Sarah's Blog

Mostly pictures!

Been sooo busy with curriculum stuff - problem is, my brain is coming up with ideas quicker than my fingers can get it all typed up! As well as my April/May curriculum, I've also got my Botany 1 and Zoology 1 sets up and (taa-daa!) I've JUST finished a set about landforms which will be in the store very soon :)

After the blinding hot weather a couple of weeks ago, we've been experiencing typically spring weather here - sunny one minute and absolutely chucking it down the next. Literally, as I'm writing this, it's gone from sunny to POURING just like someone had turned a tap on! Last night we even had thunder and lightening! Once that had cleared it turned into the MOST beautiful evening and a stunning sky .... look :)

By this morning THAT had cleared to reveal this .....

Gorgeous :)

Here are a couple of other piccies that I grabbed this morning .....

These aren't going to be around for much longer

Hello there :) The tree he's sitting on is JUST coming into blossom - soon it will be pink all over

Sunny days!

We've had some really quite unseasonably warm weather recently (certainly nice after the horrific howling gales a little while ago!) Consequently, we've seen a fair bit of wildlife that probably shouldn't be pootling about at this time of year.

Yesterday, we spotted a Red Admiral butterfly fluttering around outside our living room window and I noticed that it seemed to have settled down on the front of the house to sunbathe. I grabbed the camera and went outside, found the butterfly and started giggling - it had landed on our house number and, for all the world, looked like something we'd stuck on as a decoration! :D

It was very beautiful and lovely to see - if a little early in the year. These warm days have certainly helped to ease us into the new year gently. :)

Quick Round Up

Well, on Halloween day we finally got to Hengistbury Head (after wanting to go there for days and not managing it) and fabulous it was too. Very windy when we were walking up the actual "head" but once we got down into the woods it was very sheltered and lovely. We saw gazillions of starlings (PERHAPS a slight exaggeration there but MANY, MANY!) which I think may have not long arrived, a strange little reddy-brown creature that we couldn't identify that shot across the path in front of us at high speed and then disappeared into the bank by the water and a huge furry caterpillar (very late in the season I thought!) ambling along the path. It was a wonderful walk and certainly blew the cobwebs away.

Also been busy doing little things to get ready for the festive season - apart from the obvious of planning pressies/food. We're going to do up the lounge/diner a bit (as I've mentioned before) and reorganise the homeschool area (I'm terribly into minimalist "looks" and can't BEAR clutter!) - so it's new shelving and storage alround (we've found the most GORGEOUS set from Next). Of course, all this is also so that Tim can get his new piano in - he's chosen one he likes and is hoping to get out on Monday/Tuesday next week when he's off work again to buy said instrument :)

I've still got to book a gardener and get the garden cleared up a bit before the really cold weather kicks in. The problem with our garden is that it is LOVELY in the sense that it is big and rambling and woody and full of wildlife BUT it's big and rambling and woody ..... you get the point?! It's really hard to look after so we're getting someone to come in and top trees, smaller shrubs, tidy away dead stuff and generally tidy it right up (whilst still retaining all the bits that the birds/animals like to live in) so that we can manage it more easily next spring.

Homeschool - as I said above, we're going to sort out the homeschool area a bit and provide a nicer working environment with better storage. I've also been looking at the kids curriculum a little. This year hasn't been bad in terms of work achieved so far - April has done stuff on the water cycle, vertebrates/invertebrates and nocturnal animals. She's also started serious grammar work and been doing stuff on nouns (about to do work on noun types - person, place thing). In maths she's been continuing to work on adding/take away/multiplication/division and can now easily identify and read numbers up into the hundreds. English wise, she's reading fluently and is now on to chapter books (we recently had to buy her a set of The Dragons of Wayward Crescent that she fell in love with) - not bad for a 6 year old and with no pressure whatsoever! Rosie's been spending the first half term doing stuff on space (exoplanets, black holes, gravity etc). She's continuing to write manically and has started a new series (finished writing about Sir Sticky now!) which I know nothing about as it's a secret at present. In maths, she's using a Galore Park book and speeding her way through a load of review (JUST to make sure ....) before moving on to pre-algebra.

It's mainly the maths that I'm having thoughts about - particularly April as Rosie is doing ok with Galore Park. I'm seriously thinking of putting April on Math U See - I think it would really suit her and I've looked at it over and over and read reviews and it seems that it could be right for her. We'll see. I also want to get more in the way of science stuff for both of them - you know, kits for working with electronics that sort of thing.

I'm not overly stressed about all this though because, as I said, homeschool is going pretty good at the moment (if it ain't broke don't fix it ... TOO much!) The advantage of having slightly older kids (even a 6 year old) is that they are much more independent in their work - they know what they have to do and they just get on with it. Nice :)

Bad feather day?

Saw this little cutie perched on our garden bench - I was some distance away in April's bedroom and these pictures were taken through the window glass .....

I wasn't sure what to make of him (her?) - looked really ... um... messy! I'm not sure whether this is a fairly young robin that still has some fluffy feathers left (he WAS doing an awful lot of preening) or if he's been in a fight and got a bit messed up or perhaps he was late getting up this morning and forgot to have a wash and brush up! I've absolutely no idea.

One thing that is 100% certain though is that these are bloody terrible photos! *laughs*

"oh... hi...."

Talking of wildlife ....will be tuning into Autumnwatch later as usual - really enjoyed the last couple of weeks (first week was a bit duff tbh). Have been loving the badgers and the raven last week :) Also been (if I'm being completely honest here) enjoying watching Mr Packham (although I won't be sending him my 'bish photos THAT'S for sure) .... especially when he wears his glasses - he looks properly geeky-handsome ... should wear them more often ;)

Homeschool & butterflies

Pretty quiet couple of days really. All our butterflies have now hatched and gone - we released the last 2 yesterday - they flew off into the blue sky of a gorgeously warm day. I've got to admit, I felt quite choked! We've been so happy to watch the whole process from butterfly egg-laying (yes, we did actually see a butterfly laying) right through to watching the new butterflies flutter away. I even had one that we were just releasing land on my hand for a minute which was beautiful :)

On Monday (after a fairly extended summer holiday!), we, officially, get back to homeschool. I use this description loosely because, to be honest, we've been doing bits and pieces all through the holiday. Also, for the last couple of weeks I've been having the kids do a daily maths lesson to get back into the swing of "doing work" and, for the last 2 days, we've started on project work again. Kind of working well doing it a bit at a time - less whinging!

What became of our caterpillars?

Remember the broccoli stealing caterpillars? Well, here's what happened.

They ran out of illicit broccoli. They were stranded on stalks about 3cm high with nothing else to eat. Now, yes, they would have wandered off to find something BUT we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch the transformation (call it payment for the broccoli!) We have a butterfly "garden" so we brought the caterpillars in, decorated the home with sticks and fed them broccoli - caterpillars need to be fed on the same plant you found them on.

We got 10 altogether, of varying sizes and stages of development. They stayed in the little garden on our dining table and munched broccoli and got fatter and fatter. Meanwhile the bits of broccoli got smellier and smellier (couldn't take them out as they were crawling with 'pillars by then!) Tim got more and more annoyed as he was fed up with coming home to be greeted by an unholy stink. He told me to "conduct my science experiments outside in future". Hmmm.

However, just as he was on the verge of overarm bowling the whole thing up the garden - taaa-daa! - they started to turn into pupas! The smelly bits could then be cleared out. I managed to follow the development of one of them (albeit blurrily) and here it is.

Having wandered up the side of the net - ready to change!

Yes, this is it in it's pupa form - hard to believe I know (I took several and really couldn't get a clear one)

.... finally! A Cabbage White butterfly, not long emerged (you can see another caterpillar turned into a pupa just below the one I was watching)

We have been releasing "our" butterflies over the last few (thankfully sunny) days - we have 2 left to hatch and then the clean up of the butterfly garden starts. We're so happy that we did this - it was wonderful to watch ..... and so glad they turned into pupas before Tim got into a rage with the smell and pitched them out the back door!

Books, blankets and butterflies

The other day I mentioned some exciting news regarding Rosie and here it is - her first, published book :) This is being published through Create Space and will be available there and through Amazon, very shortly. In the picture is the final proof copy which we are just working through and making a few corrections/alterations before it finally becomes available. This has taken a lot of her time and, for a 13 year old, she has shown remarkable dedication to getting it finished - she even drew her own cover picture! Aimed roughly at 9 to 13 year olds, it's a great story for kids who love dragons, magic, knights and battles. I've read it and it's fabulous :) The knights and the land they live in all have pudding related names which is amusing! Will post a link in the sidebar when it's properly available - it's "print on demand" (so, no, she's not getting paid a fortune up front for it!) and I'm sure she'd be thrilled if it sold :)

Here's a little sneaky snippet :)

In the top picture, you can also see my current work-in-progress - a crocheted blanket in autumn/winter colours. I swear I can tell when the seasons are changing WAY earlier than anyone else in my family and so it is now. Something in the air, the leaves just LITTLE less vivid green .... everything is on the turn already even though it might only be the beginning of August. So, I've been working like mad on this blanket (almost feverish desperation to get it finished!) Got a way to go yet - it's going to be a sofa throw when it's done.

Finally, the butterflies. Cabbage Whites to be precise - here's what's left of my broccoli with the largest of many, many caterpillars:

Having given up on the broccoli, I've now gone all maternal over this little caterpillar and even moved one of the decimated plants nearer the one it was on so that it had plenty of food! If it gets to pupa stage we'll bring the whole thing in and put it in our butterfly home and watch it hatch into a new butterfly.

Bye bye broccoli!

My lovely broccoli plants were doing brilliantly but we noticed that cabbage white butterlies LOVED them! They were, in fact, laying their eggs on them! Now those eggs have hatched into caterpillars and I'm afraid they're munching their way through my broccoli at a great rate of knots. Of course, although very sad that we won't get to munch my delicious vegetables, we are having fun watching this life cycle open up right in front of our kitchen window! :)

What else has been happening?

Well, I'll have some very exciting Rosie-related news in a couple of days (fingers crossed!) My clever, talented girl! Apart from the news-soon-to-be-revealed, she's also been continuing to enjoy her riding lessons. She went yesterday and, as usual, came home caked in mud and horse-poo but did she care? No! Every week, she gets to ride a little black pony called Star and she absolutely loves him. I can see riding boots/hat/gloves being on birthday/Christmas present lists this year! :)

Last night there was the most dramatic thunder/lightening storm! There were some huge lightening bolts coming down and, I've got to confess, I was scared. I find them dramatic and thrilling but I do worry ..... "ooo! maybe we should put the telly/computer off?!" We didn't put the telly off as we were in the middle of watching The Proms and it was Bolero .....

New Forest

Yesterday, when it was still hot and sunny, we went into the New Forest for a walk. We played on big, slippery sandy banks, paddled in the stream (until we got fed up with the little sods who were throwing stones at passing cars, ponies and each other), hugged trees and stroked ponies. Yes, we stroked wild New Forest ponies - I was a little cautious at first (as you can tell from my face in the pic below!) because you don't know how wild animals are going to react. In the end they were very lovely and friendly - they kept going round trying to steal peoples food from their picnics!

The sandy bank I mention is HUGE - it's looks very odd - just a massive hill of sand in the middle of the forest. We took a pic of the kids and it looked for all the world like they were stranded in the desert!

Anyhow, here are some piccies :)