Sunday, March 23, 2008

We got the white stuff!

After a lot of waiting and watching other parts of the country get their share of snow since the new year, we finally got the white stuff on Sunday!

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Little snowman

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Baking and making.

In between completing projects:

Katie made some yummy cookies and rock cakes (using her special recipe which replaces currants with chopped chocolate) and Ben has made a large batch of leek, potato and carrot soup to see us through most of the week for lunch time.
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We also sowed cress seeds inside clean egg shells and toy boots which we found in the craft cupboard.
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Following the instructions in Katie's "girls' handbook" for Ukrainian eggs, she and Ben decorated eggs using melted wax followed by a dipping in the dye. Blowing the eggs was a new thing for us and looked extremely funny (at the right angle). Katie tried to melt the wax after but it was awkward and we thought the waxed version looked quite lovely. Ben's yellow egg is "Eggbert" a character he's adored from a PC game for some time. The eggs on the website above look fabulous; I think a little more practise is needed at our end!
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We've finished our Pop Art, Myths and Legends and How to Write Stories projects:

We studied the works of Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton and Roy Litchenstein and made our own paintings, collages and computer generated images.

On the writing stories front, I think in the end the book by Celia Warren was ever so good. Katie said she'd thoroughly enjoyed following it, but then she is a bit of a reader and writer anyway. Ben struggled in places. He's not good at writing in length and prefers to use the PC - his ideas seem to flow easier using this method. He has a brilliant imagination when it comes to playing, but he get a serious case of writer's block when it comes to getting things down on paper. He's still reading his Tintin books avidly and we now have an on-going Scrabble game out on the table as a free for all which he's eagerly participating in.

We found some brilliant websites for myths and legends. Particularly liked this one and this one. Reading myths from our local area was interesting and we all enjoyed writing our own using the website's story maker. Drawing a dragon head was fun too.

I'm going to start decorating Ben's room over the next few days. We have some of Katie's cream paint left over and were able to get another tin half price in a closing down sale so hopefully his room won't be as costly as Katie's! He's asked for "splodges" of different paint colours on one wall! Sounds fun. We've come across magnet and blackboard paint in various bright colours which we may use tester pots of to get the splodge effect. Clearing out his room was much easier than when I had to clear Katie's! It's given us a good opportunity to give the fish tank a good clean. Fishes are in the baking bowl at the mo, much to the amusement of the visiting puss! He's learning the word "no" very, very quickly.
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Monday, March 17, 2008

Couple of gardening tips.

Picked these tips up from a mag recently:

Keep old used tea bags and place them at the bottom of the gardening pot before adding any compost. The bags will absorb the water and keep the moisture in for longer.

I find wearing gardening gloves quite restrictive at times so to keep my finger nails clean I dig them into a bar of soap before I begin.

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Katie and Ben split for sleepovers on Thursday night with Katie's friend staying with us and Ben going to his buddy for the evening. The next day we all met up to do some tie dyeing. I'm sure most readers know what this is, but I came across this website with a bit of info and the history too which is quite interesting. Good fun, very, very messy (protect every inch of floor, table, clothing and skin if possible, as the dye is lethal when it comes to staining, and it seems to get everywhere) and wonderful results in the end. Rinsing out the t-shirts 24 hours later and then washing them at 30 degrees was probably the hardest part as we all wanted to wear them immediately! Katie and Ben even ironed there ones themselves! Here's the results.
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This week we shall endeavour to finish all the outstanding projects we've been working on ready for an Easter break. Today we looked at Longitude and Latitude, the final section on our mapping project, using this website for guidance. The game is quite good fun and helps the whole thing sink in a little better. I'm quite impressed with the whole site actually. We explored a bit and found this solar system game which was fun. Place the planets, comets etc., where you want around the sun to see what disasters may occur! Spurred some chatting about the "big bang" and how conveniently placed Earth is to ensure life can exist.
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Sunday, March 09, 2008

Gardening

Spent Thursday afternoon in the garden enjoying a little Spring weather as we planted a row of shallots (thank you Mr. P. from next door).
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Ben decided to make mud pies for the rest of the afternoon and Katie planted out some small shrubs she'd been nurturing indoors.
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Katie and I also planted our new Granny Smith apple tree that we'd bought for a bargain £4.99. We had it still in it's packaging indoors for about a month and found two blossom flowers and several buds once we'd unwrapped it. Hopefully it'll take and produce some tasty fruits in the years to come.
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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Drip, drip ...

... great. We've just had a downpour and the ceiling is leaking onto the printer. When we moved in we noticed (what we thought was) a stain on the ceiling, but we hadn't had any trouble from it, until now. The rain seems to get into this house in the strangest places and we can't seem to work out how it does it. Ben's window often leaks if the rain is hard against the pane of glass, and the conservatory leaks too at times, but there's nothing obviously wrong when we check outside!

Something else to deal with I guess.

Going to snuggle by the fire now and watch Boston Legal and see how many drips we can collect before bed time!
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National Space Centre

Met up with a few families from our HE group at Leicester's National Space Centre a couple of Friday's ago. Met at 11 and after a rather lengthy sorting out of correct entry prices we set off round the first part of the museum set on three small floors which travel up the side of this pretty tall space rocket (Thor). We were all booked into a fabulous "Astronaut" film at 12 noon which Ben was a little dubious about to start with. A little daunting I must say for those not happy with the unknown! A bit like a planatarium inside, the comfy seats are designed to enable you to view the screen which covered the sides and ceiling of the theatre giving you a wonderful experience during the performance. The film was about how to be/what it's like to be an astronaut, which was very well put together and I only had to close my eyes once (in fear of going horribly dizzy) when they showed us some anti-gravity machine which we'd seen before on a James May programme on TV. I know for sure that I certainly haven't got the staminar, brains and probably the guts, to be one of the fortunate few to travel into space.
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After the film we grabbed our picnic lunch and were lucky enough to have space in the indoor school's picnic area. The lady on the desk said we'd picked a really good day with only a handful of schools there and they are all small numbers. She said the week before and week after they were having very large numbers of children.

We headed for the rest of the exhibition on the ground floor which was just excellent. Lots to read but also lots of fun and easy interactive areas for everyone to try out. So many great sections, but I loved the solar system, Ben enjoyed sitting inside a pod, turning himself into an alien and also this huge world and I think Katie and her friend enjoyed being weather girls!
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Took us a while to get there but I think it was well worth it and I must say the staff at the Centre were really friendly, helpful and happy to please. Before the visit, the staff were quick to answer my many emails about pricing, eating areas, etc., etc., and when they'd got the pricing wrong on the day, they were quick to deal with it and refund families who'd been overcharged.
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If you're planning a visit, email them first. We were told that HE families receive school discounts for entry (quite a bit cheaper than normal entry prices) if you show some from of ID. I explained that not all H. Edders belong to an organisation and therefore wouldn't have an ID card and she was happy to continue to offer the same discount. We also used our Tesco vouchers with the school's discount, so it wasn't a pricey day out (apart from the petrol of course!).

Their website's educational section has some really good ideas for fun learning too.

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Way behind on my posts ...

So here's the promised pictures of Katie's room which I remembered to take today:
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Love those floor cushions, the photo doesn't do them justice. Also, the fireplace wasn't painted by me! When I get some free time (ha, ha), I'll have a bash at restoring it (or just painting it black probably).
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Katie painted this lovely horse some time ago, it looks great on the chimney breast.
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Made this memo board using an old Ikea frame, 4 mtrs of ribbon and some beautiful vintage style horse material first seen on "Islamic Homeschool" blog and purchased on e-bay.
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Katie asked me to put up a piccie of her growing collection of house plants. This is just a very small number of them!

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

To all mums everywhere ...

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Everyone snuggled into bed first thing to watch an old Top Gear (through BBC-i) on the laptop! I received a very sweet homemade gift of flowers in a basket with a heart made out of Fimo from Katie, and a very glittery card from Ben, plus a large bottle of my favourite tipple - Baileys.

Cooked a roast for Ps parents and drank a few glasses of wine, chatting away, as you do! A lovely day from start to finish.

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