Nature Group

We had our first Home Ed nature group today. We met on Milton Common in glorious sunshine for a walk along the shoreline, around the four ponds there and back across the heathland.

One of our friends brought a beautiful border collie (Sammy) that she was dog sitting along for the walk, and Hannah and her best friend Melissa fell in love with her. Hannah has dreamed of owning a border collie since she was tiny and has a collection of collie toys, but this was the first time she had ever been able to spend time with a real one - she was sooo thrilled!!

Our walk was spent mainly along the shore as all the children were having such a great time collecting shells and seaglass, looking for cockles and checking out the local fisherman digging for bait.



At one point i thought we might have to dig Hannah and Melissa out of the mud they went out so far!!

On the way past Swan Pond this beautiful swan came right in to shore, so majestic!
Of course there was lots and lots of dog play,



and the ultimate sign of a good day.......................Mud !!

History Group - WWII

Following on from Charles Dickens, our little history group decided to look at World War II and particularly life as a child during that period. To start us off we invited Hannah and Mimi’s grandmothers along to talk to the children. My mum was 4 years old when WWII began and Mimi’s grandmother was 8 so they had a lot of stories between them to share with the girls.

We collected books from the library covering school, food, evacuation, rations and a World War II scrapbook, and i brought along coins from the period and bought a replica 'Home Front' pack which contained ration book, recipe book, grow your own food leaflet, a chart of war gases and information about disease control among other things.






The grandmas answered lots of questions and told stories from their childhoods and then we had an activity.

The children all made rubbings of the old coins and my mum told them the names of the coins, and explained the coins values. They found the Pounds, Shillings and Pence quite hard to grasp but were interested and made some lovely copies of them.


Then we made replica ID labels like those the evacuees would have worn and aged them with tea bags.

It was a lovely introduction for the girls and we are looking forward to our next session where we think we might try some wartime cookery!

So far this week...............

Hannah has been enjoying her new work books. She started Spelling and Vocabulary on monday and also switched to a new Maths book as well. The old one was very repetative and she was getting tired of it so we checked out a few different ones and got a fun cheerful looking new one. We bought grade two and three as she was quite a long way through grade two in her knowledge already so she recapped a few pages to get used to the style and is going to start multiplication and division next week.





We have been playing lots of Pony Top Trumps, this is Hannah after she won a game with Grandma - she does like winning!!


Hannah had her watercolour class yesterday,

and learned to paint trees.

and today she had a lovely walk with daddy while I went for a ride :-)

A lovely ride it was too!!

Riding

It's been such a beautiful day today, just perfect for a ride out along the lanes and bridleways of West Sussex!

Hannah went out on this muddy, adorable pony called Freddie and had a wonderful time. I went along for the walk and managed to fall in love with Freddie, he is just the friendliest pony ever!


We really liked the new stable yard, the staff are friendly, the ponies are friendly and it has a lovely homey feel. Hannah is going to try some lessons there next as she has really missed her riding recently and is very keen to get back in the saddle!

Hannah Becomes A Brownie

Last night Hannah made her Brownie Guide promise in front of her Brownie pack to become a real Brownie!! She was soooo excited and nervous before hand that she had to read a book to take her mind off of it!


By the time i took her to her meeting she was bouncing around and couldn't wait to get there! Dean, Grandma and I went back to the meeting just before the end to see the promise ceremony. We were invited into the circle and Hannah's sixer took her up to Brown Owl and introduced her. Then she made her promise to everyone and Brown Owl gave her her Brownie Badge. She was absolutely delighted!!

The promise she made was - 'I promise that i will do my best to love my God, to serve my Queen and country, to help other people and to keep the Brownie Guide Law'

10 Minute Lava Lamps

At adventure group this week the children made lava lamps! They mixed food colouring, water and oil together in a bottle and once the oil and water separated they dropped Alka Seltzer tablets into the bottles. The effects were pretty good!!

They also filled a tray with bicarbonate of soda, dropped food colouring on to it and then added vinegar, the foaming multicoloured result was really fun as they swirled it into tie dyed patterns!

A Little Bit Of Fun

Yesterday we had our friend Archie over for a couple of hours. The children had loads of fun in the garden. They made parachutes and flew toys around the garden, they made mini volcanoes with baking powder and vinegar and they decorated the paving slabs with chalk pictures!!


It's lovely to see the sun and get out into the garden again!

Mothers Day

It is Mothers Day in the UK, so today I was treated to a lie in, cups of tea, a card and present, a trip to Staunton Farm and a roast dinner! Very nice :-)

I've blogged Staunton Farm several times recently so instead of lots of pictures of animals I thought I'd be brave and post some very rare pictures of me with my family!!




Who knew i looked so tired! I definitely needed that lie in lol!!

Happy Mothers Day xx

Wildlife Watch - Alver Valley

This weekend Wildlife Watch was at Wildgrounds Nature Reserve, Alver Valley, Gosport. It was another new group for us and was such a good experience. The group was really friendly, the children were as old or older than Hannah which was a nice change for her as she is often one of the oldest in a group. The leaders were friendly and really knowledgeable and took lots of time to talk to Hannah, listen to her and answer her questions - I was really pleased and impressed.

When we arrived the leader talked to the children about the event, which was 'Tracks and Signs', and asked them to think about what they might look for to discover what kinds of wildlife live in the area. She talked about the tracks they might find and gave them all safety advice before leaving the hall.

The walk took us past ponds, across meadows and through wooded areas to the River Alver and then back through the 1642 living history village Little Woodham.

Our first wildlife was a fox - he watched us from the reed beds.
We found tracks,
(we think this one is a heron)

and snuffle holes made by badgers.


On the meadow one of the girls in the group spotted an owl pellet! Very exciting! She is going to disect it and show everyone what she discover next time.

We passed by a badger sett which showed lots of activity around it. It had been raining so the tracks weren't clear enough to photograph though.
We finished at the lookout down by the river.

On the way back we discovered deer tracks, and learned that they are called slots,

and strolled through the 17th Century Village,
back to the hall. In the hall the leaders showed the children some local wildlife skulls and plaster casts of prints.
There was even a badger foot!

Each month the children draw or write a page to put in the group diary. Hannah drew the badger sett under the trees.

The hall walls are painted with flora and fauna and nature poems and Hannah and Melissa really liked the bluebells!

It was such a lovely morning, even the pouring rain stopped when we arrived! We will definitely be going to the group again!