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The Rose Round – children’s fiction

I have just finished reading Meriol Trevor’s  book The Rose Round to Sophie and Gemma-Rose. They were enthralled with the story from the very first page. So was I!  The book description on Amazon doesn’t say much at all:  Young Matt Rendal’s first experience with the extraordinary inhabitants of the great crumbling house called Woodhall was terrible. What had he done to deserve being sent here?  I don’t know if I…
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Wanting to Learn How to Spell

Gemma-Rose isn’t a defiant child so when she said to me, “You can’t make me learn anything I don’t want to learn,” I stopped and listened. We were talking about spelling. Did Gemma-Rose want me to enrol her in an online spelling program? “No thank you, Mum.” “Well, how will you learn how to spell?” “I’ll pick it up as I go along,” she answered confidently. “But wouldn’t it be…
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A Novel Writing Adventure

Imogen is sitting in the family room with her netbook balanced on the arm of the sofa. I look over her shoulder and notice she is writing a blog post…. another one. She always seems to be writing. The other girls also spend a lot of time tapping away on their computer keyboards. All my children love writing and I wonder how this came about. Did they see me sitting…
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Turning Famous Paintings into Jigsaw Puzzles

My girls love putting together jigsaw puzzles. We often look out for cast-off puzzles at markets and garage sales. We come home clutching piles of old boxes, hoping all the pieces are inside. The girls like to work on huge puzzles that take days to put together. And though I can see putting together puzzles is satisfying work for them, it can be a bit frustrating for me: “When are…
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Wednesday Adventures

One evening last week we were all sitting together in the lounge of our holiday cottage. The older girls were drawing, the younger ones were reading, and I was fiddling about with my camera. Although I’ve had the camera for a few months now I haven’t yet read the manual properly. I keep dipping into it and trying things out. I should have read the instruction booklet carefully from start…
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An Unschooling Holiday

This morning, I crept out of bed just before 7 o’clock and met my kindred spirit, Charlotte in the kitchen.  Neither of us likes lying in bed late. But everyone else… they were all still snuggled up under their quilts, enjoying a relaxing start to the day. No need to hurry. We are on holiday. Yes, our third term of the school year has just ended and holiday atmosphere prevails…
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My Maths-Magician Helps Out

We are going on holiday, our first holiday in years and the girls are very excited. I am very excited too! We have a cottage booked opposite the lake, not far from the beach.  A couple of weeks ago we received all the details about costs. There is a basic cost for 7 nights’ accommodation for 6 people (the boys are staying home- they’ll be working and cat sitting), plus…
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A Mother’s Basket

It hasn’t been long since the last homeschooling meme. But if you are a book loving mother and would like to join in with another… Read on… Imogen and Charlotte decided to fill the gaps in Sophie’s education by filling a basket for her, with books they consider essential reading for a ten year old girl. They also put together a basket of books for Gemma-Rose. Then Imogen thought she’d hunt…
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Sophie’s Basket

  Or Imogen and Charlotte’s book recommendations for their younger sisters  We are sitting around the table munching our lunch and chatting.  Sophie tells us she wants to learn more about horses and Charlotte mentions brumbies.  “Brumbies?”  “The wild horses of Australia…  You remember the horses in that poem, The Man from Snowy River?  “You have to read The Brumby books,” someone insists.  Charlotte’s eyes light up. “Yes! They were…
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Sew Easy

When I’m not writing, I love to sew clothes for my girls. And when I’m not sewing pretty skirts, I like to sew pictures. And the pictures I like to sew are red work embroideries. A few years ago, I discovered a couple of embroidery books by Wendy Brigg: Sew Red and Simply Red. All the patterns use very simple stitches and have been embroidered using red thread. As…
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