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Sunday 7 February 2016

January Activities

The most important part of January was this little guy's birthday.  He turned 5 years old.  He loves trains, so we went to our local city children's playground where there is a miniature ride-on railway.  We rode the train, and then headed on to the pool to spend an afternoon swimming on a hot summer day.

 Cake by Butterfly.


My garden did really well this year.  Yay.
Hollyhocks
Alderman Tall Pea plants growing over a frame...yummy!
Giant Sunflower
Blossom among my leeks and spring onions
Crystal with a Gladioli
Swan Plants which are now just sticks!
My herb-walk path to the chicken area.


There have been some very hot days, calling for a visit to the local river for a cooling swim.




We are easing back into "schooling". 
White carnations in food colouring - science of plants taking up water.
Another colour science activity was "walking water".  Watching water drawn up the paper tissue and down into the empty cup.
Before - 4 cups half full in primary colours, 3 empty cups.
After - 7 cups equally full in the rainbow colours.
Crystal wanted to dry out the paper tissues to see how they looked.
A bit of fun mixing the coloured water.



Painting rocks.

Lego card building challenge.  This was Arrow's efforts.

Butterfly made her own "backstage" dresser with plastic cups and Christmas lights.

~Lorna

Skills For The Modern Homestead - #5 & #7 - Broody Hens and Hatching Chicks

The first skill we tackled was chosen for us by the fact we already own chickens and 2 of them became broody mid December.  

A website I use for my information is Fresh Eggs Daily.  I suggest using that for information rather than my blog post; I am very amateur at this yet!  This is just a record of what we did.

To recognise a broody was actually rather easy!  They just didn't get off the nest...at all...!  To care for them was fairly easy too.  I gently picked them up off the nest every morning and took them to the food and water, filled their nest with small amounts of dried herbs (mint, lemon balm and calendula) to deter pests and make it smell nice.  

Our first clutch of baby chicks were hatched in a friends incubator.  We have 4 little cuties and they have been such fun to watch them grow and explore the world.  I feel a bit sorry for them not having a feathered mummy to protect them but they seem pretty tough and so curious about everything!  I am their mummy for now.



Glass pebbles in the water bowl to prevent smaller chicks from drowning.
Chick Crumble for young chicks
Out for a walk with me
Tucked away safely for the night

 Our second clutch of chicks were hatched by our hen Mary Poppins.  She laid one of these eggs and I left her with some others laid that same day from our other hens.  She proved to be a very stubborn lady and is a wonderful protective mother.
She started her nest in the roosting house where the eggs are laid daily.
The recommendation is to not move a broody hen once she is sitting on eggs,
so I left her where she was until her chicks hatched.
Then I moved her to a quieter spot where her sisters would not bother her.


She has 4 adorable babies, the softest things I have ever felt!


 Our third clutch of chicks belong to Susannah.  She is a gentle, quiet lady.  She has 4 little chicks.

Susannah also decided the egg laying corner was a perfect spot to be broody.
This time I blocked her in with a cardboard box and a net curtain
to stop the others laying their eggs with her.
I moved her to a more private location once her eggs had hatched.

The incubator babies are now 8 weeks old and we can tell that there are 2 hens and 2 roosters.  They are so lovely and come running when they see me!  <love>  It was on the homesteading skills plan to kill, pluck, and cook the roosters...but they are much to adorable to do that to them!  So I have found them a home each close by so I can visit them periodically.

Mary Poppins has integrated her chicks into the flock.  I wondered if there would be some fighting involved, but no... 

Susannah has also moved her chicks into the night area with the rest of the flock without any fuss.  

It is so fascinating to watch how they manage their babies.


Incubator Babies - 9 weeks
Mary Poppins with her 2 surviving babies - 5 weeks
Susannah with her 4 babies - 4 weeks

~Lorna

Monday 1 February 2016

Night of the Moonjellies - FIAR

Pre-warning - lots of photos below! 

Last week for our learning we read Night of the Moonjellies  by Mark Shasha.  It is a book suggested in the Five In A Row Curriculum that we use.  A lovely, rich story that is based on an actual day the author experienced as a young boy.
To hear it read online *listen here*
*Five In A Row*
 We did some activities each day.  The girls did a mapping exercise where they received a map of the United States of America with the names of the New England states.  They had to find the names on a map in an atlas and colour them in on their own map sheet.  We chatted briefly about why they are called New England states and a small smattering of history.

They also wrote a short story of their own, reflecting on an event in their own lives.  

Extra reading was books about the sea as the story is set in a coastal town and "moon jellies" are little sea creatures.

Busy Reading



I found some amazing little resources on *homeschool share* for this book. 

This game has cards with questions on them about the story.  If they weren't paying attention, they couldn't answer!  Nothing like a spot of sibling competition to up the concentration!
Math word problems - keeping it relevant.
Butterfly took Blossom and Crystal for a little art lesson using oil pastels.  We talked about colours to show moods and oil pastels to give texture to the picture.

Science covered the Aquatic Biome
As we talked about the aquatic biome regions we used stickers to help us remember them.


 This is our jellyfish in a bottle.  
Quite simply a piece of plastic in a bottle of coloured water = Fun.

Years ago when I did this book with my older children, J951 collected me as much sea glass as he could find.  It was nice to have some on hand to show the younger children, especially now we don't live very close to a beach, as we used to do.



To end our week we organised to have dinner at a diner...at home.  This was so much fun, and something the children will not forget!

On the HomeSchoolShare website there was a page to create a Restaurant Menu.  This is what Blossom and Crystal came up with.
The girls set up the outdoor diner.  It looked so amazing.

Crystal took the orders while Butterfly and Blossom were the waitresses.  We used play money to buy our meals.



The boys waiting for their food.
The waitresses doing a fabulous job.




The indoor table.


The waitresses served each other.



 Dessert was cute.  Beach Sand Buckets - a layer of ice cream, chocolate mousse, crumbled biscuit, jelly pieces and a chocolate shell.

Side View
 At the end of the story the boy has melon and chamomile tea just before falling asleep.  So we did too.


Such a lot of fun!

~Lorna