Home made Paper

Julia lent us her equipment to make Home Made Paper. We had a lot of fun learning how to do this.

Flowers "drinking"

Julia heard that we were experimenting with plants "drinking" coloured water, so she gave us a bunch of flowers to try it with.
Amazing to see where the water travels.

And after more time it just gets darker.

Different colours look nice.

This one got so very dark.

Bean sprouts ready

Snake for Julia

Bean sprouts started

Water traveling up celery

Roasted Butternut seeds

Jewish dancing

Riccarton House

I went to Riccarton House and Riccarton Bush. I had fun walking through the bush and seeing all teh different things in the house.

Penguins

Penguins don’t just live in the Antarctic. They also live in Australia, Peru, South Africa and New Zealand. Penguins in Peru make burrows in the sand. They are all black and white except the Little Blue penguin. Some of them have yellow eyebrows and spiky hair. The smallest penguin is the Little Blue penguin which lives in New Zealand. The Emperor penguin is the biggest penguin which lives in the Antarctic.

Penguins are birds but they can’t fly. Sometimes the books say “penguins can fly under water” because they swim so fast. The penguins in Antarctic live on land and catch their food under water. When they are on land they waddle about with their wings by their sides. Sometimes they slide on their tummies like going down a slide on your tummy. It looks so cute. In a storm, penguins huddle in groups. The ones outside get very cold so they swap around all the time.

They eat squid, fish and shrimp. Penguins can be food for Killer whales, leopard seals and sea lions. One of the other dangers is the skua bird who looks for weak chicks to eat.

Penguin chicks hatch out of an egg. Some penguins have the eggs in nests and some have them on their feet. They normally have one or two eggs. When they hatch the parents feed them from their beaks. They give them horrible looking stuff, like when you mash a whole lot of fish together with some water. These chicks look so cute even though they are just grey.

January In Bed books

These are the books that I read in January. I have a bed side lamp now so I can read in bed each night.

Swimming Lessons

Rachel has swimming lessons from Mon 21 to Fri 25 Jan. She then had a "demonstration" on Saturday morning so that Dad could see what she had learnt.
First they would skip in the water (a big help in trying to get warm).

Then there was the big step of putting her eyes in the water (even though she had goggels on) and blowing out through her nose and mouth.

Floating on her back was really hard as she did NOT want her ears in the water.

On Friday she summoned up all her courage and managed to get her ears under the water as she bent down to fetch the stick.

Ruth loves the water and so she enjoyed being at the pool each day.

There were quite a number of children involved through the week. They all got their certificates on Saturday morning.

And as normal (apparently) the week was colder than the ones before and after. They say that every year the swim week ends up being cold. You can see the clouds in the sky. Well the previous two weeks had been beautifully warm days.

Rachel was so excited she ran off as soon as she got hers.

Home School Day

We had a fun Home School day. Dad had booked a day's leave so that he could join us. We ended up starting the day by going in to Rangiora (70km away) to get our blood tests and X-ray done for the Immigration Medicals. We had a lovely day.

Water slide

Rachel spent a bit of time at the top before getting courageous enough to try the slide. Well done Rachel.

Ruth enjoyed playing in the water at the bottom of the slide.

BMX Track

Archery

Lessons on how to hold the bow, where to put your arm ect.

Practicing (without the arrow).

Rachel did really well. She got 3 arrows into the target. She practiced for almost an hour.

Books read