This is a site we used quite a bit back at the more curriculified beginning of home education – a quick blog search reveals the first mention of it almost exactly 5 years ago! From the Guardian, it covers the whole national curriculum, primary and secondary and does have some really interesting bits and ways of presenting things. The Barbican Library are now paying the (somewhat hefty I seem to remember) subscription for all home educated children  

Learn Premium 

username: barbican

password: guardian

a picture from around that time, 2005

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random bug on a sunflower leaf

education:

Potatoes for Schools registration is now open for 2011 – free seed potatoes, available to home educators too

The BBC Scottish History section is very good, nice timelines going on.

on self esteem:

We Teach What We Are - a blog from Wayne Dyer on the best we can do for young people.

Page 20 of Ladies First Magazine has a beautiful article about womens body image and self esteem.

and there is an excellent article on aspergers here

…and a small mention for Twitter, some of the above were passed on through there. Last weekend we won tickets to an early preview of Despicable Me, complete with many freebies, thanks to following Cineworld on there. Very funny film, one of the few weve seen that actually makes the 3D element worthwhile. Follow us on our vegan family account or as Frugaluk where we pass on many competitions

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We have 3 new ones for next season, hopefully one more to come Planning to give over the whole allotment bit at the bottom of the garden to potatoes next year, with the chives, rhubarb and some other bits (maybe leeks? nasturtiums?) for biodiversity.

the four big beds, all made of reclaimed wood and old tiles from the roof

It’s been really noticable this year that the more food we grow, the smaller are our shopping bills, also much more work, but it’s very joyful

So now, my baby bed in detail…

just created

It’s in “the hot place”, a sunbathing area of near tropical climes, the place of the toolbox of lettuce (actually mixed salad leaves this year) with house walls to the North and East, shelter from trees and shrubs all round and refelective light walls too – I think I could probably lay cookies out to bake there on a hot day!

All the beds are layered up thus:

a layer of kitchen compost, should be thicker really but wanted to get this one going

seaweed from the beach, mainly kelp

4 growbags chucked in the top

Having observed the propensity of lettuce to survive even the fiercest winters I have planted winter density seeds in there and also garlic round the edges. There may be something unsightly done with bubble wrap and wire as it gets colder.

and randomly:

blackcurrant and apple pie

oatly less artistically arranged this time… we highly recommend growing blackcurrants – the abundance! the easy jam making! the easy freezing! the gorgeous smoothies… and pies…

and a mother sheep feeding lambs behind barbed wire:

beautiful horns she has

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redcurrants and rosemary awaiting sugar

What a bumper year it’s been for the currants – were having berried up green smoothies daily, there are lots in freezer which will extend the berry smoothie season and it’s looking to be a very abundant bramble year too. Last year we gathered quite a lot for the freezer as well as smoothie-ing them fresh. At least I thought we’d gathered a lot until I met a man in the woods with 3 huge bucket loads of them. He must have spent all day picking. Maybe for jam? I really want to try preserving in different ways this year so we can eat the home grown stuff in winter too. So we made strawberry jam as mentioned, and then moved onto:

redcurrant and rosemary jelly for savoury things

 This was inspired by the home baked blog, that mixing of flavours is beautiful! I used Delia’s redcurrant jelly recipe with quite a few rosemary sprigs thrown in and then used the same basic technique to make:

blackcurrant jelly

which is wonderful – what a sensational taste blackcurrants do have!

Cooking on the stove this morning is Apple and Ginger Chutney from the Cranks recipe book with the apples from the bike ride heavily supplemented with ones from our trees and our own onions in there too Adapted recipe on the sauces page.

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Four of us girls (Charlotte, me and Lucy and Eleanor from moonrabbits) are doing a sponsored climb to raise money for trees for life, the wonderful charity that is replanting the Caledonian Forest. We intend climbing Bennachie 3 times in one day, taking all three routes to the Mither Tap in about a months time. Trees for life is not a member of just giving or any such online fundraiser but please feel free to donate directly on link above if you wish For every £5 raised a tree will be planted.

A favourite of our kids years ago, the lorax speaks for the trees. Richard St. Barbe Baker “the man of the trees“ who inspired Trees for Life, was sometimes fondly known as the lorax

(lorax on amazon) Buy UK or Buy US

A nice tree filled place we cycled round recently, thanks to a neighbour telling us the best way to get in there:

rhododendron way into the woods

more rhoddies

a little loch

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iris by pond, cleavers among

 a very mellow listen: Deltadream - based on the ancient lost Solfeggio frequency “Ut”, a tone linked with releasing guilt and fear, the shorter track there is a free download.  

mellow and cooling eat: minted noodle soup

books weve been mellowing out to in the sun: Named of the Dragon, a gentle mystery, writers, Arthurian and Tudor themes; The Other Half Lives, from Sophie Hannah, the best of her psychological thrillers I’ve read so far and Ask Mother Nature, another nature spirity book responsible for me feeling happy about all the chickweed growing in with the lettuce now

chickweed helps retain water in the soil and is a nice inclusion in salads

bridge over totally calm waters

 Had a nice time with some more pilgrims to the house, this time the grandson of the man who built it. We all learned much from each other – apparently the roof used to be covered in solar panels, was the first house up here to have them…  no trace of them now… hopefully one day we’ll have them again

borage buds, soon time for blue stars and berries in the smoothies

fully open

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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

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sage

dill

thyme

golden oregano and marjoram

self seeded borage

wild garlic in flower

blackcurrant leaves drying

 fruitish:

red currants and apples

apple blossom

and finally some more plantings of lettuce and salad leaves:

salad station

a favourite book being perused just now – the complete book of herbs

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The only crocus to survive intensive rabbit grazing

beautiful biscuits for a ballet day with the girls...

cake too, no anorexic dancing here

poor mangled nut feeder - deer trample it to get the peanuts out!

soon there will be daffs

willow catkins and the sky

chives

parsley

 free veg seeds from the bbc here

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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

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