Homeschooling trip to UPM Edupark

Last week, some homeschooling families got together for a trip to UPM Edupark. It is just 20 mins from our place. I was not expecting much, but..look at this..

What a gorgeous place! We took a farm truck to go in, and all of a sudden it was like we were transported to a different world..and it is beautiful.

I am blown away by the beauty of this place.

As breathtaking as New Zealand, right here at our doorstep.

We went to the cow milking place. I was hoping for handmilking but apparently these days cows are milked with electric pumps! similar to breastpumps actually. UPM students do handmilk these cows still for educational purposes. (how fun their courses must be!) I dream one day to own our own cow for milking. Fresh unprocessed milk everyday! I can make cheese! butter! cream! soap! hehe...wishful thinking but who knows, right.

The kids get to feed the baby calfs. The smell of fresh milk is amazing - delicious, fresh, sweet. It was not what I imagined the smell would be. Different than the milk you purchase at supermarkets. We went to their mart to purchase some fresh milk but they've run out quick. There is a high demand and you can only get them in the morning, 3 days a week. Very dissapointed. I will go again insyaallah early morning to get some milk.

After the cows, we went to see some deers. Cute baby deer here named Tin. The other deers are wild creatures and shy away from human contact. But Tin is quite friendly.

Male deers grow new antlers every year. The old ones drop like these.

Next we went to see the horses. Horse riding for the kids! The horses here are well cared for and it shows. They look very beautiful and healthy. Shiny hair and muscly.

Kids had fun feeding carrots to the horses.

It was a nice trip. Will go back again for the milk ;)

Make your own noodles

My kids tend to go through a whole LOT of homemade playdough. Yours too? How about we use that to our advantage and have them make their own lunch? hehe...

 The recipe is super simple. Only 2 ingredients. 500g of flour, and 5 eggs. Yup, that's it. Dump the flour into a huge bowl (pink bowl is a plus, obviously), make a hole and break the eggs into it. Mix it up. Knead. It makes a nice soft pliable dough. If you find it too wet, add a bit of flour. If too dry, add abit of water.

Then let the kids play with it. The longer you play with it, the better the dough will be.

Still playing the dough. Mia liked the texture so much that she asked for more the next day, just for playing.

Set your noodle maker on a floury table. I got ours from Giant, cheaply at around rm30+. It is very simple to use and the kids can operate it on their own. We were pretty much wrestling each other ( even me!) to get a turn to use the noodle maker.

When we're done this is what you get. Beautiful homemade noodles. Dry it on a kitchen towel.  You can use right fresh pasta right away or leave it to dry for a couple of hours, then keep it to use another day. It should keep for a week or two.

Freshly boiled pasta. Yum! It's a hit with the kids.

Oh, did I mention we go through a LOT of pasta too in this house?

First day of 'school'

My New Year's resolution is to blog more. Yup. Don't believe me? I don't blame ya ;)

The beginning of the year this year feels a bit..heavy for me. This year Adam is turning 7, which means that when the other children started school last Thursday, Adam is officially a Homeschooler. The weight of responsibility felt especially heavy on my shoulders. Am I doing something right? Will he turn out ok? All those voices of doubt started to creep in on me a little bit. So I decided to take out my camera, and record the little events of our regular day, to remind myself why we're doing this.

 Early morning, he and Mia decided to build Legos together. Without a fight ;)

 Then we made colored foam. Still in their pyjamas.

Recipe for those awesome foam: A squirt of dishwash/shower gel in your blender/food processor, a little bit of water, some food coloring and then blend! The longer you blend, the more foam it makes. Bonus; your blender gets a good clean.

He played Jengga. Made dominoes and then later robot armies.

They fed little sister Maryam..

This is our read for the day. Adam's choice. Oh yeah. We dig dino poops. Not your regular textbook that's for sure.

He taught Mia to read Furqan after prayer times..

Alphabet homemade playdough in the evening..

At the end of the day when I look at these photos and recall Adam's first day of unschool, I thought,

no..it's not so bad afterall. In fact it's a great first day. It is an ordinary day. Full of family time, fun, child-led learning. The children get to claim their childhood.

This feels right. Alhamdulillah.

Carnivorous plants alert!

A few months ago, Adam came across carnivorous* plants in one of his books. It was just a small section, but it sparked his interest. He asked if we could grow them. To be honest, when he first mentioned this I thought the plants only grow in the wild, possibly rare, not in Malaysia and there was no way we could grow them in our house. But I entertained his request anyway, and together we browsed the internet - videos, websites - looking for more information on them. He is fascinated by these plants and in particular the venus flytrap. It turned out these plants can be grown in the home, and that in Malaysia there is a local carnivorous plant - periuk kera!

We came across a website - Petpitchers - for Malaysian enthusiasts of carnivorous plants. There is quite a large community there and a lot of information about growing carnivorous plants in our tropical weather. Also, we found a few places to buy them.

This nursery is called 4ZE plant, in Ampang. The owner specialises in carnivorous plants especially monkey pots. He has more than 100 species here.

Close up of a beautiful monkey pot. Malaysia is home to many species of this plant. Its mechanism of trapping its prey is by baiting them with the sweet smell of nectar, then the insects will slip on its slippery wall and into the watery pots. The insects are then digested by the chemicals inside it and the nutrients are released into the plant.

This is a venus flytrap. Adam's favourite. The traps open up, and when a fly/insect goes in, it will automatically close up, trapping the insect inside and digesting it.

Look how happy this boy was! He walked around the nursery taking photos of everything. An early birthday treat for him :)

This one is another type of carnivorous plant. I think the name is sarracenia, and its trapping mechanism is similar to monkey pot.

This Atok was showing Adam around and helping him to choose plants to start off his carnivorous plant collection. He chose one venus flytrap, one sarracenia and one monkey pot. Now my husband and I are not particularly good growers, many of my plants tend to die on me unfortunately, but hopefully Adam can grow these well....

I was barely aware of these plants before but I think he's got me hooked, too...these plants are amazing!

*carnivorous plants are plants that lure, trap and digest small insects/bugs for growth and survival

Camping trip at KLD

Adam has been asking me daily to 'make fire' and go fishing. He wants to make fire in front of our house! It's about time we take that boy camping. So last week we did. We went to Kem Lambaian Danau, an outdoor camp that usually organises outdoor courses for big groups. The owners are my uncle and auntie, and the camp was empty at the time so we had the place all to ourselves. The camp is at a beautiful location, out in the wild and right next to a big lake.

*bear with me this entry's full of pictures

Adam making our tent with Tok Busu and Tok Auntie

This is the book that inspired this trip. Back when we were in the UK, I found this book second hand at a market. The title is 'The curious boy's book of Adventures'. I was planning to give it to him when grows up, maybe 7 -10 years old? All kinds of interesting things in there for curious boys from camping to hunting to making rockets and writing secret morse code. But Adam found this book and it has been one of his favourite book ever since.

When the tent is all set up and the fire started, we went fishing at the fish pond next to the lake..

Adam and his diy fishing pole

we caught 4 fishes and my husband got the biggest one - 2 kilos ikan patin!

Adam spent hours tending to the fire. He's been dreaming about this for a long time. He didn't get bored and never even asked for his toys or ipod.

In the late afternoon we went on the boat around the lake. In the picture Mia is holding some 'monkey pots' plant (periuk kera) that grows wild over the lake. In the background is my cousin who grew up around the camp and is the ultimate 'lake boy'. He was our guide when we were there.

These trees are big with big trunks but the trunks are hollow and the trees, big as they are, grow floating on the water like lilypods. My cousin said if you're stranded around water this tree is good to find as they  make good rafts.

Then we went swimming! If this isn't 'wild swimming' I don't know what is. The water looks murky because the floor of the lake is mud and there are lots of water weeds floating around. But the water is clean and lovely to swim in.

there are a lot of treasure to be discovered. Here's an escargot, breeding wildly on the shore. They also found and caught some little prawns there.

the boys went on a canoe trip

That night we had a barbeque!  those two big fishes covered in foil are the fishes we caught that day...ikan patin..huu sedap! and so fresh. the rest of the fish we kept for masak tempoyak pulak later..pergh..Adam insisted to be the chef. He refused to leave the bbq until all the food's been cooked.

The next morning we went on the four-wheel around the wilderness surrounding the camp. There are 7 lakes around the back, they used to be mines. From one of the laks you can view Gunung Ledang. We stopped some interesting places along the way. The tranquil lakes made me feel like diving in for a swim! According to my cousin in one of the lakes there's a spot where local village boys climb trees and jump into the water! Sounds like the kinds of childhood I want for my kids. Oh my.

One of our stops was to the 'Canyon'. This is a natural canyon shaped my moving water. Those holes you see are homes to thousands of little blue birds - Tiong Pasir. This was an amazing experience for us. The place is huge, full of bird holes everywhere. We even found some hatched eggs!

Mia next to pokok senduduk, picking the flowers and fruits. This plant grows wild around the canyon. You can eat the fruit and it'll make your tongue purple.

It was only a short trip and soon we had to go, very reluctantly! Adam was crying for a while because he didn't want to leave. We promised to come again, soon! Such an adventure we had. Thank you so much Pak Busu, Auntie and Iwan for your hospitality! can't wait to go again...

How to make a volcano - a tutorial

Start by cutting out a third off an empty plastic bottle. Tape the bottom of the bottle onto a board.

Crumple up newspapers into balls and tape around the bottle making the rough shape of a volcano.

Make a paste of flour and water. Cut newspapers into long strips, dip into this paste and then wrap the strips around your volcano.

Keep wrapping layers upon layers.

You can make ridges or bumps or whatever you like. Then let it dry overnight. (it needs to dry fully. Warn the kids about this before you start)

The next day, paint your volcano. Let it dry. Then the experiment can start.

Volcano eruption recipe:

1 tbsp of bicarbonate soda - Place this inside the bottle

mix together separately -
1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of vinegar
a few drops of red food colouring
a few drops of washing up liquid

* Depending on your bottle size, you may need to double of triple up the amount stated above. We doubled up.

Pour this mixture into the bottle. Stay back and watch the eruption!

Full on volcanic eruption. Beautiful!

Have fun!