"Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education"

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Each of our girls started their Igcse exam route at different ages. Each according to their own personal developing personalities and character stages. For each child is unique and knows exactly when they are ready. Diggy was ready when she was 13, Budge when she was 11 and Pickle at the age of 12. Not everyone develops at the same time and that's the beauty of how home education can help allow that process to blossom naturally.

It is not something we have forced, it is something that has organically grown. Their understanding levels and inner desire to push and expand led themselves to the work levels and their own ability to want to cope. There's no time table or code that tells you when a child is ready for exams or that next level of work, they just know by their desired ability to grow into the work. The questions they ask, their personal level of comprehension and desire to learn more. I recognize the signs in Pickle - she is ready to expand another level. Ready to be challenged. She has coped so well, much better than I ever expected with her Igcse Biology studies. She was more than ready for the next level. If she isn't challenged now she will loose interest and gain boredom along the pathway with apathy as company. The key to education, I truly believe, is to keep it fresh and exciting. Always learning something new, always growing, ever exploring, wondering, discovering.

 Pickle could of course wander from topic to topic and take no exams what-so-ever, but we are a home educating family who think that if they're learning the topics at that level and depth anyway, why not gain something from it while you're at it? It cannot harm them to have qualifications - whether they choose to use them and exchange them in for higher ones is their choice entirely. All we have done is to start them on the pathway. It's up to them if they wish to continue. Really, it all depends on where  it is they want to go. It all depends on Pickle's choices - how much input and help she requires me to fasciliate. At the end of the day it comes down to what Pickle wants to do.

When they were little and we started on this home education journey I didn't give examinations a thought. That was something for the distant future. However, as time slipped by - at an alarming rate I might add - the girls interests that we had allowed to grow organically and flourish did so in the direction of specific chosen careers.  We asked them to "Choose a career that you couldn't think of not waking up and wanting to do. Think of what you love to do most in this world and find out if there is a career in it. It doesn't matter about money, high power or jobs. Think what will make you happy everyday and do it". They did think about what will make them happy long and hard and they eventually chose their certain careers accordingly. Careers that need specific qualifications to get them there and even that can change at the last moment and take a side off shoot as Diggy has recently proven.

Their desired career choices of course has changed our education directions and has had a lot to do with how we home educate. I have been reading a lot recently about the new idea of non linear education, which is being plastered on most home ed forums at the moment. For the record, non linear education is not new, neither for that matter is specialized learning and examinations - they've both been around for hundreds of years - we've been sitting and passing specialized Bar Laws in this country since the Middle Ages. Just the same as apprenticeships and understudies have been around since the year dot, and where both styles may work well as acceptance for some careers. they won't for all. I wish it did, but it doesn't. That's just how it goes. Simple.

There is no way that a non linear pathway would help your child if they chose to tell you that their dearest desire was to become a Vet, a Doctor, a surgeon, a lawyer, a barrister, a Judge, a solicitor, a teacher, a Dentist, a Nurse, an Optician, a Midwife, an Engineer, a paleontologist or even a zoo keeper - these all need certain grades of qualifications and extensive training over several years at various specific places. There are certain rules, regulations, skills and practices you need to learn, follow, know and put into effect. You can work around it a little but in the end it is a fairly rigid pathway of 'must do's' and 'must haves' to get there.

Just the same, if your child told you they wanted to be carpenter, a builder, an author, an athlete, an electrician, a plumber, a gas fitter, a mechanic, a dancer, a musician, a cake decorator, a chocolatier, an artist -  academic qualifications or a linear pathway would only get them so far. They need something else, that joie du vie, that quantifiable talent, that intangeable skill, ease and passion.  You can study all you like with books, you can get as many theoretical qualifications as you want, but unless you can actually manually practice and physically perform your task duties to satisfaction you won't be much cop at it. You cannot read how to be an artist - you simply are one. It is part of who you are. You can learn how basic skills can be used, but in the end it's all down to what you can do with them and produce. No amount of paper qualifications are going to help you achieve your goal if you simply have no talent to be able to dance/ paint/ draw/ play/ act/ build/ sculpt/ create or sing.

I believe in the phrase that ' different tools are needed for different jobs'. That's very true when you decide on career path. This is the minefield you have to navigate. Is it a job that you can obtain through manual, vocational hands on 'doing' and the extensive gaining of experience that's taught by example or is this a career that requires lengthy book study, the gaining of certain knowledge and proof of that with the correct required qualifications? It all comes down to playing to your strengths. Recognizing those is, I think, the hardest part.

Are you linear or non-linear? Are you academic or more practical? Are you an indoor or outdoor person? How do you learn best? What are your strengths, your weaknesses? What are you good at? What makes you happy?

Not everyone is cut out to be a neurosurgeon, just as not everyone could be a mechanic. We all have different skills, likes, interests, talents, passions and desires. We all want different things. Celebrating that diversity is a must. You must do what makes you happy and how it makes you happy. Yes, there will be parts you find hard, tedious, difficult and boring. Yes, you will struggle with some components but anything worth obtaining is worth fighting for.

It's our task then, I believe, as their parents to help the girls find those right tools for the right job. These are the worries I have to be thinking about, looking for. Right now Pickle is experimenting with the variety of tools at her disposal. x

Bands of colour appear.

The Winogradsky column is starting to slowly change. The top water is no longer clear, it is a murky black, soupy black. A primordial soup of oozing darkness. The next layer of green algae on the paper is seeping into the blackness and there are patches of green-ness appearing in the brown muddy silty levels amongst forming pockets of bubbles.

Thankfully today we can throw away our furry soup experiment trays. Then it's just the maths to work out!

Was gonna tell a joke about Sodium and Hydrogen but....NAH!

It's a hard place to be at the moment as Mum. The girls are totally fed up of past chemistry papers already and I can, it seems at times, do nothing right. I've even had to send their little sister in the other room to play for her own safety from grumpy big sister sharp retorts. They're not mean, just frustrated and that means snappiness. Lashings of sweet hot chocolate does placate the dragons inside for an hour or so, but there will be a need for more offerings of chocolate before the weekend is out. It's just a case of grin and bear in on my part and trying to be as supportive and as encouraging and positive as I can be. It's easier said than done at times, but it will be worth it in the end. "We just need a pass on this one" - is my daily mantra of late.

Sometimes knuckling down to get something done is the only way to get through it. It's a worthy life lesson and handy skill to learn, as we all need it once in a while in our lives. Yes, it's something we don't like. Yes, it's something we'd rather not do, but we have to. How many times in our adult life have we faced that challenge? No matter how much we want to create a world of fluffy clouds and happiness around our children, sometimes the big bad world creeps in and we have to face the unpleasant stuff. It's my job to prepare them how to cope with that as well as the nice things that comes along.

The girls aunt has just been told this week that she has untreatable bone cancer. A secondary cancer, when she wasn't even aware there was a primary cancer hidden and lurking. Such a terrible shame, she is the same age as me, and well...........it's just so unfair. Life is sometimes incredibly unfair, unjust and just poo to be frank. Yet we have to cope with it - somehow, - we have to try and get through. Mud Boy is processing it slowly, numbly. It's a lot for him to take in. He was told his sister had this on the 3rd anniversary of their Dad's death from lung cancer. Like I said before, it's a lot for him to take in. There's a lot of feelings churning around in the household, tumbling blindly with few comforting words to make it better, and a chemistry exam that won't wait......... looming large and black, when heads are elsewhere and hearts are stalling.

Mud Boy and the girls have tearfully insisted that I book up and get tested for breast, cervical and blood cancers NOW! That their Father gets tested for cancer too. Which I have booked up with the Drs. I can understand their concerns, which is why we've agreed.

For today though, it is back to past exam papers. Burying the frustration at life's unfairness within them, scribbling with the fury that's held within and trying to blot the world out.

War Time Cooking.

Bolstering the hungry troops with potato scones. Made with love from Mum. x

Pickle asked over dinner yesterday if we could eat as if we were living in the 1940's on War Time rations. I could see no reason why not, so after our meal she dug out the War time recipe books that we had on the school book shelf and I found a FANTASTIC blog called The 1940's Experiment (where a lady has been living on home cooked War time rations and posting up the most awesome recipes daily). There are clips from Supersizers go Wartime on there and helpful rationing and diet sheets so you can see how much you were supposed to eat back then. Pickle was hooked.

War time recipe books from the Imperial War museum when we
visited previously.

We'll Eat Again!

So after dinner Pickle and her Dad decided to make something and looking through the books and blog the first one we found that sounded really interesting - Carrot Cookies. They were, I have to say, DELICIOUS - despite out first initial concerns as we all looked into the mixing bowl at just how small the ingredients looked. It made ten biscuits though!!!! Ten healthy yummy biscuits - Amazing!!

Both recipe books.

We took down a few ingredients for the weeks possible Pickle cooking task, including lard, and took a brief shopping trip........ready for tomorrow. I've no idea why it's popped into Pickle's head, must be something she's been thinking about. Perhaps something her great great aunties and great Grandma told her when she was helping them in the kitchen no doubt? They often tell the girls family stories from the Wars.

One of the jobs their mother had during the 1st World War was a milkwoman - instead of the milkman - her husband. It was in this time that women took men's jobs and after the war ended, they still wanted equality.  It was the beginning of winning the vote for women. By the time the 2nd World War was here the girls great great aunts and great grandma were all working as welders in a factory.

Or it could have been Great Grandad talking about the new medal that the Government are sending him for the Naval Russian Convoys. Which Pickle was very interested in. Great Grandad has a lot of medals and a lot of stories that great Grandma won't let him tell...............if she's in the room. I think it may be Pickle's mission to winkle them all out of him over time covertly.

Potato scones.

This afternoon I have been making potato scones with Pickle. Something I love and used to practically live off when I was at Uni, little did I know they were a War Time meal.

Potato scones:

1 lb potatoes mashed 
1 0z butter
2 oz grated cheese
2 1/2 0z self raising flour
salt and pepper to taste, as well as a pinch of garlic salt if you want.
and I always put a tsp of good old English mustard in for a kick.

Mix all ingredients together. Roll out onto a floured board or table. Cut into shapes with a cutter and fry in a little oil or healthily dry fry them. Serve with a small knob of melted butter. Delicious.

I have tried in vain to get a photo of the several batches of carrot cookies we have made thus far, but they have disappeared off the cooling rack on the side so fast I haven't been able to snap them yet!

Picture from Mud Boy mixing carrot cookies last night.
We were all shocked how little there actually was in the bowl!

A snap today before they went into the oven to show the size of the cookies
if you want to get a batch of 12 from the tiny amount of War Time mixture.
We are on rations you know!

Our War time menu today there has been  :
Breakfast for us is pretty much a war time meal anyway, either eggs or toast or a combination of the both.
Lunch was a simple affair of quick home made root vegetable soup.
For dinner we are having chicken liver and bacon pie (Us veggies get baked potato) with greens. The carrot cookies, which were the things Pickle was really most interested in, smelt absolutely delicious as they cooked in the oven this afternoon. We'd planned to have them again for supper but this time with a mug of war time hot cocoa........but they didn't even last one minute!

Having a Butterfly Ball.

The Duke of Burgundy butterfly - BBC

Yesterday afternoon Budge found an extremely  rare British species of butterfly in our long grass (we just haven't got round to cutting it fully in some areas of the garden and it's looking rather field like and a bit wild) near our wild cowslips. Apparently these are the plants these particular butterflies love to lay their eggs on , so we shall be keeping an eye on those later. 'The Duke of Burgundy' butterfly is small and browns in colour but utterly captivating. To make sure this species has a chance with the weather Budge and Diggy are planning to collect any eggs that they find on the cowslips and wild primroses in our garden and raise them until release - to give them the best possible chance of survival. Especially as many of Mother Nature's creatures are getting confused and producing second broods - that won't last the seasonal changes.

Wild common cowslip - Primula veris. Otherwise known as Peggle
or fairy cups.

Many conservationists do say that our obsession with a manicured lawn is inhibiting Mother Nature in her job. That our desire for a cut, flat oblongs of neat grass is depleting her ability to keep species of wild flowers re-growing, as they are mercilessly chopped by mower blades every week. We do keep a part of our garden wild with nettles (even making nettle soup every year - another War Time recipe), but this year due to weather conditions and lack of time, we haven't been able to cut the garden fully. Therefore all the natural wild flowers have flourished and we have a massive increase of butterflies and crickets in our garden. All manner of wildlife have sort refuge in our garden of long grasses.

The wild common cowslip or Peggle, as I know it, is itself now not so common , in fact it's quite rare due to over agressive farming. The loss of wild meadows and natural habitats has led to it's seeds being mixed in with 'wildflower' seed packets at garden centres to help it's revival. You can eat the leaves in a salad or the flowers can be put in vinegars as extra flavouring. You can even sugar the tiny flowers for cakes and the juice of a cowslip is often used to help fry tansy. Not that many people fry tansy or even eat it anymore. All foods we have lost throughout the ages............unless you are me. I have a penchant for things lost.....especially in time.

One of my favourite cookbooks. Cowslip fritters are on
page 32 under wild flower recipes.

One recipe that I have in one of my favourite cook books is COWSLIP FRITTERS, (hence the cowslips already in the garden).

1. Pancake batter
2. about 30 cowslip little flowers
3. caster sugar
4. Clarified butter - (which practically all butters are nowadays in the supermarket) - clarified is butter with nearly all it's water and milk solids removed leaving almost pure butter fat behind and also means it can withstand high temperatures.

Method - Add the washed cowslip flowers to the pancake batter. Melt a little butter in a frying pan, pour in batter in small rounds. Cook both sides and sprinkle with sugar. Voila! Cowslip fritters.

I am sure this would have been a War Time recipe, if you had lived in the countryside. Something Pickle is very interested in at the moment and is investigating, so no doubt we shall be making some cowslip fritters for supper. It is very sad, I feel, that we are loosing our way with food. The most basic of our bodies needs. 

The BBC recreation of Pride an Prejudice's Netherfield Ball.

In fact watching the recreation of the Netherfield Ball on the BBC last week, I was in my absolute element! Diggy and Budge even seem to overcome their aversion to 'Pride and Prejudice' since their exam and watched it with me. I would love nothing more than to step through Jane Austen's pages and return to 1813 and the Netherfield Ball, a bit like 'Lost in Austen'. To live in a world of Darcy and Bingley's - yes please! 

They recreated everything  exactly as it would have been - exactly!!! They even held the ball at Chawton House. The make up, the hair, the clothes, the shoes and the dancing shoes,  invitations, the carriages and transport , the music, the candle lighting, the hall (where Jane would possibly have danced herself at her brother's large house Chawton House just down from her beloved 'cottage' at Chawton village)the drink, the manners, the etiquette, the conversations, the flirting and of course the food.

The BBC's Netherfield ball banquet recreated.

Something we are never told in the novel 'Pride and Prejudice', is the exact foods they consumed and how at the balls. This is because Jane, quite rightly, assumed that her reading audience would know all this tedious everyday life events. Known then, but forgotten now...........until they recreated the ball with Historians in every specialist field. It was AMAZING and one I have already pre-ordered on dvd titled, 'Pride and Prejudice - Having A Ball'.

Back to the boring part of the day and it's Chemistry past papers galore on the menu this morning. Have being doing  'mix it up specials', chopping and taking bits out of every paper that they got wrong or not full marks and representing them in a new paper. Pickle's working on maths, English with 'Beowulf'' and some Biology chapters. Nothing anywhere as near as exciting as Jane Austen's world and a Netherfield Ball. *Sigh* X

Never trust an atom.....they make everything up!

On book three of the 'Mortal Instruments' series and enjoying them in a teen read way.

After an afternoon of unwinding at the Alpaca farm yesterday, this morning brings us back to more Chemistry past papers and more frustrations, although they are getting better. What can I say, hope is eternal.

So after a morning of writing papers, marking papers, stacking papers we had lunch whilst watching the documentary F A B  second series called 'The Zoo' on London Zoo's Regent's Park and Whipsnade sites. Something Diggy, Budge and Pickle are passionate about. Watching this programe of behind the scenes life within a Zoo helps give them a clear indication of exactly why they may and will need chemistry at some level later on in their lives and exactly why a basic qualification in it would be a bonus. Learning about the Elephant herd and how they are battling against a herpes virus, brings home to the girls exactly how much chemistry and their O.U course will collide during their hopefully later lives. It's practical carrot dangling motivation. Sneaky, but necessary to boost up those morals and get them interested, because lets face it past chemistry papers are not very exciting to look at hour after hour, especially when the sun is shinning gloriously outside and there are 101 better teenage things to do.

When the programe had finished it was back to more chemistry papers and English for Pickle, who has spent the morning on maths and Biology. They sell The Dublin Zoo series on dvd, which might be worth a buy for us. Pickle after having completed her Gulliver's Travels English topic a while back has now started on Beowulf - again. I say again because sometime ago her English tutor asked them to read a passage from the book, but she never quite completed the topic? So we are going to continue Beowulf, as her sisters did before her. With both the book and the dvd as resources, it will be a topic of much discussion and no writing. Just reading and absorption. Filled with Dragons, maidens, battles, a monster, heroes - what's not to like?

Diggy's BBC's Pompeii : Life and Death in a Roman town dvd arrived yesterday whilst we were out. It will great as a finally sink it in visual/audio learning resource for her last Classic civ exam soon. We have given Classic civ a rest for the next few days in the run up to their 1st Chemistry paper they will be sitting next week.

The chrysalis' we have been looking after over Winter in our Bug Hotel tub, with regular aeration and fresh muslin have started to come back to the living world. Last night one of them hatched and a beautiful white butterfly (cabbage) needed to be released into the cool evening air. This morning out of the five residents we have left, one is looking more promising than all the rest to hatch soon. It is something we hope to do again this year. With Mother Nature all in a tiz and dates not lining up, she is having some early and some late developers. We shall be collecting the later chrysalis developers again this year and storing them safely over Winter, so they do not die. The butterfly populations have been badly hit, as have other species, and if we do not do all we can to help now - they may soon be in severe trouble.

"It's an Alpaca, not a Llama".

Diggy had an asthma attack in the middle of the night. I despise the asthma nemesis.

The lovely Weed/Organiser arranged a visit to an Alpaca Farm a while back, but the girls interview date unfortunately coincided with it and she very, very kindly rearranged it to today so the girls and I could attend. I cannot thank her enough ((hugs)) for her kind thought. All three of our girls get very excited about anything animal orientated and I often wonder if Pickle won't leave chocolate behind in later years and diverse into something animal related? (We shall see what the future holds there?)

Alpacas and Llamas are one of the animals the girls are going to have to get used to handling up close and personal, as they are one of the herds residents at their future college and so are on the course syllabus. They will be learning to care for, breed and attend to these animals every needs as well as their anatomy, behaviour, genealogy and evolutionary history if Diggy has any say in it.

Pickle and I have been quoting - "Yay, I'm a Lama again!" - from Disney's Cuzco - to each other all day, but of course an Alpaca is not a Llama, much to the pretend annoyance of Budge and Diggy....instead they educated us.

All the way to the farm this afternoon there was a running commentary on Alpaca facts. Alpacas are smaller and although having been domesticated for thousands of years by the Peruvian tribes, they are not beasts of burden (too small I'm told). They were breed for their fibrous fleece wool and meat, and you cannot find a wild alpaca! This species has been so carefully bred, that it's a whole new breed from it's original thought to be 'wild' ancestor the vicuna. Daughter number two educated me on the breeds and species as we ate breakfast, it seems Llamas and Alpacas can breed and the species they produce is called a Huarizo!! ( Pickle and I think they should have mixed the names together - we came up with Allama, Alpama and Pllamas!) I think they were all really rather excited about seeing Alpacas.

An Oxydactylus - (smokeybjb)

"Alpacas are part of the Camelid biological family" Budge continued - "along with camels (of course), Dromedaries, vicunas and Lllams". They are "even toed ungulates" so my daughters tell me - that means hoofed animals whose weight is evenly distributed between the third and fourth toes. Horses, Tapir's, rhinos,  are odd toed ungulates apparently, their weight supported entirely by the third toe?! Or Perissodactyla as oldest daughter informs me (Greek for finger-toe or uneven).

It's all to do with EVOLUTION - so of course Diggy would know - this group include extinct Pacaceratheriums ( Large Rhinos twice the size of elephants so she tells me)! Most ancient Camelids disappeared with the last Ice Age and the intervention of human hunting. An even though fossils have been found of tall giraffe-like-camelids called Oxydactylus, today's Giraffe species - (even if they are an even toed ungulates) - are not of the camelid family. They have their own genus Giraffidae.  Budge says that "Part of the Giraffidae family are the Okapi". It appears I was way off base to ask if Alpacas were hoofed animals.......so, I now know definitively they are toed after being thoroughly educated by the girls. It would seem hoofed animals are relatively new due to grass evolution, according to Diggy, as evolutionarily speaking grass is relatively new too. Alpacas also have just two stomachs and not three like cows. You see I am learning all the time.

Diggy and Budge walking Alpacas.

"Did you know one of the earliest camelids was a giant rabbit like creature called a Protylopus, that had four toes on each foot" Diggy informed me this morning. Budge told me that "They identify each other by their neck and facial hair. Shave that off and they don't have a clue who each other are?!" and my favourite one - "Do you know Alpaca wool is flame resistant !!!" Sometimes I wonder how their heads hold all this information inside them?

Walking Alpacas.

Pickle and I have a joint love of collective nouns, sadly the widely accepted collective for Alpacas is a rather boring herd. So we decided to play a game and invent some of our own. We came up with - A spit of Alpacas, a cuddle of Alpacas and a fiber of Alpacas.

Looking at the females.

It was really lovely to see some old home ed friends there that we haven't seen in quite a while - both the Inspirer and Dragonfly were there with their offspring and several other families I haven't seen in maybe a year or more. Sometimes your paths simply don't cross for a while in the home ed world, children of different ages or interest, geography or time can also be factors. It was lovely to catch up again and hear all their news.

We were given a really educational talk on Alpacas and the farming of them and their fibers and then allowed to take some of them for a walk in between showers of rain, as Alpacas dislike the wet weather due to a lack of lanolin in the fibers (sheep have fleeces - Alpacas have fibers). Then we were introduced to a day old  baby Alpaca, which is called a Cree-ah. A very heart melting moment.

A day old baby Alpaca that melted everyone's hearts.

It's great, I get to go places now and be educated by my children! x

Every Little Helps.

Everyone needs a carrot. I am a definite carrot girl and so are the girls. If something is worth all that effort, it's nice to know you get a reward at the end. This morning our tesco clubcard vouchers arrived online, (I have been waiting for them since the beginning of May). Although I don't relish shopping solely in tesco's their membership reward card scheme is invaluable for us as a home ed family for fantastic price busting days out!

So with the girls feeling low with their chemistry studies I have booked days out to Chessington Zoo, Whipsnade Zoo and Bird World. One each to be used as carrot days out, for getting through their current batch of examinations. For our Dr Doolittle's and mini Gerald Durrell, this is exciting stuff! Definitely worth working towards and knuckling down to those past papers for. Fun lighting at the end of the dreary tunnel!

The Conjurer and boys popped round briefly yesterday, mid mass past chemistry papers, to collect some books passed via the home ed friendly friend chain from one home edder to another. They played minecraft with Pickle for a while on a special world Pickle has set up for them to use together. I'm not sure how many worlds the girls have now on minecraft? Pickle has at least six, I think? All for different purposes she informs me.

Early morning piano sessions to begin our day with and then it was back to the chemistry grind stone, with Pickle continuing with her Biology and science workbooks alongside on the same table.

The soup experiment's two weeks is nearly up (ends this weekend). They are looking very furry and surprisingly multi-coloured. Just goes to show you how many different kinds of spores are floating around in the air. It's hard to believe that there was once tomato soup underneath it all. All photos and results have been collected, recorded and posted on their O.U forum as time has sped along.

Furry soup coloured balls.

The Winogradsky column will take up to 100 weeks to really have achieved it's maximum effect, so it will be a slow Summer long experiment to keep recording, posting and checking on.

After finishing a re-read of  'The Great Gatsby', I've started to read a series that I bought for Budge a few years ago. She says it's a good read and I've finished all my other books so I started yesterday. One thing if you read this blog regularly you will know is that I always try and have a book on the go. I read whilst I eat, drink tea, cook, take a bath, between tv adverts, on the train - pretty much everywhere mundane I have my nose in a book. So far I am already on book two today - which is why if I start a book series I like to have them all lined up and ready to devour - and, oh I also read pretty fast. The book series is called Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. Kind of a Demonology, Shadowhunter, Vampire (would have to be with Budge), Werewolf mix. They're actually not bad considering they're aimed at a teen market. I'm really getting into them. Budge tells me in passing that they're making a film of the first book now 'The City of Bones'. Guess that's one on the cinema viewing list.

The girls are always reading too, seems they've picked up my little habit. Diggy is currently reading 'Meerkat Manor' a study in the behaviour of Meerkats, Budge is reading Gerald Durell's biography and Pickle is reading Paul Stewarts (one of our favourite authors) new book 'Muddle Earth 2'. Books and reading is a big part of who we are.

"It's not easy being green".

- Kermit the Frog.

Algae starting to grow.

Budge noticed this afternoon that "the Winogradsky column has started to do something!" It has indeed. Lower down in the levels or 'mats' as they are referred to there are bubbles of oxygen forming in the soil levels and higher up at the top within the water and newspaper 'mat' there is an abundance of green algae forming. That's the first colour band to chart - GREEN.

More Algae.

Oxygen bubbles forming.

Oxygen and Magnesium are dating - OMg!

Perhaps the topic they like the least just behind maths.........is chemistry. Then why on Earth are they taking a chemistry exam I hear you ask? Well, because they do enjoy some chemistry - organic chemistry. The chemistry that will be relevant to their futures. This kind of chemistry they enjoy so much, they don't even think of it as chemistry. Unfortunately to prove that you have an interest in that section of chemistry you have to lump in all the other parts too! Major Bummer!!!!

This is where the O.U work has been so invaluable to them. Take Microbes at the moment that they are studying. This is organic chemistry and there's a lot of chemistry in the O.U microbes book they are currently working through. Yet, they enjoy it, find it palatable and digestible. They even return for seconds.

Igcse's don't work that way sadly. It's a broad spectrum and you need to sit the whole paper, covering the whole syllabus - not just one component you happen to really like. Yet to move on with higher education they may need Chemistry at some point. To prove they have a basic understanding of medicines, reactions, theories and life. In the natural world chemistry is all around us. How fossils are formed is chemistry, how rocks are made is chemistry, how we are built is chemistry. We, ourselves,  are one big chemistry experiment. Life is chemistry! So it's all relevant.

 This is just the first hoop they need to jump through to prove they have the basics and from then on in they can choose the chemistry direction that interests them and pursue it. This paper will be their hardest chemistry hurdle of them all. The very first one. This is the hardest part as it's combined chemistry, after this they can and will specialize.

With this in mind we are starting our run up to the exam with bundles of past papers. The girls have said they can stand no more than a weeks worth of past chemistry exam papers in one continual onslaught. It would cause major melt downs. We are just aiming to pass this exam, not ace it! We've played to their strengths and this, they sadly both feel,  is definitely a weakness.

Personally, I think they will do better than they expect. I think they know more than they think. After all Diggy has done O.U chemistry for her S104 course?! I think the issue here is confidence. It's not a subject that comes easily to them in all parts. Some parts they can run with, others require heavier study and some head scratching moments.....but they do get there in the end. That's the important part to remember. For them though, this makes them stall, this makes them doubt themselves and then the shutters start to come down and their minds retract and hide......melt down has begun. For me this week will be all about confidence boosting and trying to make it as fun and light as possible. Chemistry jokes at the ready!

A quiet unobtrusive day.

Nothing very much of anything has occurred today. It's been ones of those quiet unobtrusive ones, where you idle about, pootling from here to there.

Diggy and Budge did get some Classic civ work completed this morning. Diggy finished studying the volcanic eruption and the causes of death to the inhabitants of Pompeii, and we have an hour long discussion of evidence together on the archaeological differences between the finds, discoveries and procedures between Pompeii and Herculanium - and that neither site could be truly taken in isolation to obtain the true full picture of those fateful two days. Each tell both sides of the coin and produce the whole.

Budge and I while she was studying Sparta had a long discussion on the lack of evidence for Spartan society and civilization and therefore how much of her work would be logical supposition  How did she feel the Helot's felt about their masters the Spartans?

I think they each chose wisely, and the correct way round. Each study topic fits their individual working styles. Diggy the logical, factual methodical route of investigation with a wealth of facts and Budge the behaviour, gap filling detective creative style.

Pickle redesigned some parts to her minecraft world and later on I sat and helped her build more of our Medieval Castle together.

Mud Boy watched his grand prix before we all headed on over to Grandma and Grandads for a visit. Then we we got back Diggy and Budge disappeared for an hour with their O.U books to read another chapter on microbes.

Tomorrow we start the dreaded groan of Chemistry past papers..................

Spore-rific!

The postman brought the girls Taster Days confirmation from their college in the post this morning. It's a chance for them to get to know the college and see if it's what they want, and a chance for the college to see if you're made of the right stuff. A sort of mutual appraisal. They will spend a day there from 9.30 am until 3.30pm - working with the animals, checking out the lectures and facilities. It will be a good opportunity for them to acquaint themselves with the campus layout.

Mud Boy was up and out early this morning for another session at a recording studio. That's three recording sessions this past three weeks he's been asked to do.

The soup has grown very hairy and green. One tub has become void because the spores have all joined in one massive growth. That's the luck of the draw though. The warm weather has accelerated spore growth.

Tub 1

Tub 2

Tub 3.

Classic civ and more Sparta and Pompeii this morning. For Budge on Sparta it was studying the ruling of King Lykourgos and his radical change of his people from artisans to a tight ruthless professional army, and a closer look at the Spartan System.

For Diggy it was time to get her teeth stuck into the Eruption of Mt Versuvius and all that pyroclastic flow in AD 79 over Pompeii. A large part of her studies.

O.U in the afternoon for an hour and another chapter completed.

The Great Gatsby.

A book cover I think that draws you can often reflex that
particular part of the novel which intrigues  you.

Known for a long time as possibly the greatest American classic of all time, the Great Gatsby written by F.Scott Fitzgerald and published in 1926. It's a delicious book of longing , dreaming and of what can be achieved with burning desire. A self made millionaire all for the love of a lady with a tragic ending. Intrigued yet? You really ought to be.

The mystery man himself - Jay Gatsby.

Not a long weighty book, it is a slim almost novella of unrequited passion and deep, pure obsessed love. Written in a by gone era, not after the fact, but during and that's what makes it all the more delectable to me. A time when the bright young things were decadent, virile and abundant - when having a good time was all that mattered and to hell with tomorrow. When life in the now was free, and you paid the cost at a later date.

The seductive Gatsby and his beloved Daisy.

This afternoon after a morning filled with English, Classic civ and O.U experiments, the girls and I relaxed on the sofa and I found the 1974 'The Great Gatsby' (Robert Redford version) film on Netflix for us to watch. It's not all that clear in the film, and sometimes not even in the book, about the underlying deep currents of passion that hardly scratch the surface of this classic novel turned classic film. I have seen all the recent posters and adverts - there is to be a new Gatsby film with actor Leonardo de Caprio in the lead role.

The new Gatsby and Daisy.

I saw a massive billboard for the new film on the way to the exam yesterday morning and last night I dug out the novel and started to read it again. I say again, because I must have read this book at least twenty times. It sits there on the book shelf  like a small delicate interlinked diamante broach - shiny, glittering and irresistible to handle. Something one cannot help but return to look at time and time again. I shall await the new Gatsby film with bated breath......

Two very different cultures.

For the last past of their Classic civ exam Diggy and Budge have each chosen separate units from the A353 syllabus. Diggy went for Pompeii, while Budge opted for Sparta. Two very different cultures.

We split the morning into two halves with Diggy working both with me and independently and then visa versa with Budge. So they could both discuss and digest information separately (without hearing the others information and subconsciously soaking it up), both ways they are used to working and absorbing information.

Pompeii - No one really truly knows what the name Pompeii means. It could come from the Greek word Pompa - meaning procession from an earlier religious ceremony perhaps or it could be from the word Pumpe meaning five villages - which have joined over time building into this large teeming city? The choice is yours.

Diggy looked at the location, geography and settlement of Pompeii's history before we progressed onto it's location within the near vicinity of Mount Versuvius - the volcano that erupted and made Pompeii famous. It's one of the reasons that Diggy choose to study Pompeii - the volcanic interest that she has. For this mornings study we ended on studies of the first earthquake of AD62 that was the precursor to the main event of the volcanic eruption in AD79. We also discussed the difference in the archaeological discovery of and varying life sets between Herculanium and Pompeii.

Sparta - Whilst Diggy and I consulted and discussed the difference in discovery and life between Herculanium and Pompeii, Budge was watching a historical documentary dvd on The Spartans.

We have tried to find as many different methods of historical information as possible for these two topics, and for some reason Spartan history seems to insight more dvds than Pompeiian? Perhaps the Spartans are seen as more heroic and therefore more exciting!

Budge and Diggy then swapped places and Budge worked with me in the kitchen on Sparta's geographical location, history, settlement and early wars (Messenian and Dorian) . Why the Spartans needed to expand due to farming, starvation and the vast expansion of a slave empire. We looked briefly at the Spartan tiered regime known as the Spartan System brough about by leader Lykourgos , of the the Homoioi (what they believed to be the true Spartan citizens) Helots (otherwise known as the captives), and the Perioikoi's (those who live around).

While at the kitchen table Pickle worked through her 'Oregon Trail' and 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole' book sections with her 'Dragon Book' (as she calls it) Literacy through text book one. Then finished off her 'Gulliver's Travel's' stories and finally topic. We then counted and recorded the spores in the girls O.U microbiology soup experiments together. The soup is starting to look rather disgusting and funky at the moment.

Getting sporific!

The Winogradsky column.

Sounds like a title Watson would use for a Holmes case, but sadly it isn't that interesting. Realizing that Diggy has already completed a similar tomato soup spore experiment in her previous S104 course, her O.U tutor has asked her to make a Winogradsky column instead.

Named after the 19th century Russian microbiologist - Sergei Winogradsky - who studied how different species of microbe became established in different regions when they were subjected to a range of environmental conditions. The apparatus he built to test this has ever since been known as a Winogradsky column.

A Winogradsky column.

A Winogradsky column, in case you are interested in making one at home also, consists of a tall plastic column (hence the name!). This can either be plastic or glass and is best represented in a home environment via a large empty clear 2 ltr plastic drinks bottle.

Fill said bottle with the following ingredients in the correct order :

1. Mud - Ideally mud from the bottom of a pond, but ordinary soil will do. The volume of mud or soil needs to be about half the volume of the container. Start filling!
2. Egg Shells - a well crushed (we used a pestle and mortar for the job) egg shell provides a source of calcium carbonate.
3. Egg yolk or Gypsum - an egg yolk or a teaspoonful of gypsum ( calcium sulfate, plaster of Paris) provides a source of sulfur. As we had to have an egg shell we used the egg yolk. Waste not want not as they say!
4. Newspaper - some torn up newspaper acts as a source of carbon. Any kind will do as long as it's not a glossy magazine. We torn ours into strips.

These ingredients are then put into the bottle (in that order) and the remaining space filled with Water (preferably from a pond or another stagnant source). We don't have a pond, so we used some stagnant water from a grass dye experiment Pickle has had in the garden brewing for the last few weeks. (You can tell it's a home ed household when you have various potions and concoctions already brewing and fermenting in buckets and tubs in different sunny or shady locations in the garden!). Fill the top half of the bottle about half way of the remaining volume and seal with screw lid cap to prevent evaporation (smells and spillage!).

The column needs to then be left in a warm place, exposed to sunlight, for at least a few weeks and probably several months to develop fully. (Rather like growing your own home brewed batch of sea monkey's!!). Ours has been banished to the conservatory along with the other furry looking tomato soup trays. The house is going to smell soooo lovely come a hot baking day - not!

You will observe that over the weeks varying concentrations of nutrient and oxygen develop in different parts of the column and different species of microbe (bacteria, cyanobacteria and algae) establish themselves in different zones. The different zones of microbes can often be identified by their different colours and this is due to pigments contained within the microbes.

Questions you need to ask yourselves as this experiment continues -

1. What are the possible sources of the microbes which grow in the Winogradsky column?
2. In the tube there will be different levels of oxygen. Where would you expect to find the most and would conditions be anaerobic?
3. Is there any possibility of additional oxygen being generated?

Winogardsky proposed the concept of chemolithotrophy - the ability of some microbes to live using only simple molecules. At the time this was a very radical idea and was not widely accepted. It is his work that has paved the way for further microbial studies in rivers, lakes and oceans and therefore marine microbiology in our 20th and 21st centuries. His work has led on to environmental microbial ecology developments and techniques of molecular biology and it is an area we are still learning about and gaining new knowledge from.