The postman rang twice..

..this morning. The first time he handed me a smallish cardboard box, the second time a plastic parcel. Inside were our Pairs in Pears and Bananagrams. Both K & M enjoyed having a go at playing around with the letters.

I think it was mostly M that came up with this and apart from a little bit of help with some of the spelling (elaphants, sistur, nugits) it was just down to her and K.

This one was just M's work, she would have continued but ran out of the letter 'S'.


Other than that we continued and finished Ballet Shoes and both K & M did some more cross stitch.
K at work...

And the two coasters she's made so far from the kit she had for her birthday.

Having finished reading Ballet Shoes, we talked about what we might move on to. Given that Shakespeare has cropped up in Ballet Shoes, (Pauline and Petrova take parts in both A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard III) and they received a boxed set of Shakespeare stories for Christmas, we thought we might read some of them (although only the comedies, because K does *not* like sad things). We'll also be able to visit some of the Shakespeare places next time we visit my parents (I grew up about 10 minutes from Stratford-on-Avon).

After all that literature and craft we had a bit of a change and watched a few episodes of both Walking With Dinosaurs and the follow up Walking With Beasts and K watched the second Stargazing programme that was on the BBC recently and I recorded, while M & I played Bananagrams.

A Victorian Day - with a twist.

Today I have been reading aloud to K & M, while they have been quietly sitting doing cross-stitch. Very Victorian, no? Okay, but how many Victorian girls would have been doing a cross-stitch of a dinosaur whilst dressed as a dog? Sadly M said I wasn't allowed to take a photo and 'put it on blog' as my girls say.
It's been quite a while since I have read half a book in a day, about 6 months ago I was doing so on a regular basis, but coughs, colds and a lack of voice put paid to that over the winter. Today I started reading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild and was barely allowed to stop for lunch.
We've had this book for probably over a month from the library and K has been reading it but with several other books on the go at the same time. I got the impression that she did quite like it but was finding it rather tough going. She finally finished it this week and I asked if she thought M would like it, which she did, so I offered to read it allowed during the day (rather than bedtime story, which M chooses herself) and she was quite keen. She is enjoying it much more having it read to her than when she read it herself.

Sitting on my hands and a cracking time.

The two small people had a rather considerable disagreement earlier as to who would get to bake today. I wasn't sure whether we'd fit in two lots (and the suggestion that one do so today and one tomorrow was roundly rejected), so suggested that they could do so together, given that the main issue was actually how the fairy cakes would be decorated, rather than what they wanted to bake.

I decided to just leave them to it and as I start typing here they're getting started with making fairy cakes. It can be a bit hit and miss whether they manage to cooperate or descend into an argument, but so far it seems to be going okay. I'm trying really hard not to get involved and just let them get on with it, although I haven't been able to resist pointing out a couple of things to keep them on track.

After the baking the bit that they always look forward to...

Then the decorating. K had borrowed a cupcake recipe book from the library quite a while back and so had chosen something from there (with a twist for her 'own special one')

M did her own thing mostly, including a Bagpuss one specially for me.

Considering the icing that's green, darker pink and grey was left over from K's birthday in October and is really horribly dried out, I think they've done pretty well!

And to cap it all off, they've had a pretty good go at cleaning up after themselves (after a bit of prompting from me that is).

We've had rather a productive day today. This morning there was making and painting happening and I'm happy to say that both K & M have reached the stage when they can not only get paints and the like out themselves, but can also do a pretty good job of clearing everything up afterwards! M made 'a box for carrying things', which she painted along with a telescope and various containers.

K painted a telescope, I think probably for use in future Swallows & Amazons games.

After a quick trip to the shops and the library we came home and finally got round to using the egg shells we'd saved from Pancake Day to do an eggsperiment (sorry - couldn't resist!) from our science experiments book. Called Dome Sweet Dome in the book, it demonstrates the strength of a dome shape.

You need 4 eggs, break them at the pointed end and use the contents for making pancakes, or if you find you need more, making fairy cakes!

Wrap sellotape around the middle of eggs and draw a line round the widest part, then score around the line with sharp scissors or craft knife.

Break off the shell around the hole and then using sharp scissors, carefully snip around the line. (If the shell beyond the line cracks you have to start again.)

Lay out the four eggs in a rectangle shape. Then bring on the bricks or heavy books and see how many you can add before the eggshells break.

We then went on, by rearranging the eggshells into a triangle and repeating. After that we discovered that two eggshells can easily support a children's encyclopedia if you help it balance, but not a 6.5 year old sitting on top, and that one eggshell won't support an 8 year old under similar conditions!

Same place, different time.

We were back at Wollaton Hall and Deer Park today, this time meeting up with lots of other HE folks for Wildlife Watch Group rather than just the family. We had the adventure of going by bus, as the car was in for a service, so that took nearly an hour, as we had to change buses in town.

We were talking about adaptation and after a game outside matching up different adaptations with different animals, we went inside to draw animals and to think about why they are the way they are, in other words how they have adapted to their habitat. M drew a zebra and a cheetah and K drew the baby leopard, although neither was particularly inclined to consider the question of adaptation. Ho hum!

After a half hour break for lunch, we met back up and went for a walk down to the lake. We were going to do the same again but for the living residents, but due to the drizzle decided to go for a walk around the lake instead.

Both girls enjoyed playing with friends varying in ages from about 4 to 12 and adults. K also went off by herself for a while to be 'a grown up explorer' in the bushes and undergrowth.

No trip to Wollaton is complete without a trip to the climbing tree, so after the group broke up, quite a number headed there and the tree was considerably more crowded than on Sunday!

By mid-afternoon there were 3 adults and 4 children left and we retired to the café to recharge. Before leaving we had a look at a room behind one of the shops, that we hadn't realised was there, which has native wildlife displays. We will be returning with our British bird book to make sure we were right about what some of them were!

We had such a good time that we had to dash for the bus to get home in time for K's ballet lesson!

Blast from the past - with focus on K

My girls have long been aware of some of the children's television programmes from my childhood. We have dvds (that came free with newspapers that friends or relations have passed on to us) of Mr Benn, The Flumps, Henry's Cat and more. I also am the proud owner of a Bagpuss hot water bottle cover. It was only this week, however that K & M have encountered the programme itself. M watched a couple of episodes on youtube while K was at Brownies on Monday and yesterday they both watched some more, including this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwXL61aMTpU&feature=related

This morning K locked herself in the bathroom for over half an hour and then moved to the playroom, asking for privacy for another hour or more. Eventually she emerged with her 'Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Mill!'

A story by M

I have M's permission to put her story on the blog and she says people she knows are allowed to look at it.

I have attempted to transcribe it faithfully as regards punctuation and spelling, but must admit that I didn't worry about lower/upper case because it would have taken me about 3 times as long to copy out!

M wrote this in 4 or 5 sessions over the course of several weeks. For the first session she asked for help with spelling many of the words, but after that it was only ocassionally that she did so.

I hope you enjoy it!

Part of the original:

The transcript:
Once upon a time Christine was packing to go on holiday. Once she had packed. She was about. to cook but then she stopped she hadn’t thougt what was for lunch and then she knew what she was having for lunch She was having her favourite potatoes with potatoe sawce once she had her lunch she arried on packing the next day she few to potatoe cottage. She was verry excited I love potatoes She landid at an airport she walked to potatoe cottag she was verry tired but hat to unpack she floped on the bed. A wile later she got up and unpack’d her stuff she was verry tired. She ate her meal potato tost and potato juice for poding she had jam rolly polly with potato.
She was so tired she went strate to bed.

The next morning she got her breakfast (potato on bread) then she loocked at a map. She dicidide to go to potato tawn. She set of for potato tawn ivenchaly she got thear. It was luvly thear. She bhort a potato ice-craem she ivan went on the potato tran (instead of a ghost tran) Then she went home. Then she went in the garden a wile later. She went home cose it was
Christine’s birthday and she was having a party. And she prapared it her frends will get thaer soon just then the dore bell rang and all her frends got thaer. Her favret paesant’s wer Mr potato Haed and a box of potato’s The End

Cats and dogs and fruity games

K & M have been dressing cats and dogs.

Tabby Kitten has a new top, made by K. A rectangle with a hole cut in the middle, then stitched up the sides with buttons for decoration.

Christopher has a new collar and tag (they're at the back), made by M using a bone shaped bead thing she found yesterday at Wollaton.

Spot has a lovely new hat and bib made by M.

Those were all made yesterday evening. Today M decided to go one step further and be a dog!

We've only got pink, blue and white face paints at the moment, but the make up that I hardly ever use came in handy, as did a couple of pairs of my socks.

After this M wanted to face paint me...

M was slightly put out that I didn't want to leave the house like that, but I really wasn't up for that! We went to spend the day with friends, because they had an 'insect' day. At the request of boy M (who's a year older than K, there's also girl A, who is about the same age as M and their mum another K!), we took Carcassonne with us and played that and also a couple of game that they have, which I think we're going to invest in. We all played Pairs in Pears (http://www.bananagrams.com/Our_Games/Pairs_In_Pears/) and while the children played dinosaur Top Trumps, mum K and I played Bananagrams (http://www.bananagrams.com/Our_Games/Bananagrams/), which is a bit tricky for K & M at the moment, but boy M and I played afterwards. I really enjoyed it and the tiles can be used in all sorts of ways in the mean time. It's a bit like having a set of scrabble tiles in a handy bag.