Granny's here and we've been busy!

After the girls' trip down to spend the day with Granny and Big Grandad before bringing Granny back here to stay for a week.

On Thursday, M and Granny seemed to have a plan and the two of them shut themselves away doing secret things.  They didn't manage to finish it, so continued today and this evening, A and I were presented with the finished product.

It's an advent calendar.

Each of the windows is attached using a cut out Christmas greeting from old cards and I think the pictures behind them are too.  The little boxes on the right have a little something inside, one for each of the days up until the 23rd, then the 24th and 25th have a bigger something wrapped up and attached to the windows.

M has also made some more Christmas cards using the basic design that she came up with, which I think work really well.

One snowman, one Christmas tree and Billy the Blue Nosed Reindeer!

From the side.

K had come back from Granny's with an old sheet and an old pair of curtains and some plans.  She got the sewing machine out and, with no plan other then what was in her unfathomable head, she made herself something.

A skirt made out of one of the curtains.

 The waistband is the top of the curtain, with the band still on it and cinched in to give its shape.

She even sewed a zip in!

She just dived straight in, no measuring, no pattern, just her idea.  It seems to have turned out remarkably well!  I'll try to get a photo of her wearing it tomorrow.

This morning, the girls and Granny went out charity shopping and for some other bits and pieces.  In one of the charity shops, Shelter I think, M found a basket of Christmas baubles, which were priced at 10 for £1. She took three to the till and asked how much it would be for just those, because she wanted three of them. The lady asked her who they were for and when M told her that they were to share with her sister and Mummy and Daddy, she said that M could have them for free. M insisted on paying something and when my Mum pointed out there was a collection tin on the counter, the lady said to put 5p in there, but M put 20p in. My Mum told me that the lady was very moved by this and said that we must have a lovely home!

This afternoon K & I did the third 'lesson' of a geology unit, called The Birth of Rocks, of Mystery Science. Each unit involves watching a video, talking about what you've seen, doing an experiment or activity and filling in a worksheet.  There are then some extra links which you can follow up if you want to.  So far we have: plotted on a map where volcanoes are and determined that it's unlikely that one will pop up in our garden, but that it's not out of the question in some parts of the world; done an experiment to look at two different types of lava which you find in cone and shield volcanoes; and shaken sugar cubes in plastic tub to simulate erosion.  K is really enjoying it and quite happily filling in the worksheets for each lesson.  I'm hopeful that M might decide to have a go, having initially been put off when we started to have a look at the unit on dinosaurs and they started off by talking about a brontosaurus.  As a free resource, I would really recommend this website.  I know when my girls were younger it's very unlikely that they would have done the worksheets, but the videos are pretty good and the experiments easy but worth doing so far.

Finally, it's from a couple of weeks ago, but here's another one of K's quilling creations.  It was a commission; I asked her to make one for friends who have just moved house.

Her own design.