Thingummies for organizing

During the past few weeks I have been able to buy a few thingummies to help in the organization and daily running of our home.

The first is a plastic bag organizer. Thus:

The plastic bags were always a problem. I had them all kept in a bag and I couldn't tell which one was which and then I took one out and half a dozen more jumped out in eagerness to be likewise chosen. Well, no longer. They are all stuffed in here, and I can see at a glance which one I need, I pull it out through one of the holes and Bob's yer uncle, as it were.

The next thingummy I bought was a neck scarf organizer for my wardrobe. Now, I am rather partial to scarves, I even wear them in the height of summer. My problem, as you can see in the photo, was how to keep them.

Then I found this thingummy in Ikea and I thought "Yes, that's it".

This also gives me a little more storage space now, for handbags and other  accessories.

The third thingummy is a cute little bag I found in the kitchen department of the hardware shop in town. Now, I knew of their existence but had never actually found one until now.

This little bag, made from fine cotton, is used to pop up to a kilo of pulses - usually chickpeas - in the stock to boil together with the other ingredients when you make soup. It gives the soup an extra special taste and adds protein to your meal. Cute isn't it : ) Can't wait to try it out, I LOVE chickpeas.

Another thingummy has been a little basket to put the orphaned socks in until its pair is found. My husband mentioned one day that a pile of socks on the dresser on the landing looked untidy and this little lined basket with a lid makes things  much neater.

The last thingummy is in plural form. Lots of thingummies all in the same little container!

I have been looking around for some cutters for years, literally. It just so happens that muffins and cupcakes are growing evermore popular here and cake decorating as a whole is 'in'. Shops that sell everything you need from pastry cutters to little tools and molds, cooling racks and fondant icing, food dyes and flavourings, trays, teapots and serving plates... You name it, you'll find it in these shops, which are popping up like mushrooms in the most unlikely places!

This side is fluted...

...and this side isn't!

These cutters make cooking pretty! Now I can make some decent sized mince pies or even my dear hubby's favourite - lemon curd tarts.

Tadpole update 2014

Here are some photos I have just taken of our tadpoles.

Here you can see the back legs of the big tadpole (he is already using them as one is more stretched than the other) and a medium sized black taddy nibbling at the turtle pellet (on the right of the photo).

 

In this photo it is easy to compare the sizes of each tadpole. There are the normal black ones, babies which are only about three weeks old and some very big ones in their advanced stages of their metemorphosis.

Here you can clearly see the back legs of this tadpole. Observe its mouth, too. They are like aquatic hoovers, so much fun to watch.

Spring bucket update and the BBQ

This is a list of the things we have already achieved from this year's spring bucket list:

# Field trip - The Glass Museum, Vimbodí
# We have been asparagus hunting, we found 12!
# We have had the BBQ (see below)
# We have walked in the rain and splashed in the puddles
# I have completed another but it is a surprise for the moment for a certain person very close to me so I cannot publish it yet...

Yes, the BBQ. We had it last Saturday and here are a few photos to prove it. This time we had a new cook as my youngest daughter, who usually likes to do it, was away at a friend's house.

I must say my dear hubby did a fine job. Bravo and omnomnom...

A mixed salad which I threw together*

BBQ in the making

The end result - well, what hasn't been eaten up already!*

* The salad consisted of: mixed green and purple lettuce leaves, salad tomato, sweet onion (given to us by the neighbour that very morning), grated carrot, thinly sliced, raw purple cabbage and green and black olives, all garnished with olive oil and a shake of salt.

* The meat was: slices of pork belly rashers, pork ribs, lamb cutlets and chops and some prawns.

* The veggies this time were: potatoes, artichoke halves and small courgette cut into three or four blocks each.

For dessert: strawberries marinated in sugar and red wine.

Does anyone else have a spring bucket which they are working on? How are you doing? I'd love to know.

Silk worms

Looking after silk worms here is as normal as looking after tadpoles. This year we are going to be doing both. Last Wednesday I went into town to buy some for my hubby as a present for him, as some weeks ago he explained that this was one of his childhood frustrations - that he was never allowed to have any when a little boy. Frankly, I couldn't resist. This metamorphosis thing never ceases to fascinate me!

These little fellows grow fast so I will be updating often. In the photo they are about 12 mm long.

All we have to do to keep them happy is supply them with fresh mulberry leaves every day or two and clean them out at the same time. They are traditionally kept in a shoe box, which is where we have ours.

Ex Libris - Blumpoe the Grumpoe

Blumpoe the Grumpoe meets Arnold the Cat is written by Jean Davies Okimoto and illustrated by Howie Schneider.

Horace P. Blumpoe is renowned for his grumpiness - he yells at the dustman, complains to the postman, and when his car breaks down on the way to his sister's, his bad temper is at its all - time worst! However, Arnold the cat is quite determined to be his friend and, in the ensuing battle of wills, it is Arnold's persistence and winsomeness which carry the day.

Great story, we love this one.

Country house

Last week, as the children were off school, we went to spend the day with family. They had rented this country house (the one furthest away and slightly to the left) for a few days and invited us to come and have a barbecue with them and check out the area.

We had a lovely time picking up on news, going on a long walk and then another, asparagus-picking one, in the afternoon. It was just nice to be together and relax while all the children had fun playing football and fishing for taddies and snails in the river...

Thanks J. and R.M. for inviting us. We really enjoyed our time with you all.

Taddies

This year we have managed to make taddy time much more interesting.

The first tadpoles we found were the typical small, black kind and as far as I remember, we caught eleven of them.

The next time we went, we visited a different place, not far from here, where we saw frogs last year. It is amazing the quantity of tadddies there were. The place, originally maybe a drinking hole for farm animals, was alive with hundreds and hundreds of them.  And they are not black but brown and speckled. I think 'tawny' would be an appropriate word to use. And they grow BIG. We caught one whose head part is as big as my thumbnail! AND we found spawn. So now we have two different varieties of pollywog at all the different stages of life.

They fascinate me. We have them on the porch window-sill and I could sit out there and watch their activity all day! They like the sunlight and wake up about mid morning.

We also caught some water snails to help keep the water fresh, clean and oxygenated and do you know what? They have also spawned and left little lumps of transparent jelly all over the aquarium! I am interested to see how they hatch and grow, too.

BIG tadpole!

In the tank there are a few bits of slimy weed, a rotting leaf and, of course, their own poo which they feed on. It is very important to keep that in the tank as it is their staple diet. Every three days or so, I throw in the water a couple of turtle pellets which they turn wild for. Also, I change part of the water every other day, taking out a litre or so and replacing it with a litre of the water I took from their original habitat. The snails do the rest of the cleaning!

The nursery!

Here is a photo of the spawn and some recently hatched mini taddies. They are 24 hours old. (I'm sorry the photo is not so clear, it was difficult to get a close-up without it blurring.) We have these ones separated, but still on the porch window-sill, until they get a little stronger, because the elephant sized ones could well nibble at the spawn or even eat the tiny taddies.

When they start getting legs and changing into frogs I will post a taddy update!

And here we are, fishing...

The Glass Museum, Vimbodí

We have already visited the glass museum, one of the field trips included in my spring bucket. The museum part had many ancient pieces of glassware and explained in easy detail where glass was first used, how it was most likely discovered and a full history, both worldwide and then locally.

We also watched a demonstration of how to make a jug and other pieces by hand. This I found absolutely fascinating.

I did not take any photos as flash was not allowed. My daughter took plenty, but cannot pass them to me because of the need of a special gadget which costs too much money!

These photos are taken from Google images.

 

It was just a morning visit and we found it very interesting indeed.

Here's a photo of a hand made glass cat which my son bought me as a souvenir. Needless to say, it's purple!

Munchy Monday #36: Rock buns

This is one of those recipes which has been passed down through the ages. My Mum used to make them, so did her Mum and most likely Great Grandma, too. The ingredients are simple and few and the quantities given will make 24 little buns (I usually make two batches because they don't last five minutes!)

You will need:
300 g self-raising flour (OR 300 g plain flour + 15 g baking powder)
100 g margarine
100 g sugar
100 g chocolate chips*
2 medium eggs, beaten
1/3 water or milk

Two 3 x 4 patty/cupcake tins, greased

Method:
Rub the margarine into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add sugar and chocolate chips and stir. Add beaten egg and enough water or milk to make a stiff batter.

A stiff batter - a spoon can stand in it

Spoon the batter into greased patty tins. Cook in a medium oven (170º C) for 20 minutes or until buns are slightly golden in colour. (Check after 15 minutes, as each oven cooks differently).

Chocolate chip and candied orange buns

Cherry and walnut buns

* As you can see, 100 g of just about anything that reasonably enters your head can be added to the recipe. The other day I made some with candied lemon and lime peel (new product from Lidl) and they disappeared in a moment. My Mum made them with raisins... I wonder if they would be nice with unsalted peanuts? Maybe add a small spoonful of creamy peanut butter? Hmmmm...

Friday fun facts #8: Tea

(Image taken from internet)

# Never use reboiled water, as it has lost the oxygen which is needed to bring out the full flavour.

# Tea leaves are a natural means of keeping mosquitoes away. All you have to do is use slightly damp leaves to add the scent of tea to the areas you want to keep insect-free.

# Tea is a natural antioxidant, and rich in vitamins B2, B1 and B6. Tea is also rich in potassium, manganese, folic acid and calcium.

# Tea is the second most consumed drink in the world, the first being water.

# There are many different kinds of tea, but they are all derived from just one plant: Camellia sinensis. The colour and variety of the tea (green, black, white, oolong) just depends on the way the leaves are treated.

# Tea is a natural source of fluoride that can help protect against tooth decay and gum disease.

# Anna, Duchess of Bedford, is credited with creating Afternoon Tea, when, in about 1840, she began taking tea with a light snack around 4:00 p.m. to ward off 'that sinking feeling'.

# There is, it seems, an estimated 1500 different types of tea.

# The United Kingdom drinks about 165 million cups of tea a day, or 62 billion cups per year.

# Tea has a finer taste when taken in a bone china tea cup than with other vessels.

# Tea plants only thrive in hot, humid climates with plenty of rainfall.

# Herbal tea is not tea. Its correct name is 'infusion' or 'tisane'.

Ex Libris - Pumpkin Soup

I think this story, written by Helen Cooper, is one of our family's favourites. It's about a Squirrel, a Cat and a Duck who live together in the middle of the woods. They are experts in making pumpkin soup and all goes well until one day Duck fancies doing Cat's job. They have a terrible argument and Duck decides to leave home. That's when the real problems start...

There are at least two more in the series: 

We don't have these last two but we have read them and they are just as good! The illustrations are amazing, which makes the stories good picture books, too.

A focus on English

As I have mentioned more than once, I am an English teacher. When you teach English as a second language you tend to notice bits if the lingo which, maybe when you grow up with it, you don't pay so much attention to.

Using my own experiences as examples, reading translated works and everyday teaching and with a little help from internet I have put together just a few of the confusions foreign students have to cope with. Let's have some fun...

@ First, English is probably the only language where noses run and feet smell!
@ A slim chance and a fat chance mean the same thing whereas a wise man and a wise guy are opposites.
@ Quite a few and quite a lot mean the same thing.
@ A free gift? Aren't all gifts free!
@ If an orange is orange, why isn't a lime called a green or a lemon a yellow?
@ It ain't half confusing! Does this mean it's one eighth confusing or doubly so?
@ Do you resign and then resign again?
@ Mouse is to mice, as house is to... hice?
@ What is the singular of rice?
@ Speak is to spoken as squeak is to... squoken?

Then there is a question of pronunciation which baffles even the most learned of pupils...

@ Through, plough, tough, cough, dough and hiccough
@ Heart, beard, heard
@ Neither, leisure, weight and weird
@ Lousy or lousy, I'm not sure which is worse! 
@ Tomb, bomb, comb...
@ Potato, tomato
@ Heir or air?

Now let's look at some places in the British Isles:
There's Greenwich, Reading, Berkshire, Gloucester, Worcester, Leicester, Wrotham, Plymouth, Derby and so on. None of them comply with the rules.

Just a comment: They are mentioned as 'the Shires' as in wire but each one is separately pronounced as ' ----- shire' as in 'sheer'. Hmmmm. Weird.

See here for a poem I have just discovered whilst scanning internet. It explains it all! (or does it?)

It is said that if it hadn't been for William Shakespeare, who popularized the English language during the 16th century, then we would all be speaking French  now!

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Friday fun fact #7: A baker's dozen

(Photo taken from Google Images)

Did you know that a baker's dozen is, in fact, 13 and not 12? Well, maybe you did. But, do you know why?

The expression goes back to the times of Henry II of England (1154 - 89) but the origen of the expression goes much further back in time, probably to the year 1000.

As it is very difficult to calculate the exact quantity of dough needed to make a loaf, bakers were often finding that they were accidentally cheating their customers. If they were found out that they had sold short then they were quite likely to have their hand chopped off! Not good. This was also true in other countries, like Egypt and Babylon where similar fates awaited those who were accused of selling 'light loaves'.

So, to get around the problem, the bakers started to add a loaf of bread to their vendor's or customer's sack, giving them 13 loaves for every 12 ordered. The addition was called the 'in-bread' or 'vantage loaf'.

This practice eventually made its way into the Worshipful Company of Bakers (London) guild code.  This guild was actually started in the 12th century and had a large part in formulating the rules on the Assize of Bread and Ale statute.

While modern bakers no longer fear medieval law, they have found other reasons for a baker's dozen, as seen in the tidy way 13 disks (loaves, cookies, biscuits, etc.) can pack a rectangle (baking tray) of appropriate proportions. Modern standard sized packing trays have a 3:2 aspect ratio, and the most efficient two-dimensional array is hexagonal close packing, which has sixfold symmetry, such that each baked item is equidistant from its six nearest neighbours. The corners of a cookie sheet heat up and cool off faster than the edges and interior, so any item placed near a corner will not bake at the same rate as the other items. A 4+5+4 arrangement provides the dense hexagonal packing while avoiding corners, and would have been discovered empirically by bakers with the goal of baking the maximum number per batch with optimal uniformity. 

Talking of cookies, I'm off to bake some for the weekend. It rained ALL DAY yesterday so you can guess which ones I'll be baking. See here if you are in any doubt!

Ex Libris - The Brambly Hedge series

To kick off this new series of posts I am going to tell you about the Brambly Hedge series by Jill Barkham.

There are four in the series, sadly we have only three of them. We are missing the autumn one, as you can see.

They are seasonal stories about little mice who live in Brambly Hedge "on the other side of the stream across the field. [...] The mice keep themselves very busy. There is always something to prepare for and, of course, the mice never miss an opportunity for a celebration."

The illustrations are beautifully detailed. Even a non-reader can take the books and look at the pictures. They are ideal for reading out loud to children.

Spring project 2010

During our homeschooling years I often used ideas from others people's blogs. It was useful in many ways because the work had been tried and tested and comments were added for ways to better their experiences. I thought, from time to time, that I would also post about projects and things we studied back in the not too distant past, with the idea that it might also help others who are studying at home. It also brings back great memories, I can assure you.

During the spring of 2010, when my last homeschooler was 8 1/2 years old, we decorated our kitchen door with a spring project. It all looked very jolly and we had so much fun doing it.

We included all our areas of study. Here's how (please note that all of the family speak two languages as a regular thing but for written work, at this stage, I normally treated English as a second language, with Catalan being their first):
Language arts
Catalan:
- a short essay titled "When I hear the word 'spring' I think of..."
- a list of twenty-two spring words to be put in alphabetical order
- look up, discuss and write down sayings about springtime
Spanish:
- learn a poem titled "La primavera ha venido" by Antonio Machado
English:
- colour by letters - an umbrella (from edHelper.com)
- butterfly word search with secret message (from EnchantedLearning.com)
- spring alphabet code (from EnchantedLearning.com)
- making plurals of spring nouns (from EnchantedLearning.com)
Music
- learn a song in Catalan "Els ocells han arribat"
- learn to play the same song on the recorder
Bible studies and memory verses
- discuss and learn - Song of Solomon ch. 2 verses 11 and 12, Hosea ch. 6 verse 3, Joel ch. 2 verse 23
- talk about the significance of the butterfly, rain and rainbows in God's word
Nature studies
- learn about the life cycle of a butterfly
- learn what metamorphosis is and talk about other creatures which go through the same type of life cycle
- learn about the nests of different creatures - fish, wasps, field mice and birds
Social studies
- learn when spring officially starts and how the moment is calculated
- talk about the equinox and the solstice
- learn about the tilt of the earth and how this causes the seasons
- Make a weather chart and plot morning (8:00 am), midday (2:00 pm) and evening (8:00 pm) temperatures + a daily pictogram of the general weather trend
Mathematics
- plot a graph picture using a series of given coordinates (from edHelper)
- learn about symmetry using bugs (from EnchantedLearning.com)
- study simple fractions (using worksheets from EnchantedLearning)
Art
- study and colour various typical spring flowers and learn their names in all three languages - tulips, daffodils, poppies, violets and roses
- study and discuss the growth of the grape vines and draw fortnightly developments
Physical activity
- plenty of nature walks around where we live

Later, we converted the work into a manageable project. Here's how in photos:

The front cover:

Social studies:

Translation of last paragraph. "The word 'primavera' comes from two Latin words - 'prima' meaning 'first' and 'vera' meaning 'green'. Thus, we can say that spring is the 'first green' of the year.

Nature studies:

Catalan:

Spanish:

Maths:

English:

Music:

Art:

Each study subject is separated with  a piece of decorated paper, thus:

I have not included all the work we did as this would have taken much more time. I hope, however, you get the general idea.

If you go here you will find a lapbook about Catalonia (in Catalan).
If you go here you will find a character study (in Spanish).
If you go here you will find details of a project about butterflies and moths, including a mosaic of a Camberwell Beauty butterfly and a quiz to find out how much has been learnt (in English).