Granny & Grandpa, and more importantly, their horses…live just up the road from us and I often take my school kiddies there on our walks. Seeing the h-h-horses was a good opportunity to learn about the letter ‘H’ and bring in some other interesting things that are around and about at this time of the year; namely…the hay bales. We wrap our bales to protect them from the elements (as they live outside and not inside a barn) and this makes them extra fun to climb all over as they aren’t as prickly and spikey as unwrapped bales.

I based our art activity on the horses for this week, and found a sweet cloth peg horse craft for the kiddies to make. They loved making these and playing with them in the shed. I brought out our favourite letter land stories; and Harry/Hairy Hat Man was the character for the week.

I printed out some outlines of horses which the kids coloured in and cut out (with a little/lots) of help and we then stuck them onto cardboard cutouts that I had already prepared. The man & tail holes were made with a holepunch, and then different coloured string was threaded through based on each child’s horse colour preference. Two wooden cloth pegs were then ‘clipped’ on for the legs and off they went, galloping around the shed.

After snack time one day we took a stroll through my garden to smell the different herbs we could find. The kids loved this activity, and had lots of fun smelling, tasting and feeling the different scents and textures. We then picked a bunch of different herbs to take back to school to paint with.

We spent a morning walking to the horses to say hello and given them some carrot treats, and then popped into Granny’s orchard to pick some oranges.

As I near the length limit here on Substack, I have to tell you there’s more to this post! Click the button below to read the rest:

CLICK HERE to read the full post±

Then it’s as simple as roughly chopping up a few choice veggies, adding in some herbs and spices (oh don’t forget to try and get ALL the leftover juices from the oven tray!) and then popping it on low and slow for 12 - 18 hours.

The secret to my chicken broth recipe is to add chicken feet (bear with me here!). These extra additions are what will make your broth even more jelly like…it’s the jelly, (as in gelatine) that’s an indication of how much collagen is in your broth.

There are SO many reasons why bone broth is good for you…here are a few:

• highly nutritious (and yummy too!)

• full of collagen & minerals (hello youthful glow & happy strong muscles)

• helps repairs your gut flora (yay for a better functioning immune system)

• soothing & the perfect hot beverage when you’re not feeling great

  ---

What you need:

• Full Chicken (all bones included!) A left over roast is ideal as it will already have been roasted which will add to the flavour)

• All the roast juices/drippings

• Chicken feet (ask for clean feet from your butcher/you can buy these at your local PicknPay/Spar etc)

• Onion

• 2 - 3 garlic cloves

• 2 - 3 carrots

• 2 - 3 sticks of celery (keep the leaves!)

• 2 - 3 leaks

• 10 - 12 black peppercorns

• 5 - 6 cloves

• bay leaf

• salt & pepper

• 1 - 1.5 litres of water (to cover everything)

Click here to read the full recipe

It’s January 2026 here in South Africa and we have just begun our schooling year. This year my middle child, Aaron (about to turn 7), has officially joined his older sister in the school room and has just begun Year 1, while Everly is now beginning Year 3. It’s been quite an adjustment planning a school year with 2 kids doing their own official Ambleside years, but we are excited. While last year is still relatively fresh in my mind, I wanted to write a recap on how our AmblesideOnline Year 2 went.

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.

»»»> Click here for a recap of AmblesideOnline Year 1

I think every homeschooling mom will say that their planning/scheduling is always a work in progress, but I will share how I planned and recorded our school year here too. While I am continually trying to refine my systems, I am always happy to share the whats and hows. For this year, I went with a very simple approach (because I kept getting sucked down the many rabbit holes filled with wonderful ways to plan/schedule until I realised all of that was glorified procrastination!). I simply printed out the year’s schedule & booklists off the AmblesideOnline website, collected the books (second hand book shops & whatsapp groups, some on Loot & Amazon.co.za and an online thrift book store I found; Chapter1, were where I found most of my books…as well as a few family ‘book mules’ who visited from the UK and were able to bring over some of the harder to find books).

Once I had the schedule’s printed, I took out my trusty little a6 sized notebook, and manually added in the books and subjects needed to be covered that week. I did this on a Sunday evening and it only ever took me about to 10 minutes to do and really helped make the Monday school mornings run a little more smoothly.

This was my first year solely homeschooling my own kids, as the previous year I had closed up my Reggio inspired farm school, The Red Shed; which I had run alongside homeschooling my older kids. I ran that for 2 years, and loved it so much! But as my eldest got older and her workload increased, I just wasn’t able to cope with the varying needs of other children as well as my own. As sad as I was to close, I am re-opening again this year (2026!) because I have found myself a wonderful young teacher who will be able to keep things going with the other kids, and whom mine will join as soon as they are done with their homeschool lessons with me.

For the 2025 school year I had the following aged kiddies:

Everly - 7 year old starting Year 2/Grade 2 (in South Africa we use Grades, but Ambleside follows ‘Year’ terminology. So please don’t get confused when you see Grade/Year…I am using them interchangeably).

Aaron - 6 Year old starting Grade R (or Grade 0 as it used to be called…I don’t know what this relates to but perhaps AO Year 0 haha)

Mason - 3 year old (preschool/kindergarten)

My main focus was on Everly (AO Year 2) this year, but all 3 kids joined me in the early morning (usually in bed with mugs of tea!) before breakfast for Morning Time. I tried to do this at least 3 times a week, but sometimes only managed it once (or not at all if I was really needing my own alone time!) but this consisted of hymns/folk songs, poetry, Devotional (Indescribable by Louie Giglio) Bible stories (we are slowly making our way through The Biggest Story Bible by Kevin deYoung), sometimes I have enough time to throw in some Elementary Geography (Charlotte Mason) and a couple of read alouds we had going on (Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne, Little House on the Prairie and The Adventures of MillyMollyMandy were the 3 books we alternated with depending on what we all felt like on that day).

Aaron joined in for 2 or 3 days of school in the week, mainly for reading & maths (click here for my approach to reading which I’ve followed with Everly and now Aaron…I do still plan on writing a full post on this but for now the mentioned link covers what I did…just scroll down to the bit about Reading/Phonics). Mason came and went sporadically, and every now again I would sit and do some stories (or Letterland books with him) but mostly I was with Everly and we did school 3 - 4 mornings a week (most weeks it just ended up being 3 mornings). The afternoons were free play with one afternoon a week for our sport/extra curricular activities in a neighbouring town. There were/are no sports/extra mural options in my little town, and so we have to travel far and wide for these. Because of the distance we stay from bigger cities/towns, my kids can only do what is offered on the one day that we do a ‘town trip’ and the rest of the week is for a lot of outdoor/farm life and play.

Above is a basic overview of AmblesideOnline Year 2 (please go onto the Ambleside website itself for ALL the information you will ever need about this FREE and absolutely wonderful Charlotte Mason based curriculum). AO (aka AmblesideOnline) has exceeded all my expectations so far, even though it is free (don’t let the fact that it is free make you feel it isn’t robust enough to hold it’s own against anything else). You will need to have a basic understanding of the Charlotte Mason philosophy (I am still making my way through her Volumes to truly understand her methods myself) but the Advisory team who put together AmblesideOnline have really done something incredible and I can’t sing their praises highly enough.

Here is how the year went, as well as the substitutions I made from a South African perspective, and I’ll share what didn’t work/what we just didn’t get to as well:

Reading/Phonics:

Everly was a very strong reader at this point and so I gave her a couple of her own school books to read to herself. I chose the ‘easier’ or rather the books I thought she might really enjoy like Robin Hood for this. She then had to narrate to me, outloud afterwards, in preparation for Year 3 when I would need her to take on more of her own school books. She did not enjoy this (haha it’s so much more exciting being read to than having to read to yourself and then narrate what you know you know, out loud, so I understand the resistance!) but it was a very good growing season for her.

I still had her read aloud each school day, and this would sometimes be from the Moore Mcguffey Second Reader, or it would be from one of her designated school books. After reading the McGuffey lesson/story, I would ask her the questions at the end of each story, and then she would simply read through the word list. I didn’t do anything else with those words in terms of spelling etc.

Even though she is a strong reader, I still had her read aloud each day so I could check in on her pronunciation/ensure she wasn’t skim/skip reading as I’ve noticed she tends to do when a story gets boring (I can’t blame her, I do the same!).

Handwriting/Copywork:

This was an area where I didn’t think I needed to be concerned about until towards the end of the year when it was brought to my attention that Everly’s spacing was very far off in terms of ‘grade appropriateness’ (or whatever grade average ever actually means). But, I tried not to take the feedback too personally (says every homeschooling parent…ever!), and set about making this a priority. I realized although her letter formation itself was very good, she had only ever done her copywork in books with rather large line spacing. And so when it came to blank unlined pages, the spacing and ‘straightness’ was a bit all over the place. I found this great blog article and set about printing out much smaller formatted lines for her copywork, and saw a big improvement in spacing after just a couple of weeks. I was also encouraged after re-reading this article from the AmblesideOnline website. I also realized that I need to keeping a close and careful watch on copywork, and not just assigning it and then stepping away to check my phone/get distracted with something else. Everly also started work on Cursive, using the Happy Handwriter workbook (which you can buy online through JumpLeapFly).

Maths:

We started off the year doing Life of Fred and a traditional ‘quick’ Math workbook I found at a local stationary store and it was going okay. We love Life Of Fred, but I just felt that we were needing to cover the basics a bit more thoroughly (especially for my very creative/daydreaming daughter) and so after doing a quick placement test, we moved back to The Good & The Beautiful but started with the Level 2 book halfway through the year. We didn’t finish Level 1 but had got 3/4 of the way through and I felt confident that Evs would catch up anything she might have missed. It is a spiral approach so the lessons ‘circle’ back and touch on previously taught concepts. We were only schooling on average, 3 mornings a week, and my focus was less on maths and more on the other subjects, and so this has been on my list to prioritise this year. Taking things slower definitely helped though, as both of us were getting frustrated so I am happy with where we are moving forward.

*as always, I reach the email limit here in Substack rather quickly but I still have so much more to share with you…so please do click the link below to read the full post over on my blog*

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL POST!

March in South Africa is when we start to welcome in the (slightly) cooler mornings that lead to Autumn. It’s also when the Cosmos is in full flower, and my own children know that that means the Easter Bunny will be here soon! We’ve got some lovely trees that change colour right by our school, and so I took the kids out eagerly start collecting crunchy leaves to play with. I also pulled out the craft goodies (along with ALL the beans that the kiddies love to collect from the Food Forest) and I let the kids go wild gluing and decorating their gorgeous leaf collection. I also collected some of the blooms in my garden for a frozen egg activity that my own 3 kiddies loved doing when they were smaller.

I also wanted to make a nice Autumnal ‘gallery’ type wall of all their crafts over the weeks so we set out to decorate some big sheets of newsprint paper. During one of our snack times I read everyone a sweet little book on the changing seasons so I could elicit some of the important vocabulary (and also to bring attention to the colours that usually accompany this season). We did some marble painting (this was my first time trying out this activity and I used a large flattish box with the paper sort of folded to fit…but I’ve since found some great plastic trays that work far better…click here for a full explanation in another post).

Another REALLY fun activity is shadow play with an overhead projector. I love seeing how this draws in different children, and if you set it up for a nice chunk of time and leave it (safetly) to be played with and explored by the kids, you will be rewarded with wonderful creative stories as they play with different objects and textures to see what sort of shadow they produce on the walls. In the Reggio Emilia approach (which is what my school is modeled on), light and shadow play is a powerful tool for exploration and learning. There are so many deeper connections and moments of learning that take place in the seemingly simple tasks that happen during ‘free’ play, and this is why I love the Reggio approach so much. Here is some more insight into all that is actually going on in the child’s mind when they are engaging with light and shadows:

“Playing with light and shadows is considered a powerful learning experience that nurtures creativity, exploration, and critical thinking. Here are the key benefits:

1. Stimulates Curiosity and Inquiry: Light and shadow play encourages children to ask questions, make predictions, and explore cause-and-effect relationships—central to the Reggio emphasis on inquiry-based learning.

2. Supports Sensory and Cognitive Development: Engaging with light and shadow enhances visual perception, spatial awareness, and an understanding of abstract concepts such as transparency, reflection, and transformation.

3. Encourages Creative Expression: Children use light and shadow as expressive mediums, often integrating storytelling, dramatic play, or visual arts. This aligns with the Reggio principle of “the hundred languages of children,” which values diverse forms of expression.

4. Promotes Collaborative Learning: Activities with overhead projectors, torches, or natural light often invite group interaction, fostering communication, cooperation, and shared problem-solving.

5. Connects to Nature and Environment: Reggio Emilia values the learning environment as the “third teacher.” Playing with natural light helps children become more attuned to their surroundings and seasonal changes.

6. Integrates Multiple Domains of Learning: Light and shadow experiences touch on science (physics of light), math (shapes, sizes, symmetry), literacy (storytelling through shadow puppets), and art (shadow tracing or installation work)” Prodigy Early Learning

For the Frozen Flower Egg activity, all you need are some (mostly intact) eggs shells and little flowers, petals and leaves. Simply fill up the egg shells with your pretty floral things and then fill them up with water and place in the freezer overnight. I gave each child an egg box and 6 eggs to fill.

CLICK HERE to read the rest!

Motherculture…a term that has now become famous in Charlotte Mason circles, mostly with thanks to the wonderful thoughts on it shared by Karen Andreola over the last 20ish years. Karen has even written a most wonderful book, ‘Motherculture for a Happy Homeschool’ on the topic, which I own and love.

Everything about the idea of Motherculture speaks deeply to my soul. To be able to do for myself, what I am doing for my children, seems very obvious, but sadly, rarely happens. Burnout often comes first for a lot of homeschooling Moms and Dads; before they learn to prioritize not just rest, but also to spend time doing the things that fill their own love tanks. Things that are good, true and beautiful that not only feed, but nurture their minds and hearts.

If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily for both children and parents. (Charlotte Mason Vol. 3 pp. 33-34)

I just love this little excerpt from a 1892 article from “The Parents’ Review,” (a magazine that went out to members of the Parents’ National Education Union aka PNEU…in England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries). The PNEU was co-founded by Charlotte Mason, a leading figure in educational reform in England. Over the course of her career, Miss Mason established the PNEU, a teacher training college, several schools, and various periodicals—all aimed at transforming education. Drawing on her years of teaching experience, she wrote a series of books (now referred to as her ‘Volumes’) to share her educational philosophy. From these works, she distilled 20 key principles that encapsulate her approach to learning. After all of that background info, let me get back to the excerpt that I want to share:

It is written somewhere, "A mother is only a woman, but she needs the love of Jacob, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Moses, the foresight of Joseph, and the firmness of Daniel." But a mother has not only to have all these things; she must have them all at once, often when she is quite young, and too often when she has had no previous training of any kind of the marvellously varied duties she has to perform.

In light of the above, the idea of mother culture clearly is not just a nice to have, but a necessity. To carve out some time (even just a few minutes can be sanity saving!) during the day to do something that brings you absolute joy and you’re allowed to be selfish with this!).

What we need is a habit of taking our minds out of what one is tempted to call ‘the domestic rag-bag’ of perplexities, and giving it a good airing in something which keeps it ‘growing.’ A brisk walk will help. But, if we would do our best for our children, grow we must; and on our power of growth surely depends, not only our future happiness, but our future usefulness… Is there not some need for “mother culture” A., PARENTS’ REVIEW VOLUME 3, NO. 2, 1892/93, PP. 92-95

There is so much that has been written on the above; from quiet cups of tea to walks outside in nature, walking barefoot, feeding/tending to plants & pets…but something that Miss Mason always recommended was to “Never be without a good book on hand”.

In her chapter on Mother Culture in A Charlotte Mason Companion (pg. 346) Karen Andreola recommends:

1. A Stiff Book (ie, a challenging one)

2. A Moderately easy book (ie a biography)

3. A Novel (preferably good ones – not twaddle. examples included George Eliot, Charles Dickens, etc)

You then pick up the one you “feel fit for” at that time. I personally have about 15 books on the go all at the same time (please let me know I’m not the only one????) and while that’s probably 14 too many and I should just stop getting distracted (haha 3 young children will do that to you!) and finish them one at a time, I like being able to switch my brain on and off, and pick up a book that suits my current mood.

I want to share some of the things that ‘fill up my cup’ in the hopes that they might inspire you to try them. You probably already do some (if not all of these things) so please do let me know in the comments what you enjoy doing and what makes up your own version of mother culture.

• Listening to Classical music.

Classical music used to irritate me (ghasp! is this even something I’m allowed to say out loud as a CM/Classical education mom??) especially when I would turn the radio on when borrowing my mom’s car and out would blast something from the middle of a Beethoven concerto and I’d just about have a heart attack while reversing the car. We’ve dipped our toes into the world of Classical music over the last two years since starting our homeschool journey with AmblesideOnline; in the form of Composer study which makes up ‘the Riches’ within the curriculum. I am learning right along with my children, as I knew nothing apart from a handful of famous names before & definitely I wouldn’t have been able to tell you who had composed what. Now I find myself listening to classical music while reading, while writing and while working on my computer. I still can’t tell you who has composed what, but I can tell you that I so enjoy the relaxing atmosphere it brings to my home. My oldest child, Everly (about to turn 8) has a CD player with a box of old CD’s I found second hand, and she can often be found dancing in her room or reading with classical concertos playing quietly in the background. It’s just wonderful to hear.

• Getting stuck into (and getting my hands dirty!) in the Garden

Weeding, watering, dead heading, mowing the lawn…these are all things that bring me great joy; not at the actual time of doing the activity (apart from mowing the lawn with my ride on mower…I could do this ALL DAY everyday, it’s my favourite thing to do) but in the weeks that follow when new flowers start budding and you can visually see the rewards of your efforts. Home educating is a lot like gardening, where you don’t often get to see the fruits of your labor until weeks, months, sometimes only years later. But you know that each weed you pull, each book you read together, each time you water (both metaphorically and physically) you are slowly growing those seeds until they bear their own fruit.

Click here to read the full post

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 are 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) 5 years old and +- 45kgs

• Maximus (Purebreed Mastiff) 7 months old and +- 35kgs (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: +- 1kg (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)

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.)

The results so far:

Zara the 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!!).

Click to read the full post

CLICK THE BUTTON ABIOVE TO READ THE REST OF THE POST…I always reach the email length limit here on Substack, and write full features on my blog.

x Roxy

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.

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.

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’ve written the full post over on my blog, please click the button below to pop on over and finish up this post there:

Click here to read the full post

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.

Ana White Greenhouse plans

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 above. And keep reading to see what materials we used as well as links to our suppliers.

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 granadillas being the 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.

Click below to read the full post and see all the photos of the transformation…

Click to read the blog

It’s been a hot minute since I last wrote a travel post; and by travel I mean OVERSEAS or INTERNATIONAL trip. 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.

{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).

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!

Stonetown

Pingwe

Make sure to click the button below for the full post (all the info on where we stayed) as well as the rest of the photos and a video of our trip.

Click here for photos & a video too!

Roxy

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.

Click here to read more posts like this!

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 below 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.

For anyone who has never heard of Ambleside Online here is a little quick intro: 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) 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 at PNA Stationars, 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)

And now that I have reached the email length limit (again!) please click the below button to head on over to my blog for the full post.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL POST

It’s the end of December and I am just now getting to sharing a recap of the 2024 Creighton Open Gardens (which took at the end of October!). 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 above) 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!).

And now for all the photos! They are FAR too many to include here in this letter, so please click through to visit my blog and read the rest…

Read the blog

We are almost at the end of 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.

Paint

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 will probably go for this Daler Rowney Aquafine Watercolour Set (R285 for the set of 12 on Art Savings Club).

Brushes

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.

Paper/Notebooks

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.

Click here to read the rest of this post

We spent the week learning all about Red Robot Man aka the letter ‘r’ (I love Letter Land!) which led us to learning about all the colours of the rainbow.

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.

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 5 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 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! 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).

I’ll share photos of the progress of the Food Forest in another post (I think I am already pushing my luck with the image capacity of Substack with this email haha).

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

Front Garden bed (progress photos)

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.

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

Now that Substack is telling me I’ve used too many photos in this post, if you’d like to see how my garden transformed, you’ll have to click through to see the full blog post…so please do click through below!

CLICK HERE to see the transformation

We spent the last week learning all about Impy Ink aka the letter ‘i’ (I love Letter Land!) which led us to learning about insects & ink 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…who is going into his 10th year and yet still looks like young buck). I had told the kids to collect as many feathers as they could find (I has 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 the 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 ‘Impy Ink’ 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 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!).

Leave a comment

It’s the start of August, and my garden is going to be on show again at this year’s Open Gardens (October 26th & 27th for anyone who might be around and wants to come visit Creighton!). Open Gardens is a countrywide event with people opening up their gardens ALL over South Africa in Spring. This will be the second time our little town is hosting the event, and following on from the success of last year, I’m excited to take part again.

I’ll share some photos soon of what my garden looked like last year, but for now I promised myself I wasn’t going to go crazy and dig up new beds. I kept this promise to myself until last week when I opened up a new ‘little’ bed in front of my kitchen in the hopes of planting something to hide the ugly gas bottles and dustbin that live at the back of the house.

I was in the market for some hydrangeas as they are pretty much the only flowers I haven’t had success in growing (and because they like shade!). I’m trying out some ‘Hydrangea Leuchtfeuer (which are pinky red…and basically the only reason I chose them is because they were the biggest version of the bags of sticks I could find in stock at this time of the year). In other words, they have the highest chance of actually being in flower/with lush full leaves by the time Open Gardens rolls around in October. Please hold thumbs with me!

I was also advised to plant some begonias in between (to help with the ‘bare earth’ look I’ve got going on…but alas…we had our last frost of the winter season right after planting them) which leads me to a very exciting tip shared with me. Using old/broken (or new if that’s all you’ve got on hand!) umbrellas to cover your frost sensitive plants over night. One might need an awful lot of umbrellas, but luckily I just had three begonias that needed rescuing over night and I’m chuffed with how well this plan worked.

This week was also my big rose pruning week. It’s that time of the year when the roses need their annual cut back/big shock to start prepping for their first flush in Spring. I’m just hoping I’ve (sort of) timed it right and that they all are in bloom for the Open Gardens. I followed Mr Ludwig’s advice and have pruned, mulched, fed and watered everything deeply and will do a spray soon too.

Here are some of the last blooms from the bush before the big hack:

And here is a ‘before’ of one of my big beds. This shows you 20 (out of about…ahem…100) of my roses. I’m not even a little bit embarrassed to admit the number of roses I own. They bring me so much joy!

And here is a shot of the slaughter, I mean the ‘AFTER’ of this same bed…

Now all that’s left to do is go around and seal up the chopped ends of the roses with something called SteriSeal. This pretty floral tube of magic is a ‘fungicidal wound paste’ to protect your vulnerable wooden rose ends from diseases and harmful creepy crawlies which may want to make a home in the hollow woody stems. I only started using this for the first time last pruning season, and I’m not convinced it really made a huge difference. However, I’m not taking a chance this year and so on it will go!

I’ll share some more photos soon of what my garden looked like last year. This year everything is far more established and I’ve spent a lot of time prepping my beds with lots of kraal/farm manure in the hopes that everything will once again be on full show by the end of October. I’ve also planted lots more ranunculus (ah these are beautiful flowers!!) and we have 13 more Runner Ducks (all hatched from my very own original ducks) in the mix.

Until next time…Here’s to creating beautiful things 🎀

Roxy

xox

“The best place to find God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ” – George Bernard Shaw

Wow it’s been a hot minute since you will have heard from me! I do so hope you remember who I am and how you came to be a part of my mailing list. If you’d rather not be here (no hard feelings, I promise!) then please feel free to unsubscribe. I have saved my list of subscribers over the years and this is why you’re receiving this letter from me. I’d love to have you stay with me, but if you joining via course I made, a workshop I hosted or you’re in a space of wanting to declutter…I totally understand.

I am dipping my toe into the Substack world as I am on the never ending quest to find the best platform to share on. Instagram (which used to be such a happy space) has turned into another fast consuming platform that has lost it’s authenticity…at least to me. I still share on Stories there when I feel inspired, but I do really miss the old blogging days. I might get back into blogging, but right now, Substack feels like it’s just the right fit for the space I’m in.

In this quest to find my creative outlet, I wanted to share my current (and age old!) interests with you so you can decide if this is a space you’d still like to follow me in. Please reply and let me know which of the following really excites you:

• Gardening

• Real Food (mostly low carb but with more of an emphasis on unprocessed, back - to - basics cooking)

• Homeschooling

• Parenthood/Raising Kids

• Homesteading/Farm Living

• Running an online business (and how this has changed for me over the years)

In saying all of the above, I also want to say a huge THANK YOU for following along with me all this time. I know some of you will have been with me from the very beginning (the days of Farmboy & City Girl Hit Asia…onto CityGirlSearching…and more recently my RaisingThemReal brand…only on Instagram as I figure out how to justify the monetary expense of having yet ANOTHER website).

That’s all for now, but you’ll be hearing from me again soon.

x

Roxy

Subscribe now

After almost 12 years of blogging (I started my online presence on Blogspot way back when…then dabbled in Wix and Wordpress, which I hated…and then finally found my way to Squarespace where all the cool kids hung out. I took a good few years off while I had my 3 little ones; during which I attempted to return a few times but always found more pressing things to keep me away from my computer like babies needing a nappy change/toddlers fighting/dogs chasing ducklings…I live on a farm in a teeny town in rural KZN…more on that to come.

I now find myself here on Substack…with a feeling of quiet excitement bubbling just beneath the surface at the thought of having a place of my own online again that feels fresh & new, warm & inviting.

I hope you’ll join me <3

Subscribe now