Reading

http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/unschooling.cfm

Broccoli 2

I've never had much success with broccoli, cauilflower or cabbage...I must admit the few times I've tried have not been in sink with the cabbage moth, really de-caterpillaring them, getting the right season or keeping our goat out.

RIP Billy but he did come along and eat the middle out of each plant one year.

Also my children and their little mates often walk through my garden collecting things for their 'soup'...a few florets ended up as play soup off of this plant. "ohh its a bit spicy" we were told afterwards.

Some people ask why I bother. 

1. Knowing I can...sooo important to me. All the little parts of growing from seed, right seed, right time, right care.

2. Also since reading Kay Baxter from Koanga gardens write up on nutrient dence food has really sparked my intrest.

3. Since eating more paleo type foods I've more intrest in these plants where as before I'd buy one and it would die slowly in our fridge...now we rip through 1-2 a week.

4. I know what's on it...just rain.

Learning cobbling together ideas from square foot gardening and Gia's garden (I could of spelt all that wrong at the moment as head is not good). I've started to understand different layers of planting. Very cool.

So while I've got a little ways this season I hope to do better next season.  

Round town

Learning about town..in the past we have done a big walk with the Home Ed unit looking at all the historical sites that the museum has information on. DD6 was probably a bit young but DD9 remembers most of it. Today we took some current photos.

We've also been having some fun with the deciduous leaves we've found too. DS6 has been thinking that the trees are dead and I'm not sure he's convinced yet that they are not.

So looking forward to showing him the apple blossom in spring.

Loving it

Fresh 1 minute ago eating soon

Books books and more books

http://astore.amazon.com/christopherus-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=32

We love books and have shelves over flowing with them.

I have a few books now days but they are not for me as user friendly especially recipe books or reference books where you need to put your finger in one page or more and flip back and forward a lot.

Good old mind drivel that takes no effort is great on ebook and 95% of the time you will only reread the whole book not look for specific parts.

Anyway

We get heaps of books. Currently we're doing the mind body thing and learning so much there.

I've got my eye on a new stack by Kay Baxter ...mostly cooking, permaculture gardening type books.

For the kids I've been getting ideas from the above link...very close to Oak Meadow.

Mum and Dad are on holiday at the moment so have asked for a book list for the kids...neat!

Watercolour oil pastel

While on holiday I found some oil watercolour pastel which I think are pretty cool...and so does DD9.

DD9 has never really been keen on the whole art thing but sometimes she'll break out and WOW 

This drawing was a part of another question on what animals would you like as pets...Chickens! And a goat.

I'd been working with DD9 for a while with punctuation and grammar and she really didn't get the point hating it. So I wondered if I used one of the kids movies dictated with no punctuation or grammar would DD9 get the point.

I think so

She did pretty well too.

Our nature table had been neglected over the past few months as I have struggled with health issues...but now new energy and a re vamp is great.

Our family of mice (we have rats too but they are not as cute) but truely both are pests! But the kids love playing with the little mice. We have them here arranged around the fire. It's been great over the last few weeks being able to light the fire and keep everyone warm.

Maths art...has been great fun to the point that DS6 took it on his own to re do this on his own...so impressed...one of his first big self directed projects he's taken from start to finish.

We've also done a bit of beeswax model stuff too...sometimes you need to have a cold just to direct everything down another path for a while. Here we have a fox - from the Enid Blyton story and a lamb from...I have no idea where

Minecraft

http://www.teachergaming.com/

and, this is even better:

http://www.learntomod.com

Dave's been getting into minecraft from a different angle...our kids just love it

For so long our kids have been wanting to mod mod mod