Saturday, March 31, 2007

It was lovely and Spring like today so we headed out this afternoon to a local garden centre to see the rare Leicester Longwool breed of sheep and their lovely lambs. B took this lovely photo. Had to have a browse round the (rather unstocked) pets area and also see the fish (which B is desperate for). Took a look at the apple trees too as we'd like to have at least one in our new garden - still miss the five or six we had in a previous home.
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After this we headed off to the lock - always wonderful to see the fast moving water. We were lucky enough to watch some enthusiasts racing their mini boats on the lake and see the steam train come past too. K and B had fun under the road bridge, climbing and running down the very steep support wall.
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On the way home we picked up some cream as K and B decided they'd bake some scones. We've never made scones before and they turned out really well - they're so easy! Delicious but very filling.
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Rather a creative start to the week with last Sunday seeing K and B keeping themselves very busy. K made this fabulous area for her smallest model horses (they're called "mini-whinnies") and B decided to design his own robot wars style car having found a really good game on the PC which had given him the inspiration. Luckily I'd found, during the packing, the base and wheels of a small pull back car, so he decided to use this as his base. We all put our heads together to think of good gadgets to add to the car, drawing on Bs understanding of how things can move using wound up rubber bands, spinning discs using wind power from blowing on them or good old cogs and wheels. All his use of Knex, Lego and forces work we've done recently and in the past came to the fore - brilliant! It was also a learning curve. B started off drawing the kind of car he like to produce. They he built one out of thin card and, after a few angry words (to put it lightly), he realised the wheels would need to be much sturdier to support the body of the car. On the Monday, as K and B were still very much into their craft activities, they spent the morning continuing from where they'd left off the previous evening. B built his car using clay and plaster of paris (a latest faze - it makes very strong things!) and added tiny spikes to the front using mini nails. A hole was left on the roof ready for a spinning gadget.
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Our latest maths poster, "all about numbers", is taking it's time to be filled! I'd planned on covering mean, median and mode this week but we've only managed mean. Started off playing a racing game with B designing a race track on the table using various bits from around the house. B used toy racing cars, K used her model horses and they each took it in turns to race around the track with the other timing and recording the results. Used all this to learn averages (mean) and made a chart with the scores showing the workings out. BBC have this site on the subject which K and B also enjoyed using.

With P away in Aussie at the moment, we dusted off our "track the Daddy" book and read about the country and noted some interesting facts. He's taken a Flat Traveller with him and has been good enough to take it with him to some places of interest, as well as work I believe - what a love he is. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at PhotobucketKs long lost Flat Chocolat (not chocolate as K always points out) returned home from the States - it was nice to see him again and read about his adventures.

On the project of light, we made a fun and simple pinhole camera (check out this site for something a little more advances - would like to have a go in due course) and then looked at how our eyes see objects. B remembered the names of the different parts of the eye from his recent visit to the Light and Optics exhibition at the local museum. He even looked up on the internet the correct name of the white part of the eye - mighty impressed. B wondered if any humans ever saw things unside down (ie their brains had been damaged and weren't able to translate and alter the images) - interesting question. Allie, our cat, since having his stroke last summer, hangs his head to one side as he walks. B wondered if this was to correct a wonky image. Answers on a postcard please to ...

We've been bowling this week too and swimming. As K's no longer doing lessons, due to the move, I put her through her paces and then she managed to do forward and backward flips underwater. Wish I was as brave as her. I lost my nerve in water thanks to a rather gruesome and mean swimming teacher in senior school. B's getting there too. He did excellent back stroke but just won't take they armbands off yet. K and B had friends over for our last sleepover in this house. It's been pretty busy this week. Oh and we're hoping to exchange contracts early next week. The removal company have a long list of people waiting to confirm the very day we wish to move, so it's first come first served and I'm feeling a little nauseous about getting in there first!
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Friday, March 30, 2007

Lapbook piccies

Finally got around to taking (rather dark, sorry) photos of K and B's first lapbook on the "Around the World in Eighty Days".

Here's a run down:

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In the middle, once opened, we have a map of the world showing the main countries that Michael Palin travelled to during his trip "Around the World in Eighty Days". He followed the journey from the story of the same name and used land and sea to travel. Also on this map is information on the International Date Line, as Michael Palin crossed this on his return journey.

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Lift the map page to find information on the oceans of the world as well as details on polar bears of the Arctic and the blue whale of the waters. Also in this section we wrote about why the oceans are blue, what makes the Red and Black seas their colours, what causes waves and why the seas are salty.

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On the two opening side flaps of the lapbook we have pockets with tags showing interesting information on some of the countries Michael Palin visited. This one is Italy. The pocket is a decorated mask from the Carnevale.

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This is Greece. The pocket has illustrations and very brief details of three Greek myths.

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Egypt was interesting and we would like to learn more about this country and it's fascinating history. K, B and I enjoyed making the clay and plaster of paris mummies.

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India came next. K made the little paper woven basket for a cobra. Together with tags of interesting information, all the country pockets had the country flag, capital city and continent details too.

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After lifting the "oceans" page, there is a final page of country pockets. These are China, Japan, USA and finally the return home to UK with a picture of The Reform Club where the journey began and ended.

Once we've settled in our new home the children would like to write to Michael Palin at the BBC telling him about their projects and asking for a signed photograph. My sister and I used to do this and between us had quite a collection.
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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Ks Red Nose Day film

Boxes are taking over the house!

Funny old week really. It doesn't feel like we've accomplished much, but I guess with me trying to fill boxes (and B trying to unload them again as he's seen a toy he hasn't played with in a while) and keep everything ticking along house move wise, it's going to be a little slower on the HE front. K says I need to "chill" - not something I'm good at but I'm working on it! Had a morning in Lincoln signing papers on Wednesday and K and B thoroughly impressed the solicitor with their ability to sit and draw quietly for about an hour.

So, we've been looking round the garden for signs of Spring life after it's recent trampling on by the builders. K and B found an assortment of mini Spring flowers and herbs to plant in their mini gardens to make them a little more interesting ready for photographs and a write up for the RSPB Action Awards thingy.
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On the maths side we've recapped and tested on a couple more posters and also looked at dividing and multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000. K and B made up paper stepping stones for the "all about numbers" poster and I added a blue tac decimal point on a piece of wool so they could practise this skill. K has already covered this of course but she still made some slip ups so it was good practise for her. B grasped it very quickly.

K put together her Red Nose Day competion entry movie on all the things she likes. I know she's made a mini movie before using Movie Maker, but it always impresses me how she, and now B can pick up how to use these tools so quickly (and they're not afraid to experiment either).
I'll put up K's movie as a seperate entry and when I find B's movie (he always saves them in weird places) I'll post that too.

We went to the library and picked up some books on HTML as K is really into this at the mo. Two of the books are really easy to follow - will keep you posted. B has done some more of his Basic programming but I think it's getting a bit beyond him now, although he's still keen. I think he'll get on well with HTML too.

A fun HE group session on Friday all about rocks and fossils. Very busy session with lots of people which was great. K and B enjoyed painting large pebbles, making Plaster of Paris casts of shells (although in my haste to make sure everything was in place before we left we forgot them), looking and feeling the numerous collections of rocks and browsing through some wonderful reading material on the subject. There was also some extremely yummy cooking going on too.

Finally, have managed to put up some more Ebay items - take a peek if you're interested. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Boxes are taking over the house!

Funny old week really. It doesn't feel like we've accomplished much, but I guess with me trying to fill boxes (and B trying to unload them again as he's seen a toy he hasn't played with in a while) and keep everything ticking along house move wise, it's going to be a little slower on the HE front. K says I need to "chill" - not something I'm good at but I'm working on it! Had a morning in Lincoln signing papers on Wednesday and K and B thoroughly impressed the solicitor with their ability to sit and draw quietly for about an hour.

So, we've been looking round the garden for signs of Spring life after it's recent trampling on by the builders. K and B found an assortment of mini Spring flowers and herbs to plant in their mini gardens to make them a little more interesting ready for photographs and a write up for the RSPB Action Awards thingy.
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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
On the maths side we've recapped and tested on a couple more posters and also looked at dividing and multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000. K and B made up paper stepping stones for the "all about numbers" poster and I added a blue tac decimal point on a piece of wool so they could practise this skill. K has already covered this of course but she still made some slip ups so it was good practise for her. B grasped it very quickly.

K put together her Red Nose Day competion entry movie on all the things she likes. I know she's made a mini movie before using Movie Maker, but it always impresses me how she, and now B can pick up how to use these tools so quickly (and they're not afraid to experiment either).
I'll put up K's movie as a seperate entry and when I find B's movie (he always saves them in weird places) I'll post that too.

We went to the library and picked up some books on HTML as K is really into this at the mo. Two of the books are really easy to follow - will keep you posted. B has done some more of his Basic programming but I think it's getting a bit beyond him now, although he's still keen. I think he'll get on well with HTML too.

A fun HE group session on Friday all about rocks and fossils. Very busy session with lots of people which was great. K and B enjoyed painting large pebbles, making Plaster of Paris casts of shells (although in my haste to make sure everything was in place before we left we forgot them), looking and feeling the numerous collections of rocks and browsing through some wonderful reading material on the subject. There was also some extremely yummy cooking going on too.

Finally, have managed to put up some more Ebay items - take a peek if you're interested. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

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Had a lovely day, although we didn't do much, just played at being a family really! P got me some Bailey's, a favourite tipple of mine, as apparently I'm mum to him too!

K and B made me delightful cards and K made me a woolly flower.

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Saturday, March 17, 2007

Friday was ...

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We've been watching some of the fabulous Red Nose Day mini cartoon clips produced by youngsters at an arts college in our region on the local news this last week and decided to have a go at making our own mini film using the Pivotstick software we've used before - available here. I've tried putting the clips up on here by it slows everything down big time, sorry!

After this we drew our own "The Big One" cartoons, here's K's. It's probably a little small to read but basically it's a horse and rider and the horse is trying to eat a tomato from a tomato bush (K is aware that tomatoes don't grow on bushes like this!). The rider continually says "no" to the horse but he manages to pick and start eating one noticing that the tomato begins to grow bigger and bigger and until it pops and splatters all over him announcing "yuk" then "The Big One"!

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Katie has also started putting together a collection of photos and mini films taken with the camera on Friday to produce a mini film to send in here telling the world what makes her happy (and it's not just horses!). Will try and post it up when it's done.

BTW - gone is the lovely Spring warm weather, it's been freeezzzing today (Sunday) and we've had a mixed bag of very high winds, rain, snow and hail. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

It's been a noisy week as the diggers and dumper trucks (very interesting to watch) have been right outside our kitchen window all week. I won't go on about it, but the ground is now flattened and we've discovered new neighbours from the next street along!
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The end result

B's into his Hot Wheels at the mo and has made a garage for four of them decorating the lift up garage doors with car drawings. His enthusiasm has lead to to start a lapbook on the subject researching the history of the toy and taking arty shorts of his favourite cars and altering them on the PC. K continues to produce her lovely woolly ponies and has written make-believe stories about them which is sweet telling us about all their different characters!

We've started our science topic on light and have found this site and this site to be really helpful. We've also been reading from the Horrible Science "Frightening Light" book and using experiments from our old faithful Usborne 100 Science Experiments. So far we've looked at what light is (and how important it is to us and every living thing on the planet), who Sir Isaac Newton was and what he discovered about light, using our own prism to discover his secrets for ourselves. We've also made rather cool, easy to make, kaleidosopes ready for our next section about how light travels.

Have recapped two more of our maths posters and have started a new one on, simply, numbers. Place value (from thousand to hundreths) and decimal points mainly for B and then finding out the largest number and who decided on the name for it!

Spring seems to have really taken hold here (although I hear snow is on the agenda for next week!) and we've spent some time out of doors not just to enjoy the weather but to escape the rumble of rubble. Went to the local park for a picnic lunch, kick around and play in the sand. We were amazed how many other people were there, mainly from the college - sure it wasn't like that last year. Having been inspired by the beautiful daffodils in the park and the buds on the trees we've begun our March section in our months of the year book using this site to find out interesting snippets of information.

On Friday we packed another picnic and headed for Burghley House to visit the Sculpture Garden which is free to enter until the summer months. It was so peaceful (although there were diggers there too!) and a joy to spend three hours wondering through leavy pathways looking at the old and the new sculptures. The best bit was the waterfall and mini stream which instantly attracted K and B. Wearing their wellies (and seeing as how no one else was around) I let them carefully wade through the water and later they climbed to the top of the waterfall (holding on to me for support). It was a lovely afternoon out.
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We named this "Freedom"
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An old favourite - it's huge
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Zonked - K and B certainly slept well that evening

Other things: B thumbed through the science book and chose an experiment to turn milk into plastic. By adding vinegar to warmed milk and then straining it (through the toe section of some clean fine tights) he altered the casein in the milk to form lumps of plastic which he molded into a star shape. After, he played this game on the internet to discover other forms of plastic. We watched an interesting program on the history of trees on BBC2 7pm on Monday (seems there's a book all about the series). K finished her lovely story on the PC which she titled "Dreams Come True" and both had a go at doing stories on this BBC Raw site which was posted on Lucy's blog recently. K has updated her website with renewed vigour.

On the house front: things seem to be moving along quite nicely now! We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (I'll keep you posted).Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Monday, March 12, 2007

K and B have finished their "Around the World" lapbooks and have assembled them. They look fabulous and both are proud of the hard work they've put into them. We recapped on each section to see how much they could remember and, as it had taken us quite a while to work our way through this topic, it made it all the more interesting to remember the different things we'd done - the Plaster of Paris Egyptian Mummies, learning a little Italian and marching up and down like Greek Evzones!

We've also started to recap on the first of our maths posters now, starting with 2D shapes, to see how much has sunk in. K really enjoyed being tested on this and got a 10/10, B did well too with 7/10, just forgetting those silly names of different triangles was his downfall. We're making room for more maths posters now as this way of learning the "dreaded number work" seems to be good for them both.

The weather has been pretty decent recently so we made the most of the sunshine and went for a walk in some nearby woods and park to blow away the cobwebs. Actually we did this in preparation for a mini walk with the group on the Friday as part of our nature and art session. Lucky we did as the wood became boggier and boggier the further we went! K and B also enjoyed running up and down some artificial hills for the BMX track and trying out Galileo's potential energy as they hurled themselves down the very steep skateboard track too!

We enjoyed the nature/art session with the group making God's Eyes with twigs and wool, mini gardens, sand art and painting using natural resources (like beetroot, cabbage and turmeric). Some of the children decided to complete another section of the RSPB Action Awards by producing art work/written work getting their inspiration from a nature table we'd set up or the walk in the park we'd been on. Here's some piccies - K and B did these sand bottles too although we didn't do them for the group session. I think they look very pretty as the sand was quite damp and therefore looks darker than normal.
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A selection of mini gardens done at the group session, they all have grass seed in them ready for sprouting at a later date.

We decided to have a read about dog breeds (as Crufts has now started) using Enchanted Learning. K and B produced a lovely piece of writing on their favourite breed and K added information on the history of Crufts and a description on the art of Dog Agility which is of interest to her.

B's started a lapbook on Lego, checking out it's history to start with and writing about it. K's continuing with her horse lapbook and is adding lots of interesting facts.

On the house move front all is quiet. Apparently both ends of the short chain are ready to go with all searches and documentation in place. Guess I'll have to chase our solicitor - we've have had no post in a very long while. On the subject of post, I've noticed lately that we don't get post for several days and then get a large amount in one go. Anyone else notice this where they live? In fact, our postie is often wandering down our road as I'm pulling the bedroom curtains but within the last few weeks I've realised that I don't see him on his travels every day?! V. strange.
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Digger update

Thought I'd post a few more piccies of the menacing digger as it got closer and closer to the house! The whole building is gone now and was left as a pile of bricks and rubble over the weekend. As the workmen decided not to fence it in next to our house I let K and B have a wander over it while I sorted out bits and pieces in the garden. K had a huge space to practise her "cantering" and "jumping".
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Thursday - the noise was amazing as it crashed through the roof of the building.

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Next to the kitchen bay - this is when Allie decided to leave the room for good!

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Sunday morning - a pile of rubble. We were quite taken aback by how large the area looked when flattened.
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Early Monday morning - a lovely view while washing up the breakfast bits!
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Monday morning - Allie has been coaxed back into the kitchen to watch some of the quieter goings on of testing the ground for toxins.

Having been told this morning that the noise level will drop now the digger has cleared away the majority of the rubbish and no there won't be a pneumatic drill to dig up the foundations, I'm sitting here listening to the wonderful sound of ... a pneumatic drill (and have been for the last couple of hours!).
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After the pneumatic drill stopped the great thudding of the "claw" began to get rid of more foundations. The scene from Jurasic Park sprang to mind - when the T-rex slowly thunders closer and closer to the kids in the car and the vibrations made the water in the glass move - this was happening to us!

At least the builders are jolly, as builders generally are. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Goodbye my darling friend.

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Last photo - 6th March 2007

Yesterday was a sad day for us all. Having seemed to perk up from his troubles in the summer, our lovely Jasper rapidly went down hill over the last week. He's always been a rather sensitive puss when it came to changes and, what with the house move meaning different people traipsing through our home, lots of sorting out etc., and the nasty noise and digger (which even scares young Allie) doing its dirty deed so close to us, we've noticed a big change in him over the last month. He'd been extra loving, sitting on our laps, following us and being closer than normal, we knew he wasn't happy, we knew he sensed something was "going on".

This last week though he's turned into an old man, getting painfully thin due to not eating, dehydrated due to not drinking enough, and generally down and not taking care of himself. I had to bath him a couple of days ago as we just couldn't stand the pong any longer (now, strangely the pong (which is a nightmare to get rid of) is actually quite a nice reminder of him - weird, I know), and he didn't even fight me, he just sat in the bath and let me clean him. He spent his final days just resting, lounging outside the bathroom door. I found the final photos I took of him revealed his sad eyes more than in real life - this was our deciding factor.

It has to be one of the hardest decisions to make, letting a much loved pet leave you, even though you know he'll go on to a happier life elsewhere. We've had our tears, but we also feel relief now as we know it certainly was for the best. Jasper has been with P and I since we moved into our first home in 1990 - a mischievous bundle of a rescue kitten from Blue Cross in Victoria. We miss you Jas, but we know you've had a happy life and will continue to live happily wherever you've moved on to.

Rest in peace my little treas.

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First photo taken during his first week with us - June 1990