Woodland activities, polar craft, jelly, peacocks and leaf preservation

Last week (was it last week?) we managed to get some fresh air with friends in the woods.
Some of the kids tramped down stream and came to a mini waterfall



where the minerals in the water had solidified on branches and twigs and stones, giving them a hard casing. We concluded that it might be calcium carbonate (like the stuff that gunks up the kettle), but haven't looked into it yet. I'm thinking of putting some vinegar on it to see if it dissolves, but at the moment the mummified branch is sticking out of my jar of oversized kitchen implements. (We don't do houseproud.)

Of course a fire and marshmallows were compulsory. Ds1 had seen on Ray Mears that in survival cases where it was difficult to light a fire because of damp kindling it was possible to use plastic. So he took apart a blue connector rod pokey stick thing that for some wierd reason ds2 had brought along and set fire to it. Result.

Roasting marshmallows in molten plastic fumes...must be a bit like smoking bacon I assume.

More woodland activities on Monday this week, as we ventured to a local arboretum with a bunch of sweet little mostly-interested-in-what-we-were-doing girls and mildly thuggish feral boys (two of whom were mine). We discovered lots of clusters of hibernating ladybirds under the fern leaves (girls were interested; boys wanted to spear them)

Because I didn't want small child to fill my coat pockets with chunks of rotten wood and acorns, I'd supplied dd with a Tescos carrier. Thankfully the peacock was sensible enough to refuse to step into the bag.

and here she is with something she was determined to relocate to our garden.

After much negotiation I finally persuaded her that large unidentified fungi are probably more comfortable living in woods than in a back garden where a not-very-bright King Charles Spaniel will first pee on them and then eat them. And I definitely put my foot down when it came to taking the Fly Agaric home. Anything that looks like something a gnome would sit on it has got to be a BAD thing.

Ds1's culinary experimentations this week stretched to raspberry jelly with overcooked chocolate topping. Like me, he got impatient with the microwave and found out that if you heat chocolate high enough and hard enough, after the melting stage comes the solidified gunk stage (fractionally before the setting off the smoke alarm stage). I thought the fresh raspberries from the garden were a nice touch. I didn't ask how much he'd touched them before he put them on the top...particularly when I looked at his black fingernails.

At our monthly home ed group last week we made plaster cast fossils (which tied in quite nicely with our polar project fossil craft). Incredibly my kids sat through the whole of a geology talk, although ds1 was doing a good impersonation of a teen (it was the slumped body and spaced-out look that gave it away). I only had to hiss at smallest child once. I did have to hiss at a few adults who were chatting away, oblivious to the fact that their chatter made it impossible to hear the poor woman at the front who was doing her best to educate us about - er - rocks and things (I was listening, honest).

Meanwhile here are the decoupaged natural history boxes that the kids finished off this week for our ongoing polar theme thingy. It should look a bit like this and ours look like this:

Which I think is pretty good, don't you? I thought only ds2 would participate, so wasn't expecting to make three boxes, but the results are great. We haven't blown the eggs to go inside yet. I'm waiting for a good time to be enthused about egg-blowing. But perhaps there never is a good time to be enthused about egg-blowing...

The past few days ds1 has been taking weather measurements for his geography group. He's testing for wind-speed using a home-made anemometer, and rainfall using a home-made rain gauge (an empty lemonade bottle with bottle funnel and jelly in the bottom to make the bottom level). It's taken him two days to realise his anemometer is so stiff it wont turn even if he blows it. Or even if there is a gale. And particularly if he stands with one foot in the conservatory while sticking his arm out with the apparatus and says 'maybe I'm a bit close to the building, but it'll do'.

I suspect an over-enthusiasm for gaffa tape may have contributed to the non-turning design fault. But hopefully fixed now. But, like most science, it's all about experimentation, isn't it?

And today, after two hours of fencing classes with other home edders (that's the sword-sport, not the activity of trying to sell on nicked stuff) I persuaded at least one of my children to the cluttered conservatory table to try preserving some of the junk - I mean leaves - that we'd collected in our Tescos carrier on Monday. Following the instructions here on the ordinarylifemagic blog we bought some glycerin from the chemist and had a go. It was at this point I was particularly glad we hadn't brought home

a) the enormous fungi and

b) the peacock

as the glycerin was about £2.90 a small bottle and it would have taken a good few gallons to cover a peacock and a giant mushroom.

Apparently the leaves have to sit in the glycerin for two days, so watch this space...

As you may have noticed among all these activities, there's not alot of writing going on.

Or alot of maths.

Funny how the two main subjects that most home edders worry about just happen to be the two that all my kids do their best to avoid.

But, hey, who needs times tables and good grammar when you can rampage through a woodland stream, overheat chocolate in a microwave, start fires in damp weather, and preserve leaves - and potentially peacocks - in glycerin.

HESFES 2011

Belatedly, here are some piccys from this year's Home Educator's Summer Festival. We had a fab time. Ds1 turned feral (returning only to grab meals and disappear again), dd adopted several other families (we saw very little of her) and ds2 hung out with a few mates designing computer games (in a field with no computers).

A few of the marquees:

Bongo and band workshopping with the HESFES band (the HESFES band consisting of children from tots to teens, including about 13 drummers!):

Ds1 as one of the many drummers:

Why did you bring me camping?
Because I'm worth it:

But I've got more hair (ds2):

And I'm rougher and tougher than both of you (dd):

Making copper bowls, i.e. bashing a bit of metal for a very long time until it looks slightly more curved than it started off(note the hair wrap, patiently created by a member of one of her adopted families):

Ds1 with his home-made (tin can) drum kit before he got promoted to a proper drum:

Twirling home-made poi thingimagigs:

A demonstration of 'rocket stoves' (made from tin cans):

The result of our group effort and the dog eating an awful lot of king-size cheap dog food (our stove is the shiny one):

Lighting it wasn't so easy:

Hand-painted bandanas:

Beautiful sunset over our tent and van:

It's all been too much:

A less timid life

Risk taking. It's a funny thing that.

You know the saying 'don't play with fire'? Well, I confess that I've let my children play with fire since they were old enough to poke a stick into a bonfire. [note: at the age at which they were capable of doing it, not the age at which some parents might think they should be allowed to do it. ]. I think, for the most part, they have a good knowledge and a healthy respect for fire. They know how it behaves and can respond appropriately. They can use it, and they can play with it. And if they are foolish with it...well, let's just say it's a learning curve. But in a risk-averse society I suspect their fire-related activities would arouse disapproval and horror from many other parents.

[Note, no fingers were singed in the making of this video, though I do think we should cut ds2's hair in preparation for the next time. And yes, there will be a next time :) ]

And as my children travel on their educational learning curve I'm reminded of Gever Tulley and his video on 'Five dangerous things you should let your children do'. Sometimes you find a person in this crazy crazy world who actually talks sense.

As someone who was brought up to 'be careful' all the time, and who has spent their life avoiding risks, if there is anything I would wish for my children it would be to have a less timid life.

The decorating, painting, fishing, pancake-cooking, hill-walking, playing, fire-lighting and 'looking excited for the camera' family

Bit of a catch-up to do on the blogging. Why is it that the longer you leave it the harder it is to get back into posting?

Anyway, we've been up to a few things recently and I've just uploaded some of the photos off my camera. These are in no particular order, but give an idea of what we've been up to over the past fortnight. It looks reassuringly like we've been very busy when I post a whole load of stuff like this.

As mentioned in my last posting I've been decorating the kitchen. I had a little help from dd, who has now got the decorating 'bug' and wants to paint all the walls everywhere...

Anyway, the kitchen is looking good, or at least better than it was. All clean(ish) and new(ish). Seeing as I only usually bother decorating when I'm pregnant (no I'm not) it's nice to actually have a saner un-pregnant perception of colour. Previously any rooms I've painted in this house took on a certain orange or bright yellow 'theme' (see above for an example!). It seemed a good idea at the time.

This bad taste when pregnant thing reminds me of a friend of mine who whenever she was pregnant would buy the most hideous clothes or shoes, something that she would never normally choose. On at least one occasion I had to say 'take the shoes back, they're gross and in a month's time when you're less hormonal you'll regret buying them'. (If this sounds harsh, don't worry, she's still a very good friend of mine, and she wouldn't hold back from giving me the same advice lol). That's not to say that either of us are fashion victims - far from it - just that pregnancy does weird things to your taste, and not just the tasetebud sort of taste. It's a kind of brain rot that sets in. I'm not sure if I ever recovered fully; I've been buying 'comfortable' shoes this past year...

Last week we took up an offer for a local 'palace' whereby you could swap a day ticket for a year's pass. The day ticket is extortionate (something like £40 for a family) , but it is worth it for a whole year. Although the day was cold we made use of the adventure playground, the train, and butterfly house, in the palace grounds. Hopefully it will be warmer next time - I plan to get lots of book reading (and maybe some writing) done there over summer while the kids entertain themselves.

On the train

Ds1, just hanging around in the adventure playground

A butterfly (I'm guessing you worked that one out for yourself).

Ds1 freaked as they kept dive bombing him

And , true to our non-resolution of going somewhere different each week, we went to The White Horse, a chalk horse on a hillside, with friends. This is the horse's head:

It was a bit of a hike up the hill, but not as bad as I'd remembered from BC (before childbirth) which was probably the last time I visited (yikes! Over 10 years ago). I even lugged the storm kettle up the hill in our cowprint granny trolley, just to prove a point. And yes the kettlelit beautifully in the hill-top wind, though I think I smoked out all the other hill-walkers!

Dd was rather frustrated that she couldn't see a horse - I told her it was more of a stick-figure dog than a horse, which probably confused her even more lol.

Proof that I pulled the cow trolley to the top of the hill.

(That's the castle mound in the background)

And here's a view of the walk to the nearby castle mound:

So what else have we been up to? Well we've been to the woods and done some fire-lighting. Here are the kids toasting marsh mallows:

In the woods

And ds2 cooked pancakes for us on Shrove Tuesday. In the background you can see the new colour of the kitchen walls (we haven't done the gloss at this point, so the yucky yellowy-pink is still on the door frames)

A couple of weeks ago we went to a local garden centre that has an animal farm and a small stream. The kids played for ages (and got rather wet feet) while I sat and nattered with a friend who was visiting from Nottingham. And yes, the storm kettle had another outing. Here is ds1 fishing for shrimps with a plastic bag on a stick. These home ed kids like to improvise!

And we visited a science history museum. Here is ds2 after I told him to look 'excited' for the camera.

Ok, well I'd better go now. Will post more soon.

Dens, fires, bird tables, hills and views

What is it about dens that kids love so much? There are expensive courses you can send your kids on to build dens. There are also training courses for Teachers and preschool workers to enable them to enable children to make dens. What is it all about? Just stick a bunch of kids in the woods and 'bobs your uncle' they will most likely go and make a den. Or maybe that's just my kids...

But you have to admit, this is a pretty good den, made by my kids and their friends this week. It was very nearly sabotaged by Jack the dog and his best mate, a large lurcher-type who decided to that running over the roof might be an interesting thing to do. Dogs have a strange concept of 'interesting'.

So what else have we been doing this past week? Well, true to my non-resolution, on Monday we went out for a trip to somewhere we hadn't been for ages. And it was very muddy and uphill and cold. BUT...there was a good view at the top.

So, there I was, having gone all the way up this hill in the cold - have I already mentioned the UPHILL and COLD bit? - pointing out the fabulous view...and what do my kids say?

'I'm hungry, where are the biscuits?'

Perhaps I would have done the same at their age and perhaps my parents would have given me the same withering look that I gave my kids.

What do you mean 'where are the biscuits??!! Look at the view!!!'

I must be getting old. Turning into an 'old gimmer' as one of my friends would say.

The view at the top of the muddy hill. (The view that the kids didn't notice)

dd sat in front of the other view that the kids didn't notice

At the top of the hill the kids explored the woods for a while...

Ds2 chilling out on a branch (not looking at a view)

and we had a sliding down the hill race (though as you can see I was very skilful not to have my attempts filmed!)

The following day - i.e. after we walked at toddler pace back down the muddy hill and put everyone through the washing machine and got some sleep - the kids did some woodwork and made a bird table. It's just a plank with some edging and some cup hooks screwed in the side, but it'll be fab when we get it up in the apple tree in our garden. Ds2 and dd have volunteered to come up with a pulley system to get the bird table up in the tree and down again to restock it. Here's the progress so far:

Nailing in the edging (after the kids had sawed it into pieces). And no, we didn't even have to get the first aid kit out.

Putting in the cup hooks (the chain will be fastened to these, so the table can be hoisted up into the tree)

Painting the table with bird-safe preservative

And today, in between den-building, we had a go with a Kelly Kettle (we had a go last week, but um the fire kept going out)

These storm kettles (also known as Kelly kettles or Aussie Kettles or Irish Kettles or Volcano Kettles) work as follows:




'Made from aluminium it is essentially a double-walled chimney with the water contained in the chimney wall. Once the campkettle is filled with water, simply start a very small fire in the base, set the kettle on the base and drop additional fuel (twigs, leaves, grass, paper, etc.) down the chimney. The large internal surface area of the chimney heats the water very quickly.' (as you can tell I nicked this explanation from someone else, cos I couldn't explain it myself)




And it really works! We tried it today, lit a little fire in the bottom with some birch bark and a few twigs, and the water boiled in hardly any time at all. Not quite the 4 minutes that was advertised, but that's probably because getting damp twigs to light takes a certain amount of experience and quite a few matches and a bit of puffing...




This kettle belongs to a friend. I've now ordered one for our family cause I thought it would be fab for when I'm out with the kids in the woods or at the allotment. And its a good excuse to play with fire.

Don't tut tut me, it's playing with matches that you're not meant to do; playing with fire is fine. And playing with your food is ok too in some circumstances, but not when dining with royalty (apparently though I'm yet to test it). [I have met a duchess, but I didn't have dinner with her. And I once met Jimmy Saville, but I don't suppose I'd play with my food either if he invited me round for cucumber sandwiches. And he's a bit like royalty]




Where were we? Oh yes, playing with fire. Well, we've been having a bit of a fire week. Not only did we have a go with the kelly kettle today, but we also managed to light a really good fire too. A proper one with proper branches and all red and glowy (and rather alot of smoke too). All those years in the girl guides have obviously stood me in good stead. Move over Ray Mears...

A proper camp fire

Our next plan for a day out is to visit a local Roman Villa. It's in a field somewhere up a lane and it doesn't cost anything to go and visit it.

Ok...run through that again...a Roman villa in a field and it's free.

Hmm...if I put on my pessimistic head this probably means that it wont be the most spectacular thing my children and I have ever looked at. Being free doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a pile of rubbish (it might be a pile of roman tiles), but from experience these things are never quite as exciting as Time Team might make them out to be. 'Ah yes, here we have a small Roman buckle and we can learn a lot from this' [cut to fancy tv graphics creating whole Roman from a single roman buckle, including details about what he had for breakfast and whether he likes his eggs sunny side up and what size feet he has... you get my drift].



But, hey, perhaps I should put on my optimistic head instead. Yes, do a worzel gummage and screw on that optimistic head.