Class Three Steiner blocks and lessons

We've done the Old Testament stories in relation to The Creation, the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden (which Springy thought was unfair), the tale of Noah and his Ark (and again Springy thought this was unfair against the animals who got left to drown), Joseph and His Coat and the story of Moses in the bulrushes.  We went to see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Musuem of Museums in December which tied in to Egypt and Moses.

We're reading Farmer Boy as our read aloud (although 9-year change Springy doesn't like it).

Springy can manage knitting basic knit stitches but I need to find her a teacher because I'm not getting it through in the right way to her.  I also have a spinning contact (the same as the knitting tutor) who I hope can give her a lesson in spinning wool.  She's done weaving before and also is a member of the Embroidery Guild so has done some interesting projects through that.  I'd also like to get her going with crochet but again I'm limited in my own skills with it.

Our building was a willow dome.  We still need to find a yurt to look at.  We studied about igloos earlier in the autumn.

I still need to do more on weights and measures.

In relation to farming, we have some seed potatoes.  Money is tight as usual but I'm hoping to get a raised planter to have some carrots and leeks or salad crops this year.  I bought Springy a child-sized garden fork so she can dig up the back bed herself and turn it into her own vegetable patch (or flowers or herbs).  I hope to get a little garden rake and hoe as well for her (I noticed her enthusiasm when she played with some real but child-sized tools the other week).

Seven

We have been working on the 7 times table with Springy who seems to have memorised it really well so far. We've been discussing the seven days of the week and the seven colours of the rainbow (visible light spectrum). We've been sat outside in the garden reading a book called Schoolhouse in the Woods as well.

 

We also dug up our potato crop from the potato bag.  It wasn't very big but will be enough for one meal with potatoes. 

 

Our current read at night is The Borrowers by Mary Norton.

Garden is not growing

Not entirely true but some of our garden has not grown this year. The strawberries did grow in the strawberry patch but as usual the pigeons and mice/voles have been there before us. The blueberries need to be moved because they are not looking so good this year and our potatoes seem to have failed.

Our lettuce has grown rather well though - but no one likes these particular varieties as they are too bitter! The aphids love them this year (I've not got enough feverfew growing this year - that usually acts as a good companion plant to our crops). The guineapigs have also partaken of the lettuce.

Puppies and poopies

We're having a backwards step with the puppy at the moment, although she has managed to get her poopies in the right place...mostly. However, wees are going all over the kitchen floor! We've had some lovely walks so far and puppy is responding to "Sit", "Down", "Come" and today we managed a first "Roll over" in terms of doing the first stage of the move. She's a bright little puppy but Springy is a little jealous of her at times (which has been interesting).

Springy has had a nice weekend and we went to visit some friends we haven't seen in ages for a playdate and they came around today too. It was really nice and they were very interested in the puppy.

Today I wanted to do some gardening but instead the weather stopped it as we had galeforce winds (after a lovely morning start). I really want to clear up the front because I left all the Michaelmas daisies in place for all the insects etc but now the front needs a good tidy up. I'd also like to have a few more primroses in place and cut back things that are stopping the light from reaching the rose bushes and so on. Instead, I had a nap...just fell asleep on the sofa with sheer exhaustion.

Springy needs to do a little bit more knitting than she has been. She's reading My Secret Unicorn: The Magic Spell. Apparently, it's good and I've been reading the Rainbow Magic books.

We watched Prince Caspian - talk about inappropriate for under 12s! It was incredibly violent (I did read these books as an under 10 year old but don't remember them being graphically violent but...it just irritates me that the film classification was so wrong). Anyway, I've said no to any more viewings of it (we borrowed it from the library and C chose it). I want to read The Hobbit to Springy but there is no way I will allow a viewing of The Lord of the Rings. I'd ideally like her to be able to read the books first. I've told her if she wants to see Harry Potter films she has to read the books first (which should take long enough in years).

She's also reading Animal Ark: Hamster in a Hamper by Lucy Daniels (actually by a book company who have utilised the name for a whole series). Because I work part-time as an editor it makes it really difficult for me to read books these days because if I'm working on one I have to focus myself entirely on that otherwise I get the plots muddled up between books. It's a bit annoying having to wait until the next book is finished and I got a book from the library called The Various which looks quite good.

Brownies was really good again - the theme was St David's Day and Springy dressed in red for the Welsh dragon. We had Welsh cakes too.

White Plume Moth

In our front garden we have a patch of mugwort which I've allowed to grow, although a few days ago I pruned it back a bit to avoid it killing off the roses behind it, and also harvested the mugwort (it's not a herb I've utilised except I had moxibustion when I was pregnant).

Springy and I saw a beautiful moth and upon identification we discovered it was a white plume moth. We found one yesterday by our strawberry patch and I caught it (very gently) and held it until C came out to have a look at it. He thought we were a bit potty when I first described the moth from the other day because I said it had fairy wings and was pure white. I've been trying to identify it and it turns out it is called a white plume moth, although I prefer "Pandora":

http://www.bugsandweeds.co.uk/moths%20p4.html#LWhPlume

We also identified another moth we saw last year which was a cinnabar moth, looking quite tropical.

Around the garden I've noticed lots of cockchafer beetles (maybugs), mainly deceased. It seems to have been a good year for them to turn from larval stage into adulthood.

Today we had a lovely walk and saw 5 cygnets. Many of the ducklings and cygnets have been lost this year because of rooks predating on them. For some reason the grub cycle this year means rooks and other corvids have had to rely on other food (possibly the wet summer in 2007!).

Practical and Conversational Learning

I find myself noticing that so much of our learning is informal, through practical, everyday situations arising which either leads to the acquisition of knowledge through necessity or through conversation. For example, Springy has known about the o'clocks of time for quite a while because she hears both C and I discuss what time we are leaving for somewhere or what time a meal is. She now has an awareness of half past and over the weekend started to ask about quarter past and quarter to. I don't tend to go into long explanations but when there is an indication that she is interested in something then I make the effort to engage with that. So now instead of saying it's nearly 8 o'clock and therefore you can longer eat at this time before bed I have started to say it's quarter to 8 (or nearly or just gone quarter to 8). That way, when she's ready it will just slip into her knowledge base.

We had the same today. We were shopping and I did a price comparison on some food and rather than overload her with the details I pointed out that I was finding out which one was cheaper by using maths and showed her the label. I didn't explain any further than that but the idea has been encountered.

I haven't listed all that we have in our garden in terms of fruit and vegetables. I tend to grow small quantities - to me the experience of knowing where food comes from, how to care for plants etc is a very important part of home education but I'm certainly not an expert gardener. Our raspberry canes look good this year (nettle mulch seems to have helped), we seem to have a lot of strawberries again, two blueberry bushes, a gooseberry bush (which isn't doing well - I need to move it), redcurrant bush (it looks like some little birdies have devoured the unripe currants because there were a lot), some dwarf runner beans, several varieties of potato (courtesy of the British Potato Council), leaf beet, tomato vines and courgette plant and lots of herbs (comfrey, nettles, dandelions, sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, mints) and edible flowers such as calendula, carnations, and roses. We garden without pesticides and I like to companion plant. We often lose our crops to other lifeforms and I try not to mind sharing.

Bunny in the Garden

There's a bunny in the garden. He or she is so cute and loves nibbling our lawn (probably because it is organic and full of extras other than just grass). Springy loves seeing her bunny friend but if we go out he goes off into the undergrowth. When I hang out the washing I can hear him so he doesn't seem to be running off too far.

I need to mow the lawn and trim the hedgerow a little before they get too unruly.

We've still got a small crop of blueberries appearing everyday. We love Elsa Beskow's 'Peter In Blueberry Land'. I love stories that tie in to our life.