Tortoise have been saying that he wants to get a dog as a pet. We've been going back and forth on this topic because I think it's an absolutely lovely idea for Tiger to have a dog to grow up with.
Except that I don't fancy picking up dog poo. Neither do I have the time to walk the dog these days... heck, I barely get home before 9pm on most days so I'd do well to take myself on walks!
Anyhow, tonight I was home early (by 6pm!) as I was out on training. As I prepared dinner for my family, I glanced out at the garden and saw this:
This red fox started visiting our garden a few months ago, but it has intensified its visits in the past few weeks, familiarising itself to the surrounding.
After some inspection (it was here last weekend as well), it settled itself on the bed of cut grass and slept for a good half hour.
What a gorgeous animal!
Well, since the fox is from the dog family, I'm happy for it to continue to visit us and be our unofficial pet.
We finally got to the beach at the weekend. I think that is our first trip to the beach in 2014, and that means that the summer holiday is coming soon!
While the boys were busy paddling in the sea or building tunnels in the sand,
I went scouting for interesting wildlife to see on the shores. There were plenty of shells and plant life, but the following caught my eyes that day:
oystercatcher - despite its name, this bird doesn't actually eat oysters!
The boys had better luck in the shallow parts of the sea. They saw quite a few of what I thought was the common jellyfish. After reading my blog post, Tiger promptly corrected me by telling me that what he had seen was actually the compass jellyfish, according to this jellyfish ID chart.
The compass jellyfish the boys were still alive, but we wanted to see what it would look like in its natural state, i.e. in the deeper water.
I then remember Tiger and I used to read a lovely story called Night of the Moonjellies, which tells about a boy's magical experience of seeing the moonjellies under the moonlight. Unfortunately, our experience isn't as magical. The squiggy and legless creature just doesn't appeal.
However, that doesn't mean that we can't learn about how jellyfish work, or about the moonjelly's life cycle,
or that the jellyfish isn't interesting in its own right:
More importantly, not only did we learn about the dangers of a jellyfish's sting, we now also know that its venom may have some medicinal value:
It is not easy to get a sample of organisms from a flowing river, so we managed to get some samples from a closed-off tributary. As such, the experience and resulting organisms studied were more similar to that from a dip in a pond.
Using an identification sheet, Tiger identified his catch from several attempts of dipping around the "pond".
There were the usual water fleas, water snails, water boatmen, and worms (photo 1), but the most exciting catches for day were:
Caution: The clip below has a few scenes of badger shooting that some people may find disturbing.
Having heard enough of the unhappy cull, we decided to take a walk along another river.
We wanted to see whether we could find the likely spot for Ratty's home by the river bank. There were many possible places for a water vole to call home, but we didn't see any since the river was busy on that day with boats and people along the bank.
Here's a good spot.
Here's not too bad either.
Hoping to see otters, Tiger looked hard and took notes of what he saw.
We didn't see any otter, but we saw a few things that were noteworthy.
Here's a glimpse of Tiger's notes (with his permission):
It says "sizeable fish. Ducks are catching fish (see 1). 3" - 5" crayfish! alive!"
Yes, that's right. We saw a crayfish (photo 1 above). We couldn't believe our eyes. It wasn't moving so we could not be sure whether it was still alive. Its claws are red, which means it can't have been the white-clawed crayfish so we really don't know which freshwater crayfish it is.
We also saw damselflies mating on the grass (photo 2), as well as many water birds (including the Canada geese - photo 3) swimming and feeding along the river. The river looked very clean and was teeming with life, with many fish swimming in it. The Mallard ducks, as noted by Tiger, were in a feeding frenzy. I had not seen them behave like this before.
Tiger wrapped up his work by making a simple river habitat accordian book using the template from this book.
Every year, when we see the following, we know it's time to start the new academic year:
We've had a really good summer this year and we really don't want it to end. We want to extend the times to lose oneself in nature,
(Would we still have time now to lose ourselves watching these little creatures? I think so.)
time to be by the sea,
time to be with (school-going) friends and family,
time to just play,
and time to bond.
I am extending our summer by continuing to work through our Wind in the Willows theme. And guess what? I'm not even overly concerned that Tiger isn't starting Year 4 on Monday, September 2nd.
Maybe we've been enjoying the summer to much to really think about making a full-swing start to the new academic year, or perhaps I am getting increasingly relaxed (or just laxed, depending on how you see it) about Tiger's learning process. There doesn't seem to be a clear cut-off/starting point to mark when learning happens and when it doesn't. I'm finally understanding and experiencing the term "holistic learning" or what it means to "learn all the time". The process of learning-all-the-time looks different for each child but it is there if you observe your child with an open heart and an open mind. I hope each parent recognises that in her child so that no one needs to feel stressed about not keeping up with anyone else (e.g. another child's progress, or the next homeschooling mum's superbly organised lessons, etc).
Meanwhile, we are easing ourselves back from the relaxed pace of summer to lessons. Homeschooling activities near us have begun in earnest -- if you thought I was organised, you should meet these homeschooling mums! It is very good to see familiar faces again and to feel the motivation (or pressure?) to get back to work.
This week at home we grew cress. It was supposed to go into our sandwich, but we decided to put it in soup instead because Tiger decided that he couldn't possibly stomach a cress sandwich.
For someone who has consistently faired poorly at growing plants, I have found growing cress to be highly satisfying. It is a foolproof way to introduce children (and non-green-finger adults like me) to growing food. Just look at the results:
Already starting to sprout within an hour of planting.
Day 2 - shoots and leaves!
Day 3 - standing tall.
Day 4 - a cress jungle!!
For someone with little patience and who loves quick results (that's me), watching the cress grow made me feel really successful. I was almost sorry when we had to harvest them.
We were out at sea very briefly, on board a ferry to the Isle of Wight, an island off the south of England.
The
day we set off was glorious. I even saw a hovercraft! Tiger and I had
made model hovercrafts for a science experiment a few years ago but I
hadn't seen an actual craft before so it was very exciting for me to see
one.
We were on our way to stay at Carisbrooke Castle!
Yes, you've read it correct. We didn't just visit the castle, we
actually lived inside the castle for the entire duration of our stay on
the island.
Everyone was really excited about our stay in the castle. For Tiger, it was a dream come true. Eversince his fascination with knights and castles started a few years ago, he has been wondering about the possibility of actually living in one. Now he was going to stay in one for a few days!
Throughout our stay Tiger volunteered to be the "gatekeeper" who locked the gates each night and opened them each morning.
The castle is significant in many ways, with a very long history. It has changed hands many times, from being a Saxon fortress to the summer residence of Queen Victoria's daughter. I suspect that is why most parts of the castle have been kept in a very good condition.
Not only the outer buildings were well kept, much of the inner parts of the castle was also well preserved.
There were many guns positioned at different parts of the castle, signifying its use as a fortress for defence at different times in history:
Other than the very impressive structure of the castle, there is also a very well organised museum within the castle grounds, in a house that part of a series of buildings that were formerly home to lords and governors of the island.
Part of the museum was dedicated to the English Civil War, showing the causes of conflict as well as the different armours worn by soldiers on both sides of the conflict:
The relevance of the English Civil War to this castle is due to Charles I being imprisoned at the castle for a short while during the conflict.
The bedroom in which he slept in was preserved:
It seems that Charles I wasn't treated too badly during his imprisonment at the castle, as he had a bowling green built especially for him during his stay!
Charles I was later executed in London, following his defeat at the Civil War. A chapel was built inside the castle as a place of remembrance for him. A copy of his death warrant, signed by Oliver Cromwell, was on display on the wall in the chapel.
As we were staying in the castle, we had the run of the grounds after it was closed to public after 6pm. During our stay we spent every evening walking the grounds, just to feel the atmosphere of being in a castle after dark. We had close-up looks of a few interesting nocturnal creatures:
The most fascinating creature we saw must have been the common glow worm. Tortoise noticed them first along the castle walls but Tiger was the one to identify them. We had not seen them before in the open, so this was another exciting first for us:
Being the ever-curious homeschoolers that we are, Tiger and I felt compelled to learn more about the common glow worms from the BBC Nature website and from reading a short article about them.
The common glow worms can be found just about anywhere in the UK, but I have never seen them before this -- probably because we don't go looking for them after 10pm, which is the time that their glow is most obvious. While we were at it, we also learned a little about bioilluminescence.
It has been a fantastic stay at the castle for all of us, but we also spent much time exploring the Isle of Wight. I shall share about our other island adventures in later posts.
This post is part of a series about our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight. You can read the entire series here.
