My 2013 Christmas decorations: baubles

Decorated baubles, drying

I believe that this is the only craft that my boys helped me with this past Christmas and even then it was hard going getting them interested initially. But once they realised that glitter would be involved as well as a drying line across the room for J to bash his head on they were all for it!

Christmas: presents

Warning: this is a bit of a ranting, moaning post. Please do skip past it! But I think that it does us all good to have a moan to get things off of our chest sometimes.

Typewriters

I may be struggling with my National Novel Writing Month but my eldest is having no such issues. For his birthday he requested a typewriter and we (just) managed to find one in our budget.

This has been fabulous for his creativity. He doesn't have to worry about his handwriting. He doesn't think about his spelling or grammar. He just types. And thinks. And types some more. He loves it. Something tells me I'm going to have to find some character recognition software soon!

Art week

Day 1: canvas background

I don't do as much art as I would like to with my boys. I'm not really sure why but their total lack of interest definitely plays a part!

Book review: We are wearing out the naughty step

 

This was one of S's birthday presents. He thinks that he is too old for picture books but this was specially chosen by one of his youngest cousins. The subject matter was an interesting idea for a young audience. 

 

The illustrations are typical Mick Inkpen, simple but colourful. Unusually the storyline is about a single mother who is trying to keep on top of everything from the point of view of her child. I love the image of her on the phone to the doctors about the bead that somehow ended up in babies ear just before the babysitter was due. Result was that Mum misses her class. It is a reminder of how hectic motherhood can be especially with young children.

 

And who hasn't been here? To be honest S simply thought that the mother was a bit silly and couldn't relate to this at all. I, on the other hand, actually felt my eyes water. It is so easy to relate to 'mum'. This would have been a useful story for when my two were younger on those hectic tired days that I was reduced to tears. Motherhood can be so hard at times. Thankfully it is balanced out by having wonderful kids!

Harvest loaf

Wheat sheaf

I made the dough for this loaf but the design was put together by our local home education group. It is based on a traditional harvest wheat sheaf (lots of images here). I had to keep my hands firmly behind my back to stop myself from interfering too much! It was an interesting activity, the children are all used to the feel and texture of playdoh but found the springiness of bread very odd to work with but did enjoy attacking it with scissors to make the wheat heads. They were also intrigued by the idea of adding a mouse to it (the bit at the bottom).

Hama beads

Dragons made using a dragon shaped peg board

My sons don't really enjoy crafts. I have collected many materials over the years but the only thing they have truly taken to are hama beads. These are little plastic beads that you iron to melt the pieces together. Not a particularly natural craft but it does get my boys creativity going.

Home Education

playing with bubbles

This is a subject that I have shied away from here as I felt that it had little to do with the reason behind my creation of this blog. But it is a large part of my life and it makes sense to me now to start sharing a little of what we do. It's unlikely to become a regular feature, I don't want this to turn into a home ed blog but as it is a daily part of our life it does seem silly to continue to exclude it.

My boy is getting older.

My youngest son at 1 week

My youngest has always been an awkward little so and so from the day he was born. It took him years to sleep through the night and he has always been overly sensitive when in a large group of  people. He is comforted by routine and rules though he doesn't like to stick to them. Every time he has hit a milestone I have rejoiced partially due to the twisted journey that it takes to get him there. But he does get there and each time, after the event, I am left wondering just what was I worrying about.

Drawing for fun

An alien?

My youngest son hasn't really been into imaginative play until very recently. So I introduced him to a drawing game. He's loved it and it has sparked off so much inspiration for play. I'm not really sure what is going on in his mind at the moment but it is certainly creative!

 

Keyhole garden update

 

Here's the latest picture of my boys keyhole garden. The tomato plants are taking over! We are having a bit of a problem with pigeons as most of the greens have not survived, something to consider further for next year. I'm planning to fill the gaps with leeks that are currently in pots. Next year (so I've been told by my sons) it is going to become a strawberry mountain! We have that to look forward to.

Hardy Country

 

Sunday morning, everybody was up and dressed. Even the washing up had been completed. Obviously it was to be a day to get out somewhere new to us. A quick flick through the National Trust book pointed us in the direction of Hardy country.

My boys can cook

£5 of ingredients

 

Letting our children learn life skills is very important to me. Once a month my boys get to buy and cook a meal for £5. I feel that the buying is important. Much as I want to just give them the ingredients for a good, cheap, meal this doesn't offer the same learning experience as allowing them to make the choices themselves.  Any money left over can roll forward to the next meal. This month they wanted to cook a stir fry.

Shopping: there was a lot of swapping and changing of ingredients as they moved around the supermarket. Apparently the baby sweetcorn was essential even though this took a huge chunk out of their budget. Water chestnuts were snuck in too as was a sachet of cook in sauce. To balance the costs they decided against meat and used a can of cheap kidney beans for protein, they also went for cheap noodles. So not what I consider a cheap meal but it was within the £5 budget.

This was not my favourite meal! They cooked it well but I don't like baby sweetcorn or water chestnuts. I was a good girl, though, and cleaned my plate. I wonder what they will give me next month.

Bubbles

When it comes to having fun there isn't much that can beat blowing bubbles.

A warm clear day that isn't too dry is just about perfect. I always have mixture and wands tucked away though they haven't seen the light of day for over a year. My boys were very happy to find them again.

Have you ever tried to take photo's of bubbles? Hard to do! 

Crochet hat

Hand spun crochet hat

What to do with all those odd lengths of yarn? Make a hat!

My son complained that he didn't have a decent hat. I had made one for my youngest, myself but not him and it wasn't fair. Feeling a bit dubious about this I allowed him to choose some yarn from my stash - he chose a short length of mixed green that looked a bit like camouflage. So I started a hat but, not too surprisingly there wasn't enough green so, using black to separate the colours I went onto red. Then I went on to blue. He wasn't amused.

I now have a lovely warm hand spun & crocheted beanie to keep me warm in the cold. My son still has no hat but being the loving mother that I am I will allow him to borrow one of mine. But only if he can keep the look of distaste off his face :-)

Update
6 months later he loves this hat. I cannot believe the amount of use that this has had, it is very satisfying!

Relaxing on the trampoline

To enjoy those rare moments of blue sky you cannot beat lying on the trampoline. Looking up into the wispy clouds as they slowly dance by. Breathing in the fresh spring air. Listening to those chattering birds rioting in the trees managing to drown out the traffic from the nearby A road.

Only problem is my relaxing never lasts long. All it takes is for my children to take one look out of the window for them to come flying out of the house and jumping on top of me. At least it gets them out of the house!

Dribble wax

Here's another wax crayon project. This was inspired by this image on pinterest. Using a heat gun we melted wax crayons and let them dribble down the canvas. This was not an activity for young children so my little one did get bored. We tried using a hair dryer but it took a long time to melt and then sent the colour in all directions.

My eldest pronounced it silly. I quite like it's colourful effect and already know exactly where it is going to go. As an art session with my boys it was not a success but I still like the final product.

Wax & Ink

Today for our art we drew wax pictures.

 

 

Lots of planets.

 

 

Using a wash of water and ink the sky was painted.

 

 

A very simple activity but enjoyed by all.

 

This was actually our second attempt. For the practice run we used A3 printer paper and used water colour for the wash, my boys were disappointed with the rippling affect of the thin paper. This time we used wall lining paper which is excellent for absorbing washes, the ink was to hand and therefore used.

Wax crayon art: planets

 

Our little crayon planets. Some were more successful than others!

I wanted to start our 'wax crayon' week with something simple that also manages to use up those nasty crayon ends that just live on in the box forever. I found a great pinterest board here which gave me the inspiration.

 

The original activity comes from Sandy Toes and Popsicles which shows some incredibly looking mini planets. I have to say that this is a really simple activity and my boys enjoyed trashing their candles. We think that the Earth type planets look good, the coloured ones less so. The dark green disc? I don't know what happened there!

 

Some tips: Try not to mix your crayons. We had a few stockmar beeswax crayons (website chosen at random) which didn't mix well with the normal crayons. I found that the oven temperature listed was too high but every oven is different, I recommend starting lower and turning it up if you need to. Keep the extractor on, these smoke badly if the oven temperature is too high. Don't try using a little bit of white candle wax to substitute for white crayon, the melting temperature is different, it will just float to the top side. Finally, they really do pop out of the tray when cool but cleaning the tray is best done with boiling water. If your sink is large enough for the tray to sit in then just leave it in the water until it is cold, the wax will melt and reset on the water's surface. I couldn't do this so I just rinsed the tray with boiling water into the washing up bowl ready to tip out the waste water straight onto the garden. Do not pour it down the drain as the wax could solidify and cause a blockage.  

 

As you may have guessed I made all of the above mistakes apart from blocking the drain. My candle making knowledge finally had a purpose!