Lovely blog with bee feature

http://naturenest.wordpress.com/category/animals/bees/

and this:

http://web.me.com/meaningfulmathbooks1/Site/Lower_School_Math.html

and this article:
http://opencreativity.open.ac.uk/assets/pdf/strathclyde/Learning%20to%20think%20in%20Steiner.pdf

And this on rainbow writing:

http://faeriedust2001.blogspot.com/2005/11/rainbow-sentences.html

Writing workshop

Springy had a writing workshop at the library today. It was quite funny to see her roll her eyes at the boys who were not listening. She was the only girl there so I wasn't sure if she wanted to stay or whether the subject (a book she hadn't read called beast Quest) was of interest. However, she enjoyed it all and wrote a great amount of detail.

We had a bedtime story last night about a boy and his mud horse. It was from the Enki Education curriculum but I'm certain I've seen the story elsewhere too.

I'm reading a Robert Holdstock book at the moment and want to make another foray into Middle Earth to read The Hobbit. I want some sunshine days to happen next week. I'd like to hire a Rug Doctor to clean our carpets and for that I need good weather. I also want to wash all the bedding and towels again at a 60 deg C wash.

I want to tidy up the garden, mow the lawn and tidy up our lounge so that we can access the blackboard again. I wish I could work out how to re-arrange our home to make it easier to organise everything.

Springy painted a shoebox tonight and decorated it. I think it's meant to be a new room for her Sylvanians or her dollshouse folk.

The Cat Who Decided

We still have our gorgeous dog. She's such an adorable dog, with spaniel-like ears and looks nothing like a Shih Tzu and more like a Tibetan Spaniel. She's out for a walk now with C and Springy. She can do high fives, sit, down, jump, woof and so on.

Our last read aloud was The Cat Who Decided by Margaret Forrester and at the end I cried. It was a wonderful story about a cat who does indeed get to decide on who his family is.

We just got Miquon Maths - the red and the blue book which I hope is the level where Springy is at and a little bit extra. We also have the Sonlight Science kit and Instructors Guides. I'm managing quite well with removing the Creationism stuff and don't feel at all offended by its inclusion (each to their own is something I've learnt a lot of with home education).

I just found these mandalas for Springy:
http://www.kidsweb.de/basteln/mandala/tier_mandala.htm

Springy's two wonderful Beaver leaders left this term and she made a knitting fork belt for each of them as a gift. She's really good at doing that now. I just need to get my confidence up with regular knitting so that she feels more confident about it (she can do it). I'm using feather yarn to make a scarf at the moment. It's really difficult to use as it's difficult to see and feel the stitches. However, I hope that when it is ready then Springy can use it as a dressing up item and pretend to be a bird with wings etc.

We have some new books for Springy - Magic Hoofbeats, The Year of Miss Agnes and some kind of unicorn book (from a series) called The Magic Bracelet. I need to get her book 1 of the latter though as I didn't realise they were a series. I've been using the Sonlight reading list ideas along with Chinaberry. It's a shame neither have a UK branch but it would be too costly to buy from them direct and then have them shipped over.

12 pages

I have written my long 12-page letter to my MP. It was painful and at times I felt like I was going to pass out (I do mean this literally) because of the blurring eyes and headaches and sick feeling that this Review and Consultation have given me.

This will destroy home education if it goes through. It will destroy the right to privacy in our homes. It will eliminate parental responsibility and the state will be able to act in loco parentis for all children regardless of whether there is a need or not.

I was brought up to believe the Government worked for us. I was brought up to believe that as long as I remained well behaved and didn't commit theft or violence then the state would leave me alone. I was brought up thinking that children could not be removed from parents unless there was an issue of abuse.

Magnets

We've done experiments the past few days with magnets. It's not exactly part of the waldorf school curriculum at this age and stage but we've got a book called Usborne Science Activities and we also have a science kit with magnets, pins and so on (from Sonlight - who not in a million years did I ever think to buy from because they are Creationist but they list some excellent science resources and we just ignore the creationist stuff and stick to the evolutionary stuff).

I've been impressed so far and it means I don't have to spend all my time looking for bits and pieces around the home. They're all in the one box. Yes, I could have sourced everything myself but sometimes I want my life to be made easier.

We did a magnetic experiment the day before yesterday. Springy had to gather items from round the house, e.g. coins, stones, pencils, and pop them in a bowl and then she used a bar magnet to check whether they stuck or not. We charted this up. She really enjoyed this.

Today we did another experiment this morning with magnets (learning - and home education - doesn't stop, not even for weekends!) and had a pin on zero of a ruler and then moved our magnets nearer and nearer. We found that our ring magnet has the strongest magnetic pull and charted this up in Springy's book again.

On Thursday our family had a good afternoon at the beach. It was very hot but we all had sun hats on and Springy had a swimming t-shirt. C and Springy went swimming in the sea whilst I sat on my chair, like Roy Scheider's character, watching for shark fins...just in case. Last night it rained and it is cooler and windier today so it's not going to be a washing day. The next morning Springy got up late because it was so hot at night that she couldn't sleep.

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.

Model making and walruses

Today was a really good day. Springy says she really doesn't want to play the recorder so she had a go on our percussion instruments instead. We made 2 cats, a kitten and a dog out of Fimo. Our dog had a walk and a wash under the shower, and then Springy and I did some writing practice on vowels in lower case and we then read an Usborne Animal quiz book and discussed what we were reading about.

We also watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6iDtvGbIOU