Home-edible

A New Blogging Start

2012-01-12T23:15:00.001Z

Please follow me here:

http://livegrownourishcreate.wordpress.com/

Gluten Free Dairy Free Vegan Pizzas!

2011-12-09T21:55:00.000Z

It can sometimes be a bit of a challenge to make party style snack foods on a gluten free dairy free diet...but I think we hit the jackpot with these:

The bases were made using Hale & Hearty Quick & Easy Pizza Mix which is by far the best gluten free mix we have tried (and we have tried quite a few...in the name of research of course ;-)). We made up the mix, rolled out and cut into 3 inch circles with scone cutters. The circles were then topped with tomato paste, some dried Italian herbs and grated Mozzarella style Cheezly then sliced tomatoes and sauteed courgette & red onion. Cooked for about 15 minutes at 200 degrees and voila - delicious mini pizzas without a sniff of gluten or casein.

Yum yum.

Making Pomanders

2011-11-24T11:27:00.000Z

In Elizabethan times, people believed that the Plague was caused by foul smells, so they made pomanders to keep the air smelling sweet.

Yesterday, we made pomanders. This is Waif's in progress. I think this lovely chap will definitely keep the plague away this winter :-)

Halloween Art

2011-10-31T14:46:00.000Z

Oh my, has it really been that long since I posted on here?!

Thought I would share the rather fabulous posters the boys made for Halloween this year. The instructions are on That Artist Woman's blog. If you haven't been there before, do stop and check it out. She has some wonderful projects for kids of all ages.

Here are a couple of progress shots:

And here are the finished articles. First up Gman (11):

I just love the little devil fella top right. He started out as an owl, but then when Gman stuck the nose on upside down, that changed! A great lesson in the art of accepting mistakes, and realising that sometimes great things come from them! Gman was especially pleased with his extraordinarily gruesome eyeball :-)

Next up, Waif (6):

Possibly the cutest, saddest Frankenstein's Monster you are ever likely to see!

An ICAD tribute to home education

2011-07-22T13:42:00.000+01:00

When I bought a magazine this morning, I was given a complementary copy of a well known national newspaper...rather than waste it, I thought I would just start snipping words that attracted my attention and put these on my index card. It ended up as quite a tribute to the joys of home education, so I thought I would post it on here!

The boys have continued another week with the ICAD Challenge. Here's a card each from their week:

Gman -

Waif -

The rest can be found in our Flickr set here.

Halfway thru the ICAD Challenge

2011-07-15T22:19:00.000+01:00

And Waif is celebrating with fireworks:

Check out Daisy Yellow for more ICAD fun!

Felt like making pizza

2011-07-12T10:23:00.000+01:00

I know, it's been a while :-)

But couldn't resist sharing Waif's felt pizza with you:

We roughly followed this tutorial. I cut the pieces out but Waif did all the sewing. Very proud of him :-)

There is so much I could be reporting here. The boys have been busy making lapbooks, and writing poems and stories, and just generally soaking stuff up, but where's the time?!?!

They are still continuing with Daisy Yellow's ICAD challenge. Here's a couple of recent cards from each of them.

Gman:

Waif:

If you wanna see more, check out our Flickr set.

Waif neatly sums up the index-card-a-day challenge

2011-06-14T14:06:00.002+01:00

More index cards

2011-06-10T22:26:00.000+01:00

10 days in and we are still going strong with the index cards! Here's some of the boys' creations:

Gman's:

Waif's:

Check out Daisy Yellow's blog for lots of inspiration for your index cards. You have until the 15th June to get started.

Coloured Index Cards are Fun Too!

2011-06-01T10:07:00.000+01:00

Second day of the index-card-a-day challenge. Found some coloured index cards that I bought for revision for a course I did years ago. We all had fun with these - me with my doodles, Gman and his cats, and Waif and his creatures.

Index-Card-A-Day Start

2011-05-31T13:24:00.000+01:00

We made a start on Daisy Yellow's index-card-a-day challenge (which you can read more about here)

From top to bottom is my card, then Gman's, then Waif's:

You can sign up any time before 15th June, so what are you waiting for?

Index-Card-A-Day

2011-05-29T22:26:00.000+01:00

After Barb decided to take a summer break from Sketch Tuesday this year, we have been looking for something to fill the gap...and here it is! It's an Index-Card-A-Day challenge, c/o Daisy Yellow. Throughout June, July and August, we will each do something creative with an index card. Ideas from Daisy Yellow are:

♥ draw ♥ doodle ♥ write ♥ collage ♥ paint ♥ cut ♥ haiku ♥ stamp ♥ stitch ♥

We will do these and more I'm sure. It should be fun, why not join in too?!

2011-05-25T10:58:00.001+01:00

The Dalai Lama: Foreword by His Holiness The Dalai Lama by Demi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a lovely book, telling the life story of the 14th Dalai Lama. I read it with my boys, aged 11 and 6, and both enjoyed it. They particularly liked hearing about the Dalai Lama as a mischievous boy!! A well written and beautifully illustrated book - one to treasure.

View all my reviews

Sketching Spices

2011-05-23T08:55:00.000+01:00

This week's Sketch Tuesday assignment was to sketch a spice or spice jar. The boys both relaxed into this one beautifully and produced these sketches:

Didn't they do well?

If you haven't discovered Sketch Tuesday yet, then hop on over to Harmony Art Mom to find out more :-)

As well as the sketching, both boys have started an art journal. Gman is using his very much in the style of a private diary, so won't be sharing his, but Waif is enjoying using his as a place to experiment with paint, collage and (best of all!) mama's ink and stamps. Yes, it does get messy, but I'm so pleased they both decided to do journals, cos I have found this such fun myself.

On the non-art side of things, both boys are enjoying studying via lapbooks. Waif is busy putting together one on pandas; and Gman is working on two at the moment - one on Buddhism, the other on pandas. I think they will complete these in the next week or so. Project based learning certainly seems to suit their learning style.

Book Review - Buddha at Bedtimme

2011-05-18T09:06:00.002+01:00

Buddha at Bedtime: Tales of Love and Wisdom for You to Read with Your Child to Enchant, Enlighten and Inspire by Dharmachari Nagaraja

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I cannot begin to describe how much I love this book! I bought it to help my two homeschooled boys (aged 11 and 6) to learn about Buddhism, but hadn't anticipated that they would ask nearly every evening if we can do "buddha" tonight please mum? There is a nice section on relaxation for kids, as well as three different guided meditations, and an explanation of Buddhism and its relevance today. Then there are the stories, which are based on the traditional Jataka tales, and are beautifully told - the language itself is meditative, and the illustrations are gorgeous. You certainly do not have to be a Buddhist to appreciate these stories.

The only (minor) criticism I have is that the illustration of "Buddha" throughout is not Buddha, but Ho-Tei. Maybe they will sort that out for the next edition :-)

View all my reviews

Book Sharing Monday - A Seed is Sleepy

2011-05-09T08:52:00.000+01:00

Last month, I shared "An Egg is Quiet". This book is by the same author and illustrator and is another example of an informative and yet poignantly beautiful book.

Lapbook Crazy!

2011-05-01T19:07:00.000+01:00

This month, the boys have mostly been making lapbooks...

Gman decided he would do a lapbook about dogs:

Waif plumped for a lapbook on birds:

Both boys worked really hard and are jusifiably proud of their work!

More pictures of the lapbooks can be found in my Flickr sets here and here.

Book Sharing Monday - An Egg is Quiet

2011-04-04T10:33:00.000+01:00

Today I am sharing this beautiful book "An Egg is Quiet" by Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long. If there is a kids' scientific book that is as beautifully illustrated and enchantingly written as this one, then I have never come across it. A truly awesome and awe-inspiring book. Quite lovely.

Boning up on Bones

2011-03-31T09:28:00.000+01:00

As you might be able to tell from the books in our Library Thing sidebar, we are learnig about bones at the moment. It all started with this rather excellent book.

It says it's aimed at 5-9 year olds, but Gman (11) has equally enjoyed doing the experiments and singing the bone song. Sample verse (to the tune of "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain":

Yes, my bones need calcium phosphate so they'll grow (uh, huh)
Yes, my bones need calcium phosphate so they'll grow
Yes, my bones need calcium phosphate
Or they'd never ca-ci-fi-cate
Rubber bones are not that great a fate (oh, no)!

This has inspired us to find out more about bones, and do further experiments. We downloaded the "Bones: An Exhibit Inside You" from the Children's Museum in Indianopolis and that had loads more ideas in too. One of the experiments was to make a model of a bone from the inside out, involving a straw (for the hollow centre), playdough with rice crispies in (spongy bone), snips of red and blue embroidery thread (for veins) and more dough for the outside (compact bone). The boys then cut a cross section of the "bone" and painted and labelled the different layers.

Science was never this fun when I was at school!! Because we are a gluten free household and we didn't have any commercial playdough, we made our own, using the recipe below:

GLUTEN FREE HOME MADE PLAYDOUGH

3/4 cup cornflour
3/4 cup salt
3/4 cup rice flour
3tsps cream of tartar
2tsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups water
few drops food colouring

Put all the ingredients except the food colouring into a pan and cook until thickened, stirring continuously. Let cool, then add the food colouring and knead in until the colour is evenly distributed and dough is no longer sticky.

If you are making this, I would recommend gloves for the dyeing bit, or you could end up with blue hands :-)

The boys are making lapbooks of their bone studies so watch this space for more bony fun!

Book Sharing Monday - Light Reading

2011-03-28T11:23:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I posted, and a very long time since a Book Sharing Monday post, but I couldn't resist sharing our love of these books!

Waif is currently very keen on reading stories aloud to all and sundry. He surprised us by actually liking the Oxford Reading Tree series (Biff, Chip et al known to thousands of primary school children around the country) but I can't say as any of us were all that enamoured of some of the stories. Then we rediscovered a couple of these Light Reading books on our shelves, and have been gradually acquiring the full set from Amazon over the last few weeks (mostly second hand for £0.01 each!).

The books are aimed at beginning readers but appeal to Gman (11) too and equally to us parents ;-). The illustrations are very simple and the family that is the subject of the stories is presented in a lovingly humourous way. There's a hopeless-at-DIY Dad, a bossy big sister who always has her nose in a book, and two naughty brothers. From reading certain reviews on Amazon, I am guessing that some people don't really "get" the humour but we LOVE THESE BOOKS!! And how could you not love a kid's book that starts with these lines:

Katherine plays the recorder.
Roger plays the piano.
Mark plays the fool.

Brilliant.

In Praise of Sketch Tuesday

2011-02-17T10:00:00.000Z

I have mentioned before that we participate in Sketch Tuesday over on Barb's Harmony Art Mom blog. Each Tuesday, Barb sets an assignment of something to sketch, due in the following Monday. These vary wildy and we always look forward to finding out what the next assignment is going to be. We also look forward to the slideshow of the previous week's entries and enjoy seeing what ideas others have come up with for the assignment. What I like about Sketch Tuesday is that it is participation without competition, so there's that feeling of being part of a group of people doing the same thing, without the boys feeling that they are in competition with others. I also love that Barb allows parents to take part as well so I get to sit down and sketch with the boys every week too :-). I never did much art as a youngster so now I'm making up for lost time. It just goes to show that home education is a journey for the whole family, not just the children!

Anyway, enough talk, here are some of the boys' favourite sketches from the past five months we have been taking part:

Here are some of Gman's:

"Sketch Something with Antenna"

"Sketch something you use to treat a cold"

"Sketch something you see on a boat"

"Sketch something you make with water"

And some of Waif's:

"Sketch something with eyes"

"Sketch something you use to clean the house"

"Sketch something beginning with t"

"Sketch something you find in a toolbox"

And just to prove that I join in too, here are some of mine:

"Sketch something you see in an art museum"

"Sketch something with antennae"

"Sketch something you study in science"

Have I convinced you yet?

If you don't already participate, then head on over to Harmony Art Mom and check it out. There's nothing to lose!

Back again

2011-02-16T12:53:00.001Z

I've decided to move this blog back to blogger after successfully moving my sewing blog here.

Will do some "proper" posts soon ;-)

Winter Art

2010-12-21T12:29:00.000Z

Well, I've had a break from posting on this blog...but it hasn't really changed what we do, so thought I would share a few of the boys' latest beauties with you all :-)

Here are some tea light lanterns they decorated yesterday. I can't find link to tutorial but basically you mod-podge the jars, add strips of tissue paper and torn sheet music (this is "Winter Wonderland") plus bits of glitter in our case :-) They look beautiful with the little candles in:

The boys have also made some lovely paintings of winter trees:

(and yes, that is some more glitter!)

We have continued with the Sketch Tuesday and are all seeing real improvements in our sketching abilities. The boys have picked their favourites from recent assignments:

Gman likes his "something to cure a cold" sketch:

And Waif was especially proud of his "something you find in a toolbox":

Oh, and we've been doing more Van Gogh inspired art. Van Gogh is both boys' favourite artist at the moment.

Here's Gman's vase of flowers:

And Waif's:

This will probably be the last post of 2010...see you in 2011. Let's hope it's a good one!

Taking a Blog Break

2010-10-18T12:27:00.000+01:00

I am taking a break from this blog cos I have been wondering to myself whether I am doing stuff with the boys because I think they will enjoy/learn from it or because it will make great pics for this blog :-s

Wonder if other home ed bloggers agonise over this, or is it just my overactive guilt complex?

Matisse Week

2010-10-04T14:39:00.000+01:00

This last week, the boys have been learning about the artist Henri Matisse. We started by reading "Drawing with Scissors" and also watched an excellent BBC documentary "Modern Masters Matisse". And of course, we got stuck in by doing our own art in the style of Matisse.

The boys made Matisse inspired collages:

(although Gman had trouble grasping the big, bold shapes concept at first!!)

made collaged name panels (an idea from Deep Space Sparkle)

had a go at printing shapes over a collaged background (this idea from the "What's the Big Idea?" book mentioned in this post.

And favourite of all, this wonderful Matisse-inspired dancer collage, another project idea from the excellent Deep Space Sparkle site:

Sketch Tuesday

2010-09-21T14:28:00.000+01:00

Having agreed with the boys' request to do some art every day, I was very excited to find out about "Sketch Tuesday". I originally found out about this from this post on Nadene's excellent homeschool blog, Practical Pages, and thought it sounded just the job. Our first assignment was to sketch "something with whiskers". Gman chose to draw a tiger, and Waif quickly followed suit. Here they are at work on their pics:

And here are their completed drawings:

I even had a go and drew this slightly odd looking rabbit:

If you hop (teehee) on over to Harmony Mom's post here you can see the album of people's sketches on this theme. The front cover is Gman's tiger and very proud he is too :-)

This week's assignment is "something that floats". Watch this space!

Favourite Art Books

2010-09-14T14:18:00.000+01:00

In the Snooze Academy, art always wins the homeschool day! The boys find it relaxing and rewarding and we all learn a lot along the journey. We get a lot of ideas for art projects from websites and blogs (and always link to these when we do) but also use books and these are a few of our current favourites:

Discovering Great Artists

This is an excellent book for finding out all about some of the greatest masters in the art world with one or two projects for each artist. They are graded by ability, by time taken and use a variety of techniques and materials, so great for ideas for using all the different art materials we seem to be constantly accumulating! It is a little short on illustrations of what the "finished product" might look like, but in some ways that is a good thing.

What's the Big Idea? Activities and Adventures in Abstract Art (Art Explorers series)

We used the Impressionist version of this book extensively when Gman was doing his impressionist lapbook earlier in the year. We also have editions on Expressionist Art, Pop Art and Surrealism. They are all fabulous, fabulous books! Each artist is introduced by a section showing a piece of their work followed by questions about the piece which really get the children properly looking at and thinking about the picture. Then there are a couple of different projects for each artist with very clear instructions and pictures of the completed work by children of various ages. We recently did some "Picasso faces" using this book as a springboard:

I cannot recommend this series of books highly enough. They really are excellent.

Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists

Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists is our new favourite art inspiration book. This book isn't aimed at children but there are a lot of ideas in it that could be used by kids. There are 52 different "labs", each giving a starting point for drawing. They are light hearted, fun and whimsical, just what we like :-). To get an idea of the sort of thing included in the book, check out the author's blog, especially the assignments and tutorials down the left hand side.

The Lighting of a Fire or Two

2010-09-09T18:28:00.000+01:00

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. - William Butler Yeats

Well, forest school is drawing to a close. Tomorrow is the final session. It's been a great experience for the boys who have learned how to use various tools (secateurs, loppers, bow saw); collected firewood; whittled sticks to make marshmallow skewers; fashioned cups from apples and oranges; built dens; created nature pictures using blackberries and raspberries as 'paint" and of course, learned how to light a fire and keep it burning! The experience has hopefully been a fire lighting one in the sense that Yeats refers to above :-)

Continuing with a woody theme, we attended the Party in the Woods at Reffley Woods last weekend. Gman was particularly taken with a drumming workshop held in small clearing in the woods. He banged the drums while Waif shook his thang:

I'm not sure how we have missed visiting these woods before, given their proximity to home, but we will definitely be returning not least because we spotted a bumper crop of not-quite-ripe blackberries which we will be returning to harvest this week (if others don't beat us to it!)

This week has hopefully seen the sparking of a love of sewing in Waif. He patiently sat and sewed a little drawstring bag for his Granny, and was very proud of the result:

Protracted

2010-08-19T09:28:00.000+01:00

Who knew you could make such beautiful art using a protractor of all things?

Inspired by this post on the fabulous Art Projects for Kids website, the boys and I had a go at making these geometric pictures in the style of artist Frank Stella. They turned out fantastically well and were fun, and even meditative to do. As you can see, even though we all three followed the same restrictions (six traces round the protractor - three vertical, three horizontal and limited ourselves to six colours each) the three pieces are very different:

Here's Waif working on his:

And Gman steps back to contemplate his work in progress:

And here's the three finished pictures:

Catch Up

2010-08-12T21:33:00.000+01:00

Is it really that long since I posted? Yikes. Time flies when you're having fun.

So what have boys been up to?

We've visited several local art exhibitions, including my favourite, a textile art exhibition at Blickling Hall. No photos of the exhibition but here's the boys enjoying the grounds:

We've done some more expressionist style paintings. These are expressing an "angry" feeling using unusual colour combos:

We've been on a visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. The boys are lucky enough to have a grandfather who worked as an aircraft engineer at Duxford in the early sixties, so he was able to give them lots of insider knowledge on the planes.

Another highlight of the last few weeks has been the first session of Forest School (there are five more 2-hour sessions to go). Here the boys will be learning about such exciting things as using tools, making a campfire, identifying plants in the wood etc. The first session was promising, hopefully I will be able to post some pics in an ensuing entry.

Art, Rust and Picture Perfect Boyhoods

2010-07-17T22:50:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I've posted on here, but not because we haven't been busy...

We've done some more abstract art, using watercolours and marker pens:

This was with the help of the great book "Painting Abstracts: Ideas, Projects and Techniques". It's not a children's book by any means but a lot of the projects are accessible or adaptable for kids and the great thing is they aren't too prescriptive so allow the kids to go off at their own tangent.

We've done some more experiments relating to Gman's rock project. The most recent of these goes against all my instincts and turns something that is perfectly edible (grapefruit) into something most inedible (a fake geode)!! This project was taken from a fab little book we have out of the library and involves layering Plaster of Paris mix into the emptied grapefruit shell, then sprinkling in alum crystals and topping up each day with some alum mixture. We put a little red and blue food colouring in the mix to make it purple and sparkly! And yes, it is a messy process :-)

Waif particularly enjoyed doing some rust dyeing this week. Again we took this project from a book aimed at adults: Fabric Art Workshop but which has a few projects that would be good to do with kids, as long as you take care and use rubber gloves etc. To make this fabric, first of all we laid our unbleached cotton in a metal tray, then dampened it with a mixture of vinegar and water. Next we ferreted around in the shed for some metal artefacts, some already rusty, some not eg washers, steel wool, weights, nails etc and arranged these on top of the fabric before spraying again with the vinegar and water mixture. We placed the tray inside a black bin bag, tied it closed, weighed it down and left for 24+ hours.

This is what it looked like when we took it out of the bag:

Waif donned some rubber gloves and carefully removed the rusty things (we put them aside in an old ice cream tub for "next time") then we soaked the cloth in a mixture of salt and hot water to set the dye. The cloth is beautiful, partly because you can see in it what you like eg a treasure map, a wolf, the moon, monsters, an explosion in space...what can you see?

As well as the art and rocks, we have also been enjoying some old fashioned stories together. Following a recommendation on Julie's Homeschooling-ideas blog, we got hold of the book "A Picture Perfect Childhood". I found this a really inspiring book, convincing me that reading picture books to the boys (including 10 year old Gman) would be beneficial for all of us. We've been slotting in a story after lunch each day, starting with the beautiful picture book, "The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales" and both the boys and myself have been really enjoying it. It's a lovely, quiet, cuddly time together and the stories themselves are raising plenty of issues to talk about. Hopefully it will help balance out some of the over-boisterous boyish behavior that has been landing them in trouble this week, and help them get in touch with a gentler side...

Edible Science Experiments are the Best

2010-07-03T21:31:00.000+01:00

Gman has started on his latest project - Rocks and Minerals. This has given us a great opportunity to make some toffee and honeycomb...oops, I mean igneous rocks :-). Here's how to do it:

First, put a greased baking tray in the freezer for an hour or two.

Place about 500g sugar and a few splashes of water into a saucepan. Heat until melted and golden brown. You need to stir fairly constantly to make sure it doesn't burn and stick to the bottom of the pan.

Use oven gloves to take the baking tray out of the freezer.

To make a glass like substance, simply tip the mixture straight onto your baking tray. It will set almost instantly, but certainly be ready to hack away and eat (er, study) after 10 minutes.

If you want to make a pumice like rock, then add a teaspoon or so of bicarbonate of soda to your mixture before you pour it onto the tray.

The honeycomb (oops, I mean pumice) is particularly good with ice cream ;-P.

As well as the rocks project, the boys have also been enjoying recreating more artistic masterpieces, including this Pollack-inspired masterpiece:

Waif got up one morning deciding that today he would "do" Van Gogh, and produced several small pictures, carefully copied from a little book of Van Gogh pictures that we picked up at the Fitzwilliam Museum. We put them all together and made a display poster:

Aren't they fab?

Those that saw this earlier post will know that we like to home educate as thriftily as possible, so we were quite excited to find that a local primary school which was closing and moving premises was holding a book sale. For £2 we got a stack of educational books, including a massive poetry book just in time for next week's poetry themed home ed group. Yay!

Ancient Mexico Lapbook

2010-06-28T21:53:00.000+01:00

I promised pics of Gman's Ancient Mexico lapbook and here they are:

Gman particularly loved learning about the Aztecs - possibly something to do with the human sacrifices and general goriness, but that's ok!!

Presenting...Gman's Completed Lapbook on Mexico!

2010-06-22T17:22:00.000+01:00

Gman has finished his Mexico lapbook. Little did we realise that he had done so much work on so many mini-books that he would need two oversized lapbooks :-) ; one for Modern Mexico and one for Ancient Mexico. Here's some pics of the modern Mexico lapbook:

Gman has really enjoyed this project, particularly customising his own minibooks rather than using templates.

I will post pics of his Ancient Mexico lapbook in another post...

Gluten Free Cornmeal Hush Puppies

2010-06-02T09:25:00.000+01:00

I think I have been neglecting the edible side of this blog for a while, so thought I would share this recipe with you. These are pretty yummy!

Gluten and Dairy Free Cornmeal Hush Puppies

1 onion, very finely chopped

1 egg, beaten

1 cup unsweetened soya milk

1 cup coarse cornmeal

1 cup gluten free flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

good grind of pepper

pinch of chilli powder

Simply mix everything together until you have a fairly smooth batter. You may need to add a little extra soya milk.

Heat some oil in a frying pan or skillet and drop ladlefuls of the mixture into the pan. Cook for a few of minutes on each side until they are nice and golden and puffy. Keep warm while you fry the rest.

Makes about 8, depending on size.

Serve with something nice and spicy :-)

You Can't Build a Sandcastle with a Clipboard in your Hand

2010-05-31T21:12:00.000+01:00

[gallery orderby="ID"]

This week we had a day out at the seaside with some other home educating friends. The boys hunted for interesting rocks and shells; drew on the sea walls with the chalk from the beach; fished around in a rockpool, finding a crab (sadly, dead :-(); buried some treasure and marked with a cross and a circle of stones; had a game of crazy golf and of course, ate ice lollies! While we were on the beach, a school trip of about 60 children and teachers arrived. We gawped and eavesdropped :-P. The children appeared to be looking for interesting items for an art class. All had clipboards (colour coded for each class) and were instructed that they couldn't go on the tantalising rocks that our kids had just been gleefully leaping around, couldn't go too far this way or that way, shouldn't pick up anything that might be slimy or smelly and were each given just one small ziploc bag to put their finds into. How to take the fun out of a trip to the seaside?!?

Art in the Garden

2010-05-24T09:59:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I took the boys to a marvellous art exhibition called "Art in the Garden" which was held in a beautiful garden in the nearby village of Fincham. Here's a selection of some of the installations/sculptures:

Of particular relevance to us (as a family opposing local plans to build a waste incinerator) was this installation:

Everything is made of plastic that cannot currently be recycled in Norfolk ie will sit for hundreds of years in landfill. A beautiful, colourful piece of art but a sobering lesson. Here's the text that the artist had posted alongside it, hopefully it will be readable:

After looking around the garden, the boys also used pencils provided to make their own pictures, which will be laminated and displayed in the artist's studio. Here's Gman with his "volcanic ash cloud" picture:

Last week we had a few days break at Center Parcs. One of the advantages of being a home educating family is being able to visit attractions during the less busy term time :-). The boys loved being able to ride their bikes all around without any traffic, as well as playing in the wilder parts of the woods. They also swam, played crazy golf, went bowling and had a go at painting some pottery:

All in all, a lovely week!

We have also had yet another visit to Dersingham Bog Nature Reserve - still our favourite place for a walk - and the boys practiced their balancing skills and cheesy grins:

A Car Boot Sale Education

2010-05-16T21:11:00.000+01:00

Who says home education needs to be expensive?

At this morning's boot sale we picked up a vintage weaving loom, two primary science books, three books interviewing children's authors (Telling Tales series) a set of Oxford Learning Tree readers, a workbook on telling the time, a book of scary stories and Star Wars Monopoly. OK, not sure of the educational value of the Monopoly but all the same :-)

So what have we been up to the last couple of weeks..?

More on the Aztecs as part of Gman's Mexico lapbook project. The boys are quite taken with the somewhat gory nature of this particular period of ancient history. I think it's the live human sacrifices that do it! Gman patiently stuck down loads of little gummed squares to make this two headed-serpent (Waif started out helping but got fed up with the bits sticking to him so wandered off to do something else):

As you can see, Gman was rather pleased with the finished result!

Waif has been continuing making some more "quilt" patterns and has even had a go at a liberated house (see my sewing blog for what this means!)

We have also been to see a small but very lovely textile art exhibition at the Babylon Gallery in Ely. While Gman was totally entranced by a piece entitled "The Power of Money" which comprised a kind of waterfall of £10 & £20 notes embroidered in between sheets of sheer material, Waif was more interested in having a go at the hands-on textile art activity, with a little help from Nana. They had a table laid out with fabric, ribbons, buttons, beads, and various yummy trims for participants to make fabric flower corsages to go on a "tree" inside the gallery. Waif hung his first flower up there, but was so taken with his second that he went home with it sewn to his jumper!

Continuing on an artistic theme, Gman has been designing a poster for his latest story, borrowing somewhat from all the sci-fi we have been watching and reading lately!

Mexican Hot Chocolate

2010-05-05T22:05:00.000+01:00

How could I have forgotten the Mexican hot chocolate we made? We adapted a milky recipe from book out the library and made ours using melted dark chocolate, rice milk, vanilla extract and a bit of cinnamon. It was yummy, if slightly extravagant :-)

[gallery columns="2" orderby="ID"]

Last few weeks

2010-05-01T21:14:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I posted, mainly because we have recently suffered 11 days without a broadband connection. Yikes! It has given us all a bit of a jolt as to how much we rely on the internet for learning, so we have been doing lots of stuff involving information from good old fashioned books. This has been helped by the discovery of a home educator's perk (yes, really!) - I can get an extra library card from Norfolk Libraries! And I can borrow up to 20 books at a time! And 12 of these are allowed to be junior non fiction (usually limited to four)!! Woohooo. Now to get myself a bigger trolley to haul all the books home ;-)

So what have the boys been up to? Readers of my sewing blog will know that I am into quilting and have recently discovered the Liberated Quiltmaking of Gwen Marston in this book. It has such lovely pictures, that Waif has been inspired to design his own quilt pattern:

Gman's main thing has been learning about Mexico. Buoyed by the success of the Impressionist lapbook, he is putting together a Mexico lapbook on the bits and pieces he has learned. He has done a minibook on food in the shape of a chilli; music in the shape of a sombrero; fiestas in the shape of a papel picado...and so on.

Tied in to this, we have done some Mexican themed crafts:

Made an Ojo de Dios - check out Gman's blog here for pics and info about this

Created some yarn paintings

Decorated skulls in the style of the Day of the Dead

We are about to move on to the Aztec era and there are sure to be plenty of activities relating to this we can do together :-)

This week we have also been on an home education field trip to Castle Acre Priory near Swaffham, where we enjoyed storytelling from the marvellous Yarnsmith of Norwich. As you can see, the children were totally captivated by his storytelling in such a beautiful setting, helped along by a bit of sunshine. Take a look at the Yarnsmith's website to see if he is storytelling at an event near you. He really is wonderful!

Fish Smokers Apprentices

2010-04-07T13:12:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I took the boys to an event called "Fish Smokers Apprentices" at the Trues Yard Museum in King's Lynn. Sadly, there was only one other child there, but all three enjoyed it nonetheless. They learned about how fish smokehouses worked, how to prepare their fish for smoking and had a chance to make some fab decorative fish to hang on their "speat". All in all, a good afternoon!

[gallery orderby="ID"]

Impressionist Lapbook Finished

2010-03-31T10:39:00.000+01:00

Wow, wow and double wow! Gman has completed his Impressionist lapbook and is sooooo proud of it (and quite rightly so!). You can check out his blog, Gmans Ramblings, to see what he has written about it, and check out some pictures below:

[gallery columns="2" orderby="ID"]

It is great to see Gman getting into something like this. It has caught his imagination and done wonders for his self-esteem.

Painting and Sewing and Stuff

2010-03-25T22:33:00.000Z

We have been continuing with our Impressionism' theme and Gman has nearly finished putting his first lapbook together on the subject (pictures will follow!). In the meantime we have visited the excellent Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to check out their Impressionist collection (and were also wowed by the Ancient Egyptian stuff there) and painted some more in the style of famous painters.

Firstly, the boys did these paintings, inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night":

[caption id="attachment_231" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's painting inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night""][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_232" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's interpretation of Van Gogh's "Starry Night""][/caption]

Then, we had a go at using some unexpected colours for everyday landscapes, in the style of Paul Gauguin. Waif chose to paint orange grass, purple trees, a green and blue sun and a red sky. He loved choosing different wacky colours for his:

[caption id="attachment_233" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's wacky colours"][/caption]

Gman was a bit more hesitant about the whole colour thing and initially referred to a colour wheel so he could select the "right" wrong colour (!) but he soon got into it. He chose to paint from a sketch he had made on the train to Cambridge of things he could see out of the window. He has blue and yellow grass, orange gravestones, purple barns and a green sky with blue clouds, with a purple window frame round the outside:

[caption id="attachment_234" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's crazy colours"][/caption]

Gman has also been turning his hand to sewing some napkins this week. He has made two reversible napkins using the sewing machine and is very proud of them. He has even put pictures on his own blog: here and here.

[caption id="attachment_235" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman shows off his new napkin"][/caption]

New Best Place Ever and More Impressionist Art

2010-03-12T09:36:00.000Z

We have had a busy few weeks of living and learning (can you have one without the other?). On a lovely sunny morning last week we went exploring at a local nature reserve we had never been to before - Dersingham Bog Nature Reserve. Here you can see the old Wolverton Cliff (now 2km from the sea but 6,000 years ago at the sea's edge) and explore the bog using the boardwalk. There was, of course, plenty of mud :-) Gman officially declared this the "Best Place Ever" so I am sure we will be returning for more adventures soon.

We have also been continuing on our Impressionist theme. Gman is putting a lapbook together on the Impressionist artists, while Waif is happy just to join in with the painting.

The boys have:

Painted trees in the style of Monet:

[caption id="attachment_202" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's tree painting"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_203" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's tree painting"][/caption]

Created cityscapes in the style of Pissarro. Firstly using sponge painting, secondly using oil pastels and water colours:

[caption id="attachment_212" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman concentrates on cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Waif adds to cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_209" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Finished sponge printed cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_211" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman works on his wax resist cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif creating cityscape with oil pastels"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_210" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's finished watercolour resist cityscape"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_226" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's watercolour city"][/caption]

Tried out pointillism in the style of Seurat:

[caption id="attachment_207" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif tries out pointillist technique"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_213" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman gets pointy"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_208" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Waif's pointillist island"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Gman's pointillist beach scene"][/caption]

When they haven't been painting, the boys have been enjoying various computer based activities. Gman has been playing BoulderDash, a game resurrected from Daddy's game playing youth. Waif has been feverishly working his way through the Alphablocks game on the CBeebies site, and then translating this into words to make from his wooden alphabet bricks. I was a bit surprised when he asked for help making the words "x-ray", "exit" and "hospital" and was relieved that the following day, the most important words of the day had become "brown", "flake" and "aero" ;-)

Muddy Impressions

2010-02-28T21:59:00.000Z

This week we have mostly been playing in the muddy woods and painting in an Impressionist style.

[gallery]

Puzzles, Blogs and More Star Wars

2010-02-17T11:03:00.000Z

So, what have we been up to at the Snooze Academy?

Gman's main learning experience has been with the creation of his own blog. He has learned about posting, adding hyperlinks, inserting videos and has written quite an extensive review of one of the Lego kits he received for his birthday, which you can read here. He has also created a poll asking a Very Important Question: Which Star Wars film is best? You can place your vote here. He is currently planning a review of another Lego kit, so pop back in a couple of days and read all about the "The Battle of Endor".

The boys got several new board games and puzzles for their birthdays, including two Lego games, a Brainbox All Around the World, and Square Up!, which they can be seen enjoying below:

[gallery columns="2"]

Their interest in Mathletics has waned a bit but this has seen them go back to using Education City a bit more, and Waif is particularly keen on a phonics game on the CBeebies website.

Blast Off!

2010-02-04T20:50:00.000Z

Another hit from the marvellous Kids Craft Weekly Newsletter (issue 38, found here)

We didn't have any curling ribbon for the flames so used red ribbon and yellow rickrack. Waif was very pleased with the results as you can see!

Update

2010-01-31T23:01:00.000Z

It's been a while since my last post on here. It's not because the boys haven't been learning anything, it just hasn't been anything very photogenic!

They have continued to be enthused by Mathletics and Waif is quickly building up some very impressive mental arithmetic skills, while Gman is "Almost Einstein". They have earned enough credits for a stunning array of different backgrounds, haircuts and accessories for their profiles and are still going strong.

We have been watching some of the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones together which have brought up plenty of topics for discussion and learning - so far, we have covered opera, infidelity, Athens, philosophy, women's suffrage, the First World War, conscription...

We have also been reading the Horrible Histories book "Angry Aztecs" and will be undertaking some arts and crafts relating to this period. We started off with making some featherwork shields in an Aztec style. Here they are working on their shields:

[gallery columns="4"]

Birthday Art

2010-01-11T13:49:00.000Z

The boys have worked together to make me a lovely birthday card this year - designed as a patchwork card with a central applique flower - just up my street, as readers of my sewing blog will know! Gman also wrote this lovely poem inside:

Happy 34th birthday mum

hope you have a lot of fun

you might want to sew all day

or in the bath you'd like to stay

Either way, be assured

With me and Rafe you won't get bored

Otherwise, we have been easing gently back into our weekday home ed routine, after a Christmas of Lego, Lego and more Lego! The boys are particularly taken with a new online programme we have subscribed to, called Mathletics. As the name suggests,it is a maths website, with some fun added features whereby you can earn credits to "buy" things for your avatar. Gman has been keenly undertaking all sorts of maths activities in order to earn enough credits for a jester's hat, and Waif is saving up for an animated space background for his character. I am sure the novelty will wear off eventually, but maybe then they will go back to playing with Education City again...

Handmade Card Swap Part 3

2009-12-21T12:14:00.000Z

Well, we have now received all 10 of our handmade card swaps and they are all lovely. It is soooo nice to have a mantelpiece full of homemade cards. In fact, this year we haven't even put up any non-homemade cards cos they spoil the effect ;-). It was good to read about other families and their Christmas traditions, including those in the States, Australia, Canada, South Africa and some Scots living in France. We will also steal some ideas for next year's cards of course![gallery columns="4"]

Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Cake

2009-12-09T12:04:00.000Z

Lots of people have asked me for this recipe so here it is:

Ingredients

390g gluten free plain flour

440g brown sugar

6 tbsp cocoa powder

2tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

500ml sweetened soya milk

185ml sunflower oil

2 tbsp cider vinegar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Grease 23cm round deep cake tin, line base. Preheat oven to 180C/ 350F/Gas Mk 4

2. Mix together all the dry ingredients. When well mixed, mix in the wet ingredients and beat until there are no lumps

3. Cook for about 40 mins until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean.

4. When it's cool, make whatever fancy icing you want for the top or cheat, like I do, and use dairy free chocolate spread!

ENJOY!

Let me know if you make it and you like it, and feel free to share any fancy icing recipes that you make to go on the top :-)

Ancient Egypt Project

2009-12-09T10:10:00.000Z

The last month or two, we have been "doing" Ancient Egypt. We have:

made a potato mummy - we cut a vaguely human shape out of a slice of potato, covered it with a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and salt and left for two weeks in a sealed container. The potato shrinks and blackens and goes a bit yucky. You can then wrap it in bandages and voila you have your mummy. If you were really brave you might try this with a chicken :-). My recommendation would be to use a pretty big potato cos it is surprising how much it shrinks!

[caption id="attachment_126" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Potato Mummy - Before"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_127" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Potato Mummy - After"][/caption]

made reed boats from bendy straws

made and played a game of Senet, making a board from rigid cardboard and counters out of air drying clay

learned how the Egyptians prepared bodies for mummifcation by playing this game on the BBC History site

played lots of games of Tutan Loot 'Em (a fabulous board game made by Orchard Toys)

made Pharoah's crowns

coloured in lots of Egyptian pictures

painted a life sized (well, Waif sized!) Ancient Egyptian man

Handmade Card Swap Part 2

2009-11-26T10:09:00.000Z

Here's some more cards the boys have made. We should have enough for the handmade card swap and some of the family too.

We cut out candle shapes from different coloured paper then made the flames using some gummed paper I discovered lurking in our box of papers. I think they came out really well - a bit funkier than your average Christmas card :-)

Book Sharing Monday - I Dreamt I Was a Dinosaur

2009-11-23T21:10:00.000Z

This is a gorgeous book. Not only does it tell a very readable tale of a boy who dreamt he was a dinosaur, written in a rhythmically repetitive way (perfect for a bedtime story) but the illustrations are totally beautiful. They are all embroidered with felt, sequins, buttons etc so are an absolute joy to look at, especially for stitchy mums and dads and their offspring! We *heart* Barefoot Books.

Handmade Card Swap

2009-11-18T22:33:00.000Z

This year, we have decided to join in with the Handmade Card Swap over at Kids Craft Weekly. The idea is that the boys make 10 Christmas cards which we send off to 10 other kids and we should get 10 cards in return. Today has been windy and wintry, so it seemed as good a time as any to get started. My fabric scrap bag is overflowing, so donated some to make some collage Christmas trees. They started out quite tasteful and minimalist... but then out came the glitter :-)

Upcycling a School Uniform

2009-11-11T14:31:00.000Z

I am thrilled to report that Gman has made his first project on the sewing machine! He made a beanbag using a scrap of fabric rescued from an old school polo shirt. As you can see he is very proud and rightly so :-) Will have him making Morsbags before you know it!

[caption id="attachment_89" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Gman shows off his beanbag!"][/caption]

Family Drawing Time

2009-11-09T12:47:00.000Z

Inspired by my latest library book, The Creative Family, we have decided to start having a weekly Family Drawing Time, after dinner on a Sunday. The idea is that the whole family sit down together to do a drawing and each week we will have a different "theme". Gman made the first week's choice, which was Monsters.

I must admit, drawing has never been my "thing" as you will probably see from the drawing I did, lol. However, I really want the family to have some creative time together and see that it's all about doing your best, having a try and seeing how it turns out. We will keep the pictures together in a folder and look back and see how much we improve over time - at least that's the idea!

Both boys really enjoyed the session, and so did Mummy and Daddy :-). Here are the pictures we drew:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Gman's monsters"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Waif's monsters"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Dad's monster"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Mum's monster"][/caption]

Waif has chosen next week's theme - Flowers - watch this space!

More Cotton Bud Art

2009-11-03T13:20:00.000Z

Inspired by the cotton bud skeleton we made a week or two ago, we decided to have a go at making a cotton bud firework picture and it came out pretty well.

First of all, we cut the cotton buds into different sizes (they ping everywhere and you will be finding them in strange places for days). Next we set out three pots of water and added food dye and glitter (we only had yellow, red and green dyes but I think blue would work well) and then dipped the cotton buds into these, setting them out on paper plates to dry overnight.

[gallery]

The next morning we took a large sheet of black contstruction paper and started sticking them into firework shapes. To help Waif work out the direction, we drew a dot in the middle of each one. Once they were all stuck, we painted strips of glue around and sprinkled generous amounts of glitter around. The results are pretty striking!

Edible Education

2009-10-29T22:00:00.000Z

This week, we have mostly been cooking (and eating :-))

Both boys helped make our family's famous lentil soup recipe. Granny was quite impressed when she came round and saw the production line going - Waif peeling carrots, me chopping them into strips then Gman dicing them! This soup is dead easy to make, very healthy, gluten and dairy free, vegetarian and really, really delicious. Here's the recipe:

Easy Lentil Soup (serves 4-6)

150g lentils

1 onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 tins chopped tomatoes

1.2 litres vegetable stock

1 tbsp cumin powder

1 tsp garam masala

Chuck it all in a massive pan, bring it to the boil, then cook until the lentils are cooked and the carrots are as soft as you like them (about 30-40 minutes depending on how finely you dice the carrots).

Waif was also keen to help with the roasted vegetables for dinner and spent some time carefully arranging them in the roasting tin until they were "just right". He then insisted on taking a photograph so here they are:

Granny also brought us round some fantastic looking cooking apples from the market. There were only 2, but they were pretty massive so probably about a pound in weight, maybe even more. Fancying a change from the usual apple crumble, we made this pudding and it went down a treat:

Gluten Free Casein Free Almond Apple Pudding

1lb cooking apples, stewed in a little caster sugar

2oz golden caster sugar

2oz dairy free margarine

2oz ground almonds

1 egg, beaten

Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the ground almonds.

Beat the egg into the almond mixture.

Place the stewed apples into an ovenproof dish.

Spoon the almond mixture over the top of the apples.

Bake at Gas Mark 4/350F/180C for about 25-35 mins until the top is lightly set and golden.

Book Sharing Monday - Walking Through the Jungle

2009-10-26T14:50:00.000Z

This is a lovely book. Waif would borrow it from the library until he had renewed it the maximum number of times, take it back, then a couple of weeks later he would choose it again! So we were thrilled to go to the monthly book sale one day and find that it was for sale for the princely sum of 20p. Woohoo!!

The story is written in a repetitive, rhythmic style with a different animal "chasing after me" each page. This makes it easy for your child to join in, even if they aren't reading yet. And it's fun to try and remember which animal comes on the next page.

The illustrations are beautiful and colourful. Oh - and there's a happy ending, because all the animals come together at the end to sit down for a meal.

I thoroughly recommend this book for your 2-5 year olds.

Home Ed Anniversary

2009-10-24T20:36:00.000+01:00

It's a year today since Gman left school - a whole year of home educating - and what a year it's been!

We've learned all sorts between us, made some fabulous new friends and generally had a ball. Sure, there have been moments of doubt and frustration but overall, it's been the best decision we ever made. I only wish we had done it earlier.

Home Ed Rocks!

Cotton Bud Skeleton

2009-10-21T21:42:00.000+01:00

A rainy day today and the boys settled down to watch Mister Maker this morning. They were both keen to make the cotton bud skeleton featured on today's show, and here it is, in progress and complete:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Waif does some rib sticking"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Gman putting together the pelvis"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="180" caption="The boys are pleased with their skeleton"][/caption]

If you are trying this at home, watch out for cotton buds pinging round the room when you are cutting them! Waif was particularly pleased when one cotton bud tip ended up caught in a spider's web (ooh, does that give away my lack of housewifely skills?!) and wondered if the spider would be pleased and try to eat it!

For full instructions, you can watch the Mister Maker episode on iPlayer here.

Star Wars Come Dancing

2009-10-21T21:21:00.000+01:00

Gman has been working on an interesting new Lego concept, integrating two of his latest interests - Star Wars and Strictly Come Dancing! He has built a dance studio complete with set of four judges (who include a Storm Trooper and Ewok amongst their numbers) and couples dancing include Princess Leia with Han Solo (of course). He is planning a series of animations around this. Here's a still from the first one he has photographed:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="First couple await comments from the judges"][/caption]

Blogger v Wordpress

2009-10-21T13:57:00.000+01:00

Well, I gave Blogger a try...but I prefer Wordpress so here I am with my blog posts safely imported from Blogger. I like the fact that I can put my pictures where I want them, I can see who is visiting the blog from where and I just generally find it much easier to use. Only thing is, I don't know how to get buttons down the sidebar - can anyone help with that?

Blogger versus Wordpress

2009-10-21T13:52:00.001+01:00

Well, I've tried out this blog on Blogger, but have to say I prefer Wordpress. It's not as pretty but it's easier to use (I can easily place pictures where I want them!) and I like the stats...so I've moved the blog here:

http://homedible.wordpress.com/

Please visit :-)

More Autumn Leaves

2009-10-16T13:30:00.004+01:00

Waif's enthusiasm for furnishing the autumn table knows no bounds! He has coloured in a beautiful little "My Autumn Book" printed from the Crayola website (coloured so neatly, I accused his Dad of having coloured it!) and we had a go at making paper bag autumn leaves from this tutorial. Both boys enjoyed splodging the paint onto the flattened paper bag, but also particularly enjoyed swirling the paint colours together, which is how ours have ended up with considerably more red in the mix than Creative Kismet's! As predicted, the boys did lose some enthusiasm when it came to painstakingly cutting autumn leaf shapes out of the ensuing pretty coloured bag so that was left to Mummy ;-). Rather than make a garland, Waif has stuck our leaves all around the fireplace and they look rather nice, although he has presented them rather more uniformly than I might have liked (all of one shape on the left side, another shape at the top, other shape on the right!) Where did he get such an orderly mind?!

More Autumn Leaves

2009-10-16T13:30:00.003+01:00

Seasonal Table

2009-10-12T11:59:00.004+01:00

This last week has involved lots of craft projects for the seasonal table. Waif has been particularly enthusiastic about this. "What can we make for the autumn table now, mummy?" being the refrain of the week!

Here's a snapshot of the table in progress. We have woollen apples (instructions here), an autumn-themed magic wand, a kitchen roll tube autumn tree, painted stencil autumn leaves, a tissue-paper paper plate apple and various items collected on nature walks.

As well as these, this morning we have made an autumn leaf sun catcher to hang in the window. Waif laid the leaves on a sheet of sticky back plastic, added red and gold glitter, then we pressed another sheet of the plastic on top. This is hanging in the window by an orange ribbon and looks lovely when the sun shines through.

Seasonal Table

2009-10-12T11:59:00.003+01:00

Book Sharing Monday - King Rollo's Autumn

2009-10-12T11:55:00.008+01:00

Thought this was a wonderfully seasonal book to share (and another David McKee classic!)

You can read the text of the book here.

Our favourite line of the book is the observation from King Rollo that "Trees are funny. They take off their clothes, just when people are putting on more".

We also have the spring, summer and winter books and will probably be sharing these in future posts!

Book Sharing Monday - King Rollo's Autumn

2009-10-12T11:55:00.007+01:00

Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

2009-10-09T21:44:00.008+01:00

Well, a birthday wouldn't be complete without a chocolate cake would it?!

Gluten Free Chocolate Sandwich Cake

60z margarine
6oz caster sugar
couple of drops of vanilla essence
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
6oz gluten free plain flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
3 tablespoons rice milk
chocolate spread to stick it all together

1. Preheat oven to 170C. Grease and line two 8" sandwich tins.
2. Cream together the margarine, sugar and vanilla.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add the rest of the ingredients.
4. Divide between tins, bake for approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

We make this cake quite a bit, as it's easy to remember the ingredients (6oz of everything - 666!), it takes minutes to whip up, and it tastes pretty good. Normally, we just sandwich it together with chocolate spread in the middle, then dust the top with icing sugar but for a special occasion and extra gooey-ness, we put the chocolate spread on the top and the middle. Yumyum. I particularly recommend Plamil's chocolate orange spread for this!

I think you could make this with ordinary wheat flour, but you wouldn't need the rice milk.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

2009-10-09T21:44:00.007+01:00

Birthday artwork

2009-10-08T14:20:00.008+01:00

This week saw the arrival of Daddy's 40th birthday, so this formed the centre of our artwork. The boys were very taken with this modern art project over at the frugal family fun blog and wanted to do something similar for their birthday cards. Gman used a bottle top to print his circles, though he wanted his in a slightly more uniform pattern as can be seen below. (Gman's is the one on the right)

Waif used our trusty star shaped cookie cutter, which has been invaluable in more than one art project in the past. They printed onto white card and then left this to dry before colouring the shapes with different coloured paints, creating areas where the colours mixed (very educational!)

These were then used for birthday cards, and they looked lovely and colourful. Waif went on to add some glitter to his, which kind of spoiled it a bit for me but he is a bit of a glitter fiend :-)

Inspired by their creativity, I decided to have a go at making a birthday card too. Before starting out on home-educating, I would never have considered myself an arty crafty type, so this is all quite new and exciting still. Here's the card I made, with a seasonally inspired felt pumpkin on the front:

Birthday artwork

2009-10-08T14:20:00.007+01:00

Book Sharing Monday - Two Monsters

2009-10-05T10:36:00.003+01:00

It's not been easy deciding which book to share for my first Book Sharing Monday post, but I have settled on "Two Monsters" by David McKee because it has been a favourite of first Gman's and then Waif's, and it's a fun book for adults to read aloud too.

The story tells the tale of two monsters who live on opposite sides of a mountain. One evening, at sunset, they argue about whether it is day departing or night arriving, and start to trade insults and throw rocks. Over the course of the next day, they throw so many rocks that there is nothing left of the mountain , at which point they can see that they were both right - day departs as night arrives - and settle down to watch the sunset together.

One of the highlights of the book for my boys has been the extraordinarily colourful and humorous insults - our favourite is "You're a pathetic, addlebrained, smelly, lily-livered custard tart!"- you've got to love David McKee and I'm sure we'll be sharing more of his books on Mondays to come.

Book Sharing Monday - Two Monsters

2009-10-05T10:36:00.002+01:00

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cupcakes

2009-10-04T20:31:00.001+01:00

Last Thursday saw the arrival of my Suma order, which included six jars of peanut butter so couldn't resist making these cupcakes! Today was joined only by Waif in this, as Gman was far too busy making the arrangements for his latest Lego animation, which is going to involve storm troopers searching the galaxy for suitable Christmas presents for Darth Vader :-)

Anyway, here's the cakes and rather yummy they are too:

Gluten Free/Casein Free Peanut Butter Cupcakes

50g dairy free margarine (we like Vitalite in our house)
200g light brown soft sugar
1 large egg
1tsp vanilla extract
90ml rice milk
125g crunchy peanut butter
150g gluten free plain flour (we used Doves Farm brand for this)
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 150C/Gas Mark 2. Line bun trays with 18 paper cases.
2. Melt the margarine, let it cool down a bit. With electric whisk, mix together the marg and sugar (you could do this by hand with a wooden spoon, but it's not as exciting ;-)) Add egg and keep beating. Stir in the vanilla extract, rice milk & peanut butter.
3. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder & salt, then fold into peanut butter mixture until well combined. Divide between the cases and bake for 25 minutes.

For those not following a gfcf diet, these could be made using butter, wheat flour and dairy milk, but use a bit less milk - gluten free flour soaks up more liquid.

We liked them as they came but you could probably ice them if you were that way inclined - I am far too impatient for icing, cos I like to eat my cakes warm from the oven!

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cupcakes

2009-10-04T20:31:00.000+01:00

Autumn Trees

2009-10-01T09:53:00.001+01:00

The boys have been making these lovely tree paintings:

First of all I painted Waif's arm with brown paint and he pressed this onto the page to make the tree trunk and branches. At this point Gman declared "yuk! yuk! yuk!" and refused to have his done (he has some sensory issues related to ASD so wasn't too surprised at this!) Luckily Waif was more than prepared to do more tree trunks - making two trees for his painting. When these had dried, they used fingers to print the different coloured leaves on (Gman was ok with this bit!). Gman painted his grass with a brush and Waif used a piece of cardboard. When they had dried we mounted them on the different coloured card.

Don't they look fabulous?

The idea originally came from the Kaboose website here. There are loads of great ideas there, it's well worth a look.

Autumn Trees

2009-10-01T09:53:00.000+01:00

New home ed blog

2009-09-29T22:12:00.002+01:00

Have decided to start this blog as a place to record the things we have done, the stuff we have made and the cakes we have baked…home education, home baking and a bit of crafty stuff I guess.

Today has been one of those perfect home ed days where I feel that “YES! This is home ed!” We did an experiment this morning that worked (always a good start!), the boys have been getting along with each other and we had a fabulous bike ride this afternoon – 5 or 6 miles out of town along the river – a very different perspective on parts of the town.

We had our first LA visit last week and Gman certainly wowed them with his amazing collection of achievements – I felt quite ashamed that I hadn’t really realised just how much he had achieved over the year!! And he certainly enjoyed the opportunity to show off his work to someone outside of the family I think. Maybe need to make sure this happens more often (not LA visit, just the chance to show off!)

So will be unashamedly using this blog to show off some of the stuff we make and do on our home ed adventure – experiments, outings, plants we’ve grown, crafty stuff and of course, cakes Here’s some visual tasters:

New home ed blog

2009-09-29T22:12:00.001+01:00

Have decided to start this blog as a place to record the things we have done, the stuff we have made and the cakes we have baked…home education, home baking and a bit of crafty stuff I guess.