Archive | Homeschooling

Yarn Along

By Linda on March 6, 2013 in Family, Homeschooling, Knitting, Sewing

I’ve been knitting steadily on the Oaklet Shawl and love how the colours are blending into one another, Daniella’s yarn is so soft and easy to knit with…

I knitted while Jen wrote her first grade 10 test today. We have never experienced writing tests this way before, downloading them with passwords, having an invigilator sit for 2 hours while the test was written and then loading the paper onto a server for marking within a certain time. It was all a little nerve wrecking but the test reached Brainline in time and Jen is now studying for the next test session tomorrow which is maths. Phew! At least now we know how it all works and tomorrow should be a breeze:)

This was my mom’s first needle book she ever bought. I was searching for a needle the other night to sew on Kye’s cub badges and couldn’t find one anywhere. She mentioned she had some travellling needle kits at her house and would bring me one. I was expecting a very simple little kit but instead, it was treasure!! She gave me this beautiful needle book, oh how I love it! It’s been packed away in a very safe place and when I use it, I will always think of my dear mom.

There is even a date 1964! Like I said, treasure!

Happy Yarn Along to you.

Reflecting…

By Linda on February 24, 2013 in Family, Homeschooling

The last few weeks have been a little crazy, I’ve been rushing from one thing to the next. Jenna’s school assignments have been all encompassing. She has managed to complete almost all of them and only has a couple left, thank goodness. Even though she has been under extreme pressure to finish her tasks by a certain date, I can see that she feels a tremendous amount of pride in the completion of her work. I can also see that she will cope well in the future to finish work within a certain time period and I feel that this is a great accomplishment.

Homeschooling is lovely but the higher grades are not for the feint-hearted, especially when you know that there is a portfolio that needs to be completed over 3 years and a final grade 12 exam to be written. After today, I can see that Jen is going to be just fine with her Afrikaans too, she is learning to translate it and work through comprehensions and grammar etc… This is a huge relief for me because languages can be tricky to learn at times.

Today we are past the bulk of her assignment work, they have been uploaded and I just wanted to find a little time for me, so I went out into the garden and sat with the chickens. Can you believe two of our Koekoek chickens were trying to sit on my lap at the same time, I have the scratches to prove it:) It was lovely to just be and experience the now outside, looking around and experiencing my surroundings. Often I am thinking so far ahead of what needs to be done, that I forget to see where I am. I am going to make a concerted effort everyday to be in the moment and really feel it so that I can give myself some support and grounding within our busy family of 6… Is there anything that you do during the day to help keep you centred and energised amongst the busyness of family life?

Early Morning Fires and Homeschool Projects

By Linda on July 23, 2012 in Flower e-book, Grade 5, Grade 7, Homeschooling, Homesteading

Kye, Caiden and Sandy sitting (at a safe distance) by a warm fire…

Olive found the sun… (photo by Erin)

This weekend Caiden planted his Bottlebrush tree. This is part of his Leaping Wolf badge that he is working through and will complete before he goes up to Scouts from Cubs in 2 weeks time. This particular badge is called Greening the Community. He chose the tree, planned the whole project, chose the tools to use, compost etc… he also has to document his projects in a journal with photos.

He is very proud of this tree that he planted, it was so heartwarming to see him walking out into the garden today to ‘check’ on his tree and see how it was doing.

Another part of this badge is to show how plants breathe or transpire. Remember these little cloches? They are also perfect for showing that plants do indeed breathe, can you see all the water droplets on the bottle?

My lettuce has been growing beautifully with these little cloches around them. The bugs seem to have been kept at bay and the lettuce has been given a chance to grow.

Caiden is learning about the Vikings for is grade 5 school work so he made a viking ship by covering a wine bottle with paper mache, painting it and adding a wooden base for the top of the boat.

Erin is learning about anti-cyclones in her grade 7 geography. She made a globe by covering a balloon with paper mache, painting it blue and adding the continents. She made her anti-cyclone circles with pipe cleaners and pinned them on.

Have you been busy with any projects lately?

Knitting Flowers e-Book Update:

I have had a few emails from readers who would like to purchase my E-book as a PDF for their computer.

The E-Book in PDF format can now be bought from:

ETSY, Ravelry and Craftsy

PS If you haven’t entered the giveaway from GermanDolls yet go here to enter.

Have a lovely week

Linda

Botanical Soap Tutorial

By Linda on October 6, 2011 in Botany, Christmas, Crafts, Homeschooling, Soap

Erin is busy with a Botany block at the moment for Spring, she has been learning all about flowers and plants and as an activity, we decided to make some little soap bars. We didn’t actually make soap from scratch, but we melted down glycerine soap in a double boiler and added dried flowers, Lavender essentail oil and poured it into moulds to set. It was such a sweet project for us to do together and most importantly we had fun!

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me links for how to make soap from scratch, I am so looking forward to doing this. I am still collecting all my ingredients and I should have most of them by next week.

The project from today could also be used for Christmas gifts, you can really add so many different things, dried flowers, essential oils etc…

This is what we did:

Materials:
Glycerine soap bars
Dried rose petals
Lavender essential oil
Double boiler
Moulds
Stick for stirring

Method:

1. Cut up the glycerine into little cubes.
2. Set up a double boiler, I used a pot and immersed an old, clean tin into the water.
3. Heat up the water.