New Pets

The girls have been wanting guinea pigs for a long time, imagine their surprise when their brother comes back from uni with 2 guinea pigs that needed a new home. Meet Rolo and Biscuit, who are enjoying lots of attention and settling in well. The rest of the month has been spent in the garden growing veg, repurposing old duvet cases and cooking lots.

L has started sewing and making a very neat job of it too.

So I have been busy repurposing some an old duvet cover, used the pattern section to make some new hankies and then the plain white part to make some produce bags.

Making homemade cordial and then using the left over orange and lemon peel to infuse some vinegar for cleaning with.

Ginger Cordial

200g root ginger, peeled and broken into large pieces

1 lemon grated rind and juice

600g caster sugar

1.5 litres of water

15g citric acid

Add all the ingredients to a pan, dissolve the sugar on a low heat for 3 to 4 minutes.

Then bring to the boil and simmer for 40 minutes.

Remove from the heat, when cool, strain through a cloth.

Bottle and store in the fridge, I have also frozen some too for later use.

Orange Cordial

3 oranges, juice and zest

500g sugar

600ml water

15 citric acid

Place water, sugar and orange peel in a pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the juice.

Leave to cool, strain and bottle, keep in the fridge.

This seems to be Max's favourite place to hang out and watch the world go by, he rarely leaves the garden, sometimes he sits on the fence but most of the time he likes to watch the world go by. safely from his own garden.

Sorting out left over fabric I made one of L's dolls a dress, I will put it by for her birthday next month.

A good friend of mine came back from holiday with some lovely fabric as a gift for me, made L's favourite dress, the geranium by Made by Rae, must admit it was one of my favourites too.

First harvest from our garden veg patch, hopefully lots more to come throughout the summer.

L and I went on a bug hunts and found not only ladybirds, but ladybirds in the pupae and larvae stage too. 

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.

A Week of Firsts

I would like to say I don't know where the time is going but I do its busy working with M and her IGCSE coursework, it is going ok but its a lot of work for her and I! On top of this she has been practising badge work for gymnastics and wanting me to check her positioning etc, she's now achieved her bronze and learning drama speeches for her Lamda exams which we had hoped would be Easter but are now the beginning of February.  She has now mentioned that she might be put in for her ballroom and Latin exams in February too, these are all classes she loves but it is extra work, we have also manged to do some Christmas shopping.

Hubby realised he still had holiday to be used up before Christmas, still waiting to find out if he will be on call over Christmas but it does mean he will be having some long weekends, so have some day trips planned.

L has been desperately wanting to go on a train, so Monday last week, we took the bus into town and then the train to Oxford. While there we visited the  Oxford Natural History Museum so she could see some fossils another first and the Pitts Museum. She loved the train ride and on the bus on the way home hubby took her upstairs, another thing she has been desperate to do, I do not like the stairs on the bus especially with a small child.

The Natural History Museum is lovely, lots to see and do with out being overwhelming, L loved the fossils, the various animal displays, the black bear was adored and the displays of birds from around the world. Though she did get rather upset with one display where a bird had killed a rabbit, so quick talk about life cycles and what might happen if the rabbits had no predators, how different our world would look, upsetting but it is life. Pitts museum, lots to see and maybe a little overwhelming as their are loads of cases, with lots to see! I loved the display of bobbin lace and lace patterns, clothing from around the world, musical instruments, L enjoyed doing the mouse trail, definitely somewhere to visit again.

The other first was taking the girls to a hairdressers, we normally have a lovely friend come to our house but she has been unwell for a while now, felt guilty going somewhere else but desperately needed haircuts. M really didn't want to go somewhere else but actually enjoyed the experience especially the big mirror and being able to watch what was going on, for L it was too noisy, didn't like the clippers and hairdryers going.

We have also been doing lots of baking, M has experimented with scone base pizza recipe but decided she much prefers a bread based one, L and I have made oat cookies and an eggless ginger cake.

Oat Cookies

200g self raising flour

200g oats

125g brown sugar

200g margarine or butter melted

15ml golden syrup

15ml hot water

2.5ml bicarbonate of soda

1. Mix flour, oats and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
2. Add in the melted margarine and golden syrup
3. Mix hot water and bicarbonate of soda together and add to the rest of the ingredients,mix well.
4. Roll into small balls in your had and gently pat down a little after it is placed on the baking tray.
5. Bake at Gas 4 for 15 minutes.

Eggless Ginger Cake

275g plain flour

5ml bicarbonate of soda

10ml ground ginger

125g treacle

125g golden syrup

125 g margarine or butter

125g brown sugar

150ml milk or milk substitute, we use oat milk

1. Sieve flour, baking powder and ground ginger.
2. Put treacle, golden syrup, margarine and brown sugar in a pan and gently warm until margarine is melted.
3. Add melted ingredients and milk to the dry and mix well.
4. Bake in a lined loaf tin for 1 hour.

I finally made it to the cinema, the last time I went to the cinema was with O to see Jurassic World, so a while ago. It wasn't the planned trip with my husband, still not managed that but went with M and a good friend to see Murder on the Orient Express, loved it wasn't sure how I would feel about a new Poirot, David Suchet was such a good Poirot but actually liked Kenneth Branagh portrayal of him, though still not 100% sure about the moustache.

On a crafting front I have finished the simple little dress, another present done and working on the blue one, loving the simple the pattern. Made the mistake of popping into a local charity shop to browse books and spotted a set of Nicci French ones we hadn't read, so came home with them. Hubby and I have read the first one, Blue Monday and enjoyed it, hoping the rest are as good! Now planning activities and crafts for our advent calendar, we always make one with a different story, craft to do, film to watch for each day of advent, always have way too many ideas for the number of days in advent! Do you have a favourite Christmas film, story or poem, would love to hear what they are.

Learning To Write

I know I have written about L wanting to read and trying very hard, even though I would happily have left it till she was older and how she enjoys trying to write but we have discovered she has a tendency to reverse her letters. Not a problem as such and lots of children do it but she notices as soon as she has done it is wrong but the harder she tries the worse the reversing gets and she gets annoyed with herself. This is something that we noticed in speech therapy too, the harder she tries the worse it can get, it is better to let her have a couple of attempts and then leave her for a few days and come back to it, rather than doing daily practise. So I have been working on fun activities to help her, like writing in sand, drawing them on peoples backs using her finger, we are working our way through the alphabet, so work on the new letter and review the letters we have already done. I read SLOAH's post on using rice instead of sand for the writing trays, I thought I would give I a try, nothing like a new medium to spark interest and it has been well received.

We made bread rolls in the shapes of letters and some we decorated with seeds to write out the letters and a happy smiley face.

Monday we enjoyed making letters using play dough, have beads that we could add to write out the letters in the play dough like we did in the bread dough.

L even tried to write out some words she has learnt and then went and wrote some of them down on a piece of paper. Followed by "Mummy I can't believe I can actually write real words" one very happy L.

L has been talking lots about the changing seasons, so she drew what happened each seasons. So in summer there are lots of flowers and she can have the paddling pool out, Autumn all the trees loose their leaves, winter Father Christmas and Rudolf and Spring we water our new flowers that are growing.

A good friend sent me this link to make cats out of cardboard rolls, L loved the look of them and we so far have 3 stuck together, waiting for the paint to dry, to start the next stage.

Tuesday morning we spent at the allotment and harvested another bucketful of carrots, the last of the beans and some peas. Have very happy rabbits, they love the carrot tops to say the least, nearly as much as they love the vine leaves of my grape vines! The afternoon spent at the park with lots of other home educators, lovely to catch up with everyone.

This afternoon, some fun watching dancing raisins, you need raisins and carbonated water, or some sort of fizzy clear drink. An object that is denser than water and has a rough surface,  like a raisin, allows for the bubbles of gas (carbon dioxide) to stick to the raisins and makes it buoyant and the raisin rises up, the bubbles then pop and the raisin sinks again.

Realised I haven't shared our menu planning for a few weeks, so here is this weeks meal plan.

Sunday - Roast dinner

Monday -  cold meat, pasta and vegetable sauce

Tuesday -  shepherds pie or vegetarian shepherdess pi

Wednesday - left over shepherds pie

Thursday -  ratatouille

Friday - macaroni cheese with spinach

Saturday - beef burgers or aubergine and kidney bean burgers, home made wedges and veg

Shepherdess Pie

1 courgette chopped

1 leek chopped (or use an onion)

2 carrots diced

125g mushrooms, chopped

2 cloves garlic chopped

60g red lentils

60g green lentils

225g can chopped tomatoes
450ml water

1 bay leaf

5ml mixed herbs

 25ml brown sauce

200g can baked beans

900g potatoes peeled and chopped

25g grated cheese

1. Put the potatoes on to boil, once cooked mash and add the cheese.
2. While potatoes are cooking, heat oil in a large saucepan, add courgette, leek, carrots, mushrooms, garlic fry for 10 minutes.
3. Add mixed herbs, bay leaf, lentils, tinned tomatoes and 450ml water, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
4.  Add the brown sauce and baked beans and cook for 5 minutes
5. Remove bay leaf and spoon into a dish, cover with mash potato bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the potato is crispy

On a crafting front have crocheted some more leaves to go on our autumn nature display, have plans for knitted acorns, toadstools etc.

Toadstool in the making, shouldn't take too long!

Embroidery is coming along slowly but least you can see the kitten appearing, even if it does look a little bit skeletal at the moment. Reading Unplug Your Kids making interesting reading but will wait till I have read more before I write a lot about it.