Luke Walker and the secret society: the conclusion

By

For the whole of chapter 9 click here, for chapters 1 to 8 click here 🙂

******************

He knew he had to do something but since the shop man suspected him of throwing away five hundred KFC leaflets that Jared was supposed to have delivered on his paper round last week, he needed to keep his head down for the time being. Luckily he belonged to a secret society of animal stick up for-ers so he could delegate. He decided to write a message to Joe. No one would suspect Joe.

As soon as he got home he rushed up to his room and took out his code-maker. After some time he wrote on a scrap of paper:

When translated it would read:

He sealed it in a small brown envelope and wrote on the frontAs soon as he’d dropped it through Joe’s letter box he was satisfied the job would get done. Joe was the most faithful, dependable person he knew. He needn’t give it another thought.

***

Tuesday morning, the first day back to school after teacher-training day, Luke overslept. Teacher-training days always left him muddled as to what day it was and, thinking it was still the weekend, he’d turned over and gone back to sleep after Mum woke him. Dreading the moaning and complaining that were inevitable from Mrs Tebbut, Luke opened the classroom door at twenty two minutes past nine. There was a lot of moaning and complaining going on but none of it directed at him. In fact, no one even noticed him come in. Mrs Tebbut was very agitated, talking to the caretaker at the front of the room.

“It won’t come off?” she was very put out.

“I’ve tried everything,” he explained, “hot soapy water with a scouring sponge; vinegar; lemon juice; bicarbonate of soda; everything I could think of that wouldn’t damage the glass.”

“So what can I do? I need to be able to see out the back!”

“Maybe you could call a valeting service. They might have special kit that could get it off – maybe a steam cleaner.”

Luke slid into his seat next to Joe and quietly asked what was going on. Joe looked worried.

“I got your message,” he mumbled, trying to suppress an involuntary smile.

“Oh, good, have you done it?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t pass the shop this morning.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“Your message, I’ve done it – that’s why she’s so cross,” Joe whispered, trying not to look guilty.

“Why would she be cross about it?” Luke was confused. So was Joe.

“What did you expect? Of course she’d be cross – I used the brown stuff. Why did you want me to do that anyway?”

“What brown stuff? What are you talkin’ about?!” Luke’s irritation hurt Joe’s feelings. He’d successfully completed his first solo mission for the secret society and couldn’t understand Luke’s reaction. By this time Mrs Tebbut was thanking Mr Pine for trying to help and calling the class to order.

“I did what you asked!” Joe hissed, “I thought you’d be a bit more grateful!” and he passed his translation under the desk to Luke. It read:

*****************************************************************

Chapter Ten coming soon – WATCH THIS SPACE!

******************************

The new book, More Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er, containing chapters 9 to 16 of Luke’s adventures is now available 😀 

***************************************

vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan children’s stories, vegan children’s books, vegan fiction, juvenile fiction, children’s stories, children’s books

Luke Walker and the secret society continues …

By

When Joe was clear about how to do it, he went home to make one for himself.

“Don’t tell anyone!” Luke reminded him on his way out.

After hearing the front door close, Luke stood at the window and watched Joe walk out of the cul-de-sac feeling full of optimism. Now there were two of them. He’d always known he could rely on Joe, and had benefited from his help a couple of times already, but it was really something to know that his best friend now properly understood that animals needed sticking up for every day; and that sometimes you have to be sneaky about it.

“Luuuke! Come and do the drying up please!” Mum’s voice called from downstairs.

“In a minute,” he called back. He just needed to wash up the saucer of paint before it dried.

“Now!”

On the other hand, perhaps it was prudent to go down right away.

***

Once the drying up was done, Luke hung out with the damsons in the garden for a while. He gave them yesterday’s left over salad, and supervised to make sure Rusty didn’t eat it all. She was one naughty rabbit! Ash could look after himself but Scratcher was never quick enough and Rusty would pinch her share given the chance. Luke made them a clean bed, and picked them some raspberries that were too high up on the canes for them to reach before coming back inside to get Dudley for his walk.

“Wear your mac,” said Mum, “looks like rain.”

Luke grabbed his Spiderman cagoule from the hall cupboard and called his dog.

“Dudleeeey. Dudleey. Dudley!”

Finally the sleepy boy emerged from Luke’s room at the top of the stairs and trotted down, tail wagging. Was that mud? Luke couldn’t think where Dudley could have been to get one of his paws muddy – it hadn’t rained yet. But not too worry, it would dust off the carpet when it dried.

Outside it was breezy and the purplish-grey sky looked ominous but Luke and Dudley weren’t afraid. They walked briskly to the allotments to see Curly and her beloved lamb, Squirt, and check they had everything they needed. Little Squirt, who wasn’t so little any more, came running up to meet them and he and Dudley ambled off to play together. The big allotment plot provided them with plenty of grass and clover to eat but Curly knew Luke was carrying treats and nuzzled against his leg until he gave her the carrots he’d brought. Then he refilled their water trough by stretching the long hose from Dad’s plot. In the big shed Luke mucked out the droppings and made a deep, fresh bed of clean hay. Mm, it smelled good. Curly looked in to see what he was up to.

“I just tidied up,” Luke told her and he plopped down on the soft hay and rolled around in it. The sound of raindrops on the roof made it extra cosy and Curly decided to join him. She settled herself into a comfortable spot and started chewing – mostly hay but occasionally hair.

“Ow!” Luke yanked his head away and sat up to stroke her. She liked that. Suddenly the rain started coming down hard, sending Dudley and Squirt for cover. They rolled in the hay to dry themselves off, and then the four friends sat together and watched the downpour. The storm was powerful and awe-inspiring. It was exciting to be so close to it.

The rain lasted for almost an hour and when it stopped Luke and Dudley made a break for it. With any luck they would be home before it came down again. That wouldn’t keep them dry though. When they reached the village shop a passing lorry relocated a giant puddle at the edge of the road to the exact spot in which Luke and Dudley were standing. Dudley promptly shook. Luke got wetter. Dripping from head to toe, he noticed a card in the shop window. It read:

“Blimin’ breeders!” thought Luke, “them babies’ll prob’ly be left in small cages all on their own. An’ there’s already too many pets who don’t get looked after prop’ly! When I’m Prime Minister I’ll make it against the law for humans to breed!”

*********************************

This chapter concludes tomorrow but if you want to finish it now click here 🙂

**************************************

vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, vegan children’s story

Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er Chapter 9 starts here!

By

For chapters 1 to 8 click here 🙂

Luke Walker and the secret society

vegan children's story

Luke handed his notebook to Joe.

“Read that and if you agree, write ya name there, under mine, and then put ya thumb print there,” he said, pointing to the designated pages.

He uncapped the bottle of black poster paint and squirted a dollop into the saucer while Joe read the pledge.

“D’you agree?” he asked him when he’d finished.

Joe nodded.

“Are you sure? Do you solemnly swear?”

Luke knew he could not over-emphasize the gravity of this decision. Once you became an outlaw there was no going back.

“I’m sure,” said Joe, picking up the Biro and writing his name on the line under Luke’s.

Luke was very happy. He ceremoniously pushed the saucer across the carpet to Joe who dipped his thumb into the paint a little too enthusiastically. Thankfully he avoided messing up the book by wiping off the excess on his trousers before pressing his thumb onto the page alongside Luke’s handwritten pledge:

we, the outlaws, promise to help the animals when they are sad or fritened or hurt. even if we are not alowd we will fly under the raydar.

When Joe passed the book back, Luke forced himself to purse his lips and simulate a frown as he turned to the next page. It was vital that Joe had no illusions about the seriousness of the commitment he had made.

“These are the rules we live by,” he said gravely as he spun the book around and pushed it back to Joe.

secret society of animal stick up for-ers: RULES

“Do I get one now?” asked Joe when he’d finished reading the rules.

Luke thought he was getting ahead of himself.

“Do you agree to the rules?” he asked.

“Yes. I do. That’s why I want to be in the club.”

“It’s not a club, it’s a secret …” he paused suddenly, “shh, someone’s out there!” Luke swiftly closed the book and slid it under the bed. He silently got to his feet and crept to the door. He listened. He could hear breathing on the other side. He yanked the door open to reveal his brother, standing frozen stiff with his mouth open.

“Jared! What are you doin’? This is private!”

Jared laughed.

“Nobody cares about your stupid secrets. I’m going to Mike’s, Mum told me to tell you it’s your turn to do the drying up.”

Luke slammed the door and waited until he heard Jared go downstairs.

Joe raised his eyebrows.

“So, do I get one?”

Luke shrugged.

“I s’pose it would be good if you had one, but you’ll ‘ave to get it yourself. I made this one out of my Maths book. You can use any subject though coz it don’t matter what colour it is, as long as it’s got plenty of blank pages left. Just tear out the used ones.”

Joe nodded.

“But the most important thing you need is a code-maker,” Luke went on, “this is mine.”

He revealed two circles of cardboard fastened together, that he’d secreted between the pages of his Batman annual.

“Look here,” he said, pointing to another page in the notebook, “I’ve done diagrams to show you how to make one. When you’ve done it we can send each other coded messages that no one else will be able to decode.”

continues tomorrow 🙂 but if you want to read the whole chapter now, here it is 🙂

**********************************

vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, vegan children’s story

Quick! Sign This! Save the World from Plastic Bottles!

By
Every day 16 MILLION plastic bottles go un-recycled in the UK.

It’s a plague of plastic that’s choking our rivers and suffocating the ocean — it’s even in our drinking water! But finally there’s hope.

The Environment Secretary is considering a revolutionary plan to give people a financial incentive to recycle. It’s a complete no-brainer, but industry lobbyists and even supermarkets are fighting back, hard — and there’s just four days left in the consultation.

To drown them out we need a tidal wave of public support to flood the consultation — click to add your name and then share this with everyone, we have four days to make it massive:

Secretary Gove: End the Plastic Plague Now!

The plan is super simple: a small deposit is paid with every plastic bottle, which you get back when you recycle the bottle. In places like Germany and Denmark this same plan has taken recycling rates to over 90%.

More recycling means new plastic production would plummet. We’d use less oil, our beaches, birds, and brooks could breath again, AND our councils would actually save money from lower garbage collection and landfill costs. Complete no-brainer.

There’s no time to waste — every minute another 10,000 bottles go un-recycled. With just four days left, let’s make sure the Minister can’t back down now. Add your name and then tell everyone:

Secretary Gove: End the Plastic Plague Now!

In the wild, a single plastic bottle can take 450 years to break down. Winning this would be a victory felt for centuries. Our great, great, great, great grandchildren will walk on their beaches, birds circling overhead as the waves roll in, smiling back at us. Let’s make this happen now, for us, for them, and for our world.

https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/plastic_pollution_uk_loc/?cmzEIlb

More Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er COMING SOON

By

Luke Walker‘s back!

Well, he will be very soon 😀

Watch this space!

**************************************

vegan, vegetarian, children’s book, vegan children’s book, fiction, juvenile fiction, vegan children’s stories

Quick! The animals need you!

By

If you’re a UK resident, Compassion in World Farming needs your help.

By current European law, animals are recognised as sentient beings, acknowledging their ability to feel pain, suffer and also experience joy. No one who has seen a cow going outside for the first time after a winter indoors, a hen dust bathing, or a pig wallowing in a fresh patch of mud would disagree with that. The law says that as animals are sentient beings, full regard must be given to their welfare when creating new legislation or regulations.

Securing this status for animals was a massive step forward for animal welfare in 1997.  It was the biggest campaign Compassion has ever run.  The recognition of animals as complex and intelligent creatures has been the cornerstone of European animal welfare legislation since that time, and the basis for so much of the progress we have made together.

But now, there’s Brexit!

The Repeal Bill, which moves all European law into UK law once we leave the EU, has left out this important protection. It is completely absent; both the recognition of animals as sentient beings, and the requirement for governments to pay “full regard” to their welfare.

Once the UK leaves the EU, we cannot be sure that future Governments will still treat animals as sentient beings.

Please demand that the clause is brought into UK law.

This could be a disaster for animal welfare. We cannot let this happen.

Please sign this petition calling on Michael Gove to take urgent action.

You can find out more about the problem here.

And more about the technical details of the change in legislation here.

Thank you.

A Handsome Fellow

By

Here is the fellow

I met yesterday,

I don’t know his name,

He didn’t say.

But he was so handsome,

So elegant was he,

I quietly admired him,

Or was he a she?

****************

Can somebody tell me – is he a partridge?  And is he a he or a she?

Such a beauty 😀

**********************************************************************************

bird, birds, animals, wild animals, wildlife, garden, garden birds, poem, poetry

Path To Freedom

By

This is inspiring and uplifting – give it 15 minutes and enjoy your day 😀

*********************

home grown, self sufficient, eco-friendly, organic food, garden, gardening, fruit and vegetable growing, vegan, vegetarian, freedom

Animal Sanctuary Poem Week: Day 5

By

Raystede Centre for Animal Welfare

The Broyle, Ringmer, East Sussex, BN8 5AJ, UK

Tel:  (01825) 840252

e:  info@raystede.org

Today I saw some horrible men

Who were happy in their pursuit

Of rabbits with their tiny dogs

Who were sent down the holes by the brutes.

These horrible men, these are the type

Who work at the pig farm or kill shed.

They hang and they slash, they pluck and they chop,

And afterwards sleep sound in their beds.

And while they sleep, these horrible men,

Some nice people smile and are friendly.

At their fundraiser for a good cause

They eat ham rolls and beef ravioli.

Horrible men, paid by the masses,

To torture and batter and kill.

The coins in those brutal, blood-stained hands

Are from Raystede’s blood-stained till.

I’m so sorry to have to write such a sad poem when we were in such a happy place looking at the other sanctuaries this week, but for the animals’ sake I have to draw your attention to this again.

It’s true that there are many animal charities which confine themselves to working for just one, or a couple of species – eg Cats’ Protection, Dogs Trust – but Raystede never used to be one of these.

Their website used to display the slogan: “We believe that every animal has the right to health, happiness and freedom from suffering” but since this campaign started they have taken it down.

Raystede was started in the 1950’s by a woman, born in 1902, who had convictions and compassion as strong as those of the other sanctuary hosts we’ve met this week.  She described herself as a ‘non-meat eater’ and, as she reiterated again and again, cared about ALL animals, without exception.  Miss M Raymonde-Hawkins wrote in her book Sensible Pets and Silly People,

“My own view, and that of every decent minded person, is that no animal should be caused to suffer at all for any reason.”

and

“Too often our entertainment, our food, our clothing and so-called sport are all at the expense of animals and a civilised society in years to come will look back with horror at the way that we have exploited animals during this century.”

She concluded her book with:

“Those of us who have grown old in the work and who have so little to encourage us for the future welfare of animals can at least only hope that having carried the banner so far, we can, in falling, fling it to the hosts behind to carry on the work and hope that they will be more successful than we have been during this century.”

She died in 1998 and the “hosts behind” dropped the banner.

They betrayed her.

They betrayed the animals.

Roll up your sleeves guys, looks like this is gonna take a while.

Let’s Shawshank them!

We can do this.

For as long as it takes.

For the sake of back-to-front Grace and Archie No-Tail  in Hugletts’ video, and all the billions of others, please join this campaign and tell Raystede to make their cafe vegan.

Write a letter a week (or email or phone call) until Raystede stops serving the products of animal cruelty.

Until they stop instigating unspeakable suffering.

Thank you so much.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Raystede Centre for Animal Welfare

The Broyle,

Ringmer,

East Sussex,

BN8 5AJ,

UK

Tel:  (01825) 840252

e:  info@raystede.org

 

Animal Sanctuary Poem Week: Day 4

By

Hillside Animal Sanctuary

Frettenham, Norfolk

Wendy Valentine’s amazing

Her firey compassion don’t stop blazing.

Her sanct’ry is home to many a horse,

It goes without saying, she’s vegan of course!

There’s chickens and ducks and budgies and turkeys,

And sheep and cows and llamas and donkeys.

There’s rabbits and emus, alpacas and deer,

There’s even some chipmunks and goats live here.

But rescuing’s not all that Hillside does,

They also investigate farms because

They need to make public the horror that’s hidden

Behind the farm gates of those animal prisons.

❤ 🙂 ❤

Hillside is now home to over 3000 animals and is one of the UK’s most successful campaigning organisations for the animals’ cause.  They have always known that one of the main reasons animals are left to suffer in factory farms is because people have little or no idea about the immense cruelty involved in their food production.

Animal Sanctuary Poem Week: Day 3

By

FRIEND farm Animal Rescue

East Peckham, Tonbridge, Kent

Marion and Mark made FRIEND

And such good friends they are,

To pigs and goats and cows and sheep

And turkeys and geese and more.

They give a gift to Death Row souls

The best gift they could give:

Forever freedom in paradise,

Now they can really live.

And they do more, they do for sure,

Showing how to go vegan, they teach.

They strive for a world where FRIEND’s needed no more,

To help future souls they can’t reach.

❤ 🙂 ❤

On a beautiful 10 acre site nestled in between the orchards and hop farms of rural Kent, established in 1994 with the purchase of a small lamb at a livestock market, FRIEND is a working animal sanctuary with around 100 former farm animals and companion animals.  Animals find their way there in all sorts of ways.  Some are rescued from places of abuse, some arrive following the death of their guardian.  Some despicable people abandon their animals by throwing them over the fence.  No matter how they get there, they are all welcome to live the rest of their lives as naturally as possible with little human interaction.

FRIEND provides a no kill, free roaming (as far as possible and safe) home to cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys.  Their 30+ pigs live in their own paddock with wallows.  Some of their cats are feral and some are house dwellers.  All of their dogs love walking in the meadow.

Promoting veganism is an important part of what they do.  They are pleased to meet supporters at their summer open days and introduce them to the animals, who are of course the best ambassadors for a cruelty free life.  They do ask that no one brings dogs with them on their visit, as the sanctuary’s residents are free roaming.

They rely solely on donations from the public and put on events to raise money.  Financial donations are spent on food, bedding, essential equipment and veterinary bills.

Animal Sanctuary Poem Week: Day 2

By

Hugletts Wood Farm Animal Sanctuary

Dallington, East Sussex

Imagine a place where cows can live

Their whole lives out in peace.

They’re rescued from the dairy hell

But now live free from cheese.

Big and strong and vulnerable

They’re right where they should be,

A home of love with Wenda and Matt,

They’re even pleased to meet you and me.

Hugletts Wood is a vegan farm,

They grow vegetables and fruits.

The sale of these provides the funds

For their compassionate pursuits.

❤ 🙂 ❤

 

Hugletts Wood Farm provides sanctuary to cows and their friends.  A home for life to farm animals and birds, rescued from the misery of the meat and dairy industry and the horrors of the slaughterhouse.

Hugletts Wood farm is the only farm animal sanctuary in the UK that operates a dedicated Cow Protection Program.  It is also the only vegan farm in the UK that runs such a sanctuary.

They try to self-fund as much as possible, growing vegetables and fruits and producing a whole range of woodland products and natural Ahimsa compost but always welcome your support in whatever form it may take!

Animal Sanctuary Poem Week: Day 1

By

Tower Hill Stables

Asheldham , Essex

Fiona Oakes and Martin,

They’re such a funny pair.

Like vegan superheroes

They’re running here and there.

At Tower Hills, their sanct’ry,

They never seem to stop.

They have so many rescues,

They work until they drop.

So look them up and you’ll see

The lovelies in their care,

And help them if you can please,

When you’ve got a bit to spare.

❤ 😀 ❤

The Tower Hill Stables team are currently trying to raise money to build a new enclosure for the poultry because of DEFRA rules that they have to be kept in over winter to prevent bird flu and they’ve been lucky enough to find a generous benefactor who has promised to match whatever they can raise towards this build.  So, if you donate, say £10, the sanctuary will get £20!  A great opportunity but it’s a limited time offer and the appeal must end 31st December 2017.  Do help if you can 😀

*****************************************

vegan, vegetarian, athlete, vegan athlete, animal sanctuary, animals, animal rescue, marathon running, marathon running.

Miss Mabel Raymonde-Hawkins

By

This wonderful woman, who sadly died in 1998, was a life-long advocate for animals.  She writes in her book Sensible Pets and Silly People, referring to activities with her childhood friend when she was 5 years old: “… I do not think there was any crime we would not commit for an animal.  We were always prepared to do anything we could to reduce the sufferings of any animals that came our way …”  She went on to found Raystede Centre for Animal Welfare , in the 1950s I believe, and tirelessly continued as she had begun – saving all the animals who needed her.

The day she died was a great tragedy for animals because those left in charge of Raystede have betrayed her legacy by serving meat, fish, eggs and dairy in their café – something she would never have allowed.  How do I know that?  Read this (another excerpt from her book):

“Too often our entertainment, our food, our clothing and so-called sport are all at the expense of animals and a civilised society in years to come will look back with horror at the way that we have exploited animals …. Things have gone wrong.  Things have got worse.  The sparrows go on falling.  The sheep go on suffering and it is time many more of us did much more about it … We must be less cautious, we must forge ahead with less timidity and decide that all cruelty should be punished and eliminated. …. Those of us who have grown old in the work and who have so little to encourage us for the future welfare of animals can at least hope that having carried the banner so far, we can, in falling, fling it to the hosts behind to carry on the work and hope that they will be more successful than we have been during this century.”

Heartbreakingly the hosts behind have dropped the banner and let her down horribly.

How dare they?  How dare they betray her life’s work?  How dare they betray the animals?  How dare they do it in Raystede’s name?

Every time someone signs the petition to make Raystede’s café vegan, the CEO, Nigel Mason gets an email.  Get everyone you know, and everyone you don’t know to sign it.  Even better, write to the president (who worked there when Miss Raymonde-Hawkins was there incidentally) and tell him what you think of their betrayal.  Tell him to make that café vegan!  I know I can count on you.  Thank you ❤

Raystede’s President:

Morgan Williams,
29 Hamilton Court,
The Strand,
Brighton Marina Village,
Brighton,
East Sussex,
BN2 5XD

 

Please Help With This Petition To Get Raystede To Go Vegan!

By

Tried to reblog this post but the button won’t load and time is running out on the library computer!  So please go over to Maud Earnshaw’s site and read this post – it’s so important!  If we have any chance of making a better world it starts with well-respected animal welfare organisations recognising the suffering of farm animals and promoting veganism.

Sign the petition to MAKE RAYSTEDE’S ANIMAL SANCTUARY CAFE VEGAN!  NOW!!!!

Mountains and Christmas and toy cars with doors that open

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

Wednesday 18 December

Jude has started drawing a cartoon strip.  It’s really good, she’s great at cartoons.  I really like the way she does people’s fingers and curly hair.  So far she’s drawn seven pictures.  I wonder what she’ll name her characters.  Naming characters is one of my favourite parts of writing stories.  I like to have a lot of characters when I write a story, just so I can name them all.

I sewed buttons onto my dress today.  It buttons down the back, and I sewed press studs to button it up, and blue buttons to decorate it.  And now my dress is finished!  I tried it on and it fits perfectly.  I love it!  And it’s ready in time for me to wear it for Christmas.

I also made some mermaids to live on the rocks next to my lighthouse.  I’m really pleased with them.  I made them out of some slinky shiny fabric I had in my sewing box.  I drew faces on them in felt tip and sewed long pink hair onto their heads. They look beautiful and they love playing in the water next to the lighthouse.

Thursday 19 December

Jude found the lip balm this morning and she’s really cross about it.  She won’t stop going on about it, as if I did it on purpose, which I didn’t!  I just wanted to see how far it would unwind to.  How could I have known that once it had unwound it wouldn’t wind back in? And I didn’t mean for it to break off either.  It was an accident.  She’s very angry.  She says I shouldn’t touch her stuff.

We have been making Christmas decorations out of paper and cardboard tubes and beads and glitter!  I also knitted a lot of my pig, but he’s still not finished.  He may have to be a belated Christmas present.

We read some more of These Happy Golden Years which is perfect to read in December because it is winter in the story.Tomorrow is the Christmas holidays!!!

Sunday 22 December

We are on holiday in Wales!  It’s brilliant here.  We came on the train and then we caught a bus which drove us through these winding roads over huge hills and valleys to this town and then we had to find the key to the cottage!  I really expected the bus to fall off the winding roads and slide down the side of the hills, but it didn’t.

It’s great here.  Jude and me have a room and Mum and Dad have a room, and downstairs there is an electric fire and a kitchen and a sofa.

We brought our stockings with us.  I’m a bit worried that Father Christmas won’t be able to find us because we’re in the wrong house, but Mum says he knows where we are.

Monday 23 December

There are some lovely shops in town, Mum has bought some books for us to learn Welsh when we get home.  There’s a Welsh-English dictionary, a book of phrases and a book of Welsh fairy tales.  We also went in the second hand shops and the junk shops, and I have started a collection of toy cars.  I have bought fourteen little cars, my favourite one is a little red Mini with doors that open and close.Tuesday 24 December

It’s Christmas Eve!  I’m so excited!  Today we went for a walk up the mountain, it was raining a bit so we wore our raincoats.  It was a long way up, so we didn’t go all the way. I think we got to the bottom of the mountain and then it was time to go home.  But the views were magical and we even saw a natural spring!

Tomorrow is Christmas!  We have never been away from home on Christmas before, it’s really fun!  We’ve left mince pies out for Father Christmas and carrots for his reindeer, because they will all be hungry.

Thursday 26 December

Yesterday was brilliant!  Father Christmas did find us, and he brought us lots of lovely presents! He brought me a T shirt with a green motorbike on it, and some veggie bears which are fruity sweet jellies!  He ate one of the mince pies we left out for him, and took the carrots we left out for all the reindeer.

We had roast potatoes and carrots and beans and sosmix toad-in-the-hole.  For a long time I thought toad-in-the-hole had something to do with Toad of Toad Hall from The Wind In The Willows, but it doesn’t.  I don’t know why they call it toad in the hole though.

We had crackers and party hats and mince pies too.  I had apple pie because I don’t like mince pie.  I try to like it every year, because it’s so Christmassy, but I never do.  I won a little rubber dinosaur in my cracker!

We had a great day playing games and watching Snow White which was on television. We also went for a walk on the mountain, which was beautiful.  When we got back we had missed the beginning of The Great Escape, but we watched the rest of it, it’s such an exciting film.

*********************************************

And that brings us to the end of December and therefore the end of Chapter 3  but don’t go far, Jude and the other one will be back soon to start a happy new home-schooling year in Chapter 4: January 😀

*************************************************

Wales, holiday, Christmas, vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, home school, home education, Cader Idris, mountains, vegan Christmas dinner, children, family

The biggest jar I have ever seen

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

Friday 13 December

Today we did more digging in the garden, which is a lot of hard work, but it is fun to be outside for science.

For lunch we had peanut butter and yeast extract on toast.  We’d got a giant jar of yeast extract from Daily Bread which is the biggest jar I have ever seen.

We watched the antiques programme where they have to look around a market and buy things and then hope they are worth a lot of money to win.  I don’t like it as much as the one where they look inside your house and sell your old things, but it is still very interesting.

After lunch we worked on our projects.  I finished a piece of my pig, which is one side, from the nose to the bottom, with two legs on it.There was something odd about it, and so I showed it to Mum and we worked out that I had accidentally knitted one of the legs on the wrong side of the knitting, so that one leg is in the right place, and the other leg is sticking out of his back. So I will have to start again from the beginning. But at least now I understand what it is meant to look like.

Monday 16 December

We had a needlework day today, because this is our last week before Christmas so we are going to spend the week doing arts and crafts.  I have been knitting my pig because I’d like to give him to Nan for Christmas.  I would have possibly finished him by now if only I hadn’t gotten mixed up with the pattern and knitted one of the legs on the wrong side.

Jude was sewing a cross-stitch for Grandad which has a Christmas tree with yellow baubles and red tinsel, and it will be in a frame.

For dinner we made home-made oven chips with beans, and Linda McCartney sausages!  I cleaned the muddy potatoes, Jude sliced them and cut off the bruises, and Mum showed us how to drizzle a tiny bit of oil all over the chips in the mixing bowl and turn them over to make them evenly covered, and then we put them in the oven.  We cooked the sausages under the grill with some sliced in half tomatoes.

Jude hasn’t found the lip balm, so that’s lucky.

Tuesday 17 December

We made rocky islands out of paper and card!  It’s brilliant!  We took a piece of cardboard, and then we made rocks out of screwed up pieces of newspaper, and a lighthouse out of a cardboard kitchen roll tube!  Once it was all glued down we painted blue and white waves around the rocks and painted the rocks grey.  The lighthouses we painted red and white striped.  I would love to live in a lighthouse.

In the afternoon I sewed my dress and Jude made scones.  Mum says my dress is nearly finished.  All we have to do next is put the buttons on and then it’s done.  I can’t believe it.  I can’t wait to wear it!

We finished reading Wuthering Heights! It’s one of the best books I ever read.  It’s so tragic dramatic, all the characters are interesting and I care about them all, even the ones I don’t like.

We have to write essays about the book and hand them in after Christmas.  My essay is about comparing the different houses in the story, and who lives in them, and what they are like.  Jude is writing an essay about how much the characters hate each other, and why.

****************************************

Chapter 3 continues next Monday!  Have a good week 😀

*****************************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, home-schooling, education, veggie kids, arts & crafts, creative writing, home-school diary, vegan family, raising vegan kids

Fruitcake, flapjacks and papier-mâché dinosaurs

By

Click here for the story so far 🙂

Thursday 5 December

Jude made a fruitcake and flapjacks! I don’t know which I like best, because fruitcake is so sweet and juicy but flapjacks are golden and crunchy.

While Jude was baking I worked on my dress. Mum helped me to sew on the sewing machine and press the seams with an iron. We have a really old sewing machine which used to belong to our great aunt who was a seamstress.

I think being a seamstress would be a great job because I like sewing, and it would mean you could make all your own clothes! People used to make all their own clothes, that’s what they do in Little House on the Prairie.

Friday 6 December

In the morning we went to the shops, we got the food shopping for the week, and visited Button Boutique to look at needlework supplies. I bought some buttons for my collection: I got a pink one shaped like a flower and a green one with a sheep painted on it. They are fun things to get with your pocket money because they are only a few pence each. We also got chips from the chip shop afterwards!

We made papier mâché dinosaurs this afternoon! They are tyranosaurus rexes and they are brilliant. We have to wait for them to dry before we can paint them, so they are in the porch right now.

Vegan book for children making papier mache dinosaurs in home school

Tuesday 10 December

We had a history test today. All morning we did revision by reading over our history exercise books, and then in the afternoon we had a test.

Mum made the test. She wrote three pages of questions about the things we studied so far this year in history, and we had to answer them. It was quite fun because I like quizzes, but I couldn’t remember some things.

I got sixty percent of my questions right, which Mum said is a B- grade! Jude got seventy four percent of hers right, so she got a B+.

Vegan book for children

Also we finished Little Town on the Prairie today. Our new morning reading book will be These Happy Golden Years (which is the next book in the series by Laura Ingalls Wilder).

I painted my papier mâché dinosaur browny-purple with greeny-grey stripes. Jude’s is dark green and yellow, and Mum’s is yellowy-green with red eyes and blue spots all over his back. We should make other kinds of dinosaurs, stegosaurus and diplodocus and tricerotops.

I think my favourite type of dinosaur is the diplodocus, but I also like the other kinds too. I really like The Land Before Time films, my favourite character in that is Spike, But I don’t know what sort of dinosaur he is.

While I was playing after dinner I found Jude’s lip balm, which is strawberry flavoured. If you twist the bottom the lip balm comes out, like a glue stick. So I was just twisting it to see how far it would come out, and it must have come to the end because it got stuck. So I started twisting it in the other direction, but it wouldn’t go back in. And then it broke off, so I hid it under her chest of drawers.

Wednesday 11 December

It was really sunny but also chilly riding our bikes to the swimming pool, we wore gloves and hats and scarves. My bike is metallic purple, so is Jude’s, and Mum’s is golden.

In the afternoon I did decimals and fractions and adding and subtracting in maths. Jude did mental arithmetic.

We did quiet reading after maths. I’m reading a book called Refugee by Benjamin Zephaniah, Mum says she wants to read it after me, and Jude is still reading Emma.

For cookery we made nut-stuffed mushrooms! They were delicious and quite fancy. They would be great for a tea party. Mushrooms are not like other vegetables, they are special, because they are fungus.

*********************************************************************

Chapter 3 continues next Monday 🙂

******************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, home eduction, children, veggie kids, vegan children, children’s story

What Me And Jude Did …… Chapter 3 starts here!

By

Click here for the story so far 🙂

Monday 2 December

We went to town for a shopping exercise this morning.  Mum gave Jude and me ten pounds each and a shopping list each, and then we had to buy everything on the list for less than ten pounds and get the best value for money.  Mum said we did very well.

It was so fun to play at shopping! It was hard as well, because you have to do maths to work out which tin of beans or which box of pasta is best value for money.

You have to compare the prices, but you also have to compare how much is in the boxes, and if it’s different then you need to divide the cost by the quantity, so that you know how much money one gram costs.

I really like going to the shop we did the exercise in, it’s a giant health food shop, big enough to push a trolley round, called Daily Bread and it has lots of food you can’t get in the ordinary supermarket. You can buy dried apple rings and big bags of peanuts and vegan ice cream and banana chips. And you can buy special organic beans which taste better than ordinary beans because they have oregano and things in them.

It’s a long walk out of town, and once we were allowed to choose a big bar of chocolate each and I ate my whole one hundred gram bar on the walk back.  We didn’t do that today though, we took a packed lunch with us and had a picnic while we waited for the bus.

We watched The Simpsons at six o’clock, and ate some of the nice things we got from Daily Bread. I ate apple rings and Jude sat in the big wicker chair and ate a lot of salted peanuts.

Fruit is a lot more fun when it’s dried out. Apple rings, banana chips, raisins, pineapple, mango, papaya. They are perfect for nibbling on. They’re just like sweets.

Tuesday 3 December

I had times tables tests this morning, and then we read Wuthering Heights together. I don’t like Catherine at all, she’s moody and spoilt. I don’t know why everyone is falling in love with her. I suppose they lived in the middle of nowhere, so there was nobody else for them to fall in love with.

After lunch we made treasure maps. We drew imaginary island maps with “X marks the spot” for where the treasure would be, and then we used teabags to dye our paper brown and we baked it in the oven!

A few years ago me and Jude did bury treasure in the back garden. We dug a big hole under the cherry tree with the red leaves, and we buried all our pennies. After a few months we dug them up and spent them on sweets at the corner shop. I could tell the shop keeper thought it was strange that we had money covered in soil, but he didn’t say anything.

Wednesday 4 December

In the morning we read Little Town on the Prairie and then learned some more about Boudicca. That was the final chapter in our book about Boudicca.  Nobody knows when she died or where she was buried, but they think she survived the final battle her people had with the Romans.We have started a new project for science about gardening. We read from books about plants and soil, and wrote things down in our exercise books. After that we went outside and dug a vegetable patch in the lawn. The ground is really frozen in the garden so it is really hard to dig at all. It’s cold outside so we wore our hats and gloves. We also turned over the compost heap and put some of the compost to mix into the vegetable patch.

We had to hand in our essays about chapter seven of David Copperfield. Mum says they are both very good essays. I used lots of quotes and I didn’t say anything in the conclusion that I hadn’t said in the middle. My essay was about David’s friendships with Steerforth and Traddles.

When Dad got home from work we all had ginger cake.

*********************************************************************

Chapter 3 continues next Monday 🙂

******************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, home eduction, children, veggie kids, vegan children, children’s story

Commercial Break: Gluten Free, Organic, Fair Trade, Vegan Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

By

We interrupt this story to bring you a commercial for something very yummy:

Doves Farm organic, gluten free, fair trade, vegan, very crunchy chocolate chocolate chip cookies!!!!!

Find them at your local health food shop, or if you’re lucky they might have them in the Free From section of your supermarket 🙂 Of course there’s always Amazon, or any number of alternative online shops you can find them in 😀

They’re absolutely delicious and very crunchy, but if you prefer your cookies moist, just dunk them in your tea 😀

Mmm, I think it’s time for a little smackerel of something 😉

Getting ready for the Christmas Bazaar

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

Friday 29 November

In history we studied more about Boudicca and her battles with the Romans.  She sounds brilliant.  I like that she had long red hair.

This afternoon we made treats for the Christmas bazaar! I made chocolate hazelnuts and fudge, while Jude made chocolate oaty treats and peppermint fondants.  Fondant is great because you can do anything with it.  You can dip it in chocolate or stick leaves to it, or make it shaped like mice, or turn it pink with beetroot juice.  The fudge was so nice I wanted to eat it all.

I am really looking forward to the bazaar because it’s so much fun. There is always a raffle and a bric-a-brac stall and a stall where you can buy knitted tree decorations and a games stall and a lucky dip where you close your eyes and pick a prize.

They also have a mystery jars stall which has lots of glass jars wrapped in Christmas paper and you pay fifty pence to buy a jar without knowing what’s in it!  Sometimes the jar will have cotton wool in it, or sweets or toys or buttons or jam or anything.  Once I got a jar full of mint imperials, which I wasn’t too keen on at first, but after I ate some I really started to like them. They also sometimes have a game where you have to name a teddy bear, which is how Jude won those bears we drew in art.

Find out what Jude and her sister got up to in December – Chapter 3 coming soon 🙂

***********************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, education, learning, children, reading, books, literature, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan family, home-education, Christmas Bazaar, home-made

Steerforth, Traddles and the Warrior Queen

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

In history we are studying Boudicca who was a Celtic queen.  Celtic women were equal to Celtic men, so when her husband, the Iceni King, died she became the leader of their people.

But the Romans didn’t believe women could own property, so they tried to overthrow her by attacking her, her daughters and the village they lived in.  So she got very angry and she rampaged the country collecting people to help take back the land which belonged to the Celts.  The Romans were really bad and tried to fight her army but the warrior queen was too sneaky for them.

After lessons Jude wrote in her diary. Jude has a diary with a padlock on it, which she got for Christmas.  It has stickers and stamp pens which make love hearts and exclamation marks. I have seen it and it’s really tidy, she writes in different coloured pens and her writing is much neater than mine.  And she’s really good at eking out her stickers. I can’t help sticking stickers nearly as soon as I get them.

Wednesday 27 November

After breakfast and chores we each read a chapter of Little Town on the Prairie out loud and then we had English and read chapter six of David Copperfield together.  Mum set us homework to read chapter seven and answer an essay question by next Wednesday.

We had cereal for lunch today.  Jude got the free gift from the box, which was a plastic football player. He came with stickers which you could use to make his uniform stripey and decorated.  Jude took the stickers and used them to decorate a toy car instead.  It’s very good, it looks all ready for a demolition derby.

For needlework we are making cross-stitch tapestries!  They will be beautiful when we’re finished. They’re so delicate and complicated. They take a really long time to stitch.

The salt dough ornaments we made last week are ready to paint now so we painted them red and yellow and blue and green.  I tried to write Merry Christmas on one, but it was too small, so I wrote Xmas instead.  The holes we made for the strings are a little bit small, but we can make them bigger with a needle.  When the paint is dry we can varnish them with pva glue.

Thursday 28 November

I have read Chapter Seven now, it’s all about David being at boarding school and the friends he makes. He has two friends, Steerforth and Traddles, which is lucky because the teachers are horrible to him.  At the end of the chapter Mr Peggotty and Ham come to visit David, and they meet Steerforth.

I don’t think I have ever written an essay before, and I thought it was spelled S.A.. Mum said that lots of people think it’s spelled S.A. when they first hear the word, and that a school friend of her’s wrote “S.A.s” in big letters on the front of her exercise book in the first year of secondary school.

Mum says an essay has to have an introduction, a middle and a conclusion.  The beginning is where you say what it is that you are planning to prove in the essay, the middle is where you explain why your point is true, and use quotes to prove it.  The conclusion is where you explain that you have now proven your point.

**********************************

The end of November concludes Chapter Two tomorrow 🙂

***********************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, education, learning, children, reading, books, literature, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan family, home-education

 

Find the White Horse and other stories

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

For cookery we made party food! We made a big bakewell tart and twelve miniature ones, sosmix rolls and a big sponge cake.  Mum helped us make pastry for the bakewell tarts and for the sosmix rolls, and I put the jam in the bottom of the bakewell tarts, Jude made the cake mixture and poured it into the tins.

We put it all in the oven to bake and while it was cooking we cleaned up the kitchen and washed up the bowls and spoons and things.

We went to bed early so we could read our books. I have already read thirty-seven pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but there are still hundreds of pages left, so I know I won’t finish it before it has to go back to the library.  It’s a great story! Hermione likes knitting just like me.  Except she does magic knitting.  She has a magic cat with one red eye and one green eye, who is really grumpy.  I would like it if the story was all just happy, but sadly there are some scary characters too.

Thursday 21 November

This morning we read some more David Copperfield, it is such a good story we just wanted to keep going.  We took it in turns to read it out loud.  Poor David keeps getting in trouble with Mr Murdstone and his horrible sister who has taken over the house.  At the end of the chapter we read today, chapter four, Peggotty is whispering to him through the keyhole of his bedroom door, where he has been locked, and she tells him he is going to be sent away the next day to school.  It’s so sad because the three of them were so happy before Mr and Miss Murdstone arrived.

This afternoon we made salt dough Christmas tree decorations!  Salt dough is excellent. We made round ball ornaments and rolled the dough out and cut shapes like bells and circles and little people.  Then we made holes in them so that once they are baked we can thread strings through and hang them on the tree.

Then Jude worked with Mum going through her mental arithmetic test, and I did a beat the clock maths test in my room at my desk.  I had to clear my clothes off my chair first because I keep forgetting to put them away – I always think I’ll wear them again tomorrow so hanging them seems a waste of time but the next day I choose something different and eventually I’ve got nowhere to sit.

I finished reading my book I Want Doesn’t Get!

I really enjoyed it, it’s different to other books I’ve read. It’s all about this boy called Julian, who lives with his sisters, and doesn’t know where his mum has gone. I liked it because it had lots of little details about what Julian thinks about what’s happening, a lot of the pages had little notations at the bottom of each page, explaining words and phrases.

Tuesday 26 November

This morning we went swimming and I swam a whole width without touching the floor! Jude swam a whole length without stopping!

We went to the library and I chose some books to read since I finished I Want Doesn’t Get on Thursday, and I had to return the Harry Potter book because it was due back at the library. I don’t mind taking a break from it, it’s really long.

I borrowed a book called Find The White Horse by Dick King Smith which is about two dogs and a cat and a pigeon who get lost from their homes and have to try to find their way back.  It’s called Find The White Horse because one of the dogs lived in a house on a hill with a chalk horse carved into it, so he knows where he’s heading, and the other animals just want to come too.

I also got a book about toads and a book about witches. Jude got some more fox books and Mum got some history books.

continues tomorrow 🙂

*************************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, education, learning, children, reading, books, literature, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan family,

 

 

Portraits and Gingerbread

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

Friday 15 November

I am making a dress!  I’ve got a whole lot of blue fabric and a pattern to follow.  The first thing you have to do is cut out all the pieces of paper, pin them onto your fabric and cut around them.  That’s what I did today. Next time I will sew the seams with the sewing machine.

While I was doing that, Jude made an apple crumble. I love apple crumble, I love the crunchy top and the soft fruit.  We had it after dinner with custard which Mum made.

I also had a times tables test today, and I scored nine out of twelve!  Then we made drawings of Dmitri, which was wonderful because he’s so handsome.  He’s black and white mostly, but I coloured in his brown eyes, his blue collar and his pink tongue.

In the evening we got dressed up and sat on the settee in a pose for Mum to paint us. I love being painted, I wore a scarf and a purple dress, and Jude wore her stripey top and Mum’s beautiful orange dress. It’s like being in the time of Robin Hood when they had to paint pictures of each other because they hadn’t invented the camera yet.

It’s not finished yet, Mum says it will take several sittings for her to do the whole painting. So far she has painted us all in lines, and started to colour us in, but there aren’t any details yet.

Monday 18 November

This morning for English I wrote a letter in formal language, and Jude wrote poetry. I like writing letters, it makes me feel like I’m in a story, because I imagine all kinds of mystery and adventure could be started by a letter. Jude has a book which is entirely written in letters, it’s called P.S. Longer Letter Later. That’s a great title because all the words begin with L, which is alliteration.

After lunch Mum and I worked on sewing the bodice of my dress, which was really complicated! I’m so afraid I’ll sew it wrong, there’s lots of pieces to sew together and none of them look like pieces of a dress.

While I was sewing Jude made two gingerbread cakes!  We had some after dinner and it is delicious!  I love gingerbread cake, it’s so sticky! I like that it’s soft inside and crispy like toffee on the outside.

Wednesday 20 November

Today in science we tested our rainwater for pollution and acid rain.  We had these special pieces of paper, called “Universal indicator paper” which you dip in the water and then it changes colour depending on the pH levels.  This is all to do with Hydrogen ions, and how many there are in the water.  Too many mean it is acidic and too few make it basic. Ordinary water should be somewhere in the middle, which is called neutral.So, if the rain water was basic, the test papers would turn blue or purple, and if the rain water was acid the papers would turn red or pink or orange.  If water is neutral, the papers turn green!  And that’s what happened.  We did the test several times because it’s fun.

*********************

continues tomorrow 🙂

*****************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, education, learning, children, reading, books, literature, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan family,

Not Too Spicy For Dad

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

Tuesday 12 November

We read to the end of chapter six of Wuthering Heights.  It’s a great story, everyone is very mysterious and dramatic.  I think Heathcliff is a bit scary, although you can’t blame him for getting cross with Mr Lockwood, he’s a very annoying character, I would get cross with him if I was Heathcliff.  Nelly is my favourite character so far.

We have been writing out our reports for Operation Independence in our best handwriting.  A whole week of shopping and planning and cooking takes a long time to write out neatly.

In the afternoon we made salt dough plaques to hang on our bedroom doors. Salt dough is a bit like clay, so I pretended I was a sculptor. We made our names and decorated the edges with forks.

Wednesday 13 November

We did Batik today!  We made our own dye by picking mint leaves from the garden and boiling them in water.  Then we melted red and yellow wax crayons in a pot over some hot water, the same way you melt chocolate.  We painted leaves onto a tea towel with wax, and then we let that go cold and used our mint dye to dye the tea towel green! Once that is dry you are supposed to remove the wax with an iron, but we haven’t done that yet.

In the afternoon we went to Nanny’s house and did cookery!  Jude made samosas and I made spicy garlic mushrooms fried in batter.  Sadly I don’t like them, they taste too spicy. I will feed them to Dad, because he likes things like that.

Thursday 14 November

Jude wrote a newspaper report for English today, which is one of her favourite things to do because one day she wants to be a reporter, like Lois Lane.

Mum said I should write an essay describing what happened on our trip to the Robin Hood Pageant.  I used a lot of adjectives.  Luckily I had written about it in my diary, which helped me remember the details.

Later on Mum made a still life for us to draw using a fruit bowl and things.  She showed us how to hold a pencil differently to the way you do when you are writing words and numbers.  You hold it gently so that you don’t press hard.

We read some more Wuthering Heights today, I feel sorry for Heathcliff, he is so lovely when he is little. Nelly is still one of my favourite characters, I don’t like the Lintons at all.continues tomorrow 🙂

************************************

vegan, vegetarian, home-school, education, learning, children, reading, books, literature, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan family

Running out of pink yarn

By

For the first chapter of What Me And Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School click here

Chapter Two continues …🙂

I’ve started reading my Harry Potter book, it’s good so far, it’s funny and exciting.  I read some of it out to Mum and Dad, and they like it too.  Jude is reading Emma by Jane Austen.

Jude told me that in her library book there are lots of different kinds of foxes, some with big ears, some which are white or orange, tiny little ones and great big ones.Thursday 7 November

For my dinner today I made pasta and pasta sauce and lettuce and tomatoes and cucumber! This project is so much fun!  It’s great, I am pretending I’m a witch who lives in a big house full of witches, and it’s my job to follow the budget and feed us all.  Jude made pasta and vegetable hotpot.  It was really sunny today.

In the morning I did knitting.  I’m running out of pink yarn for my pig, but Mum says that’s okay, because I can use brown because some pigs are pink and brown!

In the afternoon I read some more Harry Potter.  I really like all the descriptions of the different characters, Ron is very funny and Hermione is so caring.  They all live in a haunted castle together.

Friday 8 November

We are studying the Celtic people in history.  They were artists who made beautiful carvings of intricate knots and things.  Mum read from the book to us and then we answered questions and made drawings from photos in the book.

In the afternoon we worked on our own projects.  I am still making my knitted pig which I found very challenging today because I had to increase and decrease stitches to make a leg for him.

Jude was sewing beads onto her caterpillar, which is getting very pretty!  I asked her if she thought she would put wings on the caterpillar so that sometimes he could turn into a butterfly, but she said that would be impossible.

We had our geography test, we had to label each country on a blank map of Europe.  I got twenty-six right!  That’s more than half, because there are forty four countries in Europe.  Next we are going to learn all the counties in the UK!

We also gave Dmitri a bath with mint and tea tree shampoo which keeps fleas away. Dmitri looks so sweet and little when he’s wet.  It takes all three of us to give him a bath because he tries to climb out the whole time.

Monday 11 November

We visited The City Museum and Art Gallery and saw paintings and sculptures by an artist called Richard Barnard.  I really like pottery sculptures, I bet it would be fun to make them.  My favourite was a lovely sculpture of a sitting woman.  I think it would be nice if sculptures were painted, because most of the time they are grey or brown, because that’s what colour the clay is.

We got some books from the library about Batik and Shakespeare and a book called Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё.

When we got home we read Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is about a naughty fairy who casts a spell on the fairy queen because he loves her, but all kinds of things go wrong, and everybody falls in love with the wrong person.

*******************************

continues Monday.  Have a lovely weekend 🙂

***********************************

vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, children’s story, autobiography, home-school, home-education, education, learning, vegan children, cooking, reading, literature, diary, journal, children

November began like so

By

For the first chapter of What Me And Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School click here 🙂

Chapter Two:

Monday 4 November

We are doing a project called Operation Independence!  We have to plan and cook our own meals all week!  This morning Mum gave us each £20 and we went to the supermarket and bought all the food we think we’ll need!  We each had our own trolleys, and had to check the prices of different foods to make sure we had enough money.

At dinner time we each made our own dinners!  I made Sosmix, steamed potatoes, broccoli, carrots and gravy, and Jude made tomato soup, muffins and salad.

We have to keep a record of everything we do so that we can write a report at the end of the week!

Tuesday 5 November

In geography today we have been memorising all the countries in Europe and making a map with them all on.  It’s not easy to remember what all the countries are, there are so many!  There’s a tiny little one which I keep forgetting the name of.

Later I baked a chocolate cake which is one of my favourite recipes, the edges are wonderfully crispy and the icing is really thick, it’s called chocolate fudge icing. I really like spreading it out over the top of the cake.

Jude made Hungarian potatoes for her dinner, with broccoli, and I made Sosmix, new potatoes and baked beans. I love baked beans, they are my favourite food. And Sosmix is delicious.  All you have to do is add water to the powder in the box, and make your sausages out of the mixture! Then you can cook them on the grill or in the oven or you can fry them.  I made mine on the grill because Jude was using the frying pan to fry her onions and tomatoes, and the oven to bake her Hungarian potatoes.  Hungary is one of the countries we need to remember for geography!

Wednesday 6 November

After swimming today we cycled through the park to the library. We don’t usually go that way, I have never been through that park before. It had a stream running through it which had some shopping trolleys in it, which is so sad for the birds and fishes, if there are any. I wonder why anyone would put them there? We rode our bikes over a bridge across the stream, and then took a short cut through the supermarket car park.

At the library we chose some books from the non-fiction section about animals because we are starting our own projects. I borrowed books about apes, and Jude borrowed books about foxes.  I also got Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix !  It is the longest book I’ve ever seen! I haven’t read any of the other Harry Potter books, but this one looks really interesting. It’s got a red and yellow phoenix on the front.

When we got home we had lunch and then we read David Copperfield.  Sadly David has come home from his holiday with Peggotty to find that nothing in his house is the way he remembers it, and his mum is all stressed and uncomfortable.

Later on I made mashed potato pie with textured vegetable protein and tomatoes and onions and carrots and gravy. It’s difficult to cut onions without your eyes watering – I tried wearing sunglasses but it didn’t help. I stirred the gravy because it gets lumpy if you don’t stir it.

continues tomorrow 🙂

**********************************

vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, children’s story, autobiography, home-school, home-education, education, learning, vegan children, cooking, reading, geography, diary, journal, children

Me and Jude’s story continues tomorrow

By

Chapter two of What Me and Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School starts tomorrow!

Don’t miss it! 😉

*******************************

vegan, vegetarian, homeschool, education, learning, children, vegan children, veggie kids, children’s story, children’s stories

Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies: ORGANIC, FAIR TRADE, VEGAN, GLUTEN-FREE, NO ADDED SUGAR, NO ADDED FAT

By

Now, these cookies look very healthy, but they don’t taste it 😉

Of course there is fat and sugar in the chocolate, but the truth is there’s only a couple of specks of chocolate in each cookie, so how can that hurt really?  If you’re being ever so strict you could leave the chocolate out and I’m sure the cookies would still be lovely, but since Miranda found a bar of Moo Free in the cupboard that we didn’t know we had, we decided we wouldn’t be 😉

To make these nutritious treats, this is what you’ll need:

  • 4 very ripe medium to large fair trade organic bananas
  • about 80g of fair trade organic vegan chocolate (optional)
  • 3 ounces of organic sultanas (or other dried fruit)
  • 8 ounces of organic rolled oats
  • a little water to make the mixture the right consistency

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Mash the bananas with a fork in a mixing bowl and then add the sultanas (or raisins or other dried fruit) and the chocolate cut into little chips.  Mix it all together well.

Put the oats into a food processor and mill them into a rough flour, then add it to the mixing bowl (or you can add the oats without making them into flour) and thoroughly combine with the other ingredients.  Add a little water, if needed, a tablespoon at a time, and mix it in to make a nice, moist cookie mixture.

Then put heaped teaspoons of mixture onto a lined baking tray and flatten them with the back of a wet spoon.

Bake them for about 20 minutes or until they are as golden as you like them,

keep an eye on them and rotate the tray if necessary 🙂

And there you have it: delicious and nutritious – they tick all the right boxes!

They’re a lot yummier than they look I promise you 😀

Good ole Mr Peggotty

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

Jude has been working on her caterpillar again, while I read David Copperfield out loud to us all.  David has gone on holiday with Peggotty to Yarmouth.  They go to stay with her brother, Mr Peggotty, who lives in a boat on the beach with two children, Emily, who is around the same age as David, and Ham, who is older and Mrs Gummidge.  There is a funny conversation where David asks lots of questions.  He finds out that Ham and Emily are cousins, who were both orphaned and then adopted by Mr Peggotty.  Mrs Gummidge was married to Mr Peggotty’s business partner, but she is a widow now, and so lives with him too.  They are all funny and interesting characters, I especially like Mr Peggotty, because you can tell he likes David.After that mum helped me make a design and then I drew it onto a T shirt with fabric pastels!  My design had flowers and a dog.  I used purple and orange and blue pastels.

Thursday 31 October

Today we had the special cereal with the strawberries in it. I love that.  I am always disappointed to find there is no fruit in cereals which have fruit on the box, mum told me that is just a serving suggestion.  But today’s cereal did have fruit in it!  Jude and I always argue over who has taken too many strawberries, but I can’t help it if they happen to fall out of the box into my bowl.

In the afternoon we made pop up cards and collage cards by cutting up magazines and coloured paper.  Jude made drawings of cartoons and stuck them on paper springs, and I cut out pictures of dogs and cats and flowers from a magazine.

This was the last day of our first month of home-school.  I like it.

********************************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Halloween pumpkins and old artefacts

By

For the story so far click here 🙂

********************

Monday 28 October

Mum said that because I haven’t been able to learn to type, I could practise my handwriting instead. I have quite good writing when I am careful, but it gets messy when I rush or get distracted.  After that I read my book.  I’m reading a book called I Want Doesn’t Get  by Rony Robinson.  It’s really good. It’s about a little boy and his two sisters.

This afternoon I had a mental arithmetic test and a times table test.  I am not very good at doing maths in my head, so after the test mum went through all the questions with me and showed me how to do the ones I had done wrong.

I don’t really remember the times tables unless I do them one at a time, in the right order. Jude wrote a story.

Tuesday 29 October

We were going to do science this morning, but we wanted to do an experiment about the greenhouse effect, mum said it wasn’t sunny enough so we can do it another day.  So we did spellings instead.  We had to write out the meanings of the words we learned, and then we did our projects.  Jude’s caterpillar is nearly finished, it looks really good.  I am still working on my pig, which is not nearly finished.

We had tomato paté and salad sandwiches for lunch, and we watched the BBC play, which was about some ladies who go to live in a caravan, which starts to roll down a hill, but then it stops.

I wrote another story for English.  The exercise was to make a plan and then make a story.  This time I wrote a story about a girl called Bernice who meets a goblin in her garden, and then she gets into an argument with him because he won’t let her put the washing out.  Eventually the goblin runs away.

Jude was also writing a story, but hers had to have propositions and complex sentences.  Jude said she was writing a really scary story with creepy monsters and vampires.  She’s really good at making up those sorts of stories.

In cookery lesson we carved Halloween pumpkins!  We scooped out the insides and then we cut out scary eyes and teeth and noses, it was brilliant.

Wednesday 30th October

After swimming we visited the museum at the Heritage Centre.  It is great in there because you can see inside a glass case pictures of what the town looked like a hundred years ago, and there are artefacts like tin pots and badges from the 1920s.  They have an old hair dresser’s chair with a big blow drier fixed to the top.  I don’t like that though because it looks like an evil villain’s brain-washing chair.

I like the little room at the back, which is decorated to look like a little kitchen, and you can look in at all the old food tins and boxes from the early 1900s, and there is an old kettle and an old iron and things.  It’s really interesting.

*******************************

continues tomorrow 🙂

***********************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

 

The Robin Hood Pageant

By

For the whole chapter click here 🙂

Saturday 26 October

Today we went to the Robin Hood Pageant!  We went on the train to Nottingham in the morning, and when we got to the castle we had our picture taken with a statue of Robin Hood.

At the pageant there was archery, sword fighting and jousting, just like in A Knight’s Tale!  We didn’t go and see that, but there were people dressed as knights, noblemen, noblewomen and peasants from history.  Jude got a bow and arrows so that she can learn to do archery, and I got a wooden toy sword!  And I also got a historical Robin Hood colouring book.

A woman showed us how she was making something on a loom, and there was a spinning wheel.  Mum bought a little loom so that we can make our own cloth!

We saw a potter, and he explained to us what his different pots were for.  He had a great tall pot which he said was for putting pears in, to store them and preserve them for the winter.  He said that you would fill up the pot with pears and then pour alcohol into it, and they would last a long time, and make a nice dessert.

Jude bought a money box from him which had a slot, but no hole in the bottom for money to come out.  You have to break it to get the money out.  The man said you could use a knife and some jam to try to get a coin out, but I think that would be difficult.

People were milling grains with a big mill stone, and they explained to us that they used to make very white flour for the rich people by putting all the milled grains into a piece of cloth to sieve out all the brown pieces, and the rich people would have white bread while the poor people would have the wholemeal bread flour which was left over.  She said that as a result, the poor people were much healthier than the rich people.

I got dressed up as a knight in chain mail and a helmet, which was very exciting.  I had my picture taken and it was great.  A knight’s armor is very heavy, so after I had taken it all off I felt queasy, I don’t know how people could walk around in that stuff, and fight battles.

continues tomorrow 🙂

*************************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

The Big Draw

By

For the whole chapter click here 🙂

For maths I had to do brain teasers about square numbers and division.  That was exhausting!  This afternoon we made still life pastel drawings!  Mum set it up for us to draw three teddy bears sitting in a row.  They are Jude’s bears, she won them at the Christmas bazaar by guessing the name of the littlest one.Friday 18 October

Tomorrow we are going to the Big Draw!  I can’t wait!  I can hardly think about anything else.  I was distracted all through history this morning.  We were learning about the Bronze Age.  That was when the cave people started melting tin and copper and things to make bronze, so that they’d have something other than stones to work with.  The Bronze Age people invented writing and the wheel.  We looked at pictures of Bronze Age roundhouses and longboats in our history book.

We carried on working on our own projects, I have started a new project, knitting a pig!  I am following a pattern from a book about making toys.

Saturday 19 October

Today we visited The Big Draw!  It was at a big city art gallery.  I had a really good time.  Me and Jude made self-portraits and still life drawings and texture rubbings.  There were tables full of pieces of paper and crayons and boxes of pine cones and feathers and leaves to draw.

After that they took us into a room and there were lots of children making a great big abstract drawing together, on a huge piece of paper on the floor.  There were lots of toy cars and we dipped them in paint and then played with them across the paper, making a drawing.  It was a lot of fun, and there was a raffle to see who got to keep the giant picture, but we didn’t win it.  It was great fun, we had such a good time.

Sunday 20 October 

We are having a half term holiday this week. I got up early this morning and watched cartoons.

When the post came there was a free catalogue of women’s clothes, so I took it out to the porch, cut out all the women and played with them.  They were great paper dolls, but eventually I took them outside to have them swim in the puddle, and they all fell apart.  

I did some drawings of the Power Puff Girls! Bubbles is my favourite because Blossom is bossy and Buttercup is angry.

continues tomorrow 🙂

****************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

It’s a shame about Garth

By

For the whole chapter click here 🙂

Tuesday 15 October

We swam for an hour today, and we returned some books but we didn’t get any more out.  It was breezy outside riding our bikes, we put cotton wool in our ears so we didn’t get ear ache after swimming.  In English I have started reading a book called Carrie’s War, about Carrie and her brother who are evacuated from London during the Second World War.  They live with a grumpy shop keeper and his sister, and they make friends with a little boy called Albert Sandwich.

After that I worked in my English workbook where I learned about paragraphs and comparisons.

For dinner Jude made “Hungarian potatoes” and pancakes.  “Hungarian potatoes” has slices of potato, fried tomatoes and onions and gravy and it’s all baked in the oven.  I made a coffee and syrup cake.

Wednesday 16 October

In science we learned how power stations store electricity, and that energy is always changing.  We made experiments out of a knitting needle and a cork and a salt pot which we cut the end off of to demonstrate how a water mill works.

At lunchtime we had peanut butter and Marmite on toast.  I like to make toast and put the margarine on straight away, so that it melts in and gets really soft.  Jude does it like that too, and Dad says she puts too much margarine on her toast.  Mum likes her toast well done, and I like mine so it’s hardly toasted at all, hot but not brown, Jude likes it to be medium toasted.

While we were eating we watched Cheers.  Cheers is great because it’s funny.  My favourite character is the woman who is played by the mum in Matilda, she is really great when she gets angry and goes crazy.  I can’t remember her name. I really like the theme tune.

In needlework we learned cross stitch sewing.  There are lots of different ways to sew, and we practised half-cross stitch and herringbone stitch.  When we finished we stuck them in our scrap books and cut out labels printed off the computer and stuck them in too.  We cut the labels out in decorative ways to make our books interesting.

Jude made drawings when lessons were over, she is really good at drawing cartoon people.  I played with my dolls and one of them broke in half because she fell while she was rock climbing.  The other dolls were pretty worried but it’s okay, because she was rushed to hospital and I Selotaped her back together again.

Jude has dolls from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  She has a Willow, a Buffy and an Angel doll.  But I’m not supposed to touch them, because they are very fragile, and sometimes their arms fall off.  Sometimes I do go and look at them though.

Thursday 17 October

This morning Jude was working on formulae for maths, which is all about triangles and circles and rectangles.  I do English while she does maths, and for English I had to write a story!  I wrote a story about a girl called Rakel who is supposed to go on a bus ride, but she doesn’t, instead she goes into this cave with her friends and finds magic crystals.  It all goes wrong when something bad happens and they have to run for it, and one of them, Garth, gets trapped and they have to leave him behind.  Mum said that was a bit harsh, leaving Garth behind, and I did feel bad about that, but that’s just a tragic part of the story.  I didn’t know how to end the story, so it doesn’t have an ending yet.

continues tomorrow 🙂

**********************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Small hands

By

Continued from yesterday 🙂 :

Saturday 12 October

I went to music school and learned how to play the theme tune to Rugrats on my keyboard!  My friend Dana is really good, and she showed me the songs she has been playing at home.  Virginia, who is my other friend, is learning to play the clarinet, and when she has learned to play the clarinet, she says she will learn to play the saxophone, like Lisa Simpson! The teacher played us some of his CDs, which he keeps in a big folder, like a photo album.  Our teacher is called Arlo, and his assistant is called Lucas.  Lucas said that Dana, Virginia and me always wear the same colours, and he asked if we planned it that way.  We laughed because we had never noticed that.

After keyboard lessons was music theory, which never makes much sense because most of the children are naughty, but also because we are all learning different instruments, so it feels disconnected to learn about theory without my keyboard in the room. I would rather they showed me how to play the piano with two hands at once, which is something I can’t fathom.

After music theory was choir, which I really like, I love to sing really loud and they give you sheets of words to lots of songs!

And after that there was drama, (Saturday drama club is different from Thursday drama club) we are making a production of Jack and the Beanstalk, and I am one of the giant’s arms!  We have a lot of songs to learn, and I am a market seller at the beginning, before I become the giant’s arms.  I like playing drama games too.  We play wink murder which is a game where you have to stand in a circle, and someone is the murderer, and if they wink at you, you have to die really dramatically.

Monday 14 October

I got one hundred percent correct on my times table test today! I had to do the fives, which are fun because they are easier than the others.  After that I had typing practice, but my fingers are too small to reach all the keys, so mum said I should wait for now and carry on learning to type when I’m bigger.

I finished reading the book, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator! It was really funny.  Charlie, his whole family and Willy Wonka went up in the flying elevator, but his gran gets frightened, which means Mr Wonka can’t turn around, so they go into space, and start orbiting the Earth, and they get mistaken for aliens and it’s very funny.  That’s what I did in the morning, while mum was teaching BODMAS to Jude.  BODMAS is something to do with long multiplication, or something. Luckily I don’t have to learn it for a couple of years.In the afternoon I did a mental maths test, but I’m not very good at it.  I don’t like doing maths inside my head without writing anything down, especially if I’m being timed. I know now that two, three, five, seven, eleven and thirteen are all prime numbers, but I can’t remember how to calculate a perimeter.

Jude did touch typing, she is up to level 2 now, and she read her reading book.

Continues Monday 🙂

************************************

 vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Punctuation and sponge-printed Christmas cards

By

continued from yesterday 🙂 :

We also did English, and I learned about punctuation and spellings.

We made Christmas cards this afternoon! We made stamps out of sponges and vegetables and then we dipped them in paint and printed onto card.  We made snowmen and Christmas tree and holly stamps, and we had lots of different coloured card.  It was fun to start getting ready for Christmas already! I don’t think it’s ever too early to think about Christmas and to get organised.

We made a lot because we need to send them to all our family and friends.  We couldn’t add baubles to the trees on the cards today because the paint was still wet, but we might be able to do that tomorrow.

I’m excited because the Saturday after next we are going to go to the Big Draw which is in town! That’s a drawing festival full of activities for us to try.

At six o’clock I went to drama club in town.  We are making a production of The Billy Goats Gruff for the old people at the care home and it is a lot of fun.  There are lots of songs to sing and not really any costumes, you have to use your imagination.  My friend Lydia is the littlest goat, and Benjamin is the medium sized goat, and I can’t remember who the biggest goat is.  There are only three goats and a troll in this story, and the rest of us sing.  We are the chorus.

Friday 11 October

In history we are learning about the Neolithic people.  They are the modern cave men, from about 10,000 B.C., although nobody really knows how long ago.  They made tools from stone, but they polished them, which the old stone age people didn’t do. They also lived in villages and made pottery.

This was when they started growing crops instead of picking plants that grew all by themselves, and stopped being nomads.

I think it would be cool to be a nomad, just wandering around and finding food that’s grown by itself.  Although, we did learn that living in houses gave the neolithic people time to do arts and crafts, so I can see how that would be fun too.

After lunch we worked on our projects. My project is knitting squares to make a patchwork blanket.  So far I have three blue ones, a stripey yellow one and a glittery purple one.  Today I made a green one and a purple and cream one.

Jude’s project is making a toy for a toddler, which she designed herself. She made this caterpillar out of fabric, and then she stuffed it with dry peas which we got from the health food shop.  She is sewing on letters and numbers for children to learn from, and a bell that jingles, to make it happy.

Then later on I made dinner. It’s good practice.  I followed all the instructions on the packets.  I made broccoli, carrots, Linda McCartney sausages, chips and gravy.  The broccoli and carrots were fresh, they needed chopping and washing, the other things were frozen, except the gravy granules, which come in a cardboard pot.  The gravy is easy to make, you measure it out with a spoon and boil the water in a kettle.  The sausages are tricky because if you don’t keep a careful eye on the grill they can quickly get overdone on one side.

After dinner we had soya desserts which come in little pots.

****************************

continues tomorrow 🙂

*******************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Swimming like a frog

By

Chapter One of What Me and Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School continues:

Tuesday 8 October

I am getting much better at breaststroke, so is Jude.  Breaststroke is swimming like a frog.  Sometimes I start to sink, so I stand up, but I hardly did that at all today.  When we go swimming there are not many other people at the pool, but if you swim for a long time, which we did today, a swimming class arrives, and they all line up beside the pool and dive in together.  It’s very impressive.  I don’t know how to dive, I wonder if it makes water go up your nose.

We went to the library after swimming, and borrowed some more books.  Jude got five books! I just got two.  I got a book about dolphins and whales and sea creatures, and a book called Charlie and the Glass Elevator, which is the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I haven’t read the first book, but I’ve seen the film, so I understand what happens in the story.

When we got home we went down the lane to pick blackberries from the hedgerows.  This is fun because you get pink fingers.  It is a careful business, you need to choose the ones which are shiny and dark purple, avoid the red and green ones, which aren’t ripe yet, also avoid the ones which look like they have been half eaten by wasps or birds or spiders.

For cookery I made apple and blackberry pie, and Jude made oat biscuits.  We worked at the table together.  Then we made beans on toast for dinner.  Jude stirred the beans while I put the margarine on the toast, and Mum laid the table.  If you don’t stir beans, they stick to the bottom of the saucepan.  We have a dark blue cooker and a bright orange kitchen.

Wednesday 9 October

In science we learned that energy is everywhere, and we learned about the energy in our bodies, in our blood and in our brains and things.

I like to daydream that we are making important scientific breakthroughs about the Sun, and that we have discovered that actually the Earth is slowly moving away from the Sun! Or that there are actually two Suns!  And nobody ever noticed because they are never in the sky at the same time.

In the afternoon we did sewing! Mum showed us how to do straight stitch and satin stitch, and we practised them on little pieces of fabric. When I’m sewing I pretend I am someone from Little house on the prairie, mending clothes for someone.  With satin stitch I sewed a circle in green, pink, blue and yellow on a white and green striped piece of fabric, and Jude sewed hers on a dark blue piece of corduroy.

Thursday 10 October

In the morning we usually get up early, have breakfast and then I do the washing up, Jude walks our dog, Dmitri, and Mum sweeps the floors.  We do those jobs as quickly as we can so that they’re all done in time for us to watch Bewitched before lessons start.

Last time I did maths I thought I nearly understood mean, median and mode, but they were different today than last time I saw them.  Median is the only one I can remember. At least I’m not doing long division, which is what Jude was studying this morning.

continues tomorrow 🙂

**********************************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

Reading David Copperfield and painting like van Gogh

By

Thursday 3 October

This morning we read some more David Copperfield  and then had a spelling test.  Chapter Two is called  “I Observe” and David talks about his earliest memories of his mother and Peggotty, their servant.  It is very funny.

In the afternoon we made paintings. I painted a scene with sail boats by Matisse, with lots of dabs of pink and blue.  Jude painted A Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.  I really like Matisse and van Gogh’s paintings, they make everything so beautiful and colourful.  We painted all afternoon, at the table.  It takes a long time to paint in dabs and patches, so we haven’t finished our paintings yet.

Friday 4 October

In history we learned about the Stone Age.  Nobody knows very much about the Stone Age, because it happened such a long time ago.  Luckily the people of that time made paintings in caves for us to refer to.  Mum read about the Stone Age to us, and then we answered questions from the book, and drew pictures of the cave drawings.  Most of the cave drawings were of animals.

At lunchtime we had crackers and watched a program about antiques, which we all like, especially Jude. We have our favourite antiques experts, and it’s fun to see how ordinary things can be worth a lot of money.

After lunch we carried on painting our reproductions. I found it difficult to fit every detail into the picture. 

Saturday 5th October

Today Mum, Jude and me went on the bus to the museum and art gallery in town. They had Stone Age artefacts in glass cases.  It is fascinating to see little pieces of the past all dug up from underground, forgotten for years and now sitting in a display box.

The museum also had an exhibition of different sorts of shoes from history, baby shoes, dancing shoes, working boots.  I liked the red glittery dancing shoes, and the video of the fashion show.  Some of the shoes were really old and fragile.

Near the entrance of the museum there was a giant elephant made out of cardboard, which was amazing! We went in the gift shop and looked at all the souvenirs, they had books and pencils and old coins and toys from history.

Monday 7 October

Today we had separate lessons because Jude is three years older than me, so she needs to learn different maths. Jude and Mum worked downstairs on ratios and long multiplication, while I worked upstairs.  I read my Sabrina reading book, practised typing on the computer, and then practised playing music on the keyboard.

I was trying to learn a song called Beautiful Brown Eyes, but it didn’t sound right.  So far I can only play music with my right hand, which is on the treble clef.  Hopefully one day I will be able to play with both hands at the same time.

In the afternoon it was my turn to do maths.  I studied averages, which is mean, median and mode.  I found this difficult because it’s really complicated.  Median I find easier to remember, because it sounds a bit like “middle” and that’s what it’s all about.  The other two are something different.

Jude did typing and read her reading book, The Worry Website.  She doesn’t want to learn to play the keyboard, so she didn’t play any music.

*******************************

continues tomorrow 🙂

******************

vegan, vegetarian, children, home-schooling, education, school, diary, journal, children’s story

New story starts today: it’s a wonderful vegan life

By

What Me And Jude Did While Everyone Else Was At School

Chapter One:  I left school aged 9¼

Tuesday 1 October

This morning we cycled to the swimming baths.  We have decided to go swimming once a week, Mum, Jude and me.  The curtains in the changing rooms were blue and yellow, and we needed a pound coin each for the lockers.  I always try to pack my clothes away with my shoes at the bottom, and my towel on the top.  

Mum is teaching us to swim the breaststroke, you have to keep your fingers together and push the water behind you, at the same time you bend and straighten your knees.  Mum said to picture how a frog swims.  We swam for about an hour and then we went to the library.  

The library is a really comfortable place to browse books and read.  There’s a whole section of children’s non-fiction and fiction, I once found a really good bouncy ball on the floor near the toddler books.  Today I found a Sabrina the Teenage Witch novel for my new reading book, and a book about dogs.  I needed a new reading book because I finished The BFG on Sunday.  Jude chose The Worry Website by Jacqueline Wilson, one of her favourite authors.

At home in the afternoon we read David Copperfield together.  We each have a copy, and we take it in turns to read it aloud.  I’ve written my name in my copy.  David Copperfield is a really long book by Charles Dickens, we started reading it the other day, when Mum got us each a copy from the Heritage Centre.  We finished the first chapter today, it is really interesting.  It starts off when he is born, and then carries on.

 

Wednesday 2 October

This morning we learned that all energy comes from the Sun.  Plants use the Sun’s energy to grow, and so when we eat plants we are eating the energy the Sun gave the plants.

We had a needlework lesson this afternoon.  Mum showed us how to hem, and how to sew running stitch. I really like sewing, we used little pieces of fabric scraps to practise, and then we stuck them in our purple scrap books which is where we record our sewing.

Jude finished her sewing first and she used the rest of her lesson time to flick me with elastic from the sewing box.  This was annoying but it was funny too.  I carried on sewing and finished my running stitches, Jude said she was impressed by my reflexes.

***************************

continues tomorrow 🙂

Last but not least … the Megan & Flos Diary winner:

By

The winner of the Megan & Flos Diary [for any year] is Annette Rochelle Aben!  Congratulations Annette, email me your address or use the Contact Form and I’ll get that off to you as soon as possible 😀

Have a lovely day 😀

*******************************

vegan books, vegan books for children, vegan, vegetarian, free book, free diary, prize draw, giveaway, books, children’s books

Luke’s Secret Sersiety Notebook Winners!

By

We are delighted to announce there are two winners of Luke Walker’s Privut Notebook and they are …vegan book for children

… Karen Gadient and Hit and Run 1964 (aka Gigi)

Congratulations guys 😀 thank you for entering 😉

email me at violetsvegnecomics@gmail.com with your addresses and I will get those off to you asap 😀

………………………………………………

vegan, vegetarian, veggie kids, vegan children, vegan children’s book, notebook, children’s notebook, giveaway, free book, prize draw, book giveaway

The Third and Final Giveaway: The Megan & Flos Diary

By

We have one copy of The Megan & Flos Diary: For Any Year to give away so if you want it, just let me know.  The draw is on Friday 🙂  If you win, this is what you’ll get:

There’s somewhere to write your information;

there’s somewhere to make a note of web addresses that you don’t want to forget;

there’s stuff about our solar system

there’s stuff about Flos’s planet’s solar system, as well as a brief history of Summum and the Summum Esse;

And there’s two days to a page for you to write a brief journal or record appointments.

Plus there’s an illustration and quote from the Megan & Flos comics at the end of every month.

So there you have it.  If you want it, let me know in the next 48 hours 😀

NB don’t be put off by the darkness of the photos, the pages are bright and cream 🙂

****************************

vegan, vegetarian, diary, books, notebooks, juvenile fiction, giveaway, prize draw, competition, free book

The Second Giveaway: Luke Walker’s PRIVUT NOTEBOOK

By

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Luke-Walker-animal--er-notebook/dp/1530311284/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469185270&sr=1-1&keywords=luke+walker+animal+stick+up+for-er

Luke Walker (animal stick up for-er) is a very resourceful chap, so when he decided he needed a notebook to record all his outlaw activities, and he didn’t have any money to buy one, he just made use of an exercise book Mrs Tebbut gave him because he knew maths was a waste of time.

vegan book for children

This notebook has very private, secret things in it but Luke is willing to share it with other veggietareun outlaws who join his secret sersiety.  Every sersiety member should have one!

vegan book for children

Each new member can add their name to the first page if they agree to the pledge.

There’s lots of important information in it,

including how to make a code-maker/code-breaker,

plus lots of empty space for other outlaws to make their own contributions.  Luke’s lined it for you.

All secret coded messages can be written at the back of the book.  Members will be able to decode it when they’ve made their own code-breaker.

We have two of Luke Walker’s notebooks to give away 😀 Let me know if you want one, the draw will be on Thursday.  You’ve got two days: GO! 😉

************************************************

vegan, vegetarian, books, children’s books, vegan children’s books, competition

 

And the winners are …

By

Thank you to everyone who entered the Reflecto Girl’s Lost Notebook giveaway draw.  The two lucky winners are Cheryl and Susan 😀

Congratulations!  You can give me your address privately using the Contact Form on the About page, or email me at violetsvegnecomics@gmail.com

And don’t be dismayed if you weren’t a winner this time, there are going to be more notebook giveaways this week, but different ones 😉

Have a lovely day, and don’t get too hot 😀

Reflecto Girl’s Lost Notebook GIVEAWAY!!!

By

Miranda and I are off on holiday this week so we thought we’d leave you with this:  2 copies of Reflecto Girl’s Lost Notebook are up for grabs! 🙂

We have two of these cute little books to give away, (it’s only 14 x 18 cm), and if you want one all you have to do is tell me that you want to be entered into the draw 😀 But first of all, let me tell you a little bit about this notebook.

The thing is, it’s Renée’s, but she lost it.  She left it on the bus when she was on her way to meet George in episode 5  and she was really worried about it because she’d written about all her Reflecto Girl adventures so far in it.

Luckily George reminded her that as long as her real name wasn’t in it (which it wasn’t, she’d made sure of that) it didn’t matter if anyone else learnt that Reflecto Girl was out there.

Renée was still a bit miffed that she’d lost the recipes she’d written in her notebook,

and the important websites she’d made a note of,

plus it was a really nice little book which was a Christmas present from a friend.  But she couldn’t go to the bus depot lost property and claim it because that would reveal her identity to anyone who had read it.

So, there is this half-filled notebook (revealing the girl behind Reflecto Girl – her real life in her own words, an engrossing read 😉 ) with lots of empty space for someone else to write their journal, and/or shopping lists, and/or to do lists, and favourite websites, and favourite recipes, and fill with doodles and sketches of their own.

If you want it, let me know – two lucky winners will be pulled out of the hat next week 😀

See you then 😀

*********************

vegan book, vegan children’s book, vegan notebook

 

A Little Sprite – again

By

Last night I saw a little sprite

Who told me what to do:

“Eat only plant food,

It’s much better for you.”

****

She fluttered and she floated

And she smiled down on me,

“Plant food is meant for you,

Just try it and you’ll see.”

****

I woke up and I sat up

And I looked from floor to beam.

I saw no sprite, there was no sprite,

She must have been a dream.

****

But still I could not shake her

Which was because, I knew,

She was real inside my head

And what she said was true.

The Circle of Life

By

Make your own compost 🙂

Save all your raw fruit and vegetable peelings, apple cores, tea bags, soapnut shells, etc etc

and take them outside to your compost bin (any container will do but make sure it’s got drainage holes in the bottom)

Toss your ‘green waste’ in there, (ie raw fruit & veg waste)

but also add some ‘brown waste’ (such as brown paper, black and white printed paper like newspapers or old paperback pages (no colour print), dead leaves) every so often otherwise you’ll end up with a wet soggy, stinky mess.  You want about 2 parts ‘green’ to 1 part ‘brown’ according to the science 🙂

Then eventually it will rot down to something moist and earthy, just teaming with baby earthworms (I don’t know where they came from) and ready to host your new plants.  Don’t ask me how long this took, I didn’t time it, but it was probably about a year.  We just eventually thought it looked composty and tipped it out of the bin and there you have it.  Click here if you want advice from experts 😀

Now you can pot it …

… sow some seeds in it, …

… and in a few days (this is less than 2 weeks later) your old vegetables will be providing you with new vegetables 🙂

I’d better thin these 😉

*******************************************

vegan, vegetarian, recycling, home-grown, plant-food, plant-based, health, gardening, growing

Nutritious Still Life

By

My friend drew a still life

Which she wanted me to see.

She told me I’d like it

Because it’s good for me.

There’s vitamin A, vitamin K,

And of course vitamin C.

Potassium, phosphorus, magnesium,

Lycopene and manganese!

🙂

 

She said, he said …

By

************************

So she told him, “going vegan would solve your bovine TB problem.  Leave the badgers alone and grow carrots!”

“Ooh, and what did he say?”

“Nothing yet, he can’t think of an answer.”

***********************

vegan, vegan growing, vegan farming, cows, animals, badgers, food, health, vegan cartoon, vegan comic, vegetarian, plant food

It’s time to look at the apple trees

By

Remember, way back in February 2014, we planted some apple seeds?

and they grew (well some of them died, but some of them grew)

And we checked in on them in 2015 and again in 2016 and they just kept on growing!

So we planted them outside in the ground.  We thought the chickens might like them for shade when they’re bigger, but while they’re still young we put some wood around them to keep the girls from scratching the earth off their roots.  There’s four in here (I wonder if you’ll be able to spot them all), and two of them are taller than me!  The 8 to 10 years wikihow said we’d have to wait for fruit seemed like a long time, but it’s been 3 years already and time’s just flying 😀

NB this is not my garden 🙂 but luckily we were able to plant them here.  So, if you don’t have anywhere of your own to plant them, look for a suitable spot on public property where they won’t get hacked down by farm machinery and then everyone can enjoy them.  Check out the Scottish Forest Gardener to see how he successfully plants trees on council property 🙂

Plant trees!  You know it makes sense 😉

Update 2024:

These trees are now ten years old so they might blossom and fruit this year but sadly we had to move away from that garden three years ago so we’ll never know for sure.  But check out the last pictures we’ve got of these trees here [in 2020] and you can see how big they’d grown as I photographed them with a six foot man standing next to them 😀