Crafting

Christmas crafts: spiral Christmas trees

~ lornafowkes ~ Leave a comment

Sunday was all about making the house as Christmassy as possible with lights and decorations. It also involved Christmas crafts that all the Ps could do together while I cooked dinner and the Stinker felt sorry for himself (after a night out on the razzle dazzle!)

Spiral Christmas trees

You need: green paper or card, Christmas stickers, felt pens, scissors20151206_180141x

  1. Draw a spiral on your green paper or card
  2. Decorate with stickers or draw pictures, ensuring they stay between your lines (I was amazed by how well Piccalilli did hers!)
  3. Cut along the lines carefully
  4. Decorate the other side (we did this after we had cut out as otherwise wouldn’t have known where our lines were!)
  5. Hang up 🙂

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We all (yes all five of us!) enjoyed making these trees and they look very effective. We are planning on making lots more!

Oh, and if you like the look of the little Father Christmases hiding above, have a look at my post on Loo Roll Father Christmases!

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Christmas crafts: Loo roll Father Christmas!

~ lornafowkes ~ 1 Comment

The weather today is awful; I was meant to be taking the Ps to see Christmas lights being turned on but nobody would enjoy that in this torrential rain…

So, it’s an arts and crafts day…

This morning, I actually left the Stinker in charge (or should that read ‘Poppet’?!) while I went out to do a big food shop. While I was out they did the best thing possible with loo rolls at this time of year:

Loo Roll Father Christmas

You will need : loo rolls, red paint, red felt, cotton wool, black pen/paint

  1. Paint 2/3 of the loo roll red
  2. Draw/paint a face on
  3. Make hat with red felt and cotton wool
  4. Attach hat and cotton wool for beard

And here they are…

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Can you guess who made which one?!

The big Ps are currently making Christmas cards to send to the Japanese students who have stayed with us for the past two summers. I’m not sure of postal dates, but it’s keeping them busy so the Stinker and I can watch the tennis!

Money matters…

~ lornafowkes ~ Leave a comment

Since we started home ed the third most common question (after the one about socialisation and the one about my sanity!) is “how much does it cost?”

Well the answer is that annoying rhetorical “how long is a piece of string?” We don’t have a specific home ed budget but we do budget in general,  so our home ed funds have to come out of our weekly funds for food, fuel and all social/sporting activities.

Obviously it varies from week to week, and I think we’ve got costs down significantly since we started home ed due to the fact that in the beginning you want to attend everything, but our weeks can include:

Monday social group and hula hooping for the big Ps  £5

Tuesday alternate pony club for the big Ps £10 or trips to museums on the train £5

Wednesday social group £4 and alternate band or recorders for Poppet £20 per term

Friday Forest school monthly £10

Obviously on top of this we have the fuel to get to these places and the inevitable extra food costs of having everyone at home full time.  We also spend a small amount on extra resources like some felt for the sewing that we did today, but to be honest I bought these sorts of things even when the Ps were at school.

We luckily don’t have the costs of uniform, shoes, school trips, keeping up with other kids…

But I guess the biggest cost is the fact that I can’t really work and home educate, although we are trying to find ways to make this possible, so any bright ideas would be appreciated!

Let the festivities commence…

~ lornafowkes ~ 2 Comments

Today I was feeling a bit under the weather, so we gave Monday group a miss and had a productive day at home.

Dare I say it, but we seem to have inadvertently started Christmas in this home ed household! The first task was writing letters to the big man, as other family members have been asking for gift ideas. You wouldn’t think this would be such a tricky task but, due to recent birthdays and an abundance of toys in general, the big Ps struggled to come up with many ideas – sorry to disappoint family members but I think you’ll be buying some surprises! Piccalilli was adamant that she’d only like a Ponyo toy (phew!) and a lolly 🙂

 

 

At two of the groups we attend there are due to be some Christmas sales where the kids can sell items they have made.  So this afternoon we started making our products – bubble bath and soaps. Poppet is also keen to sew some decorations, so we have a shopping trip for material planned for tomorrow. I love the idea of the Ps learning about enterprise (maybe they’ll make millions and look after me and the Stinker in our old age!) and they really enjoyed discovering how to make the different products – I just hope they sell some!

In the past I would have said it was too early to start Christmas (and would hold out until December) but I think it’s perfect timing this year, especially now the weather has changed to wintry.  In fact I might turn our house into a grotto!  Anyone for gluhwein? Oh not me,  I have to wait another seven days! !