A Shoreline Walk Along Milton Common

Today has been a beautiful, sunny day and we have been for a lovely walk with another family from our home ed group. We walked all along the shoreline past the three lakes to the recently errected 'People's Monument'. The memorial was built last year to commemorate service men and women injured or killed in wars, and people come from all over the country to add to it.

We had intended to follow the path between the lakes and on to the common, but it seems that all the recent rain and snow has resulted in an increase in the size of the lake........................

..............................it now covers the entire path and was far to deep to wade through!

So instead we walked back along the shore towards Eastney and at the far end of the common we discovered the old Sea Lock from 1822.

There used to be a canal running from here to Portsmouth city centre which was built as part of an initiative to link Portsmouth with London.

Next we found a wreck which Hannah found fascinating and a little bit scary! It was amazing to be able to see the structure of the rotting hull, and a little bit 'famous fivey' too!!

Finally at the end of our walk we found these beautiful Catkins, promising that spring really is just around the corner!

Planting

Today we were lucky enough to be given a small green house by my godmother so this afternoon Hannah set to work starting off some seeds to put in it. It was pouring with rain (hence there being no greenhouse picture!!) so we set up a little work area in the kitchen and she spent a happy couple of hours going through our seeds and our kitchen cupboards looking for anything which might substitute as a pot!

So far we have onions, green beans, french beans and cress, and this weekend we are going to the garden centre to choose more seeds. Spring is such an exciting time :-)

Home Education Group Day - Spring cont.

While we were waiting for our group to arrive today Hannah did this picture for one of the other mum's. She is really fond of this particular mum, and learns such a lot from her which is lovely for both of us as it reassures me that Hannah is able to respect and learn from people other than me, (home schooling can be quite isolating at times so this has been a concern of mine), and it gives Hannah a different perspective and another adult friend she can bond with.


After the rest of the group arrived we had a lovely session learning about spring flowers - seeds, bulbs and pollination - the role that the bees and other insects play in pollination, and the conditions needed for flowers to grow.

Finally when our session finished it was raining, so we all went to the cafe in the park for a lovely group lunch together :-)

Hannah's Journal

Hannah has a primary journal which she tries to draw and write in every day. She usually draws her favourite animals, or wildlife, but yesterday she recieved a package from her best friend Sydney. You might remember that Sydney moved back to the USA last year and the girls keep in touch now by sending each other little cards and gifts. So, in this package were these fantastic colouring stickers, which meant that today's journal entry had to be a little bit different :-)


Hannah has written 'my best friend Sydney sent me some stickers,' and i have to say it isn't the tidiest writing i've ever seen her do, but i've noticed that if she copies something i've written out for her, then her writing is really quite messy, where as if she writes on her own with me spelling out words she doesn't know then it's much tidier! Why is that??

Anyway, she tried really hard and did some very neat colouring and most importantly, she enjoyed it!

A Beautiful Blog Award

We are so pleased, we have been given this lovely award by Alicia at La Famille - thank you so much Alicia!

If you receive this award the rules are:


1) Thank the person who sent it to you.

2)Pass the award on to 15 bloggers you have recently discovered and think are awesome!

3)Contact the bloggers to let them know they've won.

4)List 7 things about yourself.

I would like to pass this award on to

Raising Little Women

Living In The Land Of Chocolate

Verona Strauss.com

Homeschooling Wonderboy

Our Unschooled Family

And finally, 7 things about me

1) My real name is Susie
2)I'm a country girl at heart despite living in a big city.
3)I love Chickens and Horses (see where Hannah gets it from?!!)
4)I used to play competitive tennis in my teens and 20's.
5)I've had a subscription to Country Living for the last 23 years
6)I'm originally from Devon
7)I love homeschooling Hannah

Book Sharing Monday

Fireside Stories - Tales For A Winter's Eve

By Caitlin Matthews and Helen Cann

What better way to gather friends and family than around a crackling fire, with wonderful stories from far and wide to share? Each of the eight stories in this beautiful book celebrates a different aspect of the winter months drawn from countries and cultures around the world.

Lapbooking - All About Me

Today Hannah's friend Oscar came over to work on a new lapbook with her. The lapbook is called All About Me, and today the children wrote their own fact files, where they live and who they live with. We are going to get together weekly to work on this as they get along very well and enjoyed working together . Afterwards they had a lovely playtime and Hannah was sad to see Oscar leave at the end of the afternoon.

After Oscar went home Hannah did some reading, and then some painting. This is a sign she has painted to put up in her room - It is a 'No Dressing Up In Clothes From My Drawers' sign !!!

Sunday Baking

On sunday afternoons Hannah likes to bake with her dad. Yesterday they made some yummy treats to share with our friends who were visiting today. Unfortunately i forgot to take any pictures, but Hannah took these two before they were all eaten!


Oatmeal Cookies
Iced Fairy Cakes

Art and Gardening

Hannah has been busy gardening and doing art work today.
She cut out a cardboard chicken shape and then decorated it with glue, glitter and paint.

Here is the finished chicken ready to go on her wall.

Then she planted some insect attracting flower seeds in her little pots. The pots were a christmas gift and last night Hannah decorated them and then baked them in the oven to set the paint before planting the seeds in them today.

She also topped up the earth in her daffodil bulbs which have started coming up, and planted some early miniature onions in a coffee can.

She moved her tiny fir tree outside as it has just started flowering,

and finally planted the little tree ( Treedle) that she draged home from the park earlier in the week!

As she has been unwell this week i bought her a little present to cheer her up today - three beautiful hyacinth bulbs which are just coming into flower and smell beautiful. Hannah loves looking after plants and so they really did make her happy :-)

Home Education Group - Spring

Today at our group the children looked at Spring. They learnt about the animals which awaken from hibernation during spring, about new animal, plant and insect life and made a lovely craft 'bird in a nest' and sang some spring songs.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon so we spent several hours in the park together after group, running, climbing, playing and getting lots of fresh air.

An abundance of spring treasures
Hannah's completed Bird in a Nest.
Singing spring songs
and waving daffodils during '5 little daffodils'

Riding

Despite another sleep disturbed night, Hannah was up bright and early this morning to go for a ride in the rain. She rode a lovely new pony called Dandy and went out over Portsdown Hill, behind Fort Widley. As she rode she watched a tractor in the field delivering hay to the horses, and saw lots of signs of spring everywhere. She would have stayed at the stables all day given the chance and is counting the days until her next ride already.

In the office waiting for tacking up.
Ready to go.
Out on her ride. (Sorry for the blurriness - it's hard to run next to a pony and take pictures as well lol )

Visiting The Meerkats

Garson's garden centre in Titchfield had Meerkats visiting yesterday. Luckily for us Dean is on two days off so he took us over to meet them.

Hannah was enthralled by them, and spent a long time listening to the handlers telling all about them. She now knows all about their natural environment, diet and habits.

Dressing Up

We've all been full of coughs and colds this week, and generally under the weather - Hannah hasn't been able to sleep for coughing for the last three nights :-( that hasn't stopped her entertaining us though!

Here she is all made up as a doll house doll and dressing up as a bride,

A cheerleaderand a gymnast.

Twigs...........

Usually when we go for a walk, or to the park, Hannah comes home with twigs! We have a huge collection of all kinds of them in the garden, in all of my bags and in the boot of the car - but this week she excelled herself when she came home with this poor uprooted little tree!! He is called Treedle and is now to be replanted in our garden!!

Feeding the Birds

This is our lovely Usbourne Nature book which we have been using this week. Hannah has been trying to think of ways to encourage more wildlife into our small city garden, so today we put out suet and seed balls for the birds. 

Hannah has recently learned to tie knots and bows and is very pleased with this new skill. She carefully tied strings on to all the mesh bags so we could hang them up in the garden.

We have A LOT of cats locally so we have tied the food up as high as we could in the hope that the birds will be brave enough to come down for them. 

Hannah now has a bird table on her birthday list as well as the two chickens and a rabbit that are already on it!