Ducks

Mrs Duck has gone from her nest. We waited for her to return but the area around her nest smells of fox and C heard a distressed but quick duck noise early this morning. She has either abandoned her nest or the fox has taken her altogether. We waited and waited and some of the eggs that were in there have already been taken (either fox, stoat or ?).

Anyway, we now have 2 duck eggs on our hands that appear to be fertilised and feel heavy as if ducklings are in there. We improvised an incubator (flower pot, silver foil, lightbulb on, temperature gauge, a bowl with water in at the bottom to keep the humidity up and...well it's very improvised). We cannot afford to get an incubator and we have no idea if we are going to meet with success but it is the best we can do as Mrs Duck has had her nest in our garden for at least 3 years and until now has been successful. We have never had to intervene before and it's not something we were hoping to do either. It's rather upsetting to think that she has gone but I've been reading up on what to do (I have actually incubated geese and cared for ducklings before for a wildlife trust thing but that was when I was in my teens so this is like a new experience).

http://www.duckhealth.com/duck.html

Currently reading...April 2008

Our read togethers at the moment are:

The Doll's House by Rumer Godden
Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne (found a set of 1-4 in a charity shop)

We also read Kenneth Grahame's The Reluctant Dragon (illustrated version) as today is St George's Day and it's a much nicer ending for a dragon.

Anna and the Flowers of Winter by Nettie Lowenstein (we have violets on our lawn and this story is about a girl called Anna who has to look for violets in winter - it's a lovely fairy tale and the illustrations are beautiful).

Me and sewing

I have not done sewing for years. Well that's not true as tonight I had to restitch one of Springy's Beaver badges back on to her top. I love the idea of sewing and want to sew but always felt intimidated by the whole thing. I've had sewing lessons and even did Textiles as a GCSE but I did everything by hand, badly. I really want to get myself a sewing machine and run up some pretty things for our home. I know that there is all the pattern stuff that I would need to learn about, then how to thread up the machine and so it goes on and this is why I've not gotten around to it (not forgetting that a sewing machine is way down on our list of financial priorities as well).

A glorious spring day for Springy

Today was about 18 deg C and although there were some slight westerly winds it was warm. We now have Mrs Duck nesting outside our front door. She is hidden in the herb patch there and is very well camoflauged - just not quite enough for humans going past with shopping. Springy thinks it is very exciting to have Mrs Duck nest there.

We went for a 2-hour walk yesterday and spotted cherry blossoms, a few butterflies, bees and so on. Springy wanted to do it again but instead we went to see N and went on a little walk with her instead. The dandelion flowers are bursting out, in time for Beltaine. I love seeing them and Springy found a piece of petal from one, asked what it was and I told her to look closer at the dandelions; she realised it was part of the flower.

We practised our piano earlier - Springy can manage Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star fairly well but she is struggling with Frere Jacques. I noticed that I have started to remember the note positions and am naming them as I play. I hope to get to a level whereby I can play simple nursery rhyme piano from books like Sing Through the Day.

Beaver Scouts has started again this week which is great for Springy. She was talking about having a dog today because then she would "have someone to play with all the time". It's not easy being an only one, if you want to have a brother and sister, and I guess a dog is a good substitute. I'd rather have another baby than a dog though, but the latter may be easier to attain!

Swallows and Bunny rabbits

This morning, whilst I was washing up, I spotted a tiny bunny rabbit on our patio area. I called for Springy but I think the sound must have carried down the sink, down the pipes and out of the outside drain because Baby Bunny ran away.

Springy participated in a St George's Day parade today. It was a scouting and guides thing - lots of flags and lots of tiny Beavers/Rainbows, larger Cubs/Brownies and even taller Scouts/Guides joined in. Springy enjoyed it. We participated in a Church of England thing which was a bit weird - I wish the religious stuff didn't have to come into it. They sang the Lord of the Dance which I always feel is neutral and uplifting in its stance. However, some of the other hymns just were full of "sin" and "smiting" which I cannot stand - Victorian killjoy/superstitous desert deity nonsense. Anyway, I don't think the lady next to me in the pew was happy - I noticed her giving me looks because I didn't sing with the hymns (actually I did - one of them I changed to Sing Susanna, Sing Susanna...to the Lord of the Rings) and wouldn't do the prayers either. The Scout/Guide movement in this country seems to be chockablock full of religious zealots and bigots (not all, thank goodness but there are many) - it's Christianity or you're a godless heathen and therefore evil. If I had been Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem and so on, the whole thing was exclusive rather than inclusive and...well they just don't get how out-of-date they are when they don't need to be. Morals and kindness are not part of a religion - they are a natural part of human nature and you don't need superstition or supernatural deities to threaten people with in order to be kind and pleasant.

Anyway, little rant over. I was looking outside this evening and up in the sky there was the first swallow of the season. I yelled for C and Springy to have a look too.

Needle felting - play food

We made 2 items of play food today. Springy loves playing with her basket of pinecones, conkers and the sausage stone (it's a stone that looks exactly like a sausage). I got the needle felting stuff out, blended the regular wool with some yellow merino to make the base for a pizza and topped it with some very yellow wool (melted cheese) , some red wool (using a tiny circular pastry cutter) to make tomatoes and some green wool as the peppers on top. We also made a cake together - again did some fibre blending with some yellow and ordinary wool (the ordinary wool is coarser and better for needle felting and gives the coloured merino some body and grip). I used a circular cookie cutter (the same as for the pizza) to use as a template to needle felt into. Then we built up a layer of 'jam' by using some red and pink blended wool (Springy helped with this), added another layer of cake (ordinary washed fleece with yellow mixed in to give it a sponge cake look) and then some pink icing (again using the ordinary blended with some pastel pink merino). Springy wet-felted (with soap/warm water) a tiny ball to represent a cherry on top. The cake looks delicious and so does the mini pizza - they are perfect as playfood for Springy.

I would like to make vegetables but I seem to better at needle felting using cookie cutters on a 2-d basis and then adding layers (it avoids finger damage - I reckon if Sleeping Beauty was rewritten her father would have removed felting needles from his kingdom!).

Re: Saxon maths

I found a Saxon maths test thing so Springy and I played a game to do one of the pages together. It was the Primary 1A test:

http://www.sonlight.com/singapore.html

We got out our Maths Gnomes and also our little tumblestones (rose quartz etc) as counters/manipulatives since I dislike worksheets alone at this age and stage. Each question involved telling a little tale - so the ones for addition had Penny Plus gnome going around picking up all the stones, one by one, and Springy worked out the answer. Most of the time I went from the whole to the parts e.g. 3 + 4 = 7 so I would say 7 is 3 plus 4 and then we'd put 7 stones together and arrange the grouping into 3 and 4.

We did the same for any questions with subtraction e.g. 7 - 3 = 4Minnie Minus (the baby blue gnome) was given some stones by her mummy, Penny Plus, and then, because her hands are so small, she dropped a few. So again, we started with the whole (7 stones), made the transfer to baby Minnie and she dropped 4 of the stones. Anyway Springy enjoyed it all. I always say we're going to play maths, rather than use the term "work" as this puts her off.

We received the new Sonlight catalogue a few weeks back and it's been an interesting read. It's a bit offputting to see it as a "Christian" curriculum provider, since we're not but then again I have some good friends who are Christian (even if I think they are a bit loopy for believing in supernatural deities etc - wink) and it's really rather good stuff. I still haven't made any purchases from them but reckon we may well do some of the stuff later on as they have a very broad range of products which can be utilised regardless of belief system. That said, there are some strange (to my way of thinking anyway) books on non-evolutionary science (which to me is a paradox) and lots of testaments from those on missionary work in other countries but I guess to each their own.

Spring is here

Today has been a beautiful day in terms of what happened and the weather. I'm writing this with a big, fat wood pigeon looking in at me through the window (and who also nibbles the shoots on the blossom tree). It's 7pm and the sun is still shining and hasn't started to set yet.

Springy and I ate doughnuts today - a special treat. We also went grocery shopping - butchers and to the greengrocers and also took N to her favourite food place for her shopping.

Springy had a lovely walk with our neighbour. They were looking for a missing dog that had run off and had taken a scarf ready to tie him up with (not likely since it was a missing setter, who are very slippery at being caught!).

We have a hedgehog living in our garden. He or she has a little nest near the fence and is on occasion popping out. I'm not sure whether or not they are really meant to about during the day but she (Springy has named her Sarah the Hedgehog) seems to only stay out for a short burst of time. I'm keeping an eye on her to see if there are any health issues, like a runny nose. ~We may get some meat and cut up a small portion and place it in a bowl near the nest. Home education is ideal for nature watching.

Language Ideas

This worked so well today. I have a BBC German CD and phrasebook out from the library. Springy and I played restaurants and then shops. I was the customer and I had to order from the menu (Speisekarte) and didn't talk English to her. She was amazing in terms of comprehension because I barely spoke in English to her (used German, pointing, hand gestures etc) but I guess because of the similarities between English and German and the language roots it makes it easier to work out.

We did shops with her play food (some Haba ones from ninnynoodlenoo and things like pinecones, conkers and so forth). I asked for a lemon, an apple, a pear (ein Birne), strawberry and so on and she had to work it out and bring me the right thing. If she got it wrong I just said "Nein" and shook my head. It worked really well and I'm going to be doing this much more. Immersion through play :)

This is also an excellent link and resource for Comptines (nursery rhymes) in French:

http://comptine.free.fr/

Piano and violin practise

These are notes from our last music lesson that if I don't write down will sieve out of my brain:

Hold violin between jaw and shoulder, violin should point to the side. The handle of the violin should be level with mouth/hose. Left foot comes forward and takes weight - this handles player's energy better.

The bow is held with the thumb on the metal thingie, the middle finger opposite and the fingers slightly curled over. The little finger aligns with the dot.

Need sponge because this goes between chin thing and shoulder so that player is able to hold violin without using hands.


1 2 3 4 STOP 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 STOP 2 3 4

lONG 2 3 4 STOP 2 3 4 LONG 2 3 4 STOP 2 3 4

CAT-ER-PIL-LAR GO HOME

Use the bow from the middle upwards. The movement is down first and then upwards, in other words you pull and push the bow.

The violin strings are G, D, A and E.
We are currently practising on the A and E strings only with caterpillar go home (the first cat being a downward pull).

On the piano we need to learn C D E F G and backwards G F E D C B A.

April Snow Showers

Today it snowed. Springy woke us up with "Mummy, Daddy, look outside, it snowed" and was ever so excited. She's never seen so much snow before. I got her dressed as quick as possible so she could go outside. She stood in the garden and was in that childhood place of wonder and awe. The snow was flurrying down on her and she did the picking up snow, looking at the bird tracks on the lawn, catching the snow in her mouth and all that. Then she went nextdoor and had a snowball fight. She got hit in the face at one point and although a little tearful, as it had hit her eye, she pulled through.

The only problem was when we got back inside. She'd been out a little too long and her gloves were wet and her hands had gone icy cold. Anyway, we wrapped her in blankets, gave her hugs and I made a lukewarm Ovaltine to help her energy levels.

The snow didn't last for long and by the afternoon, although it was still cold, the sky was blue and the sun was out with the only signs of snow along the north facing fence and hedges.

I'm so glad she saw the snow.

Food Group Introduction for Infants

This is something that I was given when my daughter was little (sorry no reference). I'm sure there are problems with it but my daughter (touchwood) has no problem with any kind of allergy. I modified it as well and will put what I did afterwards:

List that suggested:
0-6 months - breastmilk only
6 months - rice, root veg eg potatotes, carrots, swede, turnip, parsnip
6 months - pears, bananas, apples
7 months - veg such as marrow, cauliflower and broccoli, peas, beans, lentils and tomatoes
7 months - oats, rye, millet
7 months - turkey meat
8 month - beef, chicken (no processed meat)
8 months - wheat
9 months - citrus fruits
10 - 11 months - white fish eg cod, coley, plaice
12 months - eggs

My own thing (this is from memory):
Until 6 months or even more - exclusive breastfeeding (your breastmilk will contain the flavours of everything you eat so this helps with baby's sense of taste)
6 months - baby rice mixed with breastmilk (although baby rice has some controversy)
7 months - avocado, sweet potato
8 months - parsnip, carrot, banana, apple, pears
9/10 months - started with chicken and other veg
12 months - potatoes and tomatoes, white fish, other meat + eggs
15 months - eggs and wheat, tuna
18 months - strawberries
2 years - prawns (I know you're not supposed to start until 3 or so but we eat a huge amount of fish here because we live near the sea - I craved prawns all through my pregnancy but didn't eat them)
2.5 - walnuts (she insists on these because she likes me to make things with the shells)