A long day out to London.

Yesterday K & M met the getting up, dressed and ready to leave the house by 8.20am challenge not only successfully but without any prompting from me at all.  I was very impressed!

We arrived at Portcullis House just in time for our tour of the Houses of Parliament, with A cutting it very fine but getting there by the skin of his teeth!

We got to go into the House of Lords (but not to sit down because only Lords, and Baronesses of course, are allowed to 'sit' in the House of Lords).  Our guide told us a bit about the Lords and how anyone of us could become one by becoming an expert in our field and being invited (at which K announced she didn't want to become one because she doesn't want to be 'important' when she grows up!).  We heard the division bell ringing a couple of times, once while we were in Westminster Hall (the only part where you're allowed to take photos)

Window in Westminster Hall

Model of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall

From there we went to the House of Commons, where we sat and listened to the a debate for a little while, there were very few members there though.  After this we returned to Portcullis House, where we attended a workshop about how laws are made.  It was very well done, using and expanding on what we'd learned on the tour.  Between us we came up with some ideas for a bill, then voted on which to debate.  Our bill was that all children should have 2 hours free time each day to do what they want to do.  Our bill started in the Commons and we debated it, standing up when we wanted to speak, then we voted on it.  Our bill then went to the Lords, where we debated some more, looking at the details and making amendments.  K suggested (through me as she didn't want to speak herself) that the bill should not be limited to children and M stood up to speak (my idea, but I'd already spoken on K's behalf and M was happy to speak) to point out that there might need to provision to help some families, for example where children might be carers for their parents.  We voted again and sent it back to the Commons.  There wasn't much ping-ponging between the Houses (not enough time), so we had a final vote (just as the division bell went!) and our became an Act of Parliament as it was voted through almost unanimously.

After this we asked K & M what they'd like to do for the couple of hours we had before the next organised activity, offering things that weren't too far away to make it worthwhile.  From the options presented (art gallery, cathedral and aquarium) they both went for the aquarium, so that's where we headed.  There was plenty to see and K & M both enjoyed doing the little activity book that involved collecting stamps in a passport, with questions about various animals along the way.

There was lots of rays, which we watched 'flying' through the water

Both K & M decided to touch the starfish when given the opportunity

One of the questions was about sharks' eggs, which are known as mermaid's purses

K used to be very scared of sharks and needed to close her eyes to walk past them, but has now decided she quite likes them!

We did have to rush the last part of the aquarium a bit, in order to get to the London Eye in time.  We went to see the short 4D film (3D plus real bubbles and squirted water!) first, then went on.  About 5.30pm was just about the ideal time of day to go on at this time of year, as we went up in the light, but by the time we were on our way back down it was getting dark, so although you could still see plenty, buildings were lit up and looking very beautiful.

A rare photo of the four of us!

Then it was back to the coach for the trip back, getting home (with an extremely tired M) just before 11pm.  Fortunately we didn't need to get up for anything in particular this morning!

A Social Whirl!

It's half term round these parts this week, which means that some of our regular activities (Brownies, ballet and korfball) aren't happening, although gymnastics and swimming are still on, so we still have a busy Thursday afternoon!  What it also means though is we can see schooly friends for more than a couple of hours squeezed in after school hours.  So we've seen two lots of local friends this week and they've done lots of playing, building dens/tents with sofa cushions/clothes airers & blankets and having fun (with some minor altercations, but then dealing with them is an essential life skill!).

Tomorrow we're off to London for a visit to the Houses of Parliament and a trip on the London Eye.  Even better, A has got a meeting in London in the morning, so he's taking the afternoon off and meeting us there and coming back on the coach with us.  He's got to get up at 5.30am to get a train down and I've got to do the packed lunches and get myself and the girls into town on the bus to get a coach for 9am.  That's going to be quite a challenge!

Other than that we've had quite a big tidy up in various parts of the house, mostly the playroom and the kitchen.  I am not a naturally tidy person, but when things get too bad it gets me down, so I am making a really conscious effort to lead by example and keep things tidier rather than ending up doing enormous tidy-ups every few weeks.  A whole day out will certainly help things to stay tidy anyway!

Halloween and Bonfire Night crafty things.

Today was HE group at Asfordby with the topic of Halloween and Bonfire Night and there were plenty of activities to chose from.  Not surprisingly both K & M went for decorating (and eating) several ghost/pumpkin shaped biscuits.  They each did a couple of other things too, such as glitter firework pictures.

M's

K's

 K also cut out and decorated a cat's face, which J (one of the mums) kindly drew for her because the ready made, peel bits off and stick scrunched up tissue paper ones were all gone.

 

 

M did her own take on the cotton bud skeleton picture activity.





 

M & I also had a go at apple bobbing, which was fun!

 

In other news, following on from the spellings 'there', 'their' and 'they're', I made a little worksheet with sentences with gaps where one of the three options should go.  I printed off a couple and left them for K & M, with the suggestion that they could do them on their own or with me.  My expectations were that K would not go for it, but that M might be up for doing it probably with me.  However up to this point, K completed it entirely on her own and completely correctly and M hasn't wanted to have a go at all!

Gingerbread constructions - Part 2.

Having made the parts yesterday, this afternoon was the part that I was somewhat wary of.  M went first, partly because she was very keen to do so, partly because hers was the simplest construction and partly because K wasn't yet dressed!  Then I put my walls together, before K did all of hers, then I added my roof.  So this is what they looked like once constructed, pre-decoration.

Left to right: M's, mine and K's.

Then we went at them with coloured icing (with and without the piping bag) and chocolate drops (some chopped up, some whole).  Here are the final results.

M's Swallows & Amazons tent construction, on an island, with campfire.

K's kennel with robot dog.

My little house (it's the Amazon's according to M), with roses and ivy climbing up the walls.

We really enjoyed it and both girls are very keen to do this on a regular basis!  I think the fact that there are plenty of icing bowls and spoons to lick is something that may have contributed to this declaration.

The all-important licking of the icing bowls and spoons.

Gingerbread constructions - Part 1.

Since we needed to pop out for some sugar to make the gingerbread and a friend came round to see us this morning, we didn't get properly going with the gingerbread making until after lunch.  Then using this recipe we made the dough and (with difficulty!) rolled it out.  Using our templates from yesterday, we cut out and baked the pieces.  M is making an island with a tent on it, K a dog kennel with robot dog and I'm doing a little house.

See how we get on with the construction in Part 2!

Planning for baking and a bit of science-y stuff.

We didn't actually do any baking today (unless potatoes count!?), but we have been deciding what we are going to construct out of gingerbread tomorrow.  I've persuaded M that a double decker bus would be a bit tricky, so she's going for a tent on an island (Swallows and Amazons influence, although it was pointed out to me that there really should be at least two tents) and I think K is going for a kennel for a robot dog.  I am attempting a fairly small house.  We have cardboard models made, which we will be able to dismantle to use as templates tomorrow.  Wish us luck!

K was busy writing another thank you and M was doing some secret sewing (a present for a friend), in between gymnastics and swimming, so I decided to have another go at an experiment showing the different densities of liquids, a rather less ambitious version of this one.  It was a bit more succesful than last time we tried, with just three layers.  I went for 5, from the bottom: honey, washing up liquid, milk, vegetable oil and surgical spirit.  This time I poured them in as carefully as I could and to start with although the milk mixed in with other things somewhat, the five layers were pretty clear.


Then M showed up so we had a look and also weighed some of the liquids that I'd used, in little containers that helpfully all weighed the same!  K had a look later too.

Surgical spirit

Washing up liquid

Milk

Vegetable oil

 Several hours later, there were still definite layers, but it looked a bit different.  The honey and oil layers are still well defined, but it would appear that milk and washing up liquid are happy mixing it up and curdled milk is considerable less dense than uncurdled milk!  I'm going to leave it all on the side to show the girls tomorrow and we can have a talk about it then.  I need to find out what curdling actually is!



Spelling.

Remember those two words that I suggested M learned yesterday?  Just in case you don't they were 'they' and 'said'.  We I asked her this morning if she could remember how to spell them and she could, so I asked if she'd like any more and she said she'd like one more.  I cheated a bit and gave her 'there', 'their' and 'they're' (if she manages all of those she'll be ahead of quite a lot of adults!).  At tea, over the pizza we'd made (I still that still counts as baking doesn't it?), I asked again about yesterday's words and she still had those and had one of the three new ones and was closer than she had been with the other two.  K has decided that she'd like to learn some useful tricky to spell words too, so she's got the same ones as M (minus 'they' of which she was already confident).  It's not unusual for us to start something like this and for it to tail off after a while, but I will attempt to keep it going for a while at least, because even if K & M only end up learning a dozen or so tricky, common words that's a good thing. 
When we started HEing spelling was one of those things that I thought we 'should' do and we did have a list of tricky common words up on the door in the kitchen for quite a long time.  As with many other things though (writing generally, reading, maths) I have found myself getting more and more relaxed about these 'necessities' of education as time goes on, because I've seen that, firstly they learn no matter what I do or how much I stress about things, and secondly when they decide they want to do something, rather than me attempting to push them into doing things, everyone is much happier and it works out much more successfully anyway!
Now I'm off to find some common tricky words - I know we've got a Jolly Phonics word book somewhere which should give me some ideas.

Did you know it's National Baking Week?

Well it is - National Baking Week that is!  So far this week I/we have made:

Sunday: Victoria sponge with cream and jam in the middle (although that was the day before the week officially started, as it was for K's birthday tea)
Monday: Banana and chocolate chip muffins
Tuesday: Bread rolls (a bit cheat-y as I made the dough in the breadmaker), scones and sourdough bread

Not sure what we're going to go for tomorrow.  K & M are very keen on making gingerbread constructions having seen the amazing efforts on The Great British Bake Off.  M wants to make a double decker bus!  I don't know if we'll try that tomorrow though.

After our bi-annual trip to our very nice dentist this morning, we had friends arrive late morning for lunch and a play.  While we were waiting for them to arrive M had a go on the computer and K a go working on a glitter dome kit that she'd been given for her birthday. 

Glitter dome with a model of Snowy, K's new polar bear birthday present

Good isn't it!

Flowers, which she gave to G & F as a present when they left!

K & I introduced C (the mummy) to Phase 10, while M went off with G (8) and F (4.5) to play Swallows and Amazons upstairs.  There was some playing in the garden and then a collaborative effort between all 6 of us resulted in some very good scones with whipped cream and Nana's strawberry jam. 

K has also written another thank you (to me and A this time) and M has started writing a story about Uncle M's trip to the moon, which is very smelly because it's made of stilton, where he ate some cheese, turned into a cow and jumped over the moon.  She's asked for a few words, but is doing pretty with spelling and often knows that something is a 'tricky' word even if she's not sure how to spell it, for example she asked how to spell 'doubt' because of that.  The only two common words that she got consistently wrong were 'they'  (theay) and 'said' (sied - only used it once this time though), so I've suggested she learn those two as they crop up frequently and I've written them in an exercise book for her.  I'm guessing just bringing them to her attention will probably be enough to fix them in her memory, but we'll see how it goes and I'll try asking her tomorrow if she can remember how they're spelled and suggest some ways of learning practising if necessary.

Playmobil Matilda goes on tour!

Having performed in the playroom the other day, the show moved on to the kitchen yesterday.


The audience (foreground) and singers (each complete with a microphone in the shape of e.g knife, spoon, ice-cream scoop)

The band of musicians (hidden behind the camper van).

K & I watched The Winter's Tale on the Shakespeare - Animated Tales dvd (along with Twelfth Night again, as that's her favourite).  We, the three of us, also tried to play Phase 10 but unfortunately(!) my luck is holding (as M puts it 'You *always* win!' and to be fair it really does seem that way) and M is really struggling with that.  After a fairly spectacular strop, once she'd had time to calm down over some reading in her room, we had a cuddle and a talk about it and I think we agreed she wouldn't want me to cheat in order to lose, but it is difficult!

Finally just a few pics of my gorgeous girls, who may fight fairly frequently, but also do this:

The final bit of the birthday.

As I've mentioned previously K & M get to choose either a birthday party or a treat (such as a trip somewhere, so far there's been the Natural History Museum for M and The Comedy of Errors for K).  If they for a treat though, we do have a few friends round for a 'birthday tea'.  Today was the birthday tea, which meant 4 friends plus K & M, so 6 girls aged between 7 & 9.5 here for two hours, with nothing planned except food!

Of the guests, there was one HEded friend, one friend from Brownies, one who we'd met through a mutual friend (they share the lovely C as a piano teacher) and the most recent friend who K had got chatting to in the playground and whose family has recently moved here from Spain.  The last two go to the same school, but are in different years, although they had met at a MadScience thing.  So none of them really knew each other well. 

K & M answered the door dressed as pirates (not entirely sure why!), with wooden swords in hand and spares (a couple wooden and a couple made of folded paper that M had made because there weren't enough otherwise).  The six of them disappeared to play in the garden, with sand, water and mud (staying remarkably clean it must be said) for an hour or so before having a raucously good time over tea.  All in all a very successful birthday tea!

In other news, for the first time K has been getting on with doing thank yous without much nagging reminding about it.  It's also the first time that she's been writing more than 'To X, Thank you for the Y.  Love from K'.  She's not writing much extra, just a little bit, but it's really lovely to see that she's going that little bit further and personalising things.

A couple of things I forgot.

After I'd finished my blog post yesterday it occured to me that I'd forgotten to mention.

Firstly K was very excited by her discovery that one of the songs on her Matilda the musical cd is even cleverer than she'd first realised.  In the lyrics in the insert, it's not made obvious but you can see here that the alphabet is spelled out in the course of the song, which K found utterly brilliant!

Secondly, having written some thank you cards, we put one in an envelope and I addressed it ready to post.  Then on the way to ballet, having hand delivered one of the thank yous to neighbours, K dashed off and posted the one to Nana and Little Grandad before I could stop her and before I had put a stamp on it!  So we had a conversation about why we need stamps, both in terms of Royal Mail being a business that needs to make money and in terms of why we need the stamp itself, rather than just giving the money and the letter in at the Post Office.  Later she phoned Nana to let her know what had happened, apologise and she also offered to pay for the mistake.

Today my girls were mostly...

...making Playmobil figures put on a performance of all of the songs from Matilda the musical, with an audience of Playmobil figures some (including royalty!) sitting on the piano keyboard and some top of the piano (up in the gods). 

However in between performances, K has been writing thank you cards, and of course it's feed yourself Friday!  M really wanted to make toad in the hole today, but I persuaded her to wait until Daddy was home and we could all eat together for that, so instead we had cheesey mash and beans, one of the girls' favourites.  So M, with some help, made that instead for lunch.  They also made their own tea after K's ballet.  M had pate (sorry, no accents on the laptop!) on toast, then K decided on eggy bread.  Once K had made her eggy bread, M wanted eggy bread too, so she had some with jam for pudding.

To return to the thank you cards.  Earlier in our home educating journey, I tended to get rather stressed about the lack of writing that both of my girls did.  Understandably, both my girls, but K in particular, would only do any writing if they saw a point in it and contrived reasons very rarely cut it.  One thing that they did see a point in was writing thank you letters, so partly because it's a nice thing to do and partly because it gave a 'real' reason for writing, thank you letters/cards/emails are something we've always done.  Phone calls would also be fine, but neither girl tends to go for those.  Nowadays, I'm more laid back about feeling the need to see that my girls can write (partly because I have seen that they can!), but the tradition of thank you cards remains.  There have been some lovely moments when doing them, like the time one of them wrote (I think it was K) following a present of lots of bits and pieces rather than one larger gift, without any help at all:
Dear Granny and Big Grandad
Thank you for the stuff
Love from
K

Back to those statistics.

This morning, while K & M were playing Phase 10 with each other (as a change from with me!), I put all of those ages and heights into a graph.  As I suspected, neither K nor M was particularly interested, but they were interested enough to briefly talk about the concept of using graphs to show information about two different things and about the general correlation between age and height that then levels off when people stop growing (very useful having C's two grown up children's heights!).  It's not unusual for me to think that K & M might be interested in something and have them throw a cursory glance at it, or us have a brief conversation and then move on, only for me to find out months later that a lot more went in that was apparent at the time.

Thursday afternoon is still busy with gymnastics and swimming lessons, even without piano lessons while K & M's lovely teacher is in her post-operative incapacited state.  Gymnastics was focussed on cartwheels today, which is just what K & M had been hoping for, and while they're still not quite there, it's very clear that they are making good progress.
In between gymnastics and swimming M announced that she wanted to bake, and we just about managed to fit in the baking, decorating (and the all important licking of bowls) before heading off for swimming. 


The fairy cakes - decorated as dogs, aliens and just randomly.

M decorated most of them, K the one on the right and I did the ones on the left as we were running out of time.  While M was baking, K was busy starting on some scratch art that she'd been given for her birthday and doing a bit of sewing.  She made a top for a teddy that was a late birthday present that arrived today from Great Aunty A.  An interesting design, it's two rectangles of felt, sewn down one side with a hole for the arm and with the bottom of the other side stitched together and a button on the shoulder.

Over tea, K & M had put on a story cd from the library in which an old, sick dog is put down.  K asked why we don't do that to people, so we paused the cd to have a conversation about euthanasia.  K generally sees things as pretty much black and white, but I think she did appreciate that it's not always that simple.

A bit of variation

What to do when your children want to play the same game again and again and again?  Well today, the answer was to introduce some numbers and colours in German for a bit of variety!  To be fair, we haven't been playing Phase 10 at least once a day as we had been for a little while, but both K & M are still very keen on it.  I quite like it as a game, but it is rather wearing playing with M because, while she doesn't mind losing as such, she *really* doesn't like it when she doesn't manage to get her phase down in a hand and even more so if she has a lot of points in her hand.  This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that I do seem to be unfeasibly lucky in these things!

Not what I'd planned...

After seeing how tall my girls were according to the age measurements in the uniform shop, I thought it would be quite interesting to see how other 'real' children compare to such charts.  So partly out of interest for me and partly because I thought a bit of real world statistics might interest K & M, I decided to ask for ages, heights and genders of my Facebook friends and folks on a HE group there.  I've had lots of responses (thank you!) and have written them down in a table ready to collate in graph form.  That's as far as I've got so far though, as K & M decided they really wanted to watch our Matilda video (yes - we still have videos!) this afternoon, having been listening to K's new Matilda - the musical cd, which we bought for her birthday, on a loop over the past few days.

Yesterday evening a FB friend posted a link to this 'mega maths mat', which I thought looked rather good, so I printed a couple out and left them one each on the kitchen table.  K hid hers somewhere 'secret' (I don't know if she looked at it first), but happily looked at M's with us over lunch.  We briefly talked about each section, spending a bit more time over acute, right, obtuse and reflex angles.  The thing that we ended up talking about most was the triangles though and K managed, with just a little nudge to discover how to find the area of a triangle.  First I drew a square and rectangle on some squared paper and we recapped about finding the area, then I drew some triangles, and M turned one into a picture of a girl!  Then I added a dot to suggest looking for the rectangle with the same base and height as the triangle.  K came up with the correct answer for the area of the first triangle, although I'm not entirely sure how she got to it.  So we counted the whole squares and paired up the partial ones that seemed to make whole ones, and found the same answer and then finally we came to the formula.

In other news, after going to the library this morning, we went to the park on the way home and happens fairly frequently M decided to climb a tree.  In the park there are a few options and today she went for a rather tall pine tree which is a fairly easy climb if you're small enough to get in close to the trunk and light enough for the not particularly big branches to take your weight.  It occurred to me that it would actually be a practical application of the trigonometry that I learned at school and haven't ever used, to work out just how high she got, but it was at least as high as the start of the roof on the average two storey house.  As her mother it was rather impressive but quite scary!

Phew - that was a busy day!

Between about 9.45am and 8.15pm K & M were home for about 45 minutes today.  I managed a little longer, as for the last part of that they were at Brownies. 

First up was an LLL Toddler meeting, then we went straight from there to Asfordby for a HE group, with lunch on the way for the girls.  The topic this time was 'The 5 senses' and there were various things to do and see, taste and so on.  Both K & M had a look at some of the optical illusions, such as this one, this one and this one.  K preferred to spend most of her time playing outside, either by herself or later with others.  M joined in the 'touch' part, with lots of boxes with various things inside demonstrating the various different ways we experience things through touch, including heat (hot water bottle), air current (fan), pain (holly leaves), soft touch (feathers) and various others. 

We squeezed in a short break at home, until it was time to go for tea and play at some schooly friends, where we were introduced to Chase the Cheese, which looks really good!  I had a go with a couple of the cards and can see it could get very addictive.  Then it was on to Brownies before home for bed.  Fortunately tomorrow is a bit quieter!

Busy birthday weekend.

A very busy weekend in fact!  First thing on Saturday, K opened her presents and cards at breakfast.

One of things that she had said she would like for her birthday was a red cardigan, so Granny had said she and Big Grandad would get her one, so we went down to the local uniform shop and K tried on the one they'd put aside, which fitted nicely, so she had that too.  While we were there I also bought M some Brownie uniform.  In the shop they have on the wall two measuring guides to help with sizing, one for boys and one for girls.  Out of curiosity I asked both K & M to stand against the girls one.  I knew she was tall, but K, on her 9th birthday came up to just above the start of the 11-12 year old range!  And M, at 7 years 4 months has already reached the 9 year old one too.

After a quick trip to the sweet shop, we spotted quite a large group of Morris dancers and discovered that it was the 40th anniversary of a local group, who were celebrating with other groups from around the country including Chester and Cardiff, by having what appeared to be a pub crawl with drinking and dancing at each of their stops, and were moving on to Stratford like us.  And indeed when we got to Stratford and headed to the theatre to pick up our tickets, there they were!

As requested we then went to the Birthplace, where we saw some 'old friends' among the Shakespeare Aloud! actors, including the lovely Jen, who spent so long talking with us back on our first visit here.  She did remember us and told us that the Twelfth Night sonnet (near the bottom of the page here) I'd written in the thank you card we did for them was published in their in house newletter!  She also got quite a crowd in the garden singing Happy Birthday to K!

Then we moved on to have an early lunch, so we'd have plenty of time to get to the theatre for K's chosen birthday treat of the final performance of the season of The Comedy of Errors.  It lived up to expectations entirely and neither K nor I could chose between it and Twelfth Night that we saw back in July.  I had also arranged a little extra surprise, as back then I had tweeted Emily Taaffe who played Viola in Twelfth Night, saying how much we'd enjoyed it and that K had asked to come back for her 9th birthday treat and she had replied saying if we'd like to come to the stage door afterwards she'd like to say Happy Birthday, so we did and she was lovely.

A & M had spent the afternoon at a playground, visiting Hall's Croft and then back to the Birthplace where we met up with them.  Then it was back to Granny's & Big Grandad's for the birthday tea.  K had written invitations to Uncle M and Great Grandma, both of whom had replied, one via email, the other by post, to say that they would love to come. 

Of course there was the cake that K, M & I had made between us on Friday.

This morning we went to see 'Granny's new swimming pool', she's recently started swimming at a new place a country hotel with a spa/gym attached.  It met with their approval and they and Granny had a good swim, while I sat on the side and read my book.  Then on the way home we went to see Nick Skelton's golden postbox outside the Post Office in Alcester, which my Mum swore she told me about, but I have no recollection whatsoever!

Birthday preparations!

Busy, busy, busy today!  This is my list of things to do:

Hang out washing
Bake, ice & decorate the birthday cake
Pack: clothes, birthday things, other stuff
Pick up prescription
Call in at M&S (because H, the lady who does the tasting is there on a Friday!)
Make and eat lunch
Make something with the too many ripe bananas we have
Play Phase 10 (I didn't write that one!)
Make tea for K & M
Cleaning - need to vacuum quite badly in places
Go to Granny & Big Grandad's!

So quite a lot to fit in as you can see.  Fortunately I've had plenty of help today.

M made the birthday cake, with just a little bit of help, while I hung the washing out.

M making her sister's birthday cake

We made the icing between us and both girls very helpfully licked things clean afterwards.

K wanted to decorate the cake herself.

It's an erupting volcano!

We didn't quite manage Feed Yourself Friday today, but M pulled, peeled and chopped the carrots and K washed and cut up the broccoli we had with lasagne for lunch (leftovers from the freezer).  K & M sorted out their clothes ready for packing   I managed to make a loaf of banana bread and we did squeeze in a game of Phase 10 with a break in the middle.  And in addition to all that both girls have broken their own personal skipping records.  After struggling to turn the rope slow enough to do running along skipping M has cracked it and managed 100 skips before stopping and K is gradually getting better and better and has 'moved up the leaderboard' with 66.  Top of the leaderboard is still Martha (from The Secret Garden) with 500 'when she were a lass', M's now next with 100, then K with 66, I managed 55 today and Mary Lennox is on 20.

Finally, I saw what I think is a very funny and rather clever maths joke on Facebook, which I wanted to share with my girls.  We've briefly touched on how to work out the area of a square, when we looked at The Happy Scientist video (sorry it's subscription only, but the little we've looked at so far looks really good!) about water upside down in a glass, and we have previously talked about volume.  So I reminded them about this and with a bit more explaining about not needing a x for multiplication in algebra etc, I told them the joke and showed the picture, which they agreed was funny.  K decided that it would also work for Pippi Longstocking, and I agreed on the assumption that Pippi was in fact a cylinder!