at the forge, casting pewter

A Medieval event at Archaeolink with the Historic Saltire Society. The Smith was full of information, showing us the melting down of various rocks to extract and mix the metals.

belt buckle, ready so fast

medieval blind date!

reenactment of the siege of Aberdeen Castle

weaponry

back further in time - Roman marching camp and a somewhat androgynous wicker person

Celtic Bog Goddess

Related posts:

borage being my favourite

Great program photoshop I’ve created a few new designs for the spreadshirt shop, some based on flowers from the garden, some ballet, old pictures and still the original vegan and home ed categories too. There is an offer on from today, 12th July to 30th July (2010 for future clarification) – if you buy £40 worth of stuff you can choose a baseball cap, messenger bag or apron for free with the voucher code ADDONFREE

Other designs:

pink

little flowers

rose

ballet shoes

purple pointes

sign at Findhorn

and the old faithfuls, gorgeous...

and not a school bag

editing in another couple, having much fun with it

whizzers on chocolate icing

purple strawberry - from the garden...

shop front here :D

the new designs are also included in our cafepress store for the USA

Related posts:

dunes

Had a wonderful afternoon with friends, sea swimming and boogie boarding – walking over dunes beforehand. Then another busy day yesterday at a home ed group viking re-enactment workshop (associated with the Dufftown Heritage Festival this weekend), also visiting Balvenie Castle and Banff Museum (which is exactly as I remember it as a child, slightly disturbing). 

had picnic by the river Deveron in Huntly

Balvenie Castle door

looking down to hall

window

club with spikes

bits and pieces

battling vikings

Saw some of the lovely t-shirts made by one of the families in the group being beautifully modelled – they have home ed, breast feeding, Pictish and Celtic designs (Charlotte has the Celtic tree one). They have bags too

Related posts:

Peregrine Wildwatch Centre

Wonderful place this, great home ed group event there

quarry face where the nest is

red squirrel

female peregrine in tree - she was making a lot of noise!

fast

building a hide

impression of a caterpillar called Bob

best friends

a few more pics in our home education set on flickr

and a short video of the squirrels below, much topical talking in background…

Related posts:

mouse on peanuts - what a beautiful tail

off he goes

peanut acquired

 We bought some Relax Kids CDs at Findhorn years ago and they have been used to great effect for relaxation and self esteem boosting ever since. They now have many new titles for children and teens and a wonderful website where you can listen to excerpts

Nature meditations being our most used

Related posts:

His book, The Element is also excellent

Related posts:

Dance mania continues with ballet, tap, jazz and contemporary being studied :)

Books and films amany dug out to accompany this in fine home educating fashion. The Ballet Companion is a gorgeous book, it’s been to good for me to read that things have come on with problems such as eating disorders and painful pointework (ouch pouches – love them!) being dealt with much more compassionately in general. High quality vegan ballet shoes are even available As for films… oh so many, from White Nights to A Chorus Line, loving them all, also deeply appreciative of friends sharing the enthusiasm and cost of DVD purchase… Had a nice time reading over T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and then watching Cats and boring delighting others with tales of cast members I knew/was taught by or with… same goes for Billy Elliot… ah to be an old “when I was young — fill in with unbelievable sounding fact–” person – it’s great fun!!

Related posts:

Strange day today where a slight disaster led to us doing totally unintended things such as visiting the Wallace and Gromit exhibition at Satrosphere. It was very good, also being about other animation and techniques etc.

Related posts:

more snow… some little bits I’ve been meaning to mention spread among the lovely signs of spring to come

Wayne Dyer’s new program: Excuses Begone! – been enjoying listening to that – he is always so motivational and uplifting.

The Bristol Dyslexia Centre has some interesting stuff on it’s site including some free educational games taken from the Nessy learning program.

Sensory Perceptual Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome: Different Sensory Experiences, Different Perceptual Worlds

Olga Bogdashina has written a wonderful book here – helpful in very practical ways and quite refreshingly non-patronising in it’s manner of looking at autism and the associated sensory and perceptual issues. There is evidence that these may be at the core of ASDs and what is actually physiological has been treated as purely psychological for far too long by the so called experts. A fascinating read

Amazon.co.uk  or  Amazon.com

Related posts:

Reading a book lent by my mum. She found it while scouring her shelves during the snow time (unable to get to a library) and thought it might actually be mine… can’t imagine why

Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society is full of wonderful radical thoughts on education, reminds me a lot of Holt and Gatto. The previous owner has hardly left a page untouched, with highlighting and notes everywhere, which somehow makes reading it more interesting, an extra dimension, what someone else finds of import. I think he went a bit too far in sometimes underlining whole pages of text, but there we are

Enjoying Scotch Broth, not the most photogenic of soups but it tastes good:

Related posts: