Why Did I Think This Was A Good Idea?

When I started reading about Waldorf doll making I knew pure wool stuffing was the best and reading further, and looking at the price of wool to buy, I decided getting a fleece was the cheapest way. Also this is great education and good for farming work in Waldorf 3rd Grade. We had to wait for shearing to start and my MIL managed to get a fleece for us, which we bought home.

So today was the day to start washing it. Anyone thinking this is a great idea, it is but believe me it stank! Its fairly hard work as well.

We tipped it out of the bag onto the decking.

We sorted one third into one laundry bag, and another third into another bag. Apparently it's good to lay it out and put it 'sheep shape'. That was fairly impossible to do. It was caked in mud, grass and poo! And was very, very greasy with lanolin. Third left over to wash tomorrow.

Then we did the first wash. We needed a detergent, not soap which would cause it to felt, and gallons of very hot water. Its a bit of an art, because if the water cools the lanolin sticks back on the fleece and goes hard apparently. If it's agitated too much it felts. This is the first wash.

And this is the first lot of water, it was revolting!

Finally after three detergent washes, 20 minutes each, checking the water isn't cooling so it doesn't felt, and scooping it out into the sink to change the water, we were finally at rinsing. We tipped it out of the bags, because it had shrunk considerably and we could manage it better.

Two rinses later we wrestled it back into the laundry bags and onto the decking. We spread it out onto an old towel to dry.

It took 2 1/2 hours. There are still quite a lot of gooey bits in it and a lot of twiggy bits but we'll pull them out when its dry. So what are we going to do with it. We need to card it now and make it all nice and fluffy. Then we can store it. Some we're going to dye using vegetable & fruit dyes and then the plan is to spin some as well. Hopefully they'll be enough for me to make a couple of dolls.

The fleece smells much, much better - but my bathroom smells like a flock of sheep are living in there!

Home Again ...

I drove to Norfolk, bearing in mind dh has driven every time we've been over the past 12 years, and didn't get lost once. Hooray! And we arrived late morning to lovely sunny weather. Nanny cooked a lovely lunch and the girls played in the garden. We had a walk around the local shops - full of bits for little girls to spend their pocket money on. Late afternoon when it cooled down a bit we went off to the beach and collected shells. The girls played on the sand dunes and had a great time.

The next day we went of to Bircham Windmill. We climbed to the top, not a good idea to look down from that high up. The girls made some bread and they bake it for them. Delicious smells wafted through everywhere! I left half a cake at nannys so grandad will have to finish it off!!

We got up to the little platform at the top.

From the first platform.

Baking bread.

Isobel did a little quiz.

Hettie, as usual, was like a magnet to the animals!

We had lunch at the windmill and then went off to a nature reserve for the Hawk and Owl Trust and saw the Marsh Harriers that are currently appearing on Spring Watch. No pic of them, just too far away for my camera.

Issy managed to capture this nice pic!

An obigatory game of Pooh Sticks!

We got to look at this lovely baby Kestral, just 5 weeks old.

On our last day we went to visit the Earl of Leicester - OK we didn't actually visit him, but nosed around his house and garden!! We didn't have time to go inside, but boy has he got some great views out of his windows.

Holkam Hall - nice pad!

One of the many garden views!

You can see more professional pics at there website here. We're planning to go back in summer and spend a full day there. Issy dreamed of marrying a handsome Prince and Hettie wondered how you get a job on a big estate.

And so it was time to come home again. I took a wrong turn and went 3/4 hour out of my way 'cos I got stuck on a major long road where I couldn't turn around Duh!! Still dh was overjoyed to see us again (well happy anyway) - for about 15 minutes I guess, when he disappeared with his guitar upstairs in the back room!

And no we didn't do any of the school work I took!!

Our Birds Have Flown The Nest....

After many days of frantic flying to and fro with beakfuls of caterpillars and worms, and lots of cheeping outside the kitchen window, suddenly silence and no activity. So we left the box for a week and half to make sure no-one came back and today we investigated. Fortunately all the babies have flown, but there were 4 tiny eggs left behind. Definately cold and left by the way!

The girls were made up to hold such tiny eggs.

We cleaned the box out and pulled the nest apart to see what our little Blue Tits had used to build it with.

Hettie got stuck in to have a good look.

So a bit of nature science today! We had a lovely sunny day today. Dh and Hettie were sailing yesterday and this afternoon. I did mountains of washing and ironing - a lot of it I watched all of Primeval weekend. Issy made a collage magazine which kept her busy.

We spent this evening packing to go to nanny and grandad's at Norfolk tomorrow - and by the time they read this we should be on our way! I'll ring you if I get lost.

At Last The Sun Did Shine!

We were up early (bit of a shock to our systems) to take Issy to play therapy, which entailed me dragging her out from under the duvet protesting strongly that she was 'ill'. Still we got there and with a little persuasion she went in. Advice this week is to get her up at 6am every morning, as a late riser myself my immediate response was 'You are joking!' to which our lady replied, 'No I'm not'. So I've decided best to start with 7am after we come back from Norfolk.

Everyone brightened considerably when I said we were off to the garden centre to buy some plants. Its a lovely big place wih lots of playhouses to try out, a huge shop and plant area. Oh, not forgetting the fish and water section, which luckily is not far from the toilets, as Issy almost always has to go after wandering round that bit.

We bought a bargain book on dinosaurs, a garden bird sticker book and a princess letter writing book, some bird seed. That was before we got to the plants and after I'd said we are definitely, definitely not buying anything in the shop! We spent a good couple of hours and all dithered about which plants to buy for around the pond area. Eventually with a boot load we left. Have to say Hettie had quite a good eye for choosing plants and just needs to learn a bit more about full sun, shade etc.

We had a tidy round, and went for MacDonald's, I know rubbish but I fancied it and there were no complaints. We actually got to sit in the garden and eat, and I read our read aloud's. Issy had her first piano lesson after Hettie and enjoyed it. While each one was playing the other sat with me and did some maths and english work.

Dh finally got home and we decided where to put the plants, taking a long time looking at height and spread etc, and then just bunged them in where we thought!

Friends over tomorrow, so we'll have to be up early, 1) I've got to pop to work, 2) I've got to get something for lunch and 3) Obviously I've got to tidy up as usual. Maybe we'll start getting up at 7am tomorrow after all.

Library Choices.......

Today we went off for the home ed group meeting. It was the book club meet so we didn't need to take anything along with us, and there was a great turn out 12 adults and about 18 kids! Issy has decided she doesn't like doing work about dinosaurs, so I said pick some books for a project to do while Hettie finishes up her work.

She came back with 3 book on 'allergies', 'cuts, bumps and bruises' and 'tooth decay'! Someone commented she's either going to be a doctor or a hypochondriac when she grows up LOL!! Still she picked the books herself so we'll roll with it for now.

The sun shone this afternoon at last and we sat on the trampoline when we got home and read our read aloud and they both read to me, so we've managed to keep more or less on our schedule so far this week. We planted one lone grassy plant in our new flower bed - donated by my dad so I'd best look after it.

We've got a family sailing day on Saturday again, if there's not torrential rain of course and we're of to Nanny Norfolk's on Monday for a few days, hopefully there won't be rain there either!

Still Waldorf Inspired?

This is something I've been giving some thought to lately. Sonlight is, well much much easier to use. You look at the days plan, get the books off the shelf and do it, adapting it a bit to suit yourselves. On the whole its well written and the extra resources are great. So can you use a mix of the two? I think you can use the principles behind a Waldorf approach and apply them to teaching anything in the main. So for instance today I read Charlotte's Web while they made beeswax models of Wilbur and Charlotte. We've been doing copywork, something we would do with Waldorf and I read out loud/teach and then we discuss it. We have no tv except at breaktime and no computer games until we're done. Both the girls are still knitting away and we're getting our sheep fleece to look at wool making. I take more account of their maturity in approaching a subject and never push them to do more than they can manage. We spend time together as a family. I constantly refer to all my Waldorf books for teaching ideas.

Isn't that the beauty of home education that you learn and adapt as you go along. Hettie will probably revert to a Waldorf curriculum again in the future, she enjoys it and it suits her. But I feel we need more focus on the maths, english and reading at the moment. I need them working together for most areas or it will be mayhem, and its working out pretty well so far, although there is now a lot of giggling! Both girls are doing really well with the Language Arts and readers so far. They're loving map work and reading about different people around the world. We fit all the scheduled work in a day easily with time to spare for other more Waldorfy things.

Something that really struck the heart of me this week in Jenny's wonderful 'Taking Stock' post was, if a square peg doesn't fit in a round hole, change the hole and leave the peg just as it is. She's spot on right - our children are all unique and wonderful.

We're following Sonlight but are we still Waldorf inspired? You bet we are! Purists of Waldorf may disagree, but I never claimed to be pure! So here's todays pics of my lovely, unique girls:

Busy with a writing assignment about describing an animal.

Looking up countries around the world. We read about various forms of make up and jewellery, and so that led to face painting this afternoon. (The tv isn't on - it's paused until lunchtime)

Isobel painting Hettie.

A Clown!

A Flower!

Oh, and a few tears when I had to get it all off.

OK - Enough of the sailing now!!

Yes, there was more sailing on Saturday, Cadet Day at the sailing club. But the kids had a great day despite the very early start. These pics are taken by my SIL, she's getting really good now at this photography lark, and there's a couple I'm going to frame.

Ben and Jess.

Cadets sail off!

Hettie and Abbie with righted boat, after capsizing!

Issy, as I thought, didn't go to theatre club. So we tidied, or rather I tidied and she swanned about chatting to me. We went to the shops, came back and settled down to make a princess door hanger from her princess make and do book. It turned out pretty good:

Then as she was in full collage swing and wanted to make another picture, she happily agreed to make a dinosaur collage for our science work:

OK, so a dinosaur in a pink stripy dress and hat wasn't quite what I had in mind.

Hettie was off to a party in the afternoon and then stayed up to watch a variety of talent show finals on TV. So we all had a lie in this morning, dh decided to give the garden some attention rather than even more sailing. So we weeded, put some scaffold boards to protect the fence and lined the flower beds around the pond. We filled the empty bed with old left over turfs, any old soil we found lying about and then dh & Hettie popped out to buy some top soil. They also came home with a new Ghost Koi. Our other one (the disappearing one) sadly passed away last week.

So now we just need some plants!

Dh worked hard mowing and strimming, so we actually look like we have a garden for a change.

So week 2 of Sonlight tomorrow and a proper school week here - well that's the plan anyway.