Colours to Dye for.

As a prelude, i’ve just put all our “Ancient Life” pics into a set, for simplicity.

I’ll blog now as its going to be too busy later. BM has gone utterly mental and i actually can’t keep up. My “office” was the place everything that didn’t get put away went to, so its a pit and i’m tripping up trying to get organised. I’ve got the dancing run to do, a million parcels and a heap of admin type things, a stock order not least. I really must speak to Max at some point too.

That aside (and leaving out my crushing hormone headache and pelvic pain) we’ve had a great day.

Started off with the girls, in a moment of sheer terrifying character changing, completely tidying the whole ground floor and their room before i came down. I’m not kidding, it was spotless. Washing up done, surfaces clean, dishwasher emptied, floor cleared, toys away. (Home Economics)

I thought Joyce or Ros had been here in the night!

With all that done, getting on with fun stuff was a piece of cake. We ignored normals and got into the butter making. (History) Having heard tips in the past to buy cream, i initially thought i’d made a mistake in getting cream that was too thick; tbh, i did because they didn’t see the whole process and got a bit disheartened but when it finally changed, wow – i actually almost cried i was so impressed! Into that went a long conversation on germs, hygiene and hospital cleanliness, plus an explanation of why boiling water bubbles (Science)

Hurrah! I had resorted to smacking it against the worktop, that seemed to work far better than shaking!

Part of our Ancient Lifestyles (as i’ve renamed it 😉 ) project has involved making them try wholemeal breads, because there was no sliced white in the Stone Age. Anyone who knows them, knows they are a tad picky normally but they’ve got very into Sainsbury’s organic range and todays Duchy Oatmeal went down a treat with this!

Somewhere in all this Maddy did a “recipe” from Big Cook, Little Cook. No idea what it was supposed to be, banana and raisin splodge but she did it all on her own with no input at all. (Practical Life Skills) She even drew me an instruction sheet! Fran also decided to do one and wrote a shopping list for it to get on Thursday. (Literacy)

For some reason they all developed a hideous squalling patch which, when it turned into a full no scrum, resulted in me lining them up against a wall and making them stand in silence for a minute. I’ve never done it before, but it worked a treat 😆 (Personal and Social Development 😉 )

Then they played Geomags again until lunch (Practical maths), then Ammi went off to nursery without so much as a look backwards today.

I’d pre-prepared some veg dyeing stuff so it was soaking in hot water. Some discussion of whether squdged nettles would sting. (Botany)

This has proved to be great fun – we used blackcurrants, red onion, brown onion and nettles and tried tye-dyeing, just for fun. (Textiles) The big two have both had a go at it and we have plans for a wall picture to make from our scraps. It was fantastically successful.

I’ve left them too it for a bit as they’ve really enjoyed a “big girls game” unhindered by Amelie’s control-freakery. Oddly, they chose trains! (Transport studies, creative play)

Josie is up now and i’m going to reread Mik’s Mammoth and then hope all the ballet shoes are in one place. (Literacy, sport)

BTW, the italic “subjects” are just for fun, but it does make me realise how much we’ve done without a workbook in sight!