The Lonely Bouquet

While picking up medicine at the doctors we found a lonely boquet on the steps

Pretty

It had a label which read

''Take me home

I am a lonely bouquet in need of a home!

Here to brighten your's or a loved one's day.

If you like you can post me on www.facebook/the lonely bouquet

Enjoy!"

So we did. P was very pleased with it and wants to do one of our own soon.  It is a lovely idea and people are apparently doing it all over the world.  I had never heard of it.

Stonehenge

We  could get quite close to the stones

Stonehenge is managed by English Heritage - Home educators can get in free if you book in advance.  This is the first time we have done this.  We met the education officers in the car park and once they discovered we were home educators and not a school (which it doesn't look like they get very often!)

they were very good and one talked to the grown ups and one talked to Phoebe.  All schools get a 10 minute introductory talk - I thought they wouldn't bother with us as there was only three of us.

Then - the best bit - they walked us to the entrance, past the long queues to get in and unlocked a turnstile and let us through straight away.  

Last time we walked around the stones she was inside me

We had headphones which explained about the stones.  P was always behind and we had to keep waiting for her to catch up.

Had to keep waiting for P to catch up with her headphones

Many people were taking photos of themselves 'planking' or doing funny jumps in front of the stones. P decided to do the same.

She was jumping, not doing a funny walk - my bad
camera skills

June

Trip to Legoland

Davids new kitten (we both want one!)

Binx

P's birthday

Do you think she was pleased she got Skylanders?

Favourite pressie apart from Skylanders was an electronics kit

And face paints

When we went to a local llama farm the lady in charge of looking after them got one out for us to have a 'play' with.

Meet Tom

Tom has long eye lashes

More May happenings

Livewires human body day

Horribly difficult human eye puzzle

Matts new bike ...

P wants one too

We had a home ed trip to Knockhatch with the animal encounter this time being hedgehogs, a monitor lizard and a baby rhea (I want one!) 

Fuzzy picture of P holding a shed tarantula skin

Outdoor water slippy slope

In the lake surrounded by very big fish!

Messing about with friends

At a local park

Planting up seedlings

Dinosaurs

We did a dinosaur topic and visited the Natural History Museum in London to see just how huge some of them were.

It was a sunny day for once, blue skies

Measuring up to a woolly mammoth

Quite scary animated dinos

Doing a paleontology kit back home, digging out a dinosaur
 

3 Month review

So, three months since I last posted! I am very bad at this blogging lark.
Onto some of the things we have done .........

Easter and making Easter baskets

We managed to get one of the old hand operated Singer sewing machines that belonged to my grandmother working.  We much prefer this (not so violent as the electric version) it is quiet and P spent ages sewing on material and then paper, following lines, ;earning how to  turn and eventually made her own pictures.

My first attempt at a Waldorf doll!  A bit wobbly but P loves her.

We had a home ed day out to a local farm and P fed horses and baby goats, cuddled rabbits and guinea pigs and learnt how to wet felt.

After that everybody had a good time playing in the barn especially in the giant flag!

Looking after the chickens.

P and her fav chicken - Stripey

Winning a gold medal at a trampolining competition

First sewing lesson

P was very excited when my friend asked her if she wanted to have a go at sewing on her machine.  P has been asking me for ages to do sewing.  We have done some hand sewing but my machine has broken.  I do have two very old hand operated sewing machines which belonged to my grandmother (or more likely great-grandmother). I have used them before and will have to get them going again I think I prefer them to the electric.

Anyway, she concentrated really hard, she operated the pedal and didn't go too fast and managed to keep her fingers out of the way of the needle!

This is the finished result.  I think its really good.  Very professional. :0)

P is pretty pleased with it too!

Circus Day

Our local home ed group meets once a month and has a different theme each time, this month it was the circus.  There were not many of us there this time but we still had fun practising  plate balancing, giant hula hooping and balancing skills.

We took along our popcorn making machine and there was also popcorn making in a saucepan as well, so we compared the two.  Ours was quicker and less messy but you could make more in one go in the saucepan.
Both tasted good.

Yet again the children all disappeared into the woods at the end to play.

Raystede Animal Rescue

During half term we visited the local animal rescue sanctuary (blue skies for once) with some of P's friends.

We listened to a demonstration about their work with rescued dogs.  P decided that the dog for her was an enormous Rottweiler!  I don't think she would have been so brave if there wasn't the glass between her and him. (P is usually very scared of dogs)

After studying all the parrots P decided that the one for her was . . . . 

This one with no feathers on his front.  Still, I quite liked him too, he came rushing up to us, climbed down the bars as close as he could and put his head against the bars for us to stroke.  Still, I don't fancy a reputation as a collector of bald animals, we already have a chicken with no feathers on its rear (never grew back after moulting), a dog with hair that comes and goes (mystery allergy) and an ancient black cat which is beginning to show definite signs of fur thinning.

Yet again the kids favourite part of the day.  The play park at the end.

Knockhatch Adventure Park

P and the Wallaby

We went on a home ed visit to Knockhatch Adventure Park at the beginning of February.  This is P in the mud looking very unimpressed by the wallaby (notice the hands tucked up inside her coat - the keeper had just told her that they bite!)

We had an animal encounter talk - the animals were snakes, spiders, scorpions and white hedgehogs! I really must get a camera that can take pictures indoors just for this blog!  Sorry about the blurry pictures.

An even blurrier picture of a very large spider!  I think I was pretty brave to be this close.  P didn't want to get very close.  This one can flick poisonous hairs from its back at you.  It was pretty bald already so was not a nice spider.

The park was pretty deserted apart from our group.  This was great because we soon discovered the inside play area with enormous slides, swings, etc for the kids and  hot coffee for us and as it was so cold and damp outside most of us stayed there for the whole afternoon.