The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work

I just love this simple bread. A child can make it.

Here's the weblinks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html

Enjoy.
This weather is making me think hot bread.
And let the children make it!

This Is What I Like

When Captain casually takes a J.S. Bach CD off the rack at the library, to take home.

When we are shopping in a home decor shop, and Captain says, "Look mum, la plage" (the beach) pointing to the writing on a deck chair.

When Captain says, "Mum, who was that artist again, who painted on his back?" He was referring to Michelangelo. This was whilst reading the Elizabeth Enright book, When We Were Five, weeks after studying this artist in our Artistic Pursuits book.

When Captain asks, "Mum, can you please put Mozart on? It helps me go to sleep".

Treasure Island by the brilliant Robert Louis Stevenson

We're about one fifth of the way through this read aloud, and the children keep begging for more.
Some of the dark descriptions contrast sharply with the same author's mostly sunny A Child's Garden of Verses, which we read in the mornings. They beg for more of these poems, too!

We finished reading this book on Saturday 20th June.

Local Annual Showcase

A dash to the show on Saturday was like taking a child to the world's most wonderful lolly shop, then leave with but one lick!
We had one and a half hours to pack in lunch, view our contributions to the Home Learner's Display, see the Taipan tail end of the reptile show, cuddle a chick, spy the winning show cats, view the puppies from a distance, just miss out on the working dog's workout, and round it off by one revolution on the ferris wheel. All of this fully complemented by the lemonade and sausage roll lunch tumbling in our tummies.

Phew! Glad that's over for a year.

Then it was on the go again, this time for a birthday party!

We were pretty pleased, though, to view the first prize pumpkin (Farmer Boy memories) and have the chance to ride a ferris wheel, reminiscent of our Charlotte's Web read aloud last year.

Captions for Photos:
Top: Possum's Watercolour Paintings, Rain, and Sunrise, on display
Bottom: Captain's first poem, ever, printed out, then framed, on display

Ambleside Books - Our Growing List

To date we have...most of the AO Year 1 books. I have decided to post some pictures of the covers and inside pages of some of my favourites. I like to fish around for the most beautiful copies I can find.
So here's just a couple I've come up with. If you know of any versions of the AO recommendations which you find particularly lovely, please let me know!

This copy of Aesop's Fables (above) is (text wise) recommended by AO. It doesn't have all the AO fables, but the Don Daily illustrations still make it well worth buying. The remaining fables suggested can be printed off the AO Year 1 Yahoo Group.

A Collection of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories (Walker Books) -is a beautiful version, with different illustrators used for each of the stories, purchased recently from Dymocks.

For more advanced AO years we have purchased thus far:

Bard of Avon
Pagoo
Brighty of the Grand Canyon
The Peterkin Papers
Otto of the Silver Hand
Bulfinch's Mythology
Poor Richard
Abigail Adams
The Story of Inventions
A Wonderbook and Tanglewood Tales
Unknown to History
Madam How and Lady Why
The Door in the Wall
Five Little Peppers
The Children of the New Forest
Men of Iron
The Little White Horse
The Heroes
Thimble Summer
Swallows and Amazons
The Wheel on the School
Justin Morgan Had a Horse
The Four Story Mistake
Then There Were Five
Ralph Moody Series
Little House on the Prairie Series


more to come...

La mer bleue, le sable chaud

We're enjoying the warm long rays of l'autumne sunshine by the beach. A few hours in the afternoon to soak it all up brightens our whole day.

Enormous Earthworm

Captain found this one in the front yard today!