More of the same and eggs for tea.

M is still rather keen on her Lego Creator Dinosaur set at the moment and over the last few days has assembled, dissembled and reassembled the various alternative creatures (I can't say dinosaurs, because one of them is a pterosaur) several times.

Tyrannosaur

Sauropod

Pterosaur

Both girls have also been listening to various story cds, along with the many Famous Five ones we've had from the library, the Roald Dahl ones we have on long-term loan from a friend have made a reappearance along with a different version of Matilda from the one we have, which K got from the library.

Listening to Matilda

K & I found La Marseillaise on youtube today because she asked to -I hadn't realised just how gruesome the lyrics are!!  We quickly moved on to looking at more of our national anthem and from there, to the monarchy, and why the Saxe-Coburg Gotha's became the Windsors and somehow then to this Compound Machine Activity which both K & M had a go at.

I'm not sure what brought it to mind, but I remembered today that first K and subsequently M decided in January that one of their goals for the year was to learn to cook (as opposed to bake) and we haven't really done much towards that.  So today I said it was eggs for tea and they could choose how they wanted them and cook them.

M went for scrambled

She said it was okay, but not as good as mine.

K had boiled

M in particular was also very keen to slice her own bread for toast without my help and K cut hers too.

I'm chuckling about this, thinking what my dad would make of this.  He gets rather stressed when bread is cut anything other than extremely straight!

With and without me.

Firstly it was the without me, as I had a doctor's appointment, when I found the lingering cough and accompanying laryngitis I have are more than likely whooping cough - apparently there is a lot of it about in adults at the moment.  So M got busy with her dinosaur lego set and following the instructions came up with this.

K got on with more French knitting.  M has also decided that The Secret Garden isn't too difficult after all, although reading the 'Yorkshire' is a bit tricky and is cracking on with it despite the small writing and long chapters.

Then when I got back we had another game of Phase 10.  I'm finding it rather difficult because although both girls say they really like the game, M is getting extremely upset when things aren't going her way.  Ho hum!  Off for another game of it now!

Family games and a science experiment and conundrum

Yesterday afternoon was forecast to be rather wet, so we decided that we would have a family games session.  After quite a bit of disagreement about what we should play, we agreed that we would each write two choices pieces of paper and we'd put them in a hat and whatever was pulled out we would play if we wanted to or sit out, but not grump about it.  So we played a dinosaur game of M's, then whist (or as M says wisp) which was new to the girls, The Game of Life Adventures Edition board game, The Game of Life card game, Cluedo and finally Top Trumps Team GB. 

It went down so well yesterday that both girls asked this morning if we could have a 'family games day'!  So we did a the same (but with a different hat), starting off with Pairs in Pears (well K and I did), we experimented with giving K a head start and agreed that 2 minutes was about right, as we each won once then.

K & I playing Pairs in Pears

Next out of the hat was what we call 'the Postman Pat game', which is supposed to be a competitive one, but which M prefers to turn into a co-operative one, delivering all the letters as quickly as possible instead of the 3 you start off with and returning to the post office.

 



This was followed by a game of Travel the World, which was very close between K & M and I trailed in a distant 3rd.

Then what was supposed to be a quick break for lunch turned into a science lesson.  I told K & M that I had subscribed to The Happy Scientist website which they weren't particularly interested in, but when I started having a look at the site, we were rather grabbed by the Water in a Glass videos and ended up trying them out for ourselves. 

An upside-down glass full of water

The force of gravity on the water in the glass is considerably less than that of air pressure acting upwards on the card.


An upside-down glass half full of water

The air pressure in the glass plus the force of gravity on the water is more than that of air pressure acting upwards on the card.  However the water pushes down on the card that it bows enough that the air pressure in the glass is lowered such that the air pressure in the glass and the gravity acting on the water is not greater than the air pressure acting upwards on the card.

This led to a follow up question - if you do the experiment with half a glass of water and a completely rigid material over the top of the glass - what would happen?  We tried a cd case, but that had a bit of give in it, so didn't answer our question.

Back to games and I taught them Cheat, but M got very upset at ending up with lots of cards and K didn't say much at all, so we scrapped that and had another go at The Game of Life Card game.

K playing Cheat!

 Finally we played a card game that a friend had given us months and months ago, that she and her family really enjoy, but we hadn't got round to trying:  Phase 10.

There were some ups and downs (M tends to get very emotional with these things), but the overall verdict from K & M was that they LOVE it!

Things that have been found.

Sometimes I find out what K & M have been up to only when I come to download photos from the camera.  So these are the first things that have been found.



K & M played Carcassonne with A while I was out yesterday, then K had a play with the pieces but not the rules

K, M & A spent most of yesterday afternoon in the garden (I was inside continuing my current project of learning to crochet) and when pruning A found this.

This morning we have been being crafty.  At her request, I've been teaching M how to do a bit more crochet (so far she's just been making chains), so we've each started making a little flower like this one.  I found it in one of the many books I got from the library and it consists entirely of chain stitch and slip stitch.

Here's one I made earlier.

Photos are not allowed so far, but she's doing really well despite getting a bit frustrated at times.

K meanwhile was doing French knitting, with a rather pretty French knitting doll that she was given for her birthday last year.  Both girls had had a go with a cotton reel at Calke Abbey sometime last year, but K hadn't got round to having a go at home and had completely forgotten how to do it.  She didn't ask for help though and easily followed the instruction booklet to remind herself.

 

A break for lunch and K is letting M have a go with the doll and teaching her how to French knit too, which seems to have led to an outbreak of French!  K has been looking at a set of first English-French books including this one, in the evening recently (I know because they've been scattered all over the floor of her bedroom!).  From the next room, A & I suddenly heard counting in French up to 29 and a few random words, followed by things like 'Mummy!  Une pomme, s'il vous plaît!' and 'Je voudrais une banane rose!' and running off with 'le jambon' from the fridge with lots of giggling.  Considering we haven't really done any French since we got back from Paris in March, I was very impressed and as I said to A it's times like this that show that leaving them to their own devices really does work!

Family, a funeral and wanderings in Wales

 Home from a few days away, mostly at Nana and Little Grandad's just over the border in north Wales but sadly with trip in the middle of it to my uncle's funeral.

The first full day, we went to Speke Hall. We all enjoyed the maze before the rain set in, then went for a guided tour around the hall, which is tours only until 12.30pm when it becomes free access.  With hindsight we would just want to go round on our own, but timing didn't really allow that with our plans.  The woman who showed us round on the Victorian tour (both K & M would have preferred the Tudor one given the current Shakespeare interest) wasn't hugely engaging.  When she referred to the rather gruesome ghost story she told us that was made up by one of the owners to keep the servants in order as a 'nice story', she wasn't keen on being contradicted by K, who said she didn't think it was a 'nice' story at all, but rather a horrible one!

M in the maze

After the guided tour we headed into Liverpool and had lunch before a much requested (particularly by M) return visit to the World Museum.  No guesses for why she was so keen to go back!

The Quetzalcoatlus with a 12m wingspan in the entrance hall

Megalosaurus

Woolly Mammoth models

 K was particularly keen to go back to the Space section. 

K lifting a very heavy meteorite!

The next day A had things he needed to do with Nana, so after a quick trip to the shops to buy some croc-type footwear I took the girls back to another place they'd been asking to return to, on the way up to Ewloe Castle (where we've been before on a trip that included several Welsh Castles).  They call it 'Nature's Playground' and it's pretty much the perfect mix of water, rocks, trees and slopes for climbing and exploring.

The next day was Uncle P's funeral.  He was a lovely and many-sided man, he was a lay deacon (he married A & me and baptised both K & M), a very good musician, good with his hands (he re-built numerous old cars and motorbikes), a Scout leader and he worked on programmes from Monty Python's Flying Circus to Think of a Number to Antiques Roadshow (where he was working when he was taken ill) and more.  K & M had decided that they didn't want to attend the funeral, so they went off with A and we all went to the wake afterwards.  Although we see my aunts and uncles occasionally it's very sad that it's only at times like this that I see most of my cousins and in fact this was the first time that K & M have met any of them, either my first cousins or their children, and the first time I'd met some of my cousins' other halves and most of their children.  After a short time sticking to their small groups and an indignant complaint from M to my cousin H that her son had called her 'a little girl' all the children were playing together beautifully and had a whale of a time!

Back to the in laws and we spent the whole of our last full day in Wales.  First we visited A's aunty A and discovered that K, who's not yet 9, is now as tall as she is, as you can see!  This is because K is very tall for her age and also Aunty A is also very short!

K & M with their Great Aunty A

We then drove through the World's End, then parked up and climbed up to Castell Dinas Brân, a 13th Century ruined castle. 

It was rather windy!

A rare photo of the 4 of us

A shield bug that M spotted on the way back to the car

Then it was on to LLangollen for lunch, an ice cream and a wander round the town, which didn't take very long!  Then back in the car to the almost unpronouncable (if you're not at least part Welsh - which A is, so he can say it!) but very impressive Pontcysullte aquaduct.

After such a busy day, we had a quiet morning on Thursday before heading back home after lunch.

M & K doing a bit of R&R - reading and relaxing

Summer Scientist Week at Nottingham University

This afternoon we went to Summer Scientist Week at Nottingham University.  Both K & M really enjoyed it, K went off on her own, M preferred to have me in attendance.  There were lots of different activities/games, which aid the School of Psychology in their research and all the children there seemed to be having a great time too.  They claim that 'children (and parents!) get to learn about how the mind and brain work by experiencing real science first-hand' and there are plenty of posters around explaining about the games that the children take part in, but I didn't see any children reading them and there were many things to do that M wasn't interested in letting me look either!  While M was doing the games there weren't any explanations about what they were for either, although I did overhear an older child's question about something being answered.  The only other explanation I heard of was the one which they called the Jedi Game, when you get to try to lift a ping-pong ball in a tube with your mind (it uses an EEG scan to pick up beta waves, which turns on a fan in the base of the tube if I understood correctly!).  In between the games upstairs, when children were taken off individually (parents welcome to stay with their child if desired), there were activites downstairs, such as the Jedi Game, Splat the Rat (try to hit the 'rat' with a bat as is came out of a sloping drainpipe), face painting and various others.  One that was quite interesting was one that involved throwing 3 beanbags into holes in a board with different points, then trying again with special glasses on that make everything look at though it's about 50cm to the right.  M watched another child have a go first and then on her turn very quickly worked it out and did nearly as well with the glasses on.

K the tiger!

When we got home, I asked the girls to tidy up in the playroom.  Not much tidying happened, but I did walk in to find K and a dog (M) doing some of the tapestry kits they had for Christmas!

 Then M and I had some fun mucking around with the camera.