Books we have read - Term 4

We read this book in preparation for our trip to Japan - a beautiful, sad yet inspiring story.  But it was a little too sad for Erin, so I didn't continue it with the girls.

We read a few things about Helen Keller in term 4 - I have been wanting to "do her" for a while.   This particular book I borrowed off a friend and it was a lovely story to read - good size chapters for a morning reading session and just the right amount of information for the girls to digest.  They did find it a bit sad reading about her, and at times Natalie didn't want to continue, but by the end I think they were quite impressed and inspired.

This, and its sequel, were bedtime reading last term and the girls really enjoyed both books (by the end I was ready to stop though).  I must say though, Enid Blyton does do animal stories well and things always work out well - so it's perfect to go to sleep on!

This is a book I had as a child and remember rereading quite a few times.  I have wanted to share it with the girls for a while; we didn't get it finished last term, but will during the holidays.  Erin seems to enjoy them, Natalie not so much.

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Marguerite Makes a Book

Last term, in Natalie's history, we worked through a picture book titled Marguerite Makes a Book.  This is a beautiful story about a young girl who helps her ageing father decorate an illuminated book in the 1400's.  We did a chapter a week and at the end of term tried to recreate making our own paints as Marguerite did.  (Even though it was part of Natalie's curriculum, Erin did it with us too).

Like mixing any potion, pounding and mixing up the "paints" was fun.  We may not have been quite as successful as Marguerite, and definitely not as skilled with our "quills", but we enjoyed ourselves.

In the book she uses parsley for green - this was definitely our best colour.

She uses dried saffron flowers for yellow.  If I'd been more organised I would have been able to track down saffron, but the regular supermarket didn't have it so I supplemented with some frozen marigold flowers I had kept for dyeing - this sort of worked.

Madder root and vermillion powder were used for different reds, and these we definitely did not have so I tried paprika - this did not make red, more like a muddy brown gloop.

And Marguerite used powdered lapis lazuli for blue - I skipped blue altogether!

The parsley and marigold petals were pounded in the mortar and pestle and then mixed with egg white, as Marguerite did.  Then we cut some feathers into quills and attempted to decorate our names - this was more difficult than expected, it's quite a skill to get the paint/gloop onto your "quill" and then to be able to put it where you want it to be on the paper!

Here are our final pieces.

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A little bit of butter makes it better

A couple of weeks ago the girls made butter.  This was scheduled into Natalie's science lessons (the changing nature of mixtures) but it has also come up quite often via Little House on the Prairie.

It was fun to do - I remember loving to make butter as a child too.

Mixing, mixing, mixing ...........

Draining/squashing out the buttermilk

Our substitute butter pats

Our pat of butter

And we used some in Charlie's "Owt of Lenton Tarte" which I though quite appropriate.  Charlie and I have recently done an online course on royal food in late middle ages and he made this pie, so called as it has all the ingredients in it that you are not supposed to eat during lent, ie butter, cream and cheese.  It's basically a cheese pie and it tasted surprisingly good. 

Our filling was more liquidy than the one in the recipe and so it oozed out and burned a bit on the tray, but that didn't affect the pie really.

Charlie insisted on making the pastry too - it worked very well.   And it was the first time I/we had made a pie without using a pie dish - the pastry was "pleated" and stood up by itself!

On its way into the oven

And now out of the oven

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, homeschool, HSIE, kids cooking, Natalie, science

A Little Bit of Art....

A few weeks ago we went with another homeschooling family to visit the local art gallery.  What piqued the other mum's and my interest was an exhibit of photos taken by artist Janet Tavener in and around Iceland's ice caves.

While these were certainly beautiful and interesting, we were unexpectedly taken by a series of hand painted linocuts that told the story of a puffin family, with a message about ocean pollution and global warming.  The artist, Rew Hanks, has made a book to go with the exhibition called "The Big Catch", but it seemed to be a one off; though we did put our names down on an "expressions of interest" list - so maybe it will be printed in the future.  I didn't want to take photos of every linocut, but this links to a gallery's website where you can see them all.

The gallery has a beautiful Japanese garden attached to it which is always calming to walk around (even when you are feeding the apparently starving monstrous carp).

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Elizabeth Bay House

We also went to Elizabeth Bay House on the same weekend as we went to Cockatoo Island and Vivid.  We had stayed the night at our friend's house and then I dragged the kids (Charlie, Erin, Natalie) back across the Harbour Bridge, through the city, to Elizabeth Bay.

After getting a bit lost in the narrow, winding streets (this is an old part of Sydney, one of the first suburban areas) we finally made it ... and well worth it it was as well.  We were all a bit weary and I'm sure the kids would have been happy going straight back up the coast to home, but I was determined as I have been wanting to go there for a while.  And they said to me afterwards that they were glad we went.

This is part of the beautiful public garden at the front of the house, once part of the large estate belonging to Elizabeth Bay House.

The beautifully grand entry staircase.  It was interesting for the kids to compare this to the servants' staircase at the other side of the house.

The builder/owner of the original house was an avid insect collector.

The drawing room

And in the library (which has also been a ballroom at times) there are many different animal collections

Here are the cellars - very interesting to the kids.  They were quite vast.

Here's Erin standing in the original kitchen fireplace (the kitchen was later moved to a separate building - a common practice in Australia to try and combat the risk of fires).

Natalie found this beautiful beetle hiding at the top of the cellar steps.

This is a grotto which was also once part of the original gardens and is now just tucked away behind the footpath (note Natalie's new pink "high heels").

Leave a Comment Charlie, Erin, excursion, homeschool, HSIE, Natalie, Sydney