Childrens drawings

Siobhan - Age 12
Entry no 1
[Hi Siobhan - The bee is so sweet, the detail on your entry is really nice, like the heart shaped trees. I like the way you have incorporated three elements - air, earth and water.]







Sinead - Age 6 1/2
Entry no 2
[Hi Sinead, I am such a yellow fan and I really like your happy son. I like the composition of your picture and think you did a great job.]

Hedgehogs

Thomas has been asking about hedgehogs, so we will be focusing on them for the next few weeks. It is a great theme for winter or Autumn [Fall].

I like this project and we will be doing it with clay that we will harvest from the garden [though this is a play dough craft]

Make a Play dough Hedgehog.

Colour the play dough dough brown and take a golf ball size piece. Shape a snout then use cloves for nose and eyes. Break up some spaghetti into short pieces and use to make the hedgehog spines.

Here is a great resource list from Tree hugger Mums - I adore the bread baking ideas.

http://www.treehuggermums.co.uk/articles/parenting/article.php?article=209

Here are some more great links, some that we will be using.

For a sweet little felt hedgehog that a young child can to sew up.

http://urbandebris.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/hedge1.jpg

Potato Hedgehog [? :-)]

http://www.freekidscrafts.com/potato_hedgehog-e349.html

A pine cone hedgehog

http://kiddley.com/2006/11/21/make-a-pinecone-hedgehog/

Horse chest nut shell hedgehogs

http://activityvillage.blogspot.com/2007/10/cute-hedgehog-craft.html

An e-book with info on the South African hedgehog

http://avaxhome.info/ebooks/south_african_hedgehog_2006.html

Hedgehog paper craft

http://www.yamaha-motor.co.jp/global/entertainment/papercraft/animal-global/hedgehog/pdf/hedgehog_asse.pdf

Parchment craft [scroll down

http://www.craftcreations.co.uk/pages/magazines/issues/issue8.mhtml

And of course there is the wonderful Jan Brett web site and books.

http://www.janbrett.com/

We also have quite a lot of quills [that we found on the area] whichwe will be using for various projects.

I hope these links offer you great inspiration.

Enjoy and let me know if you have any additional resources.

EARTH LOVE ART COMPETITION

Hi All,



I am quite excited at the prosect of having an online Art competition, so to help inspire you all I have written some guidelines.



Here they are:



The competition theme is 'EARTH LOVE' and what I really am interested in our childrens thoughts so please ask your child to give their work a title or a discription of their thoughts.



Please allow your children to come up with their own ideas



Your children can work in any medium and use any materials [crayons, paint, paper, metal, wood, clay etc] I really want them to have freedom of expressionism.



Your child can enter two works if they [or you] cant choose their favourite.



Please can you scan/photograph the work and e-mail it to me off group with the header "Earth Love - Art competition" my direct e-mail is dehningc@gmail.com



The winning work will be featured on our group homepage for several months and there will be a small but unique prize for the winner.

All entries will be listed on this blog. [Hoorah! your child will love this]



I really hope to have many colourful pictures to post, so lets all get started!

Natures way

Help the honey bees

Here is a great link for those of you teaching Honey and Bees to your children

http://www.helpthehoneybees.com/

Blessings
Carle

Green Companies

Whilst looking for a courier company to send the books for the Zimbabwe Homeschool Appeal, I discovered a courier company that impresses me, [big industry seldom impresses me] I never asked for a discount, but when I told them that we were sending donated books, they offered to help where possible.

Cape Couriers, get my green stamp of approval for several reasons.


1] They are only charging me R75 to courier 50kg of Home School books from Cape Town to Johannesburg. [Zimbabwe members to collect there]



2] They have an environmental policy - and are really big on recycling and using recycled products.


3] They make these amazing tables and chairs for schools in disadvantaged communities, AND these are made from the companies broken wooden pallets.
.

Their environmental policy and contact details are available on www.capecouriers.co.za

For more info on the Zim Appeal, go to http://www.zimbabweappeal.info/

Making Lipbalm

Here is the blog link for the homemade lip balm

or

http://ourholisticlife.blogspot.com/2008/05/our-lipbalm-recipe.html

Hope this inspires you all, it is really easy!

Let us know if you make any and if you have any pictures for posting