully to the stinging nettles. Just love the fact that I am learning alongside my children and then we cans share that learning with others.

We were trying to decide if this was the tortoise yawning or will you all please just go away and leave me in peace face, what do you think?

We also finally got to spot the sloth.

We went to the local vocational college last weekend for their open day, looking ahead for M, they do a wide range of sport, out door pursuits, animal management, horticulture, actually a wide selection of vocational courses, set in a lovely rural setting. The classes are small, they don't have a bell ringing for classes, they try and have a calm learning environment. We had a lovely chat to some of the team for learning support and feeling positive that this could very well be the right environment for M, as long as we can get all the support in place and in writing before she starts. For those that didn't know she did try school when she was 11 years old and it went very horribly wrong, she couldn't cope with the sensory overload, the lack of support for her and it sent her into sensory overload daily and her anxiety through the roof. So I really need to get the support in for her before she starts college so we do not have a repeat of school. I am trying not to worry but I am, its so hard at times when you know what support your child needs and how well she can do with the right support but it seems so hard to get it in place for her. Just looking at her drama, she managed a merit in her exams, she had fantastic support from her teacher, he was there just before her exam to run through any questions with her and to go through the results with her at her next lesson. They had lots of mock practises, everything was written down or emailed to her so she knew exactly what was expected of her etc, I am now crossing fingers that we can get the support in place for college. M is looking at performing arts or media studies, performing arts means she gets to use her dance and gymnastics at times, which she loves. Oh and L is ready to sign herself up for animal management course, she's not impressed she has to wait till she is 16 to do it!

L and I have been looking at plant life cycles, she has loved making these paper plate life cycles, she asked for more, so we now have on on sunflowers and turtles too. A nice way to look at and compare the life cycle of different plants and animals.

At some point towards the end of last year I lost my vibrantly flowering erysimum, haven't found any locally and decided to take a risk and buy some unseen on ebay, pleased with them so far, we have Night Skies and Paintbox. They look so pretty and took me a while to decide on which ones, there are loads of delightful colour mixes. My kitchen window sill has been taken over by them,along with kale, broccoli and tomato seedlings and the normal selection of herbs!

Some Easter painting, used the inner of a cardboard roll, cut in 3 and stuck together to make a rabbit out line, L has loved printing the rabbit shapes and creating scenes for them, they are her rabbits Rosie and Lucy.

Wet felting some eggs, they never quiet work out for me but the girls enjoy trying and maybe one day we will get it right. Today the girls had an Easter egg hunt in the garden, L has now hidden 10 little eggs around the house for M to find later, I am wondering how long it will take us to find them all, editing to add that as of bedtime tonight we still have 3 eggs to find and L isn't giving any more clues away. Easter cards made and a visit to grandparents this afternoon.

More recipe trying from Madeline Oliver, these are her falafel burgers, also made the kidney bean burgers, lovely but may need to buy a big food processor, mine is a little one that is great for blending baby food but a bit small to batch make burgers! We are loving sweet potato wedges at the moment the family cannot get enough of them.

 Ocean Waves is of the needles and blocked, now back to the baby knitting, though L has a list of things she would like made as well. Really need to look at my fabric stash and plan some sewing too.

Rainbows and Snowdrops

We have had a lovely week, very mixed weather wise, but fun. I am sure we have alternated between bright, sunny days and overcast, rainy days, might be wrong but that'show it feels. We've managed a walk everyday, which is great, went out for a puddle walk but had disappointed children as there were no good size puddle to jump in. They did find some nice sticks and I mentioned that some of the small puddles might be fairy puddles, cue, no longer disappointed children, imagination came into play and lots of fun had deciding on what the fairies might be called and when they might come out to splash in the puddles. Came home to a beautiful rainbow, realised after getting the photo, we also caught a good reflection of the sitting room light!

On Tuesday we had a lovely walk to the library, we now have a book on Egyptian myths to read, then round to the park and spotted all the snow drops coming up. A local community group over the last couple of years have done a mass planting of snowdrops, daffodils and crocus, they are lovely to see all coming up and makes the area so pretty.

More local news and doing a happy dance, though we try and keep our waste to the minimum recycling is great and from this week onward, we can now recycle yogurt pots, fruit punnets, meat trays and tetra packs, in our kerbside collection, yay!

Last weekend M had her drama exam, she was very nervous about it and relieved when it was all over and done with, said she mucked up one bit but managed to keep going. Fast forward to this weeks lesson, as we were driving over to it, she was saying she was so glad she had done it, even if she didn't get a good mark, she felt really great going in and doing her pieces. Put a big smile on my face, the drama is all about having fun and building her confidence, she's now talking about the next lot of LAMDA exams, wow!

L has spent a little of her Christmas gift money and bought a little lego set, loved the fact she spotted the set, worked out that the label meant it was reduced and what the price is, didn't feel I could say no to her. I have always encouraged the children to look at the prices, how much things cost and when they are older, what works out cheaper, for budgeting purposes and why we buy certain products etc

Apparently on Wednesday it was Storm the husky puppy's birthday, out came the play dough to make birthday cake, candle was a small crayon. Don't ask how many times happy birthday was sung because the puppy kept blowing out the candle too soon, lots of giggles had!

L had been asking what we had used before pens and pencils and I mentioned feather, she found one and wanted to give it a try, she decided she wanted to use it with paint, so didn't get a chance to cut it and use ink but she loved it.

Bread roll making ready for lunch.

L finished her animal sticker book and I had saved the sheets of partially used stickers and being half term had my older minded children for the day and they happily used them and drew scenes to go with them.

Lots of painting

Knitting, back, front and 1 1/2 sleeves made, there is no pressure from L at all, honest. I have been looking at journals, note booking, saw some lovely books but it was done as 3 year diary and a question a day, which isn't me. Then came across the Handbook For Mums from the Thinking Tree, L has a work book journal and enjoys dipping in and out of it, love it, mixture of colouring, books to read, thoughts for the day, films you have read, to do lists, how do you feel etc, plenty of variety, so think I will enjoy it.

The "free gift" with Lets Knit magazine this month is the wool to make this rather cute owl, those that know L, will know her love of birds and in particular owls, so one for her.

Linking up with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On