Painting With Feet!

This was born out of a lovely idea that I had to make butterflies from foot prints on canvasses- I may put he pics up if they are a success! The children so loved the sensation of paint on their feet, that we extended the activity. I taped a line of white paper along the lounge floor and then the children painted each other's feet before walking or running or jumping along the line.

Eve was very creative about how she painted Faith's feet, making symmetrical patterns....

....... that were wasted on Faith as she jumped around the paper!!

 Hopping, skipping, jumping, running walking - forwards, backwards, sideways - anyway you did it, it made a lovely mess, and not just on the paper (predictably)!!!!!

 Of course, Idris just couldn't resist getting in on the action....... oooh, scrumply paper.....

 Hang on a minute - is that paint on the floor....... really Mum? Really? Oh you fool!

 Thankfully for his taste buds he turned the brush around before seeing how it tasted!

 Clean-up time was just as much fun - look at that tongue stuck out in concentration!!!!

It was such a good fun afternoon - I'm going to print some of the pictures and put them up with the sheets of painty paper in a display and write up what the girls remember about it.

My mindee said it was' tickly and beautiful' - what a quote!!

Plastic Bag Butterflies

We had a lovely time today making these plastic bag butterflies - I had the idea from here. It provided lots of opportunities for practising scissor skills, talking about the sizes, shapes and colours of the items going into the bags, using some ordinal numbers, counting and discussing the lengths of strings to hang them from!

Eve experimented by making her pipe cleaner antennae into different twisty shapes....

 Faith carefully chose lots of Easter card toppers to go in her butterflies (we raided all the left over bits and bobs from the bottom of the craft box!!

 This is one of Eve's butterflies.....

 We hung them up from the curtain pole with wool, some high, some low......

 Idris really loved looking at them when I held him up to show them to him, and I have to admit, although very simple to make, they are very effective! My little mindee let me hang one up and took one home to her Mum!!

World War Two - Gas Masks and Rationing!

Eve and I started reading 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' about ten days ago and on the first page it talks about children being evacuees. Eve asked what an evacuee was and I gave a brief explanation. Brief wasn't suitable however and we have delved into World War Two with enthusiasm! I spent an evening researching and picking the brains of other home educating parents on the on-line forum that I belong to. I decided to focus on the experiences of children and families during the war instead of the political and holocaust side of things. I think they are important to know about, just not at her age. I am sure that we will return to the topic when she is older and more able to process such horrific things. I will try to post the links where I found things but I may have to come back at a later date and add them in as my laptop was attacked by a virus and I lost all my bookmarks and links!

I saw the idea for the gas masks here, although I didn't follow the instructions, I just made up my own version - it was quite easy to do with the card, elastic around the back, coloured cellophane and some crisp tubes with bubble wrap over - oh and plenty of good old sticky tape! I think they turned out pretty well!! We made them first then I played clips of an air raid siren followed by bombs dropping and the all-clear. As the air raid siren sounded (such a spooky sound!) we dived under the dining table which was designated as our Morrison Shelter and stayed there until the all clear sounded! Naturally as we make things and read about things, some of the more horrific aspects come in - like deadly gases and bombing raids - we talked about the blitz and blackouts and Bombers as well.

 I found some great books for us to use - both fiction and non-fiction. I chose them carefully to suit my children and the aims of our project:

• The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo - this is written from the perspective of a 12 year old girl writing in her diary - it is written in a really lively, chatty way and is very funny for adults as well as children. Lily is moved out of her seaside home as allied forces use the area for training but her beloved cat runs away and she tried to find the cat by entering the danger zone. There is a lot of topical information and we are really enjoying it!
• When The Siren Wailed by Noel Streatfield - This is the story of children evacuated under Operation Pied Piper - we are yet to read this but it sounds good!
• A Wartime Childhood - Factual book with letters, photos and recollections from people who were children during the War.
• War Boy by Michael Foreman - this is the book you can see Faith looking through in the picture - it contains lots of information but written in a fictional style even though it is fact - there are really nice illustrations and sketches all the way through.

 We had fun doing rationing as well - I had a list of the weekly rations allowed and we measured them out - here you can see the sugar, jam, tea and butter and fresh egg that was allowed, as well as a copy of a ration book. I printed out ration books for each of the children and they stamped off the rations they had received!

 We then made carrot cookies from a ration book recipe released at the time - the girls were astonished by how small the biscuits were when cooked - although delicious they seemed very doubtful about having to eat smaller quantities when living on rationing! And we don't go overboard at mealtimes anyway and have a  frugal attitude to food but nothing like the attitude you had to have when on rationing!!

Some of the resources I accessed and printed out were:

• This pack has ration book and identity card printables.
• Some rationing information here.
• Information on Evacuees plus ID card and ration book printables.

I can't find the rest of the links but we have more activities to do and an educational visit to RAF Cosford booked for May so I will be posting again and will add the other links if I remember them!

An Easter Tree

This has been on my Spring activities list for years but somehow it just never happened! I begged hard for some twisty hazel twigs but my dear husband stood firm and I had to be satisfied with apple twigs! I have a package of tiny wooden Easter decorations to hang on them nearer Easter (also had for years and not used!!).

To adorn our tree we made teeny acorn nests with coloured eggs made from oven-bake clay. I had to glue them into the 'nests' when ready and then glued the nests onto a piece of pipe cleaner to twist around the tree. The Girls made birds to sit atop their nests of eggs and didn't want theirs glued in as if you lift the birds out you can see their eggs stuck underneath!!!!

A Saint Patrick's Day Muffin Tin Dinner!

I have seen MTD's or 'Muffin Tin Dinners' around for a while on other blogs but have only recently organised myself to do some!! They are better done in a silicone bake tray with six muffin compartments but I don't have those! I looked for them but you know it is when you actually want something - you never see it and when you don't want it you see loads!!!! Anyhow I used silicone muffin cases in a pie dish instead and it worked just fine!!

So from the left we have broad beans, cucumber and celery, then kiwi and grapes, the tricolour pasta (Irish flag pasta for the purposes of St. Patrick's Day!!), guacamole with a pepper rainbow and cheese cubes as the gold at the end of the rainbow, green jelly and in the centre there are apple and courgette muffins decorated with a skittles rainbow and gold balls! I had a blast doing this - it's such fun and adds a lovely element of anticipation to lunch time! The little girl I child mind ate it all and she's not very keen on new foods! Result!

Here is the Valentines MTD I made in February too!

These had , from the bottom left and going clockwise, heart shaped cheese scones (thanks Mum!), tomatoes, red jelly with berries, smoked cheese hearts with bacon bits, pretzels and pepper sticks.

Making Sock Rabbits!

We made these really sweet sock bunnies last week. I made them at a 'Messy Church' update evening that I went to with our Vicar and Youth Worker a few weeks back. I knew the girls would love them even though the practise run I made on the evening looked a tad scary! They are really simple:

Flatten out a sock and cut from the toe to the heel up the centre. Make sure you choose a sock that has an equal amount of 'foot' to 'heel' as ankle socks won't work (as I found out the hard way!)

Turn the sock inside out and tie a tight knot in the top of the sock then turn it back the right way around (this is the rabbit's bottom!). Fill the sock with rice or beans up to the base of the cut - not too tight full as you need to be able to mould it.

Tie a double knot in the cut toe parts - and arrange the ears as desired! use a ribbon/cord or pipe cleaner to tie around the middle of the rabbit's body to differentiate between the head and the body.

Add some eyes and a nose - we used gems and beads but you could use googly eyes or fabric or buttons. once dry - play away but beware, you will be picking up bits of rice from random corners around your house for weeks!!!!

An Ed Phil for the LEA

I finally sat down a week or so ago to write the long put off document for the Local Education Authority. They first contacted us last September - two days after term began an Education Welfare Officer knocked on the door asking where Eve was, followed two weeks later by a different one asking about Faith. The first one was treated politely, the second one less so I'm afraid! After a few postal exchanges and some time-wasting on my part, it was agreed that I could submit an Educational Philosophy in lieu of a visit or other documentation. They had initially asked for written plans and timetables and evidence of the girl's work. They accepted an offer of Ed Phil after I politely but firmly pointed out the difference between what was written in law and what they were expecting. I had some very welcome help from more experienced Home Edders to write that letter (thank you!).

It left me with an Ed Phil to write and send in by the end of January. So then the procrastination began! It sat at the top of my to-do list for four months until I actually wrote it. Underneath the words Ed Phil grew a HUGE list of other to-do's. For some reason not doing the Ed Phil blocked all of the other items from getting done! Since I wrote the flippin' thing, my to-do list has miraculously emptied with little stress and very much productivity!

I have mixed feelings about submitting anything and I will try to explain my position in as clear a way as I can. Firstly I was annoyed at having been reported to the LEA after having been peacefully 'under the radar' for two years! Secondly let me say that I understand that the LEA have a job to do. But our taxes are paying them to bother me into spending hours writing a report for them - how does that work out?! I am saving the LEA thousands theoretically by not sending my children to school so they should be giving us a rebate shouldn't they?! Thirdly, I am not convinced that the 'officers' employed to 'monitor' us know as much as they could/should do about home education. 

I wonder if I would be less bothered about submitting information if we received an amount of money every year to be spent on books, resources, educational trips etc. There isn't any provision for that in the UK, but on the other hand if there were then it would open the door for the LEA to ask for more and more from us. In Law the LEA can't actually ask for any documentation but we were advised that it was sensible to maintain some contact or we could find ourselves in all sorts of hot water and spending a disproportionate amount of time and money defending ourselves!

I initially felt that the time I spent writing the report was wasted time but by the end I saw the benefit. This was because it helped me clarify the benefits to us of home educating and just how solid are reasons are. It also made an amazing list of activities and experiences when I jotted them all down and saw how many linked to each other to provide a wonderful, well-rounded education for the girls. I felt really proud of what we do and it cemented my convictions (which do waver from time to time as is only natural!).

All in all a worthwhile experience but I am in no hurry to do it again!