Busy, busy, busy!

Another busy day in our busy week!  Today was Fun Club with the theme of autumn crafts.  There was pumpkin carving.

M's side

And K's side

Making plasticine/play dough (not sure!) models, the idea was to make fruit and veg in keeping with the theme, but...

M made a model of me (wearing green top with red sleeves & jeans)

K made a set of characters from The Witch Baby and Me books

Except Way Woof at the top is actually M's model of Flash, her new imaginary puppy, but she offered it to K for use as the character because it fitted nicely apparently.  There was also kite making, bread shaping, singing and story acting out (all of which M had a go at) along with butter making.  And of course one of the things K & M both love about Fun Club, as well as the activities, is that there's always time just to have fun with their friends, some of whom they only usually see at Fun Club!

After our usual call in at the scrapstore, we dashed home just in time to be in for when we said we would as our friend C, who is also the girls' piano teacher but currently recuperating from keyhole surgery on her shoulder, came round for a visit.  We introduced her to the delights of Phase 10, since of course we can't possibly have a day without it, even a busy one like today!  I'd been to see C soon after the op, but she'd asked me not to take K & M because they always make her laugh and it hurt too much to start with.  Remembering my post-caesarean days I can fully appreciate the problem!

We just about managed to squeeze in tea, K writing the labels for the above photo, and M having half a turn on the computer (I'll come back to that), when she & K watched some red fox videos which I'd bookmarked from when we were finding out about them, before it was time to head out to korfball!  Phew!

Regarding 'turns' on the computer.  We used to have the computer upstairs in what has more recently become K's room, so we had to move the computer.  It is now in the kitchen, which means that unlike before, when we would have spells when K & M wanted to go on it every day but also periods when they'd forget about it for weeks at a time, it's always in view so a reminder of that option.  I found that given the chance they would spend hours every day on here, which while I'm happy for them to use it for games, videos, finding out, writing etc etc I found that they stopped doing other things which they really enjoyed.  So I introduced 'computer time tokens'.  Each of them has 8 of these, 5 of which are 'anything' tokens, which means they can do what they like, and 3 are 'extra' tokens, which means they can still do most things, but not the things they 'always' choose, like Moshi Monsters or Nick Jr games.  This is partly to get them to try other things, but partly I admit because even though some of those sites purport to have some educational value, it's pretty limited in my view.  The tokens are worth 30 minutes, although some limited 'finishing off' is allowed, otherwise much distress would occur and be expressed extremely loudly!