All things Egg yupt!

So Ancient Egypt is our project at the mo and after a steady start the Peacehill press books really have helped us along - www.peacehillpress.com The Story of the world by Susan Wise-Bauer -Ancient Civilisations was such a fab find. P at home ed group bought it in, in her book box for us to have a look at and I have to say I nearly wet myself!!!! The teacher in my squealed with delight at the fact that there were lesson ideas and activities in the accompanying activity book AND.....activity sheets!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Added bonus is that it is written by a home educator specifically for home edders!!!! The main book is beautifully written with the sections set up as stories in bite size pieces. You can go through it from start to finish or dip in and out depending on what particular area you are studying. I LOVE IT!!! Although it has given rise to a few challenging questions such as, "Can we visit Mesopotamia?" Hmm Lets look in the atlas shall we? Find out what Mesopotamia is called now?...........Iraq..that will be a no then, yup and the bottom half is Iran.....again I'm going with, no!

So far T has:-

Coloured in a map of Mesopotamia and Egypt including the Fertile Crescent (known as the Fertile banana in our 'ouse!) and the Nile Delta ("Why is it called a delta? coz it looks like a D and D in Greek is Delta. Can you teach me Greek? Erm possibly!!!)

Listened to the Story of Osiris and Set (naughty Set) and on finishing with, "Isis was so sad that Osiris had drowned tat she wrapped his body in linen and he became the first Mummy. But no sooner had she wrapped him that he came back to life....." T comes out with "Just like Jesus!" hmmm not bad RE knowledge for a kid from a Pagan family!!! Have to say I was a little surprised that he remembered this.

Painted the window in the playroom with a sphinx and a few pyramids

Drawn a fantastic picture of the Sphinx, a lion on a pillar and the great pyramid. He's even put his name at the bottom of the pillar! He worked on it for about 3 hours in total.......slightly irritating that I wasn't allowed to look at it whilst he was doing it which meant that every time I walked into the kitchen I got yelled at.....I was hoovering the ground floor at the time!!!!!

We have done a time line to illustrate just how long ago the Ancient Egyptians were doing their thing and its really quite amazing. I managed to demonstrate a shameful inability to count by initially drawing us at 2700 as opposed to 2007 (clever Mummy!!!) T has cut out a picture of the kind wearing the double red and white crown of the united Egypt and drawn a pyramid to put along it in the right place.

The Magic treehouse book was a really nice way into the project and T has referred to it quite a bit. I also bought a ladybird "read it yourself" book on Mummies today which we had a crack at today.

Reading wise he is coming along nicely. I ordered some more Oxford Reading Tree Songbirds books, the next level up at T's request, and he is now almost halfway through 4a on the Peter and Jane series. I am trying to get him to do at least a page a day but we are a bit rubbish and kinda let it slip over the holiday we had last week so I'm trying to get back in it!!! We also bought "First Language lessons for the classical child" by Jessie Wise - Susan Wise Bauer's Mum. These are really lovely and I have been trying to do at least on every other day. There is little or no writing involved in the first 45 lessons just basic grammar, poems and stories. T has learned The Caterpillar by Christina Rosetti and painted a plate to illustrate the story. He ten went on to paint a Mummy on another plate and about 5 other pictures on various plates...at this point we realise that the paint is not meant to be eaten off no matter how hard it dries....so lucky we have LOADS of white plates! From now on only the backs get decorated!!

Today we pulled the first Potatoes from the allotment and yup they were mainly from T's plot!!! I'm on a juice week at the mo so have only tried half of one but it was bloody lovely!! We let the girls onto the plot today to do some slugging for us. Sadly they don;t give a damn where they stand so were shooed off after about half an hour! The seedlings we planted a on Sat are already shooting so we should have a second salad and bean crop on the way for when the rest are peaking.

Right have decided to register most of our reference books on www.bookcrossing.com so I can lend them out. It will hopefully free up some shelf space but mean I can keep tabs on where they all are for when I need them for the shorter one of the two children!!!

Received invite from the LEA for a "Celebration of Home Education" don;t think we'll go as I am far to suspicious of them at the moment...mebbe next year eh!

Fertile Summer

With the Solstice looming it seems like everything has burst into life. We went crayfish fishing and managed to get a very modest haul so hopefully this means the little buggers are in decline in the guildford canal system. T and L loved it and despte muggins ending up chief cracker and desheller of the aforementioned crayfish we had a lovely crayfish risotto that night accompanied with rocket from the lottie - the call of self sufficiency is just SOOOOO tempting!

Lambs jumping in the fields, bunnies just about everywhere and our allotment has gone bonkers! T's plot is awash with green and we got the first sugarsnap peas and strawbs from it a few days ago! How proud was he that his plot has yeilded the first edible non salad crop. The brassica frame is heaving! Everything has been slugged within an inch of its life and from the 11 cucumber plants we HAD we now have 5 and a half left which look very sorry for themselves! So cue many slug hunts which the chooks are very grateful for. The cheeky little moos have now started turning their noses up at fresh veggies from the allotment and looking for for the handful of slugs instead!!!!

This is T's Plot bursting with life!!! Note the really tall sunflower at the back, we're hoping that will win the tallest sunflower competition as its still going!

We had a minor crisis when the potatoes started looking a bit brown, so we dosed them with epsom salts whilst we waited for our comfrey tea to perk! Apparently it's ready when it smells like death! Today it started smelling like death and was liberally sprayed on the plots!

2 yrs old and already a Dr Who Fan

Well wasn't May....wet!!!! ???? L's birthday was thankfully dry and actually quite sunny. On his actual birthday we had A's leaving M/W party which for L meant loads of kids, food AND a bouncy castle! How lucky can a 2 yr old get!!!!!! So he has hit the ground running and only had 3 tantrums on his actual birthday 4 the day after and well we lost count the day after that!!!!!! We had H and the gang over the day after that for a wee party and bbq. And I made a blinkin dalek cake....why I cannot say, lets just say it seemed like a good idea at the time! Cut to 1am and I am still battling with black icing, edible silver paint and shimmer powder!!! Have to say that I was very please with the outcome and L just kept pointing and shreiking "dalek!" So good out come really!!! I also made a TARDIS out of a gazebo frame and lots of navy material, it's still not painted completely but L recognised it so I'm happy!!!