Indigo's website

Don't forget when visiting us that Indigo has a brand-new website.

She just wouldn't stop writing stories and drawing stuff and so on, so we made her a website where she can display all her craziness to the world!

Visit her website here at www.indigohaynes.com

Indigo's published another book for kids!

Indigo has published a brand-new ebook called HOLLY AND THE RABBITS FROM MARS.

It's a 50 page novel for children aged 8-12, and is a fast-paced sci-fi adventure story about bunnies facing a Martian invasion.

Holly is just a fluffy young bunny. Can she save Planet Earth from invasion by an army of evil Martian rabbits?

Hey, interested? Why not give it a whirl? It's only 77p on Amazon Kindle.

Indigo's new ebook is only available as a Kindle download, though it can be downloaded with Kindle software to any computer and most smart phones.

It's also available in the States.

Indigo Haynes is a young writer of only eight years old. She lives and writes her stories in a farmhouse in Cornwall, England. In 2011, at the age of 7, she was the youngest winner of 'The Tick-Tock Box', a national short story competition at The Guardian newspaper judged by Francesca Simon, author of the Horrid Henry books.
Her short collection of Tudor dog stories, 'How Potatoes Saved the Queen', is Indigo Haynes' first publication. Her second publication is a fast-paced sci fi adventure novel entitled 'Holly and the Rabbits from Mars'.
In her free time, Indigo's hobbies include playing with her naughty Red Setter puppy, constructing mountains of soft toys in her bedroom - which overlooks a field of ponies - and baking cupcakes, preferably the kind with tons of sticky pink icing and sprinkles.

kittens!!!! :)

 Mo here!

Hey guys! We have a kittens! Not 1 but 2 !!! They are potty trained too! Both are girls and sisters,they like to play-fight, hide behind things, sleeping pretty much on top of each other, going outside and annoying our beautiful red setter Daisy (and I bet they have more hobbies than that when we are not around!).

There names are Bobo and Jangles (Becky and Gary named them).
BOBO:
She has a lot of patience. She is happy when you stroke her. Just like Jangles, she is a stripy black and silver tabby with big eyes that we call her 'Princess eyes'. Unlike Jangles, she doesn't mind being picked up and fussed over.
JANGLES:
She is a bit wary of people fussing over her. She is really fast and adventurous, Becky says Jangles will be an amazing mouse hunter when she grows up!

They are only 10 weeks old but very independent and smart already! I love them very much!

by Moby!
    

Warrior cats

Warrior cats is a few series of books about cats who live in the forest. In the second series, THE NEW PROPHECY, Firestar, ThunderClan's leader, and his mate, Sandstorm, have had children. Squirrelpaw and Leafpaw are their children, and when Brambleclaw has a dream from StarClan, he is destined to journey with four other cats to the sea and meet 'Midnight' a mysterious new character!

When Squirrelpaw hears about this dream, she and Brambleclaw set off with warriors with other Clans to find 'Midnight'. The book is all about their journey, and is the first in the series. I think the book is full of action, vivid description and amazing characters, which makes it one of my favourite books. I also love the book because there is lots of adventure, fun, and it's an amazing world to read about!

You can get the link to the Warrior cats website here.

On the website there are lots of fun and games, as well as a way to buy the books. there are other books in the series such as -

                                                                        Moonrise

                                                                     Dawn

                                                                        Starlight
                                                                       

                                                                          Twilight

                                                                          Sunset

Review of Gladiator Streetfighter by Simon Scarrow

Dylan has reviewed Gladiator Streetfighter, a Young Adult novel by Simon Scarrow, over on his book review site, The Book Mangle.

Minecraft Mansion!!!!

Hello guys! This is  A random thing!

We have got something called minecraft, and we made a cool manor:

The sky's the limit! to minecraft building, anyway.

Thing in the background I will say about later on (If you want!!)

Anyway, if you wish to know more about minecraft, comment on this post. bye!
OH, and happy birthday to ME!!!

Indigo reviews a Polly Price diary book

If you pop over to Potatoes The Tudor Dog (Indigo's book and writing blog), you can find a fab review that Indigo has just written of 'Polly Price: On Stage in America'.

-- The story starts when Polly is on her way to America with her mum, who's a famous actress - and a vegan! (That means she doesn't eat meat, eggs or fish.) Her mum even tells Polly not to eat chips because 'ALL FRIED FOOD IS POISON'...

(Read More)

Our Diamond Jubilee celebration lunch

Our Diamond Jubilee Display Board

Hey! It's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this weekend!

That means our queen has spent 60 years on the throne of England. We had our celebration meal yesterday instead of today. It was so much fun, I can't wait to tell you all about it!

First we had a few lessons about the queen and her timeline. Since the coronation happened in 1953, we played some 1950s games like hopscotch and skipping, and also talked about what it would have been like for families in 1953, watching the coronation on the first black and white televisions.

Then we drew some Jubilee pictures and wrote some 'Special Reports' for a newspaper as if we were watching the coronation in June 1953, and pinned them all to the board you can see above.

Just about to tuck into our Jubilee lunch!

Then we got out a GIANT union jack, that you would put on a flagpole, and hung it up in the kitchen. Next, we got the balloons blown up (though we forgot to use them so we will have a party in the boys' room with them tomorrow) and lay the table with Union Jack plates and cups.

Dad came back after giving Daisy, the cutest puppy in the world, a walk. We took Daisy's cage outside so she didn't whine as we ate our food. After that, the three of us sat down while Mum and Dad served us our food. But we didn't eat it yet - as we had to sing 'God Save The Queen', which is our national anthem.

Then Mum opened the strawberry milkshake bottle and poured us all some. Dad got his computer and went on YouTube, then found us a video of  'God Save The Queen'. We sang it together, and once we'd sung it, we toasted the queen with milkshake. (That means we put our cups together and said 'The Queen!', not that we put the queen in a toaster.)

It was some while until we all got settled and eating the food, but just thinking of the feast we had I'm hungry again now. Hope you have a great time celebrating the Jubilee as well!

Our Queen is the second Queen Elizabeth. And how do I know that? Because I wrote a bunch of stories about the first Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh's dog called Potatoes!! You can see those stories by clicking here!

Indigo XXX :)

THE TEMPEST storyboard

Dilly, Indy and Mo under 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (a play by William Shakespeare) statue in New Place, Stratford

Hoi! You guys!

On our recent trip to Stratford, we went to the RSC (a theatre company named the Royal Shakespeare Company) to see the William Shakespeare play THE TEMPEST.

It started with a girl sitting at a table with a  telegraph machine on the table. Then she heard something on the telegraph machine about a shipwreck. The perspex (see-through) box at the back of the stage lit up, and showed the scene onboard ship, where the sailors and passengers were being tossed about in the storm.

THE TEMPEST is a play about a magical island where two people - the magician Prospero and his daughter Miranda - plus a spirit called Ariel and a hideous creature called Caliban - live together. Prospero used to be Duke of Milan until there was a plot against him. Now he has nothing but his magic books and his daughter.

Then one day a ship passes by, carrying Prospero's old enemies from Italy, and the old magician raises a storm to shipwreck them on his island.

Act I, Scene 1 of The Tempest by William Shakespeare, where the King of Naples and his sailors are shipwrecked: an engraving based on a painting by George Romney.

Ariel and Caliban are slaves to Prospero and do his bidding. King Alonso, Antonio, Sebastian, Prince Ferdinand and many others are shipwrecked because King Alonso and Antonio had planned Prospero's exile and set him adrift in a boat with baby Miranda so Antonio could be Duke of Milan.

Now Prospero wants his revenge.

When the King of Naples and his men land, they find the island is full of enchantment, music & spirits. The spirit Ariel teases the shipwrecked men with invisible singers and disappearing visions of food, then helps the lost Prince Ferdinand fall in love with Miranda (who has never seen a young man until she meets him!).

The Tempest is a 'comedy', which really means it has a happy ending. In the end, Ariel is set free for serving the magician so well, Prospero is returned to his Dukedom, Ferdinand marries Miranda, King Alonso gets his son back alive, Caliban inherits the isle and everything is fine.

Prospero's final speech before he leaves the island forever:

Now my charms are all overthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint. Now 'tis true I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not, since I have my Dukedom got,
And pardoned the deceiver, dwell, in this bare island by your spell
But release me from my bands, with the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails, must fill, or else my project fails
Which was to please. Now I want spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair, unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence
Set ME free.

Indigo's blog post to say Hi!

Hi! 

Hello! It's Indigo here! I can't wait to tell you all that's happened so far, but I will have to tell you from my favourite to my least favourite.

My favourite is that we have only got 2 months until Daisy is a young dog!

Well, I have also been birdwatching with Morris, and here's the best bit ever - we went on a 2 day school trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, and we stayed up quite late to watch The Tempest, which is a Shakespeare play! It was soo fun!

I am writing a spooky story tonight! (it's Friday 18th May 2012) and tomorrow evening we're going to Bodmin to see the Olympic flame!

Yesterday a beautiful bench and an obelisk came and mum moved the obelisk into the flower bed and has planted some peas and runner beans ready for us to much on in August! (An obelisk is like a thin pyramid without a base and lots of little holes in the sides for peas and runner beans.)
                                                                       -- So that's what we've been doing!

Indi xxx

left4dead with daddy ! :) starring mobi! :)

Hey guys its Fred ! Well no, it isn't Fred, but we have been doing fun things that may be better than Fred’s activites !  Because we have been left4dead with daddy !dun dun duuuuuu! but dont worry because we did cool things like :

• Get a new NERF gun: the nite finder ex-3

• Mum visited twice #1 to see if everyone was okay and no brains were eaten. #2 : to wash her clothes

•  Walked the the dog down to a  ford

• Made a roman forum (not painted yet)

• Bought 36 Nerf bullets

• Did Maths and English, I also did handwriting while Indi & Dilly did Latin.

•  Read a whole “Horrible Histories” book

• And today we are going to some more fun stuff !

Our strange cool wibbily wobily ,timey wimey hobbies so far in Cornwall:

Indi has a few new hobbies, like youtube drawings of puppies, kittens parrots etc. DIY - while making our Roman forum  and she is saving up pocketmoney to get a Mavrick (nerf gun). Dilly is now obsessed with drawing, especially (psssst... did you notice that everthing indi likes he likes!) just this week he started a hobby on Nerf and earlier he had a hobby of Youtube videos.

I’m now super obsessed with NERF ! Youtube vids , Roblox and our puppy Daisy who has grown very fast since we got her!

Glossary of words:

nite finder ex-3 : A special nerf gun with three foam whistle darts which whistle when projected into the air, a dart holder which  holds two bullets at a time and a very cool laser beam targeting light.

NERF : NERF is a cool gun/toy company  which makes nerf guns at the moment. There are two tipes of Nerf  guns; the Nerf Vortex and the Nerf Strike. Nerf Strike fires cylindar black/orange foam bullets which  have either sticky on top or not-sticky heads. The Nerf Vortex Guns, which I do not recommend, fire green round hard bullets.

Ford : a Ford is a type of river crossing - there is one super duper one near our house.

forum : the Roman centre of town which includes the market, baths ,the offices  and more.

bye ningas,monsters, ladies ,zombies, gentleme – I’m off then, see ya later ! Mobixxx ! :)

What have we done?

Hi guys!

This week has been the best week ever! On Monday and Tuesday we did normal home-school stuff, and we thought it was going to be the worst week EVER! But on Wednesday we used all the bread for an unhealthy breakfast of toast and peanut butter, so we had to go to the shop and buy some more. This meant that we couldn’t do home-school, so we decided to do that day’s home-school on Saturday. But we did pocket money on Saturday! So while we were out getting bread, we got our pocket money stuff as well.

And it gets better! The next morning we had a times table test and I got most of them right! But the ones I got wrong were my nines, because I always get them mixed up. I thought 6 X 9=63, but it’s supposed to be 6 X 9 = 54! I did the test just for me perfectly the next day.

 In the afternoon mum came round to wash her clothes.  Dad said she stayed for more than an hour, but it felt like the shortest hour ever.  Then dad and I went shopping to buy paint for a roman forum (a sort of town centre) which we would be making in our Saturday home-school.

The next day we collected the boxes and bits of cardboard for the building of the forum. We cleared the table and put down newspaper. Then we got some sticky tape, glue, and a pair of scissors. We called Morris down from the computer and set to work. By the end of the day we only had to make The Temple of Jupiter and the baths. Dad said we would have tea in the living room while watching “The Voice UK”, and we did! As as a special treat he gave us trifle for afters! YUM YUM!
This morning we had a lie- in until I wrote this! Today we will paint and populate our forum with LEGO!

Indigo, XXX         

Dylan's Week

Hey guys!

Thanks for the amazing comments! We were really happy that you made soooo many comments!

Now, back to business. Over the past week we have been doing some school (which, by the way, is very fun!) including some Latin and some maths.

Over a few days of the week, we were looking at different math tasks. They were:

• Capacity

• Weight

• Times tables test (I didn’t have enough time, though every single answer I did was correct)

We also got to mix some art and Latin (Latin is rather hard) to come up with one answer: “Let’s make the forum”.

A forum is basically a town centre. You go there to worship gods at temples, to buy stuff at either permanent or temporary stalls, to have a bath at the local baths or buy cloth at the guildhall of the cloth trade.

Today we are going to paint the forum.

Oh, and Morris is now obsessed with Nerf guns, I am obsessed with drawing (anyone else who’s the same can go to the YouTube channel of Mark Crilley, creator of graphic novel series Miki Falls and graphic novel Brody’s Ghost.  Indigo is also obsessed with our new puppy, daisy (Who has grown a lot!).

 Have a happy weekend!

 From the three little kids and the big bad dad!!

Dylan interviews Indigo about her writing

Indigo's book FREE today on Amazon!

Indigo's collection of adventure stories about a crazy Tudor dog is ABSOLUTELY FREE all today and tomorrow on Amazon Kindle.

You can download Indigo's story onto a Kindle device, or even onto a computer or other device if you have Kindle for PC/Mac or iPhone loaded onto it.

The free promotion only lasts for this weekend of 14th and 15th April 2012, so grab it as soon as you can on Amazon.co.uk: "How Potatoes Saved the Queen" by Indigo Haynes. 

It's also available FREE in the States today and tomorrow on Indigo's page at Amazon.com.
 

From: Potatoes and the Wolves

In the centre of old London town, Potatoes was watching some bear-baiting with Sir Walter Raleigh and the queen.

As he sat watching, he felt a bit different, like someone he loved was hurt. But the only people he loved were the queen, Sir Walter Raleigh, and his mother.

Sir Walter Raleigh was smiling, so Potatoes looked closely at the queen and Kitty her cat. Was one of them hurt? They didn’t seem to be.

Confused, Potatoes walked home after the bear-baiting to check on his mother. It was getting dark. He was nearly home when he heard a strange rustling sound behind him and ran inside the bushes to hide.

Suddenly the rustling stopped and a horrible growling began.

Potatoes trembled with fear. Normally it took more than a noise to scare him, but this was different, he had never heard anything like it before.

The growling grew louder and louder ...

To read the rest of this exciting Tudor story for kids, you can download it FREE this weekend on Amazon.

Shakespeare in da house!

We are learning about William Shakespeare this month. He was an Elizabethan who wrote lots of really popular and cool plays.

by Henry Fuseli

Last week we read some of his play A Midsummer Night's Dream where a man called Bottom is turned into a hairy donkey and the Queen of the Fairies falls in love with him because she's had a spell put on her!

We acted out a bit of the play, and Morris played the part of a Wall!! It was really funny!!!




Next week we are travelling to Stratford Upon Avon for one day to watch another of Shakespeare's famous plays.

The play's name is The Tempest and it will be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is the most famous acting company in the world!

The ship being shipwrecked in The Tempest

In The Tempest (which means 'The Storm'), the King of Naples and his men are shipwrecked by a storm on an enchanted island filled with sprites and monsters, and ruled over by a magician called Prospero.

The king's son Prince Ferdinand falls in love with the magician's daughter, Miranda ... and that's when they discover who Prospero really is!

To get ready to see The Tempest, we have been listening to a recording, reading it aloud together and talking about the story. Soon we will act out a few short scenes ourselves, using masks we made for our Roman theatre lessons.

William Shakespeare uses lots of "ye olde" language because he was an Elizabethan writer. But his plays get easier to understand once you remember a few simple rules. Here are some of them:

Thou = you

Thy = your

Hast = has

Doth = do

Twas = it was

Wilt = will

and so on and so on.

Before the play starts, we're also planning to visit the house in Stratford where Shakespeare was born and grew up. We went to Stratford last year to watch a puppet show version of The Tempest, which was very cool, and also Dylan and Indigo acted in a Play-On! short version of The Tempest a few years ago in Rugby. So it's not too hard to remember the story!

Here's our favourite line from The Tempest, when one of the shipwrecked sailors meets Prospero's slave, a stinky monster called Caliban:

What have we here—a man or a fish?—dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell ...

Happy Easter!

 

Hello friends and blog readers!!

We are having an Easter holiday off home school this weekend, so tell us what what your chocolate eggs are like!

These are our tasty choccy eggs above. We got our eggs early because of visiting relatives. But we're keeping them (mostly!) until Easter Sunday, honest.

Happy Easter to you all!

Dilly, Mobi, Indi and the GBC

Daisy, our crazy new puppy!

Hello daisy!!

Hi!

We have our own puppy!!!!!! And her name is Daisy!

Daisy is an Irish Red Setter. Red Setters are really sweet and gentle with people, though they can get VERY excited. We got a Red Setter to get Morris over his fear of dogs.

What's this funny pile of ash?

We have a cage for her now, because she had almost destroyed her old box and kept leaving puddles on the kitchen floor.

We took her to the vets for her vaccinations yesterday and she can almost walk on a lead now.

Squirrel!

She is sooooo cute!! And loves to chew her squeaky toys! And chase her tail!

"Oooh, om nom nom, lovey sticky. You'll never get it back now ... nom nom nom ..."

Indigo

XXX

The Great Greek Urn Caper

The Great Greek Urn Caper!

Hellooo, everyone!!
Now for more about our home school work. We have been doing some very exciting stuff we told you about earlier:

Let's start on the "Greek Urn Caper!!"

This book is about someone stealing a Greek Urn, and we must work out who stole it! We are given witness statements in English, but some of the words are in Greek lettering. We need to decipher the Greek words in order to eliminate suspects from our enquiries.

Here's the Classical Greek Alphabet:

α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ σς τ υ φ χ ψ ω
Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω
 

That says:

Alpha

Beta

Gamma

Delta

Epsilon

Zeta

Eta

Theta

Iota

Kappa

Lamda

Mu

Nu

Xi

Omikron

Pi

Sigma (2 types)

Tau

Upsilon

Phi

Chi

Psi

Omega

Here's a Greek joke. What type of food do you find in Mathematics?

ANSWER: Pie!!! [π]