Alphabet Flashcards for sale - PDF printable watercolour flashcards

✨For Sale✨

A beautiful set of watercolor Alphabet Flashcards - R120 (digital PDF download).

💌Email me (roxy@cgscreative.com) or click the buy button below to order your set today.

What makes these super special (and where my focus was in creating them) is that, apart from being very cute and aesthetically pleasing (because this is NB too 😝)they are:

• Phonetically Correct (‘A’ is for ‘avo’ and not acorn & G is for ‘goat’ not ‘giraffe’ because it’s so important to have the image relate to the actual phonic sound and not the name of the letter…otherwise it’s just confusing for little ones when you’re laying the foundations…this was critical for me as I’ve bought so many sets of flashcards that are beautiful but not correct in their phonetic sound. Eg I is for ‘iguana’ not ‘ice-cream)

• Capital and Lowercase letters are on separate cards (having them together on the same card is very confusing when your little one hasn’t grasped the concept of upper & lower case)

• Clear & easy to recognise font

• Easy to recognise objects and creatures for even the trickiest of letters

• The perfect size for little hands

• Easy to print at home (enough colour to look pretty without using up all your ink!)

• R120 for a downloadable PDF file for you to print at home

Raw Dog Food - my journey into the world of raw/real food for my dogs

I have always been intrigued by the idea of raw dog food, but it hasn’t been something I have been able to properly sink my teeth into until recently. It shouldn’t surprise my readers though, as the ‘crunchy’ journey I’ve been on (cloth nappies, baby led weaning, real food like liver and eggs as first food for my babies, homesteading, and now homeschooling haha)…the signs were there! If you’ve ever thought twice about the ingredients list of your own food, I’m sure the thought has crossed your mind as to what exactly is in dog kibble. Something I do have to highlight from the get go with this though, and when diving down this rabbit hole, it’s a huge change in mindset and you do give up pretty much all the convenience you have. It’s not that simple to go away and have someone pop in and chuck a couple of scoops of food down in a bowl for your dogs anymore. It requires planning, and preparation and organising and I have had to give myself a few pep talks in the past about not getting too fixated on doing it ALL. Even adding a teeny tiny bit of meat or an egg to your dog’s meal once a week has added benefits. But, going the full hog and changing over completely has had incredible results in a very short space of time for us and I’m going to share with you what I have done and how I do it.

Here is a photo of my 3 (all black and white haha) dogs…who are pretty impossible to photograph together as the youngest (Maximus, the Bullmastiff far right) is usually hurtling himself all over the place, landing on top of Zara the Boerboel on the left:

First things first, there is a lot of conflicting thoughts on raw dog food, and lots of people will raise their eyebrows; either because they feel dry dog food has been specially formulated by animal dieticians (which, for the most part IS true) but I simply can’t believe that cereals & other grains, sprinkled with ADDED minerals etc & then added to what is usually a very small amount of protein; can possibly be better as a food source than actual meat. I am used to the questioning looks (as well as the fear mongering) that comes from some people when you do things that go against the grain. I remember the Google rabbit hole I went down when my daughters teeth developed a bit of a blue tinge from the huge amount of blueberries she ate when she was little. I was calling every dentist/oral hygienist I could find because I was worried I had ruined her perfect little teeth. Just a heads up, I hadn’t ruined anything haha. And don’t even get me started on the raw milk/liver/egg yolk concerns that were raised when the weaning journey started with all 3 of my kiddies. I am not discounting the very real concerns that many vets have with raw food. There is a very big difference between properly doing your research and just feeding your young pup a diet of only table scraps & some rice. I am still learning, but I have grown in confidence in seeing the outward results that have come since I started this journey in February this year (2025)…ie 4 months ago.

How I first Started

The first thing I did was decide on what blogs and articles I felt were useful and encouraging. I then spoke to a friend who was also feeding her dogs raw food (her two older golden retrievers…about 12ish years old I think…looked incredible for their age and I could tell immediately before even asking her about their diet, that they were raw fed). I chatted to a vet friend (she was a bit sceptical due to her experience with raw being done so badly) but on the whole, she was supportive. I then dived into the ingredient list of the dog food I was feeding my dogs (Optimizor Premium) and then found this fantastic article RawMeatyBones. Don’t judge the content based on the simple and outdated website. I downloaded the 2 page guide and it gave me the confidence to just dive right in. Here are some great quotes from the guide:

Dogs left to fend for themselves in a natural world have no difficulty identifying what’s good to eat. Their diet includes anything that creeps, crawls, wriggles, runs, swims and flies. I applaud you if you can find whole carcasses of other animals as food for your pet. However, in our modern world we need to look for alternatives. And in this regard a raw meaty bones and table scrap diet works wonders.

As with any new venture the better informed we are the easier the task. Also, when well informed, fears tend to fade into insignificance. FEAR, by the way, is an acronym for False Expectations Appearing Real. Fortunately, dogs seldom share our fears and wolf down the first raw meaty bone they are offered.

Getting started

When getting started, keep it simple. Over time it’s a good plan to feed raw meaty bones and offal from a range of animals. But in the first couple of weeks stick with one source. Chicken is relatively cheap and readily available. Tiny dogs do well on chicken wings and thighs. Larger dogs may need a whole chicken. And for economy, chicken frames, with most of the meat removed for human consumption, are a good source of food.

The first time you hand your dog a raw meaty bone can be as momentous or as mundane as you choose to make it. But it will be the start of a whole new way of life for you and your pet. So, having a camera handy could be useful, as could keeping a diary. In years to come you will be able to share evidence of your pioneering efforts with your grandchildren as you look back with pride.

This simple advice was just what I needed to actually start, as I had been going back and forth for a good few weeks. I also went to every butcher, grocery store, pet shop and bulk cash and carry store in my area in my hunt for the ‘perfect’ first meal. In the end, I bought 10 kgs of chicken carcasses from a local chicken farmer and so began their new diet.

One thing you will need to figure out is how much to feed your dog. Generally (and this will vary from dog to dog based on their age, their activity level, their weight and their lifestyle) but as a guide, healthy adult dogs require 2-3% of their body weight in food daily. A good rule of thumb for growing puppies, is 2-3% of their expected body weight when fully grown.

I have the following age & weight dogs:

• Shadow (Korean Jindo Husky rescue dog) 11 years old and +- 18kgs

• Zara (Boerboel) 6 years old and +- 45kgs

• Maximus (Purebreed Mastiff) 8 months old and +- 40kgs (his expected adult weight is in the 50+kg range)

This is how much (again, plus minus) that I feed each dog per day:

• Shadow: +- 400g (once per day)

• Zara: +- 1.2 kg (once per day)

• Maximus +- 1kg (he gets 400g decent quality kibble in the morning & +- 800g of meat/bones in the evening when the other dogs get their food)

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Calcium And Phosphorus

Something that I was often warned about is the calcium & phosphorous balance (especially for growing puppies, and especially important for large breed dogs like my Maximus). Balancing calcium & phosphorous is fairly easy to do though. Plus, there’s a wider margin of error when feeding raw. Calcium that comes in a synthetic powder is nearly impossible for a puppy to excrete. This means an excess of calcium is more of a concern with synthetic products than with the naturally occurring calcium found in bones (great info from DogsNaturallyMagazine).

Meaty bones (50% to 65% of the diet) as recommended by DogsNaturallyMagazine:

• Turkey tails and necks (I have yet to find a source for turkey here where I live)

• Chicken backs and necks (I am able to find these for R37 p/kg)

• Veal ribs and tails

• Venison bones of any kind

• Chicken feet and beef windpipes (good source of naturally occurring glucosamine and chondroitin) I can get beef windpipes for R21 p/kg

• Beef neck bones (a great chew that won’t break teeth)

Balanced foods (feed these often)

• Eggs with shell

• Green tripe

• Whole animals (rabbit, quail, etc.)

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The results so far:

Zara - Boerboel

(6 years old)

Zara, my 6 year old black boerboel, has had the biggest (outward & visual) change so far. She has always been very allergic dog, will often scratch herself raw in places, getting sores on her body (and is always covered in flies during fly season because she is usually very smelly). Summertime is the worst when the grass is long and her belly and legs get itchy too. It will be interesting to see if she still gets itchy this summer, as while I’m sure her food was the main cause of her allergies, Summer has always been the worst time for her coat. She also had horrendous ears (filled with gunk) which has caused her lots of pain.

There was a time last year where no one could touch her head, let alone her ears. I took her to the vet to have them cleaned our properly, and she had to be heavily sedated because she became so aggressive. The treatment plan afterwards was a nightmare, because she would only let me go near her and I had to give her ear drops twice a day. She is a very docile dog 99% of the time (except when strangers arrive at our gate) and the final straw came when she bit (a big nip) my youngest son, Mason, on the forehead when he was riding on her back and grabbed her ears by mistake. It could have ended very badly, but it gave my the push I needed to give this way of eating a try and see if it improved things for her. I’m sure her food has been the biggest contributor to her allergies (I have tried a few different brands but settled on Optimizor Premium which had the highest protein content in the largest size bag for the best price)

I do understand that I made the choice to have large dogs (which eat a LOT!) but buying top of the range food (especially an allergy specific one) for her size would probably cost me as much as it costs to feed my family of 5. In saying this, raw meat (and bones) can also be very pricey, which is why I have had to be very organised, buy things when they are on special, and also buy in bulk. And chicken is generally the cheapest meat. I have also read that chicken can be a trigger for many dogs (not that I am running to have any allergy tests done on my dogs because #whohasthetimeforthat!) but I have to pick my battles. If you look at the ingredient list of most dry dog foods, the protein source should be the first one listed. If you can recognise the source then yay…you’ve found yourself a good food! Also bear in mind that, when reading the ingredient list, ‘chicken’ is different to ‘meat/chicken/animal derivatives’ and can’t even be compared (here is a nice article to read more about this sneaky labeling technique). Optimizor Premium, what I was feeding my dogs, has Cereals listed first (not ideal) and it’s protein source is ‘Meat & Animal Derivatives’ (also not ideal) but it was the best of the worst kind of situation.

Within 6 weeks of making the switch to raw food (I followed the RawMeatyBones guide) and gave chicken carcasses to them for the first 3 - 4 weeks, Zara’s coat had improved immensely! She stopped scratching, the sores healed and her shine started to come back in her coat.

The chicken carcasses cost me R35kg (the cost of feeding my 3 dogs was about R85 a day) and they were well and truly stripped of meat. After about 3 weeks I started to look around for pet mince to up the protein content of their food. My local butcher in Underberg sells pet mince for R30 p/kg. I fed them pure mince for the next 3-4 weeks, but I started noticing that although Zara’s coat condition had improved drastically, she was looking a little bit skinny. I do believe dogs are better off being on the slim rather than the chunky side, and it’s good to see signs of their ribs, but she was starting to look rather too lean (also look how teeny Max was!) and look how chunky Zara was!

I was also still spending R75 a day (which would work out to R2250 a month…eeek!). I have since decided to add a bulking ingredient (I used rolled oats at first which I would soak overnight before adding to their mince. A 5kg bucket of rolled oats at Dischem is R226:

I have since changed my ‘bulking’ ingredient to rice (which I soak and then cook) and add it to all of my dogs food. It’s much easier to mix mince and rice in one big bucket and decant than doing separate meals for each one. I try and soak the rice/oats the night before (and while I do cook the ricke/oats, this means technically I’m not feeding a 100% raw diet!).

Soaking rice and oats (or any nuts & seeds you consume!) before cooking can improve their digestibility and nutrient absorption by reducing phytic acid and potentially releasing other beneficial compounds. Phytic acid, found in the bran of grains, can bind to minerals like iron, zinc, and calcium, making them less available for the body to absorb. Soaking, especially in warm or acidic water, helps to neutralize the phytic acid, allowing for better nutrient uptake. Additionally, soaking can soften the grains, potentially reducing cooking time and making them easier to digest.

By the way, I even soak my nuts now too (have a look into Activated Almonds, I guarantee you’ll never look at an almond again…they are delicious when activated!!).

Zara’s ears have improved drastically (I wish I had a photo of what they looked like when we began…this is your reminder to take LOADS of photos for before and afters if you do try this way of feeding your dogs).

The one ear is completely clear, and the other is about 85% better (still a little gunky) but nothing like it was before. Anyone can touch her head now, and she is back to being her very docile self.

And on the whole, while I am not strictly doing a pure raw diet, I still believe making my own food is far more beneficial than the dry kibble I was feeding them. I often add a couple of eggs to the mix, some chia seeds/pumpkin seeds as and when I have them on hand.

Shadow - Korean Jindo/Husky rescue dog from South Korea

11 years old

The biggest change we have noticed with Shadow hasn’t been his physical appearance (he is a double coated dog and sheds 2 - 3 times a year and generally has a very beautiful coat) so it hasn’t been easy to see his coat condition change much. But, he has had the biggest behaviour change so far. He is getting on in his years, he has just turned 11 and for the past 6 months before changing to a raw diet, he would just sleep at the back of the house. He was very aloof, and spent most of his time alone (while this wasn’t terribly unusual as he grew up with us in an apartment in South Korea and was never good at being around other dogs no matter how hard we tried to socialize him), both hubby and I had been a bit worried that he was nearing the end. But, 2 months into a raw diet and he is like a puppy again. He is frisky, jumps up onto the bakkie and is always running up to greet us when we arrive home. He has become a bit of a pest at food time, and he is just lucky that Max is still a puppy and isn’t too dominating (yet) because he has become quite scrappy too. His teeth have improved slightly (the bone chewing acts as a natural toothbrush) but overall it is is behaviour that has changed the most.

Maximus - Bullmastiff

7 Months old

I am mixed feeding Max (although I am very confident now, I was a little nervous to go full raw with a young puppy). It also would be very challenging to feed him meat in the mornings when the other dogs don’t get anything. It’s quite a thing at dinner time when all 3 go bananas while they wait for me to dish up their food (I have to have a big stick nearby to keep everyone in their place…especially Max who inhales his food anyway). I feed him a cup of kibble in the morning; he is on Locuno Large Breed Puppy food which, after extensive research, is one of the most affordable (first source protein mentioned!) foods I could find. I also like that it is a South African brand, although relatively new on the market, but the fact that they list their protein source first in the ingredient list is a win for me. If I ever have to give my other two dogs kibble (this rarely happens, but when it does, they will get this kibble):

Max is a beautiful big and strong boy who is developing beautifully. He is a pure breed (black) Bullmastiff and came from a reputable breeder with registered parents (unlike Zara who has crooked teeth and an underbite and all her allergies haha), so it’s hard to know if he would look this good on a regular kibble diet, but I know this is a far superior diet for his developing years.

What I currently Feed my dogs

I alternate pet mince & rice with raw meaty bones/carcasses. I mix up pet mince with 2 cups of cooked rice (and usually add a couple of eggs, some coconut oil and seeds I have on hand). The pet mince is made up of organ meats and off cuts of (usually chicken) that the butcher makes up. I have even given them cooked quinoa and cooked sweet potato in place of rice when I have extra. Then the next day I give them meaty bones, usually chicken (backs, necks and or feet) or ox lungs (when I can find these locally) and I also give them chicken/ox liver/other organs depending on what I have found on special. I’m usually able to buy chicken carcasses/pieces/backs for R30 - R38 p/kg.

I have tried (thank you to my Mom for bringing these for me all the way from Joburg!) raw premade patties from a lovely company called DoggyChef in Johannesburg. These worked out at R50 p/kg, more expensive that my mince mix and even the chicken bones, but definitely a convenient way to just defrost and feed straight. They came in 100g patties, which would be great for a small dog, but feeding 12 to one dog at a time was quite a thing. 500g portions would have been ideal for my large dogs.

There are loads and loads of recipe ideas for raw food on the interwebs, and while I used them for inspiration at first, I had to take into account my current life stage (homeschooling mom of 3 young children) and it’s hard enough to get an exciting meal on the table for all of us, never mind trying to whip up a gourmet meal for my pups. They seem VERY happy with their mince and rice, bones and the odd organ thrown into the mix.

My next project (as I live on a farm) is to look into processing our own meat from the cull cows from our herd. We are dairy farmers, and while I don’t love the idea, it would a very sustainable (and budget friendly!) source of meat that is right on my door step. I didn’t ever think I’d be handing out chicken carcasses and ox lungs to my dogs, and yet here we are. If I do ever get the ball rolling with making my own pet mince, I will let you know 😉.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments about our raw food journey! I’d love to hear from you.

Ambleside Online Year 2 Term 1 - Exams

Exams…something I didn’t think I would EVER do in these early years of homeschooling, but they loomed above me whenever my eyes glanced through the menu bar on the AmblesideOnline website when I went looking for resources. I didn’t get around (slash, didn’t ever really actually plan on doing!) exams last year, as it was just one of the many things that I wasn’t able to wrap my head around in our first official year of Ambleside. But, I gave it a bash at the end of our first term of Year 2 (we start our school year in January here in South Africa) and I’m SO glad we did!

First of all, I had to take away every preconceived idea of what an exam meant to me, and start ‘fresh’. I needed to put aside the worry and concern about how well my child would or wouldn’t do, and rather look at it as a way of realistically assessing her learning for the term. And, because we had just read the book Understood Betsy (Everly’s absolute favourite book so far) and had gone through Betsy’s own positive experience with Exams; when I mentioned that we would be doing exams too, Everly was so excited and would ask me every day if today would be her chance to ‘do exams’. What a thing! I never would have imagined such a scenario.

While prepping for our first set of exams, I (unfortunately), found myself getting very caught up in how ‘far behind’ we seemed to be when I read Celeste Cruz's post on her blog, Jouyous Lessons. We all know in our hearts not to compare, but reading that post hit particularly hard because before reading it, I felt as though we were SO far ahead and doing #allthethings and going above and beyond what most homeschoolers were achieving with their Second Grade (or Grade 2 here in South Africa) students. In retrospect, it was actually a very good lesson in maintaining a humble heart. I tend to get a little plucky about homeschooling (maybe it’s because us homeschoolers often feel like we need to justify our decision to homeschool in the first place. And therefore whatever we are doing surely must be far better than anything mainstream schools may have to offer…said with a very strong note of sarcasm for all my non-homeschooling readers and followers). In any case, it was a hard pill to swallow to realise that even though I thought we had aced Year 1 (click here to read), there is always room for improvement, and that I need to remain open & teachable, always. And now after that little heart check haha, let’s get back to the main point of this post, and that is exams in a Charlotte Mason homeschool.

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Here is a lovely summary from the Ambleside website on what exams should be when following their curriculum:

"In general, the purpose of exams is to let the student show what they know, not what they don't know. The principle to use in shaping an exam for your child is: how can they show what they know?" -- Karen Glass

Karen also wrote a post about "What if my child doesn't remember?" on the AO Advisory blog. AO mom Celeste Cruz talked with Cindy Rollins about exams for The Mason Jar podcast. And don't miss Wendi's post about exams on the AO Advisory's Archipelago blog.

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With the above in mind, I printed off the sample questions from Ambleside (click here) and changed a few questions to fit what we covered for Maths, and took out the bits and pieces we didn’t get around to doing. This is another helpful element to the exams; they reminded me of the things that I need to include going into Term 2. For us ,these were things like Recitation, Second Language Study & Hymns. It seems to be a common thread that the Riches (the diverse & enRICHing elements of a Charlotte Mason-inspired curriculum that go beyond traditional academic subjects. These include picture study, composer study, nature study, Shakespeare, hymns, folk songs, poetry, and more. The term "riches" signifies the many ways the curriculum aims to nurture a child's love for learning and appreciation for beauty and wisdom) always get pushed to the bottom of the ToDo list, and the more academic subjects always seem to take priority. I am aiming to be better at this going forward, and I’m trying to work out how I can include my younger children in the riches. I’m aiming to have these things happen during morning time/when we are all together and not just during official ‘school time’ for my oldest. I have found that meal times offer a good opportunity for Bible stories, poetry, folk songs and picture study.

I also used the voice recorder app on my phone (which was SO incredibly helpful as it also transcribed the entire recording which saved me a good few hours of time) so that I could then print out the questions and answers and pop them in her file for record keeping. I also wanted to keep a copy of this for myself, so that I can look back on her progress, not just throughout the year, but for memory’s sake later on.

I wanted to include my husband in the whole thing too (not just to remind him that we/ahem…I…made the right choice in the deicion whether or not to homeschool) but because it made it a little bit more special for Everly. She loved having us both sitting there with her. I asked some questions, and I had Dale ask her a few. By the time she had sung her favourite folk song he was finished, tears streaming down his face at how proud he was of her (sniff sniff, it was very special indeed). I was overcome with emotions too, and so proud of my little girl in her so-very-earnest re-telling of her stories, her beautiful singing, and her cheeky answer to the question about Nature Study…"We haven’t actually done any Nature Study” she answered in a matter of fact tone. I laughed out loud and told her that her life here on the farm is basically one big fat nature study lesson.

I went back and forth on whether or not include her narrations here, as I sincerely hope that no one reading this post ever feels like I did when I first read Celeste’s post on her first exams. But, I have decided that it might actually be helpful for someone. There aren’t many resources for South African homeschool parents written BY South Africans; and it might be inspiring for those would like to know more/find out more about what goes into a Charlotte Mason inspired education.

Also…just a note, I did not spend too long editing the transcript from the audio file of the exam, and so I’m sure there are a lot of bits and pieces in the below that may sound a bit nonsensical. I think my iPhone battled a bit with Everly’s very British, but still very South African accent, as well as her pauses, umms and giggles in between. Mostly I was blown away at the length of her narrations for even just one of the questions. I really expected a lot more “I can’t remember” and blank faces, as usually happens during our school day and her narrations there.

Now, I cringe a little when looking back at Everly’s handwriting in the exam, because this is definitely not a sample of her best work. We are using a lovely little 3 spaced/lined exercise book for her copy work (see image below). I’m including a sample of this alongside her exam piece because it’s important to note that the same child, on a different day (and in a vastly different state of mind…ie focused/cross/distracted/annoyed with their teacher aka mom) can produce some vastly different versions of ‘their best work’.

And here are a few samples of the Artwork she has done this term so far.

We followed tutorials for all of the below (tutorials are a really fun way of learning, while gaining skills…and it’s a bonus that the end result is usually, something very beautiful). And yes I know, every single piece of art that our children produce is beautiful, but it does help when there are a couple of really ‘frameable’ pieces in the mix of their collection of artwork.

Note to self…don’t laminate pastel drawings! While I LOVE to laminate my kids artwork, especially when displaying them around the house as those sticky little fingers love to hold and showcase their work to anyone and everyone; the heat just did not play nicely with the poor Squirrel below.

Even though I spent far too much in my head in the lead up to this first set of Exams, I’m so glad I plucked up the courage (this sounds a bit crazy I know, but I really did have talk myself off a ledge, and what also helped was a phone call to my mom for a pep talk…and she knows next to nothing about Ambleside/Charlotte Mason…but she did have some very practical and grounding advice). I’m so glad I didn’t put it off for another time/another year.

My advice, don’t think or worry too much about it, and just pick a day, announce your intention to your student(s), take out some pretty pens, grab your partner/nanny/other kids as audience members (unless your child would hate this idea and bottle up with an audience!) and start asking your questions. And if you find yourself a bit disappointed with how things go, use it as an opportunity to change things up in the next term (you’re free to add or remove things in your homeschool!) so that you’re reminded of the life giving beauty of a Charlotte Mason style education.

Our Ana White inspired Greenhouse

I’m finally getting around to sharing the build of our Ana White inspired greenhouse! When I first approached Hubby with the idea of a greenhouse (would I really be able to call myself a gardener if I didn’t have one, right?) he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. I also knew I needed his buy in to make it happen, and we also knew we both wanted it to look good as well as be functional. So he set out researching, plotting & planning. And even though the construction panned a sum total of almost 2 years (because, as I am often reminded…he has a full time job being a dairy farmer) I mustered up all my patience and grace, and we have finally ended up with a most wonderful (often magical) space. We realised very early on, that the only time we would be able to actually have plants & seedlings in there is in the middle of winter, as it’s just TOO hot in there for most of the year. The few seedling trays I have tried to in there have burnt to a crips within a day or so, but we soon discovered that, mostly during the cooler months of the year, that it is the perfect spot for a cup of coffee, or a get together with friends. We’ve hosted an engagement party’s in it, a very low key bachelorette, a romantic Valentine’s dinner of sushi & wine, a BookClub and a few lady’s only evenings (it’s referred to as the SheShack for those). Overall, it’s become a wonderfully cosy ‘extra room’ to spend time in. It needs a good clean out every couple of months, especially when the chickens, ducks and children have had their way with the space and I find all sorts of potted seeds and freshly picked flowers planted and then left abandoned.

Here is a link to the actual Greenhouse plans if you’d like to try your hand at building your own one…just click the button below. And keep reading to hear what we used and where we bought our materials:

We dug down & then cemented in the wall foundation…leaving the main floor as bare ground. The timber we bought from our local Buildit. The corrugated sides were left over from some of the older farm structures we had. The most expensive part of the construction was the clear roof sheeting. This we purchased from Macdonald Steel in Pietermaritzburg and had delivered here to our farm. It has held up really well, and has stayed surprisingly clean over the past few years. We did make sure to factor in trees/dropping leaves when deciding on the location of our greenhouse. We also wanted to have it close enough to the house that we could pop in and out of it easily (at first this was to be able to check on plants/seedlings etc but seeing as that didn’t last long we are grateful it’s close enough to run an extension cord to as we often run fairy lights in it for evening times).

We did find we needed a central pole structure in there to keep the roof from caving in, and unfortunately this has made it a bit harder to bring in a big table to host dinners for more than 4 people at a time, but we work around this by just having everyone eat off their laps.

We put plastic sheeting down and covered that with a few bags of gravel which has prevented weeds/grass from popping up in the floor. It isn’t the most comfortable thing for bare feet to walk on, but we all manage well enough. And it hasn’t stopped my kiddies from playing in there without shoes on.

Here are photos from Hubby’s surprise Valentine’s dinner (all decor done by my, then 5 year old daughter…the Unicorns and granadilla’s were a highlight for me).

Sometimes I hang sprigs of Rosemary and lavender from the roof, which is lovely especially after a few days of drying out. The space smells so lovely. We have had to be careful with leaving things like candles in there at night, as by midday they have usually melted and made a mess.

So far the timber has held up pretty well in the rain, the odd hail storm, the wind and the general every day elements. Next up on our list for the Food Forest is a natural pool and a stone sauna. Stay tuned for more updates on that.

Zanzibar through photographs - highlights of our Babymoon through Stonetown, Pingwe, Nungwi & Fumba

It’s been a hot minute since I last wrote a travel blog post; and by travel I mean OVERSEAS or INTERNATIONAL trip and this was the last one hubby and I did, and it was back in 2021, during those crazy Co(n)vid days. I’ve always been one to swim upstream, so yes, the idea of traveling, 32 weeks pregnant with baby #3, to an African (ghasp…malaria ridden country) during a global ‘pandemic’ didn’t frighten me in the least. We had a WONDERFUL time but did swear to ourselves to never travel during Ramadan again. For some reason many of our travels have coincided with Ramadan and this has left us rather limited by restaurants & eating out options as we love to really immerse ourselves in the street food & more local establishments of the places we visit.

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{Here is a link to the first Babymoon we had…to Italy…when I was pregnant with our first child, Everly. What a wonderful trip that was! I also looked remarkably fresh and fun loving, but the first baby will do that to you…unlike how I was looking & feeling with baby #3 haha).

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I spent some time this morning going back through all my travel blog posts and it was evident to me just how much life BC (ie before children) was so free and open to any and all possibilities. Now our priorities have, understandably changed, but I have it in my heart to pack a backpack again soon and head off on a jetplane with hubby. Who knows, maybe we will get to do that in the next year or so, after which we would love to do it with all our kiddies, with South Korea being first on the list!

Here is a quick run down of where we went and how long we spent in each place:

Stonetown > 2 nights

Pingwe > 2 nights

Nungwi > 3 nights

Fumba > 3 nights

We flew from Johannesburg and had initially booked tickets with Mango airlines; but unfortunately for us, they went into business rescue the week before our departure…gosh what a nightmare that was. We lost the flights, sadly, but as the rest of our trip was already booked and mostly paid for, we scrapped all our pennies together and booked new flights with Kenya Airlines. At the time the flights were very reasonably priced, and we were determined to go on that trip!

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Stonetown

2 nights at Jafferji House & Spa (breakfast included)

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Pingwe

2 nights at Kapengaro Beach Villas (Now called Bitcoin Beach Hotel) which was unfortunately all under renovations when we stayed here. It looks amazing now!

We ate at the famous Rock Restaurant (you can’t choose the weather!) and sadly my photos look nothing like the ones on the web haha. This restaurant was the whole reason we chose to spend some nights here, and looking back I would probably recommend rather staying up north in Nungwi or down south in Pumba and rather make the long day trip to eat and explore and then head home. There wasn’t much more to do in Pingwe other than the Rock Restaurant.

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Nungwi

This was our splure stay as we spent 3 nights at the Hilton DoubleTree Resort. I sadly could not make use of their amazing drinks packages (being pregannt and all) but the all inclusive packages were really well priced.

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Fumba

Another splurge for the last 3 nights of our holiday at the Fumba Beach Lodge…worth every cent! The food was a bit dissapointing at that time (with Covid restrictions meaning access to food was a challenge) and as it was the only place to eat in the area, we were forced to just eat here. Apart from that, this lodge is a very special place for the ultimate relaxing holiday. We hope to be back with the kids one day.

We also did a local coffee plantation tour during our stay which was really fun, and highly recommended.

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Here is also a travel video Hubby put together of our trip…enjoy!

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Cloth Nappies & Where to start when building your stash

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I found this post sitting in my drafts here and just had to share it even though my youngest child is juuuuuust about fully potty trained and I haven’t needed to worry about cloth nappies for so long! I have to share it in the hopes that it is useful if you are on the cloth nappy journey

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Once you dive down the rabbit hole of cloth nappies, it can be so incredibly overwhelming to know where to even begin when it comes to what to buy first. I hope this post makes things a little clearer for you, and than you feel a little less overwhelmed. Please feel free to leave me a comment below with any questions you might have along the way, I could talk all things cloth for days!

Tip #1: ALL cloth nappying/diapering parents are so lovely! You really won’t meet a nicer group of people, who genuinely want to help new parents in their cloth journey. In fact, I’ve made such great friends with moms (I’m sure the cloth addict Dads out there…and I promise you there are some…are just as great) who use cloth nappies. Also, there is no judgement if you just want to dip your toe in and you aren’t sure if you want to commit to cloth 100%. It’s up to you whether you use cloth full time, part time, or just on the weekends when you are home with your kids. But the cloth bug bites hard, and you might not be mentally prepared for how excited you get when changing a nappy/receiving a new nappy in the post.

Tip #2: Not all cloth nappies are created equal. There is a reason some are more expensive than others, and there is a reason why some brands are voted number 1 time and time again. I’m going to share my favourite brands and types of nappies in this post, but as always, bear in mind these are the nappies I’ve had first hand experience with and have used over the past 2.5 years with two kiddos.

Building your stash

The biggest tip I can give, when you start looking into what type of nappies to buy, is to get a variety of different types from a variety of different brands. It can be really tempting to buy those (what appear to be) money saving bundles, but the problem is you really don’t know which nappies you (and your baby!) are going to like/what shape body they are going to have (ie skinny vs chunky legs) and of course their output is baby dependant and changes all the time. You really are going to go through like 15 nappies in a day when they are newborn, and then 5 or so once they get to a year old. And then there will be the odd day when they might poo in every single nappy and then you can’t reu-use any of your covers etc. So it really does help when you have a variety of different nappies on hand so you can see what you like (and most importantly, hubby/your partner can figure out what they like too so that they are more likely to get involved in the nappy changing process too!).

Before we begin, here is a quick breakdown of the different types (I will do a full blog post on this soon) but in the mean time this will give you an idea of what’s what. I bought some of my nappies in the UK & Canada when I had family who could bring them over to me, and I’ve linked those below too:

• All-In-One (AIO): the most expensive type of nappy, but also the most convenient & the most like a disposable with the ease of which they go on and off. They are ready to go on the bum straight from the washing machine & don’t need any fancy assembly. These are the easiest for first timers to use, and the ones that Dad’s/Grannies usually reach for first. If you don’t have a budget to consider, then AIO’s are the bomb! I found them to not be absorbent enough for my daughter until about a year, after which I would still boost with an extra padfolded small sized hemp flat. They are very trim, and great when out and about but they do take long to dry because all the parts are ‘sewn together’. I loved using AIO’s from about 15 months, and they became my most used after that. My favourite brands of AI'O’s are Biddykins, Smart Bottoms, Grovia & Thirsties. You can buy Grovia nappies here in SA through Biddykins & Little Sams.

• Pocket: a sleeve type nappy that you ‘stuff’ with different inserts (namely microfibre, hemp or bamboo) depending on much much/little absorbency you need. Come in a huge variety of prints & designs, they are quick drying (because the inserts and the cover are separate) are very affordable & you have control over the absorbency as you can add/remove inserts as you need. Downside to them is it can be a pain to ‘stuff’ the nappies and they aren’t suited to night time (because you need A LOT of absorbency for nights). I love pockets for day time wear, and my daughter (2 years old & day time potty trained) uses these for her naps with a hemp & a bamboo insert as they are my most absorbent ‘day’ nappies). My favourite brand of pocket nappy is Biddyins.

• Snap-In-One (SIO): basically an All-In-One nappy whose inserts ‘snap in/on’ as opposed to being sewn on. These have all the convenience of an AIO but they dry quicker because the inserts wash separately. My favourite SIO nappy is the Grovia O.N.E (which you can buy here in South Africa through Biddykins & Little Sams). Another lovely local SA brand is KylieCo which makes GORGEOUS custom designed nappies, but they are on the pricier end at about R450 a nappy. Although they are beautiful (and their squishiness & prettyness justify their hefty price tags, I don’t find them to be as absorbent as my other nappies).

• All-In-Two (AI2): these are generally made up of a waterproof cover with inserts that lie/clip into the cover. In this way they are similar to SIO’s but their shell (the waterproof outside part) is able to be re0used in between nappy changes because you can simply give it a wipe unless it has been heavily soiled. My favourite brand of AI2’s is Buttons Diapers (available here in SA through TinyHiney & Smitten Baby Boutique.

• Fitted: a full absorbent nappy that needs a waterproof cover. They come in different fabrics (usually bamboo cotton or hemp) and are an amazing night nappy. They do tend to be bulky (but this is the case with all night nappies) and are either snap-less (which means you need to use something like a snappy to close them) or they come with snaps/velcro for easy clipping open/closed. They take a while to dry, but are very absorbent. My favourite fitteds are:

  -daytime: Pokkelokkie Dawnpatrol

  - nighttime: Pokkelokkie Sleepy Dust & Sloomb

• Hybrid Fitted: usually made by WAHM's (work at home moms) and they have a water-resistant layer (fleece) sewn in but do need a cover to be fully waterproof. These are my least favourite nappies because both of my kids have been heavier wetters and so the beautiful prints that these nappies can come in are always going to have to be covered by a waterproof cover, and then I don’t see the point in having such a pretty nappy that you will never see. If you have a light wetter, you would get away with using these with no cover.

• Flat: these are the ‘old school’ nappies that our mums and Grans used to use (remember the ‘terry towel squares’?, but these days they come in lots of different fabrics. - The fabrics that are popular today are just trimmer than the old terry towelling nappies, and of course there are loads of different colours around nowadays. Flats are just that, a flat layer of fabric, cut into a square, that you fold and then secure with a snappy or a pin. They usually come in 3 sizes: newborn/small (50cmx50cm), medium (60cmx60cm) and then OSFM or large (70cmx70cm). I LOVE flats and have used them on both of my little ones from birth. They are the most versatile nappies for the newborn stage, and they make the best night nappies because they are trim, super absorbent and can be easily boosted. I use flats for both my kids at night, with a fleece cover for Aaron, and with a nice stretchy blueberry coverall cover for Everly.

  My absolute favourite flats are Pokkelokkie hemp flats (the blue ones pictured below). I am STILL using Everly’s old newborn sized flats to boost her night & day nappies, and they are still going strong on Aaron.

Prefold: these are similar to the flats as they are also square/rectangular, but they have an extra absorbent middle layer (basically the middle of it has already been boosted and sewn together) giving you more layers for absorption. They are fastened with a snappy/pin & need a cover. They can come with ‘wings’ cut out (making it much easier to fold onto baby, and I love using these on Everly at night and have done so since she was about 15 months old. These are easier for Dad to work with that a plain flat. My favourite prefolds are the winged help ones from Kanini (but mine are very well used as you can see from the pic below, and they have little holes from being fastened with a snappy).

I fold the bottom of the nappy up (pictured on the flat) to make it a bit smaller for Everly, and then padfold another small sized hemp flat in the middle before folding the sides over. I then put another small padfolded hemp flat between the nappy & the cover, and this is what I do for Everly for nights. It’s a very bulky nappy but works like a bomb for 12-13 hours of wear.

*As mentioned above, at the time of posting this I am WELL out of the nappy game with my youngest, Mason, allllmost full potty trained at 3.5years. But I couldn’t leave this post sitting in my drafts with so much good information! I hope you find this post useful in your cloth nappy journey*

All About Caterpillars, Clouds & the letter C

These posts document my teaching adventures in starting up a Reggio-inspired school in my farm shed in January 2023. I’ll share more about how all this came about soon, but in the mean time, I hope you enjoy these moments & learnings.

It was that time of the year when the silk worms start making their appearance (although they are NOT indigenous to South Africa…there is generally someone somewhere who has found/bought/hatched themselves some) and that’s exactly what happened for us. One of the Granny’s of my kiddies asked if we wanted any, and I thought they would work perfectly for us to learn about caterpillars (and other ‘c’ or Clever Cat things like clouds). And for those asking if silk worms are actually caterpillars? Yes, they are! They are the larvae of the silk moth, Bombyx mori.

I arrived at school to a ‘special delivery’ from one of the kiddies, and we all immediately opened it up and got stuck into some wonderful discussion about what these things were (worms? slugs? nunus?) and out came the Field Guide to try and identity what exactly these creepy crawlies were (not that we were actually able to identity them, but the idea is to get into the habit of looking things up in the book). And then lots more discussion on what they eat (mulberry leaves!!) which I just so happened to have a large one growing in the field behind the school. So off we went to collect fresh leaves for the silk worms.

The silkworms lead into the ‘theme’ or rather, the letter for the week and I pulled out my playdough mats for the Letter C and we read the story of Clever Cat (we love you Letterland!) and spoke about what other ‘C’ things we could think of…and from this we found a few more things to add to learning; clouds, cows & cats.

For ‘writing practice’ (I don’t believe in anything too formal in the early years) I alternate using a big white board with lots of different sensory letters for the children to touch and trace. For this week I pulled out the rice tray and every had a go at writing the letter themselves in the rice. I always start this exercise at snack time (or while they are busy with playdough/plasticine), by reading the corresponding Letterland story that goes along with each letter, while everyone eats their snack or keeps their hands busy. And then they come up one by one so I can give them some undivided attention while they practice their letter formation. I leave this set up out for the week so that they can come and go as they please and play/learn when they are inspired to.

I had 2 finished artwork pieces in mind when we started this week (or rather when I realised we would be learning about the Letter C). One for clouds (this involved painting with shaving foam…such a fun process art activity!) and then sticking cotton wool onto the background for the clouds.

The other art piece would be loosely based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We did marble painting (in green and yellow for the body of the caterpillar) onto white paper doilies with one red piece (done by my eldest, Everly) for the head.

{How to do the Marble Painting: simply dollop paint onto your paper/cardboard, and then let the kids roll the marble around the page. This is a little trial and error as to how many marbles to use, how quickly to roll…ie before the paint dries…and for the little hands to practice holding up the tray and getting the hang of moving the marbles around the tray. My favourite paints to use are the Giotto Tempura paints. The colours are nice and bright and the paint lasts for ages. They are well worth the extra money spent}

We also chatted about the life cycle of a silk worm (I didn’t worry too much about the whole worm vs caterpillar thing…can’t let facts get in the way of arts and crafts haha) and that they turn into moths or butterflies. The boys especially loved this very hands on week and a few of the kiddies were brave enough to really get stuck in and play with the silk worms.

AmblesideOnline Year 1 - a recap of our first Charlotte Mason homeschool year

We ended our first ‘official’ year of homechooling with AmblesideOnline in mid December. It took me until the last day of the year to take the above book stack photo (I had SO many ideas of ways to take it, spots to be in…like the garden/food forest) and then I realised if I didn’t just forget about taking the perfect photo, I would miss the opportunity before beginning Year 2! So here I am, a few days into January 2025, finally getting around to recapping our year.

AmblesideOnline is a free homeschool curriculum that uses Charlotte Mason's classically-based principles to prepare children for a life of rich relationships with everything around them: God, humanity, and the natural world.

Where did I get my books?

I bought the majority of the books new (a pricey investment but considering that I am planning to use these same books with each of my 3 children, I could justify the costs) and had them sent to family in the UK. I started compiling the books quite well in advance of starting Year 1, and in that time I had family members who were traveling to the UK who could be my ‘book mule’ and bring them back to South Africa for me. I used Amazon.co.uk for the majority and then used ChristianBooks (a US site) to order the harder to find Beautiful Feet books and a few others, and they were shipped to the UK. I did look into shipping straight to South Africa, but our postal system is unreliable at best, and the cost to ship them here and then the import tax to receive them was just too expensive. What is wonderful about AmblesideOnline is that a lot of the books are in the public domain, and available to download to Kindle/PDF. And then there is also Librivox which is a free audio site to listen to the books. It can be a bit hit and miss with the narrators on there, but the really good ones are linked on the AmblesideOnline book lists. I also found a few books second hand on the Homeschool Buy/Sell/Exchange Facebook group.

Here is a very brief summary of the subjects covered in Year 1:

We schooled 3 - 4 days a week this year (I was still running my Reggio inspired ‘Red Shed’ school in the shed next door to our house 3 mornings a week) and I only had one hour for each of those mornings to focus solely on Everly and her ‘official’ school work needs. I am happy to say that even though it seems like a tiny amount of time, we were able to complete 95% of the 36 week schedule of her work. I aimed for 4 days a week, but realistically only managed 3 days most weeks. We took time off for holidays each term (I ran my school on a 4 term schedule) and even between sick days/low enthusiasm days/people visiting and general life busy-ness, I am very proud that we finished just about every book on the schedule. Sometimes we caught up & finished readings on the weekends, but the majority of the work was done on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning. It worked really well having both my Shed School (my 3 children and 5 other kiddies were part of the school…I’ll share more about this another time) but it was a constant juggle between the two. From next year (2025) I will only be homeschooling my own children, and I look forward to enjoying more of the homeschool lifestyle I had envisioned when I first began this journey of home educating back in 2021/2022.

Reading/Phonics

Everly’s reading really took off this year. I didn’t follow any formal reading program, and we don’t do spelling/reading lists (and a small part of me is worried we have perhaps missed out on some skills somewhere along the way) but seeing how she absolutely loves reading and is able to decipher pretty much any word she comes across, I would say what we’ve done up to this point has worked really well for her. I’ll share a full post on how I taught (or rather, how she learned to read) as I’ll be following the same process with her brother (Aaron is 5 turning 6 in February), but here are the basics of what we did:

We read lots and lots and lots of books together in the early years, and worked our way through the Letterland series together.

I also read (and re-read!) this wonderfully comprehensive series of posts by Joyful Shepherdess on how to teach reading the Charlotte Mason way, and found it really helpful too.

Once we had gone through all 26 letters (I started with the letters in her name, not with the official alphabet sequence) and then I moved onto the move advanced Letter land books. She was able to out together basic CVS words right after the first few Letterland Story books, but we took it slow and I think this was the key. Alongside Letterland, once we had gone through the majority of the letters, I started her with the below traditional Peter & Jane first readers that I picked up second hand.

It took us pretty much up until the start of 2024 to move through all the Letterland books and then to move from Peter & Jane Book 1 to book 4 (there are separate A, B & C books for each level). Once we had started AmblesideOnline Year 1 (and gone through Peter & Jane Levels 1 - 3) I then I changed things up a bit and followed the Ambleside recommendation of the McGuffey Readers (I had bought The First & Second but skipped purchasing the Primer) from Oikos when they were still selling…but you can now purchase these from the Oikos BOBShop or from the online GoodNeighbours Bookshop.

We began AmblesideOnle Year 1 with the McGuffey First Reader and are still making our way through it. I was worried it would all be too old fashioned, but Everly has loved this book, and while it was a big jump from the Peter & Jane books & she did not enjoy the challenge at times, the growth I have seen in her has been wonderful.

Handwriting/Copywork:

We started off our handwriting journey with The Good & The Beautiful Handwriting Pre-doodles and Level k workbooks, but I really didn’t enjoy the way some of the letters were formed and preferred Everly to write her letters & numbers the way I was taught as school. I then set out of try and find a nice South African handwriting workbook.

Initially I had Everly form letters in a very tactile way (playdough, a salt tray) and lots and lots of ‘air writing’, the workbooks came in later for us.

We swopped over to the Happy Handwriter workbooks (which you can buy online through JumpLeapFly)and I’ve been very happy with them. Everly had already learned to write all her numbers and most of her letters…along with some bad habits…so we started right back at the beginning and we also did lots of letter tile play with our Kids Corner Montessori moveable letters. I also found these lovely lined handwriting books for her copywork, and it has been amazing seeing her progress throughout the year. They also match up with the Head, Tummy & Tail formation (the little monkey pictured above) in the Happy Handwriter books, as well as the Kids Corner Head, Tummy & Tail Board for placing the moveable letter on.

Maths:

We chopped and changed quite a lot in the last year, as I’ve gone back and forth between what I felt was the ‘right’ maths program for Everly. We’ve had fights, there have been tears, there have been high fives, beaming smiles and just about every emotion in between. And after all of it, I have come to the realisation that all the shoulds/requirements of a year 1 student (or Grade 1 if you’re South African like we are) should be thrown out the window if they are causing conflict, stress and frustration for all those involved. I was reminded to re-read Ruth Beechick’s the 3 R’s, and to remember that education is the ‘science of relations’ (thank you Charlotte Mason) and my own desire to ensure Everly LOVES maths & the NEED to make up for my own dread of the subject in school has actually been having the opposite result. I think a lot of more veteran homeschool moms can probably relate to the feeling of doing too much for their first child in the beginning of the homeschool journey. The wise words from older moms on the Ambleside forum to ‘enjoy the early years’ and not to take things too seriously with subjects like maths fell on deaf ears, but I am listening now. I am taking my foot off the pedal a bit, and we are playing more games, dong more hands on maths again (just like we did when we first started our learning journey) and things are once again feeling more peaceful. We have used a combination of the following this year:

• The Good and the Beautiful Math 1 (TGATB)

• Math-U-See Alpha

• Life of Fred (LOF)

Halfway through the year, we put aside Math-U-See and instead alternated TGATB Math 1 with a chapter of Life of Fred every now and again. If I had had more faith in myself, we would have probably just done LOF alongside math games and spent the year with a less intense math focus. But, I am again reminded that the beauty of homeschooing is being able to change things when they aren’t working for your child.

We are half way through TGATB Math 1 (and I’m not worrying myself that we should have finished Level 1 because Grade 1 and Level 1 should correlate (ahem…that’s my A type personality trying to take over again!), and Maths is once again (for the time being at least haha) a happy subject that is challenging for all the right reasons.

On a practical note, I get all my large scale colour printing and binding done with Iron Pig Projects who are very affordable and produce excellent quality printable booklets etc.

Bible

When first starting to put my book list together, I read this article on the AmblesideOnline website which details why they recommend using the King James version. That’s why I purchased myself a copy on the GoodNeighbours website (click here).

Once I had actually started the year, I quickly realised that if I was going to be able to continue with all the bible readings, I was going to need something a little more comprehensible for myself. I’ve never actually read the bible myself and so my knowledge of the stories in the bible is so limited. Everly actually was able to handle the stories and narrate back to with more understanding than I was able to, but I decided the whole AmblesideOnline curriculum was enough of a stretching for us to start with by itself, and decided to dust off my old Women’s Daily Study Bible which worked really well this year. I would like us to move back to the King James version at some point, but for Year 2 we will probably stick with the Study Bible and see how we go. The Other bibles are story bibles I have read together with my other 2 kiddies during morning time (which I will soon share more of what that has looked like over the past couple of years), and the Wisdom & the Millers book has been such a lovely addition we are just about finished off together.

History & Tales

Our Island Story - I think I may have enjoyed as much if not more than Everly as I spent 5 years in living in the UK when I was younger. I learned a lot about the history of the UK (I’ve even visited Stonehenge, and had no idea of the stories and myths surrounding it’s history and how it came to be where it is).

Trial & Triumph - quite heavy going, and definitely pre-read for very sensitive souls. I thought Everly would be very upset narrarting this book, but she handled it well and it lead to a lot of really good (stretching!) conversations. I’m glad we didn’t skip it.

Fifty Famous Stories Retold - these were really great and Everly enjoyed every one of them.

Viking Tales - Suprisingly, this turned into one of Everly’s favourtie books! I think this may have to do with the fact that I started photocopying the corresponding illustration from each story for her to colour in and stick into her work book. It defninetly helped to keep her interest, and we both enjoyed going through the illustrations together after her narration.

**Child Craft - Story of South Africa (we started this in the 3rd term and just added it in every second/third week depending on the workload for the week). A lot of moms recommended focusing on history from your home country, and so this was a really nice living book to add in for South Africa that didn’t send us on too many tangents. Each story is short enough that I was able to add this book in without ommitting any of the others above.

Shaka Zulu - While I’m sure there are ‘better’ books on Shaka Zulu, this is one I had collected over the years, and this too, suprisingly, was one of the books Everly would always ask if we were reading each week. I chose Shaka as a historical figure for us because we live in Kwazulu Natal (his birthplace) and we often holiday to a place called Shakas Rock in Balito, which is named after him.

D’Aulaire’s Buffalo Bill & Benjamin Franklin (we skipped George Washington as I coulnd’t get my hands on a copy of it, and this is when I subbed in Shaka Zulu). Both really great books! I learned so much about American History from them, and Everly made all sorts of connections throughout the year after reading the books like pointing out the lightning rods/conductors on the thatch cottages in the Berg and mentioning that ‘Wasn’t Benjamin Franklin clever to think of making those lightening rods’.

We also started (as suggested by AmeblesideOnline) a personal history ‘timeline’ for Evs. This is the foundation for being able to understand the idea of where dates fit into history (something that starts more officially in Year 2/3 with the introudction of a Book Of Centuries…click here for some lovely ideas for when you’re ready to start that). The concept of a timeline is so abstract (basically numbers on a page haha) and doing a personal timeline of the child’s life is a wonderful way to help them get a good understanding of the ideas of the past and therefore 'history’.

Natural History

Burgess Birds - I wished we had both loved this book more (I mean, it’s all about Peter Rabbit and his adventures meeting lots of different birds!) but we couldn’t really relate to the stories as much because so many of the birds aren’t native to South Africa. I did get the Librivox version and have added it to Everly’s Yoto player, and she has enjoyed listening to them on and off in her free time. I had visions of beautiful dran narrations (there are SO many amazing ideas to bring the book to life…from homemade felt birds to paintings hung on a homemade forest/branches but we just didn’t get there this year). I borrowed this from a friend).

Paddle to the Sea - I bought a set of maps from Beautiful Feet and we enjoyed painting in Paddle’s journey to the sea together. This was a lovely story for both of us. There also also so many wonderful ideas to bring this book to life even more, but we again, just didn’t get around to all that I had hoped with it.

James Herriot’s Treasury - a favourite for both of us! Everly is a real little vetrinarian in the making, and as we live on a farm, so many of these beautifully illustrated stories have formed part of our every day lives. A must in your bookshelf collection (not just for Ambleside!). I think there is a whole collection of his stories on Audible too.

**When Hippo Was Hairy and Other Tales from Africa (when Burgess Birds got a bit long winded for us, I subbed this in for more African tales which was GREAT especially after we spent 10 days in the Kruger Park in July). These stories were fun to draw narrations of.

Nature Study

We did a lot of Nature Study during the year with my Shed School, but I did extra with Everly in the form of nature journaling (click here for a full post on this). Some good quality watercolour paints, a little journal/notebook with thick enough paper for the paint, and lots and lots of time outdoors.

Literature

Aesop’s Fables - we both enjoyed these short and easy to digest stories. These were fun. I recently bought the Audio version on LibroFM which Everly has really enjoyed listening to after having read the stories throughout the year.

Parables of Nature - although these stories were long and the language very challenging at times, we both really enjoyed the messages.

Just So Stories - Everly really loved these, Oh Best Beloved ;)

Blue Fairy Book - This was probably Everly’s absolute favourite books this year. The stories were long, and we often had to finish them off on the weekend, but they were filled with adventure and wonder.

Shakespeare - Everly surprised me with her narrations of the plays we covered this year (King Lear, As You Like It, Twelth Night,The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the first 3 plays I bough these lovely colour-in-yourself illustrations (from Etsy) of each character which I laminated and then we used them as puppets to help us both understand what was going on. We had lots of giggles at Puck and reading Shakespeare with my daughter while chatting about who was doing what to whom was a very special time this year. I studied English Literature at University and English was always my favourite subject at school. Sharing my love for it with her through her own schooling has been very special indeed.

In putting the above photos together, I have only now realised that I might have gone a bit overboard in my collection of versions of Shakespeare books I have haha. The Usborne Complete Shakespeare collection is a really lovely version that my other 2 have enjoyed paging through often.

Foreign Language

This is something I would like to work on more next year, as all we did for this was listen to lots of French, Afrikaans and playlists on Spotify of kids songs from around the world. I do belive songs are the most powerful way to immerse yourself into a language, and when I hear my 3 year old break out into spanish because he knows the words to a song, my heart is glad we’ve made the effort to at least do lots of songs…even if they’ve only been background music to our arts and crafts. I studied French as a second language at school (as I lived in the UK for such a long time) which does make things a little more complicated for us when choosing a second language to study for my kids. Because of my French background, I feel more equipped to help them study French, than say, Afrikaans or Zulu which are the two most common second languages here in our province in South Africa. There are lots of great tips and resources on the Ambleside Forum (click here) if you’re trying to work out how (and which one!) to introduce a second language to your children.

Folk Songs

I simply went onto spotify and found a playlist for the year (based on the Ambelside Rotation) and we played this songs at breakfast time, in the car, whenever someone mentioned wanting to hear one of the songs. All 3 of my kids loved the selections.

Poetry

I found an old copies of 1 of the ‘recommended’ poetry books but you really can use anything! I added in the Christopher Robin Verse Book & A Baobab is Big & other verses from Africa to bring in some more local African flavor (it’s a lovely addition!).

And before you worry about how on earth to ‘do’ poetry, here is a great reminder from the AblesideOnline website:

How do you "do" poetry? Simply read it and enjoy it, re-read it, read it again and listen to the sound of the phrases, let them paint a word picture in your mind. AmblesideOnline Year 1

Art Study (Picture Study & Composer Study)

I had lots of grand ideas about how picture study would work, but in the end I simply printed out the images for the year (thank you Rebecca from a Humble Place for all your hard work in offering these art prints for free) and I taped them up on the bathroom door as it’s the most ‘looked at’ spot in the house haha. I then swop out one of the prints and put it onto the fridge as well for us all to look at and notice in our own time.

Composer study was less successful this year. We did listen to a few lovely classical pieces, but there is a lot of room for a lot more!

Handicrafts

These are also something that we didn’t do very much of intentionally. A lot of what we did do at my Shed School would be termed Handicrafts, but I’d like to be more intentional with Origami and sewing in the next year. And I’d like to fin a nice supplier for a loom too (oh, and pottery classes would be something else I’d love to start!).

Whew! After writing this post and looking back at our year, I am really encouraged by everything we DID do (and I’m not so caught up on all the ‘did not do’ parts of the year. It was a very stretching year, but we were able to take it slow and find a really nice rhythm to our weeks. This next year is going to be a bit more challenging in a lot of ways because I only have myself to be acountabel too (and not the other kids and their parents whom I was teaching). I will have a lot more freedom, but with that is also the worry that I won’t be as pressured to keep up with everything. Anyway, I remind myself often that these early years are incredibly precious and fly by so fast. If we do less this next year, but are able to keep focusing on the good, true and the beautiful every day, I think we will be just fine.

As always, I love hearing from you. Please leave me a comment if you have any questions about what I’ve talked about above or if you have any ideas/suggestions on anything you’ve done differently in your homeschool journey. I so enjoy hearing from you.

Roxy

x

The Red Shed - All About Rainbows

These posts document my teaching adventures in starting up a Reggio-inspired school in my farm shed in January 2023. I’ll share more about how all this came about soon, but in the mean time, I hope you enjoy these moments & learnings.

This week was filled with colourful sensory play, lots of paint (and mess!!!) and most importantly (at least for me and my view of education!) accidental learning through purposeful play.

I set up our sensory table (I had one custom made by Cob&Pickle in Howick…click here for a link to their Facebook page) and put some laminated rainbow images into the trays. I covered these with beans and rice and then let the children ‘dig for the rainbow treasure’. This was such a hit! I used some of the left over rainbow rice I made a good couple of years ago (yes, I am as shocked as you that that batch of rainbow rice is still going strong!). I love the photo of the kids looking underneath the tubs to see the rainbow (make sure to print and laminate it double sided so that it actually shows up nicely both from the top and the bottom).

I bought one of these lovely wooden rainbow stackers from Thornwood Treasures a few years ago for my kids, and it was the perfect open ended toy to bring out for this week. The kids had a lot of fun with them, using them in all sorts of ways…it really is a fantastic toy!

For ‘writing practice’ (I don’t believe in anything too formal in the early years) I use a big white board with lots of different sensory letters for the children to touch and trace. Then they get to have a go at writing the letter themselves with a white board marker. I always start this exercise at snack time (or while they are busy with playdough/plasticine), by reading the corresponding Letterland story that goes along with each letter, while everyone eats their snack or keeps their hands busy. And then they come up one by one so I can give them some undivided attention while they practice their letter formation.

Another favourite process art activity is marble painting. Simply dollop paint onto your paper/cardboard, and then let the kids roll the marble around the page. This is a little trial and error as to how many marbles to use, how quickly to roll (ie before the paint dries!) and for the little hands to practice holding up the tray and getting the hang of moving the marbles around the tray.

My favourite paints to use are the Giotto Tempura paints. The colours are nice and bright and the paint lasts for ages. They are well worth the extra money spent.

We also had some left over cardboard that we used for these (see the last two photos), and I suggest having more scrap paper/cardboard on hand as the kids always love this activity and will want to do more and more and more.

One of my favourite lesson of the year has been introducing the kids to measurements (and of course mixing of colours!) with this really simple set up. We were given a couple of these polystyrene test tube trays, and when you add droppers/syringes/pippettes they are perfect for all sorts of colour experiments.

Everyone got a turn to help me fill up the jugs with water, and then we had a discussion on colours (and what is a primary and secondary colour…this was a recap for the older kiddies) and then it was all systems go for some really fun colour water play.

This was a really fun & colourful week that I enjoyed just as much as my kiddies.

Creighton Open Gardens 2024

And just like that, the 2024 Creighton Open Gardens is all over! Although this year was far less prep than last year (click here to see what my garden looked like in the lead up to and over the weekend of the 2023 year), there was still a lot that I got done and it was wonderful seeing how well i had planned (as much as one can haha) the timing of everything. My roses were in full bloom, my ranunculus were sadly all over, and my ‘Pinks’ (the mini dianthus pictured in the top photo) were almoooost over, but still made a stunning show for the weekend.

Something else that happened for the weekend was the launch of our new homemade ice-cream!

What a fun way to test out an idea I’ve had for a while. It was so well received (we sold over 100 tubs of ice cream!) that we have continued and are now stocking a few stores around KZN (The Lemon Tree in Underbugr & Aziko in Balito).

We started with Granadilla (lovingly picked by my boys from our very own Granadilla vine!) and Strawberry (homegrown by the lovely Kim Hodson just up the road in Underbush). It’s made with homemade condensed milk (this is the key to it’s delicious flavor) and is 100% natural! The only added sugar is during the condensed milk making, we use cream from the local milk processing plant in our town, and the milk is from our own cows. The only added flavouring is REAL fruit…it’s udderly delicious!

Since we started FatCow Creamery 3 months ago, things have really taken off. I”ve introduced 2 new flavord (Vanilla & Chocolate) and now sell 1 litre tubs which have been VERY well received. It’s all very exciting…so watch this space!

New Garden Beds:

Behind our house is the, what we call, Owl Shed (where we got married back in 2012!) and now that it has been fenced off from the cows, I decided I needed to create a bit of a feature. One of the other local garden fundis was selling ‘slipped’ Iceberg roses for R25 a pop…what a steal, how could I resist. I bought 25 and added a Petria to either side for balance and a bit of purple colour, and the beds are doing so well! It’ not so easy to get into their wth my mower and hose pipe, but the extra walking is great exercise.

Our guineapigs helped to keep my lawn neat & tidy (wow can they graze!!!) and the Arum Lilies in the Food Forest really stole the show. The forest setting of the stream and the lillies was so very beautiful. My amazing husband organized new wooden coops for the ducks, guinepigs (and the newly added Black & Lavender Orpington chickens from my husband’s cousin who lives just down the road and ho actually incubates my duck eggs for me!).

Creighton Open Gardens - October 2024

The Saturday was over cast and cool, which was the perfect weather for visitors to tour the gardens (it wasn’t the perfect weather to sell ice-cream cream…but the novelty certainly won over people and we sold the majority of our stock!). It was a really lovely weekend, and I loved sharing my passion for gardening with fellow flower enthusiasts.

Here are the photos from the weekend:

The view of our Food Forest from the top Pasture (looking down at our main house)

If you’d like to have a peek into how things looked last year (and in the year leading up to the first ever Creighton Open Gardens) then click here to read my first post.

Thanks for reading!

Roxy

x

The Red Shed - The letter 'i' with a focus on insects & ink

These posts document my teaching adventures with the Reggio-inspired ‘school’ I started up in my farm shed in January 2023. I’ll share more about how all this came about soon, but in the mean time, enjoy these moments & learnings.

We spent the last week learning all about Impy Ink aka the letter ‘Ii’ (I love Letter Land!) which led us to learning about insects as well.

We took a lovely long walk down to the dam (accompanied by my two hounds, Zara the Boerboell and our Korean rescue pup, Shadow the Jindo). I had told the kids to collect as many feathers as they could find (I had the plan to use them as quill pens) which led to lots of discussion about all the different birds that the feathers could have come from.

For ‘writing practice’ (I don’t believe in anything too formal in the early years) I use a big white board with lots of different sensory letters for the children to touch and trace. Then they get to have a go at writing the letter themselves with a white board marker. I always start this exercise at snack time, by reading the corresponding Letterland story that goes along with each letter, while everyone eats their snack. And then they come up one by one so I can give them some undivided attention while they practice their letter formation.

I mixed up some pots (glass are best because they are heavy & therefore harder to knock over than plastic…and the little ones really do learn how to handle and be around glass when they are given the opportunity to) of tempura paint & water. Just add more water or paint to get a nice ‘inky’ texture.

I printed out some scanned handwriting sheets (again, not to force any formal handwriting) and let them loose with their quills.

And now on to the Insects!

Over the week we chatted a lot about the different kinds of insects (mentioning what makes an insect an insect). I froze our plastic insect collection into some coloured water (I used liquid food colouring to colour the water) and then set everyone up into pairs with a couple of hammers/plastic knives and a small container of salt. The salt helps to melt the ice (it’s a very slow process though…so definitely take them outside for the sun to speed things up!) and let them loose to hammer and smack to their hearts content. They all loved this activity.

I had a vision of a particular looking piece of art in mind for this week, and I’m sure you can agree that the final product came out beautifully. I printed out an a4 sized beetle (I will attach the file below if you’d like to download a copy of the beetles to make your own) and then gave everyone some watercolours to paint with. My only instruction was to make them as bright as possible, and to try not leave any white space on the beetles.

Yuval Zommer’s Big Book of Bugs is an amazing resource for any lessons on creepy crawlies. I got my copy on Takealot a few years ago.

Then I was set with the arduous task of carefully cutting out each creature (this was much harder than it look due to all the little legs and feelers!). I then pasted them onto brightly coloured paper, trimmed them down and stuck them onto black card and finally laminated.

Here is how they turned out. I just LOVE them!

Laminating anything watercoloured really makes the colours pop (and it also helps with the longevity of the artwork which can now withstand being taken on and off the fridge by sticky little hands!).

Nature Journaling - our favourite resources

We have just started Term 3 (the last term!) of Ambleside Year 1; Everly’s first official year of homeschooling. We have both really loved this year, and have both grown so much (I can’t believe just how much my brain has expanded along with hers, and how I am now used to the old English style of the Classics). It’s been a beautiful (not always easy!) adventure so far.

What Is Nature Journaling?

“Keeping an illustrated, observational journal is a centuries-old method that has been reenvisioned and refined through the lens of our understanding of neuroscience, learning, and deliberate practice. A nature journal is a lens that focuses our attention and crystalizes our observations, thoughts, and experiences.

Nature Journaling is collecting and organizing your observations, questions, connections, and explanations on the pages of a notebook using words pictures, and numbers. You do not need to be an artist or a naturalist to begin. These skills can be learned by anyone, and you can develop them with deliberate practice. The system is creative, rigorous, and playful, easy to begin and learn, and will grow and mature over a lifetime. Start now: you can do this, and the world is waiting.

Nature Journaling will enrich your experiences and develop observation, curiosity, gratitude, reverence, memory, and the skills of a naturalist. It helps you discover, think, remember, and integrate new information with your existing knowledge. Train your mind, and the world will offer you its secrets of wonder and beauty” - from the King of nature journaling; John Muir Laws

What is a nature journal?

The name pretty much says it all. It’s a dated record of what is observed in nature. Charlotte tells us in School Education, p. 236:

The children keep a dated record of what they see in their nature note-books which are…a source of pride and joy, and are freely illustrated by drawings (brushwork) of twig, flower, insect, etc.

Science, writing, poetry, art, and more are all combined into this single activity, the keeping of a nature journal. 

Nature journaling was one of the first things that drew me to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education . I came across beautiful photos of families outside, sketchbook in hand, drawing and painting and I thought to myself that that is exactly what I would love to do with my children. Our journey hasn’t been as Instaworthy as those (most often) posed photos, but it has been a beautiful one that we are slowly growing into. I am wanting to get into more of a habit of doing it for myself, and not just alongside Everly as part of her school work. I’ve always wanted to be able to paint with watercolours, and nature journaling has been a very accessible way to start.

Materials

You really don’t need anything fancy. You can absolutely start with what you have on hand. In fact, it’s probably best to start out with what you have at home so you can get into the habit first, but, if you’re like me and you want to have everything ready before you begin and you are looking for some tried and tested materials, then read on.

It’s worth spending a bit of money on a decent set of paints (the one we use is an old palette I bought in South Korea years ago, and I love how compact and travel friendly it is).

For general arts and crafts I really like the Giotto Acquerelli Colour Blocks, but the palette is a bit big for easy grab and go nature journaling. I’m going to need to replace my current paint palette soon, and willl probably go for this Daler Rowney Aquafine Watercolour Set (R285 for the set of 12 on Art Savings Club).

What has definitely made a big difference in our actual painting is a set of decent quality brushes. The red ones pictured are from the Giotto watercolour pans, and they are great! The type of ink pen you use is also crucial as you need to be able to paint over it without it smudging. This Croxley Fineliner set R69 on Takealot) is perfect and there are 5 different nib sizes in the set. I did purchase the more expensive Pigma Micron Pens at the start of the year, but the nibs got damaged very quickly (most probably due to both of us pressing too hard) but the Croxley ones have held up well and are very affordable to replace.

Next up is paper. I’m no pro, but have found that you need at least 110gsm weight paper for watercolour painting (even higher is better!). These little A6 sized journals are the perfect size for little hands, and they come in 120gsm. The paint doesn’t bleed onto the other side (unless a lot of paint/water has been used) and they are a really nice size. Anything bigger and you tend to have tiny drawings (especially from younger students) and a lot of white space.

I bought mine from PNA last year, but I have since seen them at Makro and on AmazonSA for +-R60.

I found a small plastic box (click here for a nice option for my overseas readers) to keep all our nature journaling goodies in one place.

It’s small (which does limit the size of the items it can hold!) but this little box holds both Everly’s and my notebooks, our paint palette, 2 paint brushes and our pens. The only thing we need on top of what’s inside this box, is a container of water. My next purchase will be a watercolour ‘water pen’ that holds it’s own water. You squeeze out the water, which comes out of the brush, as you dip the tip into the paint. They are so convenient for travel, and are less messy then a regular brush and water. The set below is on Takealot for R129.

A field guide is another useful resource to have on hand, and I have been told of some great apps for plant identification, but I really love the traditional feel of a book. On my To Buy list are the Sasol First Field Guide books (also available in Afrikaans) which are lovely and small enough to carry around when out and about on nature walks. They cover just about every species of fauna & flora you can think of in South Africa:

I also got my hands on a second-hand copy of Anna Botsford Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study which has been an excellent resource, even though it is based on American fauna & flora. The way it is written, with questions and prompts to ask yourself/your children as you observe, has really helped to guide our eyes and get us thinking in new ways about the natural world around us.

Also, the ladies at Simply Charlotte Mason have written a wonderful article >>> Nature Journaling: Where Science, Writing, Poetry, and Art Come Together that I found really helpful and encouraging.

Happy nature journaling!

Creighton Open Gardens 2023

Whew! A whole year in the making and it’s been and gone in a flash. And we are about to have our SECOND Open Gardens in the time it has taken me to actually get this post written…sorry!

When Leigh Stokes (creative & artist friend next door) suggested the idea of hosting the first ever Creighton Open Gardens a year ago, I was like…yes, great idea! And then I was terrified…it meant opening up my garden to a bunch of strangers and letting them walk around and critique all of my efforts. But I have to say, the weekend was wonderful! And my garden has never looked as good as it does right now. They always say there is no better way to whip your garden and home into tip top shape than to host an event. And that’s exactly what happened.

We moved into our current home, Bedford Farm…the original Hutton homestead (which my in-laws had renovated in order to turn it into a guesthouse as my husband and I didn’t have any plans to move into it in the near future because we were very content in the little cottage) just over 4 years ago. I was pregnant with our second child, Aaron, and had only been back in South Africa for about 2 years. We lived in South Korea before that (click here to read more about those adventures). Since then we’ve added another little boy to the clan, Mason, and I the garden has become my happy place.

There was one main garden bed in the garden, and my mom-in-law had moved the 8 white Iceberg roses from in front of the house, to a new bed on the side of the house. I wanted to share some progress photos, as well as before photos so you can get an idea of the progression over the past 4 years.

We also created a Food Forest out of one of the pastures behind our house. This has been a huge labor of love, because we have had a sum total of about 4 blueberries and an onion over the years. Oh, and mountains of bolted Chinese cabbage, which always goes straight to seed and has yet to give us one cabbage yet! We initially planted this in order to make our own Korean Kimchi (which we still do make but always have to rely on what’s available in store when we are ever near large supermarkets in the big city).

The back garden overlooking the Barn Owl Shed (before & progress photos)

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Front Garden bed (progress photos)

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New side bed overlooking the cottage

We renovated this little cottage at the bottom of our garden a little over 2 years ago now, and it has been such a wonderful addition to our home. Not just because we only have 1 bathroom in our house (which included the toilet…there is very little privacy for anyone really), and no spare rooms (this is the problem with having so many off spring!) but now this is our guest cottage and it has turned into the most wonderful & private little space.

Please do take note of the gorgeous wall mural (done by another very talented friend and another neighbour…Savannah Stokes). You’ll see in the after photos how beautifully this came out, and what a change it made to such an ugly wall, that I just wasn’t able to get anything substantial to grown in front of and cover up in time for the Open Gardens.

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Hedge removed and bed opened up with new fence pole structure (before & progress photos)

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My Garden over the 2023 Creighton Open Gardens Weekend (14th & 15th October 2023)

I haven’t done too much since last year’s Open Garden in preparation for this one. I’ve mainly focussed on watering and maintaining the existing beds. I have dug up one new bed in front of my kitchen (at the back of the house) which I’ll share more photos of soon. Everything will be more established this year, and I’m just holding all my thumbs and toes that all the Spring flowers won’t be over by the time of the Open Gardens weekend, because things are all starting to bloom now…and we still have 6 weeks to go. EEEEK!

Kidscorner Kzn Math Counting Board - Helpful Homeschool Materials {Product Review}

Today I’m sharing the love for local brand @kidscornerkzn and their wonderful range of educational goodies & learning tools.
This is their Counting Board which is not just great for learning number symbols and quantity relation, but it’s also fantastic fine motor practice.

{This product forms part of a trade exchange between myself & Kidscorner KZN. I only share products that we genuinely love and use in our home}

The board can also be used to introduce the concept of even & odd numbers (talk about the numbers that have ‘pairs’ and the ones that are ‘alone’).

A nice extension activity is to use flashcards to add to the activity (these pretty number flashcards are from Stephanie Hathaway Designs) and feature really beautiful illustrations along with the number symbol and word.

This counting board is a really lovely addition to our homeschool classroom and both Everly and Aaron have been drawn to the board (for different reasons). Everly loves to play with the beads (loads of ‘accidental learning’ takes place as she makes cups of ‘tea’ with the beads…counting them out as she goes and moving them from the board to a tea cup). Aaron likes the pompoms, and likes to ‘cook’ with them, also counting as he goes moving the pompoms from the board to a bowl and into the oven in our little play kitchen.

The board comes with tweezers, a packet of 55 beads and a packet of 55 pompoms. It retails for R195.

All in all, a very budget friendly addition to your maths & number based lessons and would be a wonderful tool to have at home for your little ones to play with, even if you aren’t doing any formal homeschooling.

The ladies at Kidscorner have very kindly given my readers & followers a 10% discount code >>> Use the code Roxy10 to get 10% off your order at checkout on the website

Our homeschool journey - the beginning

For the time being, I’ve decided not to enrol Everly (4.5 yrs) in Grade RR…possibly even beyond that…and to rather spend this year following a loose homeschool/play based learning approach for both her and Aaron (3yrs)…with a bit of little Mason (6 months!) thrown into the mix too.

We will see how this goes (I’m also totally giving myself permission to change my mind at any time) but it’s been fun so far! As I am a teacher by training (and because I’m so passionate about play based learning) this has been a natural progression for me.

I do still send them both once/twice a week to the local pre-school for some social time and for a change of scenery. These stories & posts will document our adventures (and the prep that goes on behind the scenes).

I am often asked about my decision/interest in homeschooling and wanted to share more about it here for those who would like to know more. I hope you enjoy these posts and stories!

Why Homeschool?

Wondering why I’m interested in homeschooling my kids? It’s not just about the financial burden of mainstream education (although that is a factor when you have 3 kids!) but my reasons go far beyond that:

• I’m a qualified teacher and want to be involved/have a say in what my kids are learning

• I refuse to send them to school in masks

• I want to structure their day around their interests and their capacity (ie around nap times)

• School for us has a long travel time, and it’s not something I could easily do with a little baby in tow

• I love being crafty (printing & laminating make me so happy)

• I love a challenge!

• I’m a firm believer in routine so I know I will be able to figure out a nice (loose) structure for all 3 kids

There are as many ways (ie methodologies and paths) to homeschool as there are stars in the sky but here are a few things that do interest me and are elements that I would like to try incorporate:

• Montessori (especially their approach to maths & literacy)

• Forest Schooling (being outside)

• Reggio Emelia (child led learning & open ended exploration of materials)

• Charlotte Mason (her whole philophosy is incredibly inspiring…no formal learning until the age of 6/7)

• Routine and structure (to a degree…this is how I function best so it’s important I at least am able to follow a plan of some kind)

• The ‘pretty’ (I will always make things as pretty as I can while still trying to keep things simple. This also goes for what and how I share what we are doing…I love styled photos but everything I share will still be authentic, I may just move a few bits of junk out of the way when taking a photo etc)

I hope you enjoy these posts and if you have any questions along the way, please pop me a comment below. I love hearing from you!

Rose care 101 - A quick run down of my top tips for growing & caring for roses

Whenever I post photos of my roses, I get lots of questions about rose care. I’m no expert, but I’ve learned a lot in the past few years, and I’m always happy to share what’s worked (and what hasn’t!) so here are my top tips for growing & caring for your garden roses.

• Roses (especially newly planted ones) need at least 4-6 hours of direct sunlight a day.

• Roses prefer direct watering (a hose pipe right at the roots) rather than a sprinkler. Roughly about 5 litres per rose a couple of times a week (more in summer & more often).

• Deadhead (remove the old flower heads) often! And try to cut at a join (between the leaf and stem).

• Feed your roses every 6ish weeks with a good rose food (I recommend and use Ludwigs Vigorosa).

• Spray your roses every 2-4 weeks (I don’t do this often enough 🙈😅) with a good rose protector/insect spray. I use ludwigsroses Insect Spray.

• Invest in a decent pair of gardening gloves to protect your hands. I also have a heavy duty elbow length pair for pruning, which really makes things easy and saves my poor hands and arms from those sharp thorns.

• My favourite place to buy roses...ludwigsroses for sure.

Roses are actually incredibly hardy, and often need very little care. Give newly planted roses a chance (at least a season or two!) to really settle before worrying if you’re no good at roses. It often takes roses a year or two to really come into their own. And if they don’t look happy, you can always move them (this is called transplanting). If you are going to transplant a rose, try and do this in Winter while the rose is dormant.

Let me know if you have any other questions! I’m always happy to talk roses. Leave me a comment below and I will get back to you.

Canon Pixma G3411 Refillable Ink Tank Printer for Homeschool, Photos & Home office Use - A Review

I have been on the lookout for a new printer for ages, something that is easy & (ideally) cheap to refill, and that does really good quality printing. I need it to be able to print worksheets and other fun activity pages for my little ones, and I also need it to be able to print really good quality photographs as we live in the middle of nowhere and getting photos printed is such a pain.

If you Google eco-tank printer, chances are the Epson Eco-Tanks will pop up. And while I was very tempted by them (and they have loads of great reviews!) unless you are going for the high end printer, it seems the photo quality isn’t that great. This was a big one for me as I want to be able to print photographs for scrapbooks, baby books and for frames around the house. And this is where the Canon Pixma comes in.

The one I eventually chose is the G3411…it does all your basic printery things (scan, copy & print), has wifi connectivity (I print straight from my iPhone and from my Mac…this has been a little tricky especially from my Mac because downloading drivers for a printer isn’t as straightforward as a PC but it’s doable!) and the best part is that the ink is refillable.

What’s in the box?

The G3411 is a midrange priced printer (I bought mine from Incredible Connection where it was on special for R2999 and it came with free delivery…it arrived out here on the farm within 5 working days!). The box comes with:

• actual printer & cables

• 2 black ink bottles

• 3 colour ink bottles (CMY)

The Set Up

I was slightly nervous when it came to setting up the printer, as I’m usually pretty slap dash and don’t read instructions. My mom was visiting, so that really helped as she read the instructions and I was able to actually follow them step by step. It took about 25 mins for the entire thing to be set up (it has to calibrate the ink and the black calibrates separately to the coloured ink) but it was very straightforward.

The actual printing took me a lot longer, as I needed to download the Canon Print app (I have an iPhone but the app is free and available for both Apple & Android) . Then to print photos vs documents is a little different from your phone. I used the Print app for for both photos & documents. And then to print from my Mac was a little trickier, as I have to connect to the printer via wifi (this means I can’t actually be on the Internet wifi…which was a bit of a pain as I have to disconnect from the Wifi and connect to the printer, and then connect back to the Internet when I’m done). I think I read somewhere that there aren’t any actual cables to connect this printer to a Mac…so just bear that in mind it would be much simpler if I was able to connect my laptop to the printer via a cable. But, as I work on a laptop and not a desktop, this isn’t such a big deal.

I have been blown away at the quality of the photograph printing most of all! The Print app is easy to use and you can print different sizes and collage using the photos on your phone. I tested the quality of my iPhone shot photos vs my camera images (I use Google Drive to on my Mac to upload my camera images to the cloud and then I download them from the Drive app on my phone) and I am very impressed.

Refillable Ink Bottle Prices

The ink is usually where you really get caught when it comes to home printers, but the refill bottles for this printer are pretty reasonable at R180 for colour & R270 for black (this is the online price at Incredible Connection right now). But, apparently I shouldn’t need to buy ink for at least a year (and then some!). So I’m hoping this proves to be the case even with printing kiddie related bits and pieces as well as photographs.

Filling up the ink tanks was very easy (you simply pour the ink into the little jars) and then once full the printer calibrates the colours. There is an easy to see ink level on the front so you can see how much ink you’ve used and when you need to buy more.

The nitty gritty product features of the Canon Pixma G3411 3-in-1 printer

• Print, scan, & copy 

• Ideal for those who do not require speed but low cost per copy 

• Ideal for regular printing  

• Page Yields: 12 000 pages mono / 7000 pages colour

• Productive low-cost printing 

• Wireless Connectivity 

• Rear paper feeding 

• Borderless printing 

• 12 Month Warranty 

So far I’ve printed a number of photographs and a lovely workbook from Under The Acacia (a nature based homeschool curriculum for little ones…even though I haven’t actually started it with Everly yet) and I am really impressed with the printer so far.

Next on my list is a laminator (any recommendations for a good one? I’ve been told it’s the laminating sheets that are the expensive thing?) This seems to be like most tech where the actual machine is relatively inexpensive, but the extras are what end up being so expensive.

I’m very happy with this printer, and will keep you updated as to how it goes and how long the ink lasts.

Lockdown Toy Love: A review of a fabulous selection of Leapfrog educational toys - Storytime Bella, Lettersaurus, Build & Discover Toolbox & Tumbling Blocks Fire Engine

Just before our official lockdown hit here in South Africa, Everly & Aaron received a fantastic package from Leapfrog. Looking back, the delivery couldn’t have been timed any better because, for the first 5 weeks or so, we were unable to purchase any toys as these were not deemed ‘Essential Items’. So, long story short, my kids got pretty lucky.

These toys were sent to us in the form of a trade exchange but my thoughts are views are honest, and my own.

We actually own another fantastic Leapfrog toy, My Pal Violet, which was a prezzie from my Dad for Everly’s first birthday. She LOVES that singing pup, and I’m telling you it was instrumental in her language learning. The same can be said for all 4 of the following toys. My kids love them, and are still playing with them all these weeks later. While we as a family try to stay away from plastic toys (opting for more toys of the wooden/handmade variety) but there is a place for DURABLE plastics toys, and let me tell you, these toys have been put through their paces in terms of durability.

And now on to the review of each toy:

Leapfrog Tumbling Blocks Fire Engine – RSP R1000.00

This bright red Fire Engine is sturdy, and even though it has a moveable ‘arm’, there is no worry that it’s going to come off anytime soon. I say this with good authority as Aaron has chucked it down the concrete stairs, off the bed onto our hard, wooden floors and it’s even been given a few good knocks with a hammer!

There are 5 brightly coloured blocks, which each have a letter of the alphabet on one of their sides, along with a cute picture to match the letter. There’s a slot for a block to fit into on the one side of the engine, and then the blocks all fit into the top of the ladder (the moveable arm) where the roll down into the back of the engine, where they ‘wait’ for the ladder to be pulled down and a very cool little mechanism opens up the bottom of the ladder and ‘picks’ up one block at a time. It’s one of Aaron’s favourite features, that and the music!

When you put the interactive blocks into the Fire engine window, it plays the names and sounds of animals & letters from A - Z. There is a real-life sounding siren, flashing lights and a turning water hose too, and different blocks call out different ‘missions’ to complete. And there is also a music symbol shaped button to press which plays the ABC song (this is Aaron’s favourite and it never ceases to get him bopping and grooving…and hopefully soon actually singing along).

The Tumbling Blocks Fire Engine is suitable for 12 month olds and upwards.

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Leapfrog Storytime Bella – RSP R1250.00

Bella has found her place right next to Violet, and I often find Everly walking around the house with a puppy in each arm as she feeds them snacks and gives them water. But, the best part about Bella, are the 5 books that come with her; each one ‘activated’ by the corresponding number on her collar.

Each story features one of the following themes; emotions, shapes, numbers, colours and opposites, and even though Everly can’t read yet, she follows Bella’s instructions to ‘turn the page’ and loves looking at the pictures while Bella reads along.

Bella also sings lullabies and her collar gives off a lovely soft light as she sings gentle songs that are catchy and easy to listen to (I say this more for the parents sake…they don’t drill into your skull, an important fact that should be highlighted). Everly will often come to me and ask me if she can read me her ‘Bella Books’ and then recounts the story to my complete and utter surprise because I haven’t actually read any of them to her. She adds in her own plot twists and turns, but she’s got a firm grasp of the story, which is pretty incredible.

Although Everly can’t read yet, she loves Bella and so I’d say Storytime Bella is suited to 2 year olds and upwards.

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Leapfrog Build & Discover Toolbox – RSP R500.00

And now for Aaron’s favourite toy! This poor tool box has really been given a hard time, and yet looks as good as new! It’s been put through it’s paces with all manner of hard objects thrown at it, and has also been yanked apart more times than I can count. It also gets played with as much by Everly, as it does Aaron.

The 4 sides of the box fold down, and then all clip together again with the handle at the top, which has two screws that ‘lock’ the handle in place. There are 5 tools (a hammer, a ruler, a screwdriver, a saw and a wrench) and all of these tools have fun places that allow them to be actually used for their intended purpose (and for all their non-intended purposes too…like hitting his sister over the head).

I must say that this is the toy that drives my the craziest, because of how all the pieces are always scattered all over the house within seconds. But, Aaron loves playing hide and seek with them so I pick my battles, and he does USUALLY find all the pieces and put the tool box back together most times.

The Build & Discover Toolbox is suitable for 12month olds and upwards.

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Leapfrog Lettersaurus – RSP R800.00

Everly and Lettersaurus can often be found walking together around the garden (although the little string/lead attached to his neck is rather short for use as an actual lead). It’s rather sweet how she will go and pick him up, play a few ABC tunes and then tell me she’s off to take him for a walk. His head spins from side to side as he goes, and it really is rather sweet to watch.

This little Dinosaur has coloured letters (from A - Z) on his back that when pressed sound out the letter name and sounds. He also says a number of fun phrases and sings three different songs when you press the musical note. His orange tail also spins and this brings in numbers and counting too. There is also a footprint button which plays a jungle tune, to which the letter buttons can be pressed to add sounds to the music, almost like a little mini DJ set up.

Lettersaurus is suitable for 12month olds and upwards.

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You can purchase the entire Leapfrog range from the Prima website by clicking the BUY NOW option on each product; or alternatively on Takealot, and in store at places like Toy Kingdom & ToyZone.

Do you own any of these (or any other) Leapfrog toys? Are any of these being added to your little one’s birthday lists this year? Let me know in the comments below!

Squarespace vs Wordpress and why I chose to specialise in Squarespace website design

When I first started blogging, I set myself up on Blogger (to all the other bloggers out there reading this, remember those good old days?!) and all was right in the world. Blogger (which is sort of where the term ‘being a Blogger’ came from) was how I started dipping my toe into the world of graphic design (I used PicMonkey at the time to create banners and blog graphics) and it’s also where I first started learning about coding & custom CSS.

Once I started becoming frustrated with the limitations of Blogger, I started a separate blog on Wordpress. I tried both the self hosted and the hosted options, but I just found the whole platform to be VERY clunky. I also ended up with a million and one widgets that continually needed updating and at least once a month there would be some sort of plugin that I was using that would ‘break’ my site. And I’d end up spending hours trying to figure out which one it was, only to realise the person who had designed it hadn’t made an update for it and so it no longer worked for my site. It was soooo frustrating, and I felt as though I was just never able to make my site look like the picture in my head. And for me, I just wanted a pretty place to blog from, and one that I could control the look and feel of without having to spend hours searching for coding tutorials or having to rely on graphics and other design elements.

This is also when I delved into Wix, but this didn’t last long either as I found the interface even more confusing that Wordpress. And finally, when I came across Squarespace I just knew, even from my very first day of their free 2 week trial period, that this was the platform for me.

Everything was (and still is!) just SO beautiful!

And the best part about the platform, and the main reason why I use it to design websites for my clients, is just how easy and intuitive it is for my clients to be able to take over and make changes and updates themselves (yay!). This means it’s a win-win for both designer & client, because as a designer I’m able to ‘sign off’ a project and I know, that while I am available to ask questions and help, my clients will probably be able to solve most of their questions themselves. They are able to swop out images, update text, create more pages and work out how to do this in relatively small amount of time. Wordpress on the otherhand, while being an incredibly powerful content management system, has a MUCH steeper learning curve. If you know what you’re doing and are familiar with the platform, the options for creating beautiful websites are endless! But, when it comes to clients being able to make changes themselves (especially when it comes to blogging and writing posts), in my opinion (and this seems to be the general opinion of everyone I ask about it) it’s just not an easy platform to understand and learn how to make basic edits.

This also brings me to the next tick for Squarespace…their help forum is amazing! They have an incredible archive of tutorials that are laid out systematically and most importantly, easy to navigate! There is nothing worse than spending hours looking for a tutorial for the most basic of basic questions. And they have a forum where you can pretty much find the answer to anything and everything. And if you can’t, they customer service is pretty fantastic. When I made the move from Blogger to Squarespace, I had over 500 blog posts (can you even!!!) and comments on those posts and moving everything was pretty straight forward. I was (and am still) using DISQUS for my comment management system though, so this posed a few issues and I ended up loosing a whole bunch of comments because of URL re-directs failing etc. BUT it was less of a hassle than I thought it would be.

So now that you’ve heard from my personal experience, here are some of the other important (and more technical) reasons why I believe it to be the best website platform for the types of small businesses I work with:

• Mobile Responsive Design:

Squarespace templates are beautifully designed and have built in & unique mobile experiences that match the overall style of your website. This means your content will look great on every device, every time. Squarespace is design-driven, user-friendly, and performance-focused (doesn’t that sound fancy!).

• Simple User Interface

The back-end of Squarespace's platform is extremely intuitive and simple to use, even for complete technophobes! This means it's super easy to make edits yourself without having to get a developer/designer involved to help with small tweaks. Squarespace was designed with the do-it-yourself user in mind, making it easy for clients to maintain, update, and monitor their websites on their own. Building pages is a matter of dragging and dropping blocks in a page editor, and backend tasks are a snap with clearly labeled menus and panels.

• Peace of mind

Squarespace is a self-contained platform that works seamlessly and is fully managed from top to bottom. This means there’s never any need to update software, plugins, or widgets; patch security vulnerabilities; or worry that changing one component might break something else. It also means there’s rarely any need to investigate or pay for third-party apps or plugins since most functionality is native to Squarespace. I have only now (nearly 6 years down the line) had to implement any coding. You can pretty much figure out how to do just about anything your heart desires with regards to your site design, without having to know any coding.

• Free SSL Certificates

All Squarespace websites are given free SSL certificates, which means everyone can enjoy a secure connection throughout your whole website. This became a necessity in 2018, when some browsers started marking non-secure websites as a threat to users! Google also shows a preference to secure sites in their rankings.

• Built-in search engine optimization (SEO) capabilities

Every Squarespace website is equipped with all the elements needed for a strong SEO strategy. Site descriptions, page titles, custom URLs, search-friendly formatting, and other key elements are all easily managed. Each site also generates a sitemap automatically that helps Google crawl, understand, and rank a website. So all of those Wordpress who tell you otherwise, simply don’t know what they are talking about ;)

• Simple Pricing Structure

Squarespace's pricing is transparent and simple; you can pay monthly or yearly (from $12 per month when you pay annually for their basic plan…this is what I use…and $26 per month for large online store option) which includes absolutely everything you need. You can buy your domain within Squarespace, and this cost includes your hosting too - there are no extra costs! You can also purchase a custom email with Gsuite right in your Squarespace dashboard, so all of your billing is all contained in one easy place.

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So, if after reading all of this you’re interested in working with me, click below to find out more about my packages and how it all works to hire me for your website project.

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