The Rainforest, with links

A while back I was trying to tie in dd's desire to do more science, with ds2's ongoing geography learning. I came up with rainforest (and soils - see previous post) as suitable topics that I could engage them both in. Dd has more of an interest in animals than anything else. Below is her rainforest layers poster: 

The rainforest layers printable (top left of the top picture) was the nicest and simplest one I could find. It can be seen here.

I printed out Rainforest food chain items which we laminated and velcro'd onto our felt board. I think I got more satisfaction from laminating than the kids did from the 5 minutes they spent arranging the food web, but that's kinda how it goes sometimes :)

[For info: This is the link to the food chain printable, which I found via this resource here. The latter has other Rainforest printables, worksheets etc. that might be of use if you happen to be doing Rainforesty things.]



In addition to all the rainforest stuff, ds2 did a mini-poster on The Nile and the Aswaan Dam, which was a spin off from the geography book he is using. He will be starting IGCSE geography in September, so I'm trying desperately to do the more projecty stuff now before we get to the hoop jumping.

Wolf Conservancy Trust: Wolves, owls and huskies...

Belated posting of dd's trip to the Wolf Conservancy Trust.

Smoothies and other recent activities

Today, somewhen in between watching Supermarket Sweep ( boy did that bring back memories!) and Jamie's (probably not) 15 minute meals on TV the idea suddenly came to us to make smoothies. So we hauled out the 3-yr old frozen raspberries from the bottom of the freezer and bought yoghurt from our favourite corner shop.

Lots of sugar later, plus addition of some very pippy blackberries (this year's), a glug of milk and a couple of unripe bananas, and we had something resembling a spontaneous smoothy. Not quite Jamie's 15 minute meal, but good enough.

Meanwhile other things have been going on. We (sis and I) cleaned the bird table and seed holders and tried to mend the table  roof with a bit of brush fence and a staple gun. It's been months and months since we last fed them, so it may take more than a wonky new roof and dried mealworms to tempt them back from the neighbours' gardens.

Ds1 has now finished all his archaeology for the year. His last mission was a geophysical survey of a local park in sub- zero temperatures. I guess he's still keen. The group leader said he was 'welcome back anytime', which could be because there aren't many adult volunteers willing to freeze their wotsits off in a field for no apparent recompense.

There could, however, be an alternative reason. The leader did comment:

 'I've taught some very uninterested undergrads and it's a pleasure to find someone keen and who asks sensible questions'

( a small SMUG HOME EDUCATOR MOTHER moment to add to the collection).

Over the past few eeks dd has spent a little more time on her bat lapbook. I did say to her that simply printing out photos from Google was all very well, but how about actually doing some of the bat information content of the lapbook? We arrived at something I'd like to call a compromise. Some might call it a mother's too knackered to argue solution.

The boys have started Conquer Maths (have I mentioned that before?) All seems to be going smoothly. Ds2 discovered that there is a very good reason why you should do the different sections in order when he unexpectedly encountered algebra in the geometry section.

Ds1 is still plodding through IGCSE Geography and Chemistry. The former is proving the most difficult of the two due to his general 'dyslexic' tendencies. We are encountering difficulties that I had not foreseen and that seem, so far, impossible to work around. I'll be writing a separate post about this in the near future.

Spurned on by me browsing USB microscopes and wondering if we can afford them, dh got out our microscope.  He'd neglected to inform me he'd fixed the light on it 18 months ago (I'd been waiting all that time, not daring to nag about yet another thing that needed 'fixing'.) Anyhow, he found a way to fix the web cam to the microscope so we could get a picture on the pc. It needs to be refined, but it looks cool :)

Dd has received a package from her new penfriend in Israel. The package contained lots of sweets which was dd's idea of a perfect delivery! We're yet to receive a package from the recipients of our last worldwide culture swap ( a mini winter swap) but hopefully it will arrive soon.

And now, onwards to Christmas!
(Our first sprinkling of snow, last week)

 

And what else...

...has been happening with the children for the past few weeks (apart from all the art!)

Ds1 plays drums at Rock School for a week. (The staff praised him on his talent and were gobsmacked he'd never had any lessons - just a teeny proud mum moment :) ). Meanwhile ds2 went rollerblading in the local park, and dd went for playdates with her friends.

We go to a local festival, held at a large allotment. Dd stays at the festival with friends for the rest of the day, while we made our way home.

We pick courgettes from the garden. (Note the closeness of the yellow football. Plants in our garden have to be hardy to survive!)

Ds1 continues with his IGCSE chemistry and Geography reading

  Blackberry picking, to make crumble and wine.

Ds2 empties the counties' libraries of books about manga. Then teaches himself.

He makes a short list of equipment he needs to do animation 'old school', then goes onto the internet to do a price comparison.

 Ds2 decides he wants to make shortbread.

We move paving slabs to make a base for the new chicken coop that we're making out of a packing case that was being thrown out (our 10 hens need more space).

 And discover a huge ants' nest:

 Lots of reading - Guinness World Records, British History, The Aztecs, and a 4-inch tome called "3D Game Development"...

Lots of talk and plans for the kids' new Minecraft server:

 Thoughts on design:

We took down our posters and information about Australia and New Zealand:

 And replaced them with posters on space and art:

We started a chart of moon phases. The moon decided to hide behind cloud for the next three nights :)

The children caught flies and fed them to the garden spiders, overcoming their fear of spiders and experimenting with size and type of fly.

We walked to the park intending to pick blackberries. But came home with elderberries for wine.

 Swimming in the lake (bit chilly, but fine once we got over the initial shock!)

And catching crayfish

Ds2 took the screwdriver to the waterpistol to try to fix it.

Wine, all bottled up and fermenting happily under the piano.

Dd and I have a discussion about wine-making, fermentation, yeast, gas and the similarities with the chemistry of bread baking. So that's chemistry, biology, self-sufficiency and home economics in one 5-minute conversation.

Dd continues on her reading journey. Having finally decided she wanted to learn to read (or at least was willing to give it a go), in a matter of weeks she has gone from simple words like cat and bed to reading words like 'couldn't' and 'everyone'. She seems to have an excellent memory for sight-recognition of words, less tendency I think towards phonics deciphering. Each of my children has been different and found their own combination of what works for them. I haven't been teaching her. I just sit with her while she reads. She'll do it at her own pace when she wants to. Being, at the peak of "reading readiness" (which she, herself, has recognised) I expect there'll be no stopping her now.

A Mammoth Catch-Up (now where did I put my stone age woman outfit and club?)

Ok, no mammoths, but that looks like a dinosaur to me. I'll get the club if you get the stone age oven on:


making play dough creations with friends:

Showing the week-long visitor child how to eat with chopsticks:

Warhammer creations, encouraged by ds1's friends sleeping over:

At the natural sandpit with our week-long visitor:

My little Miss David Bailey at work with her camera:

"So long and thanks for the fish":

Runner-up in the Ice Cream Beauty Pageant:

I spend a fortune (about £27) to take two small children to the wildlife park. What do they want to do...

Oh yeah, I know, paddle their hands in the mucky pond by the smelly cafe and try and fish out the 'lucky' coins that people have thrown in:

... And feed the chickens (hasn't anyone noticed we have 4 of the blooming things in our back garden?!):

...And pat a goat. Hey! We can do that for free at the local garden centre. The clue is in the title of the place - 'WILDLIFE centre' Argggh! Anyone interested in seeing some WILD LIFE?

And later in the week...more ice cream (at the park) after going round a little museum with the grandparents (which the kids declared as 'boring' - the museum, not the grandparents).

A trip to do a home ed 'art' workshop at Waddesdon Manor:

All about the paintings of Sleeping Beauty, by the painter Leon watchamacallit:

A fab workshop with a wonderful good-with-kids workshop leader (makes a pleasant change), which actually inspired my kids to put pen to paper:

Yep, I took a few more photos, just to record the event. I repeat, PEN to PAPER :

Ok, so they were rewriting the story of sleeping beauty as 'Sleeping Beauty learns to swear', but hey ho, but did I mention they were putting PEN to PAPER. (By the way, I think the above is a picture of a time machine).

And dd drew dinosaurs (and dogs) for her version of Sleeping Beauty. 'Is that a picture of sleeping beauty?' 'No. It's dogs and dinosaurs' (oh yes, silly mummy).

As she has so neatly demonstrated, dinosaurs are just spikey versions of dogs:

Playing at the local natural sandpit with friends again:

Making 'Clay Man' out of the natural clay she found at the sandpit:

We test out the new smaller tent and have to lop a few branches off the apple tree to fit it in the garden. Are we really going to spend 3 weeks camping in that?!:

A busy week and feeling peaky:

A farrier turns up at the cottage near our home ed group. We are invited to watch by the inhabitants, who coincidentally home educated their children too. The woman looked strangely familiar, but I just couldn't place her and it's going to bug me for some time.

The end (for now).