Thursday 14 March 2013

Woodlice as pets??

Damian came into the living room after finding a Woodlouse in the hallway, he seemed quite taken with this little creature, so I wondered whether they were suitable to keep as pets? Armed with my 'best friend' Google, we researched the Woodlouse and found the following:

Woodlice are fairly easy to keep as pets at home or in the classroom. Plastic containers make the easiest housing. And all that is needed to keep them happy is a layer of soil, a piece or two of bark, and perhaps a stone and some dead leaves.

A small piece of carrot or other vegetable can be added once a week. Spray with water occasionally to keep conditions humid. It is important not to make conditions too wet or too dry. One of the ways to do this is to spray just the one part of the box. In fact if you have a large box and different species of woodlice this can be used to study the differences in species preferences.

We also found out that they eat their own faeces, which while a bit gross, makes them the perfect pet in my eyes. So with the above in mind, we set out to find bark, stones and dead leaves in our garden and along with an old ice-cream tub, some moist soil and a sprig of old lettuce, Woody the Woodlouse now has a lovely new home.

We were quite pleased with our little project, until Erin got a tad jealous that Damian had a pet and she didn't. I suggested we find her a woodlouse to keep but she said she would much prefer a small horse that she can carry around in a bag. I thought she meant a toy horse but she was quite adament that she wanted a real small horse. Maybe another day Erin!!!

Wednesday 13 March 2013

My weekly Meal Plan

For some reason or another, we didn't stick rigidly to last weeks meal plan, so we have a lot of meals left over which we will have this week, taking that into effect, I did not have to buy an awful lots this week.

This week's meal plan consists of:

Breakfast:
Cereal and toast with milk to drink

Lunches:
Scrambled egg and spaghetti hoops
Bacon in rolls (I use the part baked rolls)
Left over curry
Left over chicken pasta bake
Sandwiches
Mini sausage rolls
Pizza muffins

Dinners:

Fish cakes, potatoes and veg
Sausage and chips
Chicken Fajitas
Chorizo fried rice
Chicken Pasta bake
Chicken curry with rice and poppadoms
Spicy Pepper pasta bake

Snacks:

Apples
Carrots
Cucumber
Crisps
Fromage frais
Biscuits

I spent a grand total of £19.33 this week but still could have spent less, I treated myself to chocolate hobnobs and I forgot to buy milk so had to buy it from our corner shop. If I had bought the milk from Iceland and not bought the hobnobs I could have saved £2.64, which would have made the total spend at £16.69, but there's nothing I can do about that now and treats now and again are a good thing.....or at least, that's how I'm justifying it.

I also received a Price Comparison voucher for £1.20 off my next shop, Every Penny Counts right!!

From what I already had in, I only had to buy:

Bacon
Crisps
Muffins
Part baked rolls
Poppadoms
Bread
Rice
Fish cakes
Chicken Nuggets
Biscuits
Apples
Fromage Frais
Chips
Ice cream
Cucumber
Carrots
Salsa
Milk

I will be the first to admit that our meals aren't always the healthiest and we do eat a lot of the same food, but it suits us and we're happy with it.

Linking up with 'athomewithmrsm'

Meal Planning Monday

Monday 11 March 2013

Origami Bookmarks

As I've said before, I'm an avid reader and I'm trying to instill this into my children, it's not working too well with Damian as he's more of a visual person rather than imaginative, but he still reads the odd book now and again,  Erin loves to read as much as I do.

I was looking through my beloved Pinterest again and stumbled across these wonderful Origami Bookmarks.

The author's creations are so much better than anything I could do and I didn't want to steal her wonderful ideas, so myself and the kids made our own designs.






If you feel like giving it a go, the author of the original blog gives excellent step by step instructions on how to fold the paper and believe me, once you've done it once or twice, it will stick forever.

Erin's learning today

Erin really enjoys her Rainbow Fish book.





I thought of incorporating some activities for her to do which relate to the story, but without a printer I had to improvise and this was what I came up with.


I hand-drew this picture of Rainbow fish for her to colour in (I'm so proud of this, I'm not very good at drawing at all, but I think it's really good)


Then I created a wordsearch with key words to find.

Erin was very impressed with my efforts and quickly got to work.




She used her book for inspiration when colouring in.





She really enjoyed her wordsearch but made 2 mistakes.





All in all, it was a success, but I'll be glad when I can buy a printer on Wednesday.

I've written out my lesson plan for the kids to learn tomorrow and I've already prepared them for what will happen. Since they've been out of school, I've just let them do whatever they wanted but made sure they completed some Maths and carried on with reading, but as from tomorrow, I will be introducing Science, Art, Languages and History but I'll blog more on what we cover tomorrow, along with work the kids have completed.

Thursday 7 March 2013

Reasons to be Cheerful

My ultimate reasons to be cheerful have names....they are called Damian and Erin, they bring their own stresses but at the end of the day, they are my reason for smiling, my reason for getting out of bed in the morning, everything I do is for them and I'm so proud to be their mum and that I've been given this almighty job of guiding them through childhood so they can fly the nest as well adjusted adults. My last reason for being cheerful is knowing I am in control of my own life, anything is possible and the world is my playground.
Reasons to be Cheerful at Mummy from the Heart


Erin hearts painting

She is definitely my daughter, I remember when I was her age I loved to paint, so everytime she asks to paint, I don't think of all the mess, I think of how much I loved it and how much she enjoys it.

Erin also learnt about mixing colours to create new colours.

Red + White = Pink
Black + White = Grey
Blue + Yellow = Green
Red + Yellow = Orange
Red + Blue = Purple

She just paints whatever it is thats on her mind, which normally involves people or flowers and I'm happy for her to do this, even if it gets quite repetitive. I want her creativity to come from within.

This is todays creation and the next photo shows one of my living room walls



Compassion

It sometimes gets lost along the way but it's something I want my children to always have. We are by no means a rich family in terms of money, but we are rich in love and our health and I'm thankful every day that we are all healthy and we have each other...material items are just a bonus.

I thought of a way to teach my children about compassion and stumbled across a lovely website

What a lovely way for children to learn about and show compassion for other children than to take time out of their day to draw a picture, write a letter or give them something to bring a smile to the other child's face.

We are planning on writing to a lot of children featured on this website, but for now Erin has drawn a picture and written a letter to a little girl similar in age.

Erin decided she wanted to draw an Underwater scene including a dolphin, we looked through our encyclopedias for some inspiration and this is what she came up with.





She also wrote a little letter introducing herself then she selected some gifts she wanted to give to this little girl.

 

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Weekly Meal Plan

I thought I would start sharing my weekly meal plan. Although I shop every Wednesday, I have a monthly budget of just £120 for food and other groceries inc shower gel, washing powder etc.

This weeks meal plan:

Breakfast:
Toast and cereal every day

Lunch:
Bacon rolls
Prawn salad
Egg bread
Sausage rolls
Sandwiches (twice a week)
Pizza Muffins

Dinner:
Sausage pasta
Chicken with rice
Chicken pasta
Chorizo fried rice
Fish and Chips with peas
Spicy pepper pasta bake
Meatballs and pasta

Snacks:
Cheese
Cucumber sticks
Carrot sticks
Yoghurt
Raisins
Chocolate digestives

Seeing as it's the first week of the month and I have a full budget, I bought some other bits and pieces to see us through the month. I shop at Lidl and Tesco for my food and will buy household products from Wilkinsons. My mum gets me big bottles of shampoo whenever she can (she works for Avon and they sell things very cheaply in the factory shop, I currently have about 6 bottles in a huge tub in my wardrobe) Home Bargains sell tubes of Colgate toothpaste for 39p and Lidl sell lovely body wash for 59p.

This week my grand total spend was: £60.32, which leaves £59.68 to last the rest of the month, but seeing as I bought quite a lot today, I don't think I'll have to buy much next week, other than milk and bread and stocking up on snacks.


Meal Planning Monday