Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
This weather pixie thing is interesting - were actually a bit North of where the data is coming from so are usually slightly colder:
Books of the moment: we have links through to Amazon for buying or reading further about them. You can order any book through your library service for free.
This book's been a great favourite of Daniel's since he got it for his birthday last year. The body section in it has come in really useful for our project this month. Pictures are fantastic with both full colour drawings and photos. Buy UK or Buy US
Fabulously detailed anatomy colouring book - kids are loving doing them as we study different sytems and parts of the body - quite comprehensive. Buy UK or Buy US
Lovely glass painting set and book - have been enjoying this. Buy UK
Finding this man (Jock) very useful in our project about the body - quite a detailed little booklet came with him, took us on a step from the puzzles we had done earlier. We got him from BrightMinds
Glad we invested in a set of these Horrible Science books - they seem to get pulled out for many different profects. Daniel remembered there was this blood, bones and body bits one and also a digestion title. They lend a bit of humour to things :) Buy UK or Buy US
Got this out of the library and were all most impressed with it. Shows the insides of people as they're walking around, eating drinking etc. Deals with major body systems and also shows the polluted body with smoking, drinking and eating badly. Uses a lot of interesting and varied imagary to capture and hold childrens attention. Buy UK or Buy US
Got this for Daniel's stocking and it has been a great success already. He has been telling us all sorts of amazing facts from it and plans to do many of the experiments such as collecting moisture from leaves in plastic bags. Have to say I'm quite impressed with this - never learnt any of this in school despite passing 'O' Grade Biology (old Scottish school exam, like a GCSE). Buy UK or Buy US
Home Education Diary
We are Lucy, Davie, Daniel (13) and Charlotte (11) - a home educating family living in Northern Scotland. Here we detail some of what weve been getting up to such as educational trips, activities, resources we use etc. Also included are random thoughts on current affairs, schools, food and anything that crops up really!! We hope you find something to interest or be of use to you here. We have had a recent change round so that the most recent posts are at the top here to be seen at once. The older archives are still in chronological order so don't feel confused - it is us, not you!
Feb. 13th
Did end up being really organised in the end. We played Trilemma and Mikado and then did a chocolate taste test with various criteria which involved making up a chart and working out average scores, fractions of possible scores and even percentages. The chocolate was sent by the Dr. Hadwen Trust for us to try and then mention on our mailing list - they stock it in their shop (premium Swiss Chocolate Couverture bar). Have to say it scored very well and is very like milk chocolate, even smells like I remember milk choc. Easter eggs smelling! It's very similar to Galaxy. Did a somewhat schoolified thing getting the children to write about their trip to Brodie and draw a picture - quite good to do stuff like that sometimes I think. They really got into it and wrote pages and pages, Daniel's full of facts about the places we visited and Charlotte's had a more personal slant to it about the dogs and fortune cookies :) We noted how schools do this stuff most of the time to keep kids busy and quiet and only have rare trips and forays into the real world - we seem do the reverse, yet academic progress is being made much faster. I suppose we never focus on things that don't need extra attention (whole class teaching scenario) and any areas that do, get it at once (one-to-one attention provided as required not as stipulated by budget and time constraints). While discussing paragraphs I showed the children how they are defined in html. They do both have a page each on veganfamily here and here but they haven't been updated for a long time - maybe some web design study should occur soon.
Daniel was fascinated to hear about this intact tomb that has just been discovered in Egypt.
Our morning and oops, how did that fridge get there? (with difficulty and much profanity is the literal answer!!) Right, off to make lunch and then this afternoon we are off for a long walk and a visit to the library. Eary morning ramblings: Interesting to see Steve Biddulph has changed his mind on some things here from the Times. I remember one parent giving me hard time about not leaving my children frequently like she did, citing his raising boys book as evidence for my 'wrongness'. She was quite happy to use me as free child care though - does the fact I have raging PMT show??? Dredging up past bitterness... mind you our experiences with this particular family would have the makings of an exciting novel of subterfuge and betrayal ;-) Up really early, planning to be very organised - and what I am I doing but griping... okay, off to be efficient! As writing the postman has just delivered two bars of a new vegan chocolate bar for us to try - how perfect for me. Will report on it later as even with PMT I'm not going to eat them for breakfast!
Feb. 11th
Quite an odd feeling day. Started with a competition from the local home ed. group involving Haiku poetry - quite fun, these are kids first attempts (don't totally understand the way they break down the syllables so weve gone with the British 5,7,5 - need to do a bit more reading up):
Daniel's:
In the Scottish Glen
the wildcat is on the prowl,
hunting wild rabbits.
Charlotte's:
Red, yellow, orange
Autumn leaves are falling down,
floating, swirling round.
Lovely new appliances arrived later in the morning. The poor delivery men had a terrible time getting the fridge into the house (a lot of 'f' ing and 'c' ing was going on). I had paid for installation and removal of old things but this delivery company don't do that. Phoned Comet who insist they don't refund anything if they've delivered on time... hmm... stroppy letter in offing I think. Don't know though - being stroppy with people is really draining, think I'll just steer clear of them in the future.
Charlotte and I headed off food shopping on a mission to fill new fridge. We entered the shop at the same time as one of the boys who bullied Daniel at the village school, and his mother. The mother didn't recognise us but the son did - he looked very shame faced and frightened. We met them at the end of every isle and they came and stood next to us at the checkouts. Also kept meeting the really old, grumpy classroom assistant who hasn't spoken to us since we removed the children - true to form she looked right through us today. Horrid, horrid, horrid... a desire to move is growing in me. I think weve outgrown both this village and this house (fridge is taking up most of kitchen anyway ;-) Obviously I am better suited to living in castle. There we are, moaning and whinging over - just be glad I resisted the urge to insert photos of the fridge in here!
Feb. 10th
Not a very interesting day to write about today. Kids have been puddling about with various bits and pieces such as reading, writing and internet research, we all had long and sunny walk, I slipped around in a mixture of slug-slime and disenfectant and dragged large fridge out of house in preparation for tomorrow's deliveries - see it wasn't exactly fascinating. There are a couple of home ed. articles in the Times Education Supplement today - only partial articles online: Greens Defend "Rebel" Mother and Michael Russell's There is no divine right to educate. The audacity of those with power in educational matters still shocks me, though it really shouldn't. In the years my children were at school they were not provided with an education suitable for their "age, aptitude and ability", nor were their special needs provided for (unless you count one teacher encouraging the bullying of any 'different' children). The LEA didn't give a stuff about this (they don't check up on kids in school and really didn't want to know when I, as both parent and employee, wrote and told them) but they still harrass home ed. families who don't provide time tables and curriculum plans (neither is a requirement by law). And off I go... from one type of slime to another (really getting into this now - started a little educational debate about whether I was using metaphor or simile ;-)
Feb. 9th
How exciting, a religious leader or prophet, obviously another totally accurate blogthing! At least it was very simple - all it asks for is your birthdate.
Your Life Path Number is 11
Your purpose in life is to inspire others
Your amazing energy draws people to you, and you give them great insight in return.
You hold a great amount of power over others, without even trying.
You have the makings of an inventor, artist, religious leader, or prophet.
In love, you are sensitive and passionate. You connect with your partner on a very deep level.
You have great abilities, but you are often way too critical of yourself.
You don't fit in - and instead of celebrating your differences, you dwell on them.
You have high expectations of yourself. But sometimes you set them too high and don't achieve anything.
Catriona left this morning amid snow flurries after being tested from this book on brains (she did very well!). Didn't realise we had a Horrible Science one on that. Daniel wrote a Brodie postcard to Saudi Arabia which we posted on our snowy walk - had to look up postage zones to check the stamp was enough. Weve bought lots of 47p ones which do for the USA, luckily they do for everywhere on postcards. This afternoon weve played around on PowerPoint (which I had to go and download) and the Weather CDRom from the MET office. Quite good fun - kids have been copy and pasting radar and satellite images and playing around with the symbol sets - some bizarre weather going on! In Charlotte's presentation, tomorrow is predicted to be unbearably hot :) Below are some Toby footprints from the walk.
Ooh - the kids photo is up on Perpertual Stroll with their postcard from Antartica.
Feb. 8th
Day got off to an astronomical start with the postlady bringing constellation dot-to-dot books. Was really naughty of me to order these yesterday as I had decided to economise and use the mountain of things that weve already amassed. Someone ordered them through our amazon account and they looked really good! Charlotte is nearing completion already. Have also done some study on the body with a human body sticker book. Catriona was also meant to be studying but I think merely ended up contributing finer detail to our work. She showed us some lovely photos of, um, hernias in a very advanced state... eugh... Then some very hard study was done at KittenWar! - all very cute... aww. This led on to discussions about the recent death of the 'world's ugliest dog'. Now no animal is ugly... but oh this poor creature obviously had lots wrong with it. Can't quite believe such a contest exists... what am I saying, us humans will do anything! Strange sort of education.
This video made us laugh - Steven the Vegan (strong language towards the end).
Feb. 7th
Catriona arrived this morning bearing chocolate - amazing cupcakes (hope she didn't feel obliged by my hints in diary!), a chocolate Christmas tree and frogs... mmm... Had a fairly brief trip to the Lighthouse Museum in Fraserburgh as they were closing so we didn't get a trip up the lighthouse - was quite fun anyway. Bought lovely goodies for dinner - off to scoff them now :) with lovely Pride and Prejudice DVD.
Below: chocolate, Charlotte learning to test reflexes (Cat has brought some medical bits with her) and the lighthouse museum.
Feb. 6th
"School Trips can Change Lives" - common sense really. Some interesting comments in there - seeing how schools often only have 1 or 2 trips a year it's hard to see how kids can view them as anything other than a special day or one off occasion.
Some very interesting post this morning from Charlotte's penfriend in Virginia: a lovely card of a little American Pioneer girl and a postcard of the Chincoteague ponies - sparked much discussion from DNA to animal rights. Looked at some fantastic images of them on google. Charlotte spent some of the morning writing Brodie cards to various people. Daniel and I are both reading Adrian Mole books (inspired by Lynda's holiday reading) - amazing how educational they are turning out to be! I have had to tell of Soho, spotted dick, the word disconsolate, opal fruits, chinos and many more everyday, social stuff. It's really good for him to be reading fiction - especially the type that gets us all laughing out loud. I'm reading the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' one again and Dan's on 'The Cappuccino Years'. I am sure Adrian is somewhere on the autistic spectrum.
In the afternoon we delved into the brain with Joey (book refers to him as Sammy...), the brain in a box, anatomy colouring books and Dan's Human book again. Have offered my old washing machine and tumble dryer on freecycle - maybe some handy person will repair them, rather than them going to landfill :) I'm not offering the slug infested (long, strange story - they're very large and living in the works of the machine somewhere, come out at night) fridge to anyone, it's going to be taken away and disposed of in an environmentally friendly way, whatever that is!
Feb. 5th
Snowdrops in full bloom now in the woods - spring is on the way. Charlotte is having a play with this set (now named Joey) as we ease back into study of the body, not that weve really ever left it with all the discussions we have about things. She seems to be enjoying ramming the teeth into the skull - I'm looking forward to it's glow in the dark eyes which the instructions say you have to 'pop in' :) Seems quite a good little book with it too, a good basis to start on the brain. We also have a 'brain in a box' from the same camp as the heart (ebay!) - think we'll do some of that tomorrow.
Feb. 4th
It's five in the evening here and it is not yet dark - love seeing the nights get lighter :) It's really still with a pink sky too - beautiful. Have had some concerns about the gorgeous fridge/freezer mentioned below - it may completely fill my little kitchen. Davie will have to remove two doors to get the thing into the house! Well a good lesson in measuring and taking note of sizes before ordering ;-) Just had a simple day doing food shopping and watching TV - still experiencing some burnout after travels.
Just pointing to some new blogs listed on the sidebar. There's a family in Denmark about to embark on their home education journey, a raw food home-edding family and a family who have home educated for years and are now starting school, so quite a mixture of fascinating reading!
Boring, domestic paragraph: Have come home feeling that I've had enough of the malfunctioning things in my life so this happened and this and now I'm looking at bathrooms - any recommendations from anyone would be good. The dodgy toilet has got to go!
Feb. 3rd
Some things we came home to: two exciting postcards from the group, one from Japan and one from Antartica from this man. He's got some fabulous pictures up there. Were going to send him back one of Brodie Castle. Charlotte has done a page on Antartica and Daniel did Japan. Our wall map is getting quite well populated with pins now :) Also saw these creations of Catriona's - wonder if she's going to bring some of those with her when she visits? Have been sent a lovely childrens book for review on veganfamily, "Little Grey and the Great Mystery", really charming, spiritual book for younger children (little add-in: the author is a home educating parent) - Charlotte loved it too. She's now busy writing the history of her life! All her own idea.
An interesting article from the Times that I've seen mentioned several places while away - Failing to teach them how to handle real life. Did the water test on my kids and they got it right but obviously this must be because we discussed the whale in the Thames round the dinner table!
Feb. 2nd.
Home! Set off quite early this morning in scarily low temperatures. Left Lynda to catch up with all her mail/emails and came home to my own large pile of post that had a large proportion of junk and 1400 emails of which I've deleted all but about 50. Thank you to all the people who emailed after my comments about schools/LEAS/passwording etc. I have decided against passwording for just now but it was really nice to know people enjoy reading and get something out of it.
The poll results with 76 votes in all were:
1. details of home education stuff such as written/academic work 7 votes 9%
2. details of home ed. things like trips, art etc. 26 votes 34% (just as well, see below!)
3. anti-school ranting 9 votes 12%
4. photos 17 votes 22% (also good for what follows)
5. nothing - don't like diary 0 0%
6. links to other sites and resources 7 votes 9%
7. links to news items 0 votes 0%
8. something else altogether 8 votes 11%
9. the wonderful example of good spelling/grammar/web design 1 vote 1%
10. the wonderful example of bad spelling/grammar/web design 1 vote 1% (thank you Nicola!)
Apologies to anyone who got pop-up ads from it - didn't realise it could do that! Will be more careful in future.
Before returning home today we went to see the Pictish fort at Burghead. We could still smell burning tar at the point where the Clavie was placed! All misty and evocative of earlier times there today. Daniel is now deeply into Gaelic study - Lynda has given him her whole course from uni. Must give a mention to Davie. We returned to a spotless and tidy house this morning, washing and ironing all done (even things I'd left in the ironing pile for months) and a vase of fresh flowers!! Feel really tired now - think we need a few days of doing absolutely nothing (really not going to be happening is it??)
February 1st
Lots planned for this final whole day away. Noticed the River Findhorn was partially frozen so went down to have a look. Talked about why certain parts were more prone to freeze. Visited Culloden Battlefield and Centre. Very nice sunny day for a walk all round it, the site of the last battle fought on British soil. Good little film and exhibition in the visitor centre, and lovely vegetable broth in the restaurant which we needed in these temperatures. A couple of miles away and thousands of years further back into history we found the Clava Cairns - quite magical feeling there, all peaceful and calm in contrast to the moor. Nipped into Ceramic Experience to pick up the, now shiny having been glazed and fired, works of art. Back to pick Michaela up and then Lynda came home. Had nice dinner together. I'm feeling quite tired after all this running around doing lots of stuff every day - feel I'm just writing: then we did; we drove to; it was sunny - bit like a child :) And yet some more photos, including a mystery stripy one taken at the Clava Cairns:
Eary morning ramblings: Interesting to see Steve Biddulph has changed his mind on some things here from the Times. I remember one parent giving me hard time about not leaving my children frequently like she did, citing his raising boys book as evidence for my 'wrongness'. She was quite happy to use me as free child care though - does the fact I have raging PMT show??? Dredging up past bitterness... mind you our experiences with this particular family would have the makings of an exciting novel of subterfuge and betrayal ;-) Up really early, planning to be very organised - and what I am I doing but griping... okay, off to be efficient! As writing the postman has just delivered two bars of a new vegan chocolate bar for us to try - how perfect for me. Will report on it later as even with PMT I'm not going to eat them for breakfast!
Ooh - the kids photo is up on Perpertual Stroll with their postcard from Antartica.
