The creations.

Having baked the girls' Fimo creations, I can now post a photo of K's (M said a very firm 'no').

K's Fimo creations.

K was inspired by watching Blue Peter, when the presenters dressed up for World Book Day.  I can't remember who was who, but K made each of them plus something to go with each of the characters.  Clockwise from the left she made: a golden ticket and an oompa-loompa, Cruella DeVil and a dalmation, and a ring (stolen by) Gangsta Granny.

M's computer art.

M used paint and did lots of overlapping similar shapes and coloured them in varying shades.  I think it looks really effective.

A day in town.

Wednesday was always going to be a busy one.  We got the bus into town and got lots of things done before ice-skating.  Since M decided she'd like to learn the French horn, it has been clear that a visit to Windblowers was in order, but illness and busy-ness have got in the way.  We went there first, spoke to a very helpful man, M got to have a go on an instrument and we came away with a list of possible teachers to get in touch with and an idea of how much a starter instrument is going to cost.  After Windblowers we went to the theatre for me to pay for and pick up over 30 tickets for a group trip that I'm organising to see Tom's Midnight Garden next month.

The tickets!

We just had time to go and buy K a new swimming costume before we had pizza for lunch and then went to ice-skating.  For the second month in a row, I didn't skate because of nasty coughs (with the added bonus of a chest infection this time), but sat upstairs in the nice, warm cafe and chatted with some other mums instead.  We bought a birthday present for the girls' friend J on the way home and then once home, I read quite a lot more of the Gemma book we're on and then after the girls' swimming lesson, tea and getting ready for bed, I finished it off.

Today K & M were both busy being creative this morning.  K shut herself away the playroom for several hours making things out of Fimo (photo to follow hopefully), inspired by something she'd seen on Blue Peter.  M meanwhile was getting arty using Paint on the computer (I need to ask her if I can put a copy on here).  Over lunch we continued with French, revising the vocabulary I'd introduced on Tuesday, using the real things and then playing Kim's game with them.  I put all the things on the table, asked the girls to shut their eyes and then removed one or more of the objects and they had to work out what was missing.  Shortly after lunch, our friends E, C, L & J arrived.  K, M & C went and continued to work on whatever it is they're planning, something that will take place at Asfordby I understand.  J & L played outside, as did the girls for a while too, while E & I had a cuppa and a chat.  After they left, M wrapped up J's birthday present and we popped round to deliver it and stayed for a while.

Getting on with things.

I wasn't expecting K & M to do quite as much as they did today.  This morning K spent quite a while reading Maths Quest books that we borrowed (again) from friends yesterday, in fact she wanted to carry on reading while M had her piano lesson rather than playing Phase 10 with me as she usually does.  M, meanwhile, has decided that for lent she is going to write letters to people.  She started a letter to Nana for her first one, but then stopped because she decided she wanted to make her something to enclose.  She thought she might knit her something, but eventually settled on plaiting her a bracelet, then finished off the letter.  It was quite short, but I was struck by how much smaller and neater her handwriting looked.  She had asked me how to spell 'learn', but despite that there were only two spelling mistakes, one of which she spotted herself (she'd written 'prasant' instead of 'present') and the other I pointed out to her ('planing' instead of 'planning').  She is also still writing some of her letters as capitals rather than lower case, but is open to the idea of trying to get this side of things 'right' too.  M also told me about a big dinosaur book that she has got out and started reading.  While K was having her lesson, given the weather is still beautiful, M wanted to go to the park, which we did posting her letter to Nana en route.

Over lunch, I reminded the girls that they had decided that a little bit more structure might be good and asked if we should do a bit of French, which they agreed to.  I dug out a folder of the teachers' resources from the book I used to teach from at school, Metro, and introduced some vocabulary of things you find in a pencil case, using a couple of little worksheets.  Then when K & M had had enough, suggested that they could fill in the worksheets later on.  I'm not entirely sure what they were up to for much of the afternoon, as they disappeared and were quiet, so I did some LLL work.  By about 4 o'clock, I gently reminded K that I had asked her to do the worksheet and that she had asked me to insist if she didn't want to do things but she still wasn't ready at that point, however half an hour later I tried again and somewhat to my surprise, she straight away sat down and got on with it and M joined her!  They worked together, reminding each other of some of the words and I didn't mind helping if they got stuck and it only took about 10 minutes, but that was fine because then it was time for tea and after that korfball.  I read some more of the Gemma book while they were having tea, because I'd really quite like to get it over and done with!

Quiet weekend.

After a quiet weekend, I'm feeling much better (still coughing though), which is good because A is away quite a lot this week. 

K had ballet as usual on Saturday and in the afternoon, M decided to get her bike out for the first time this year and take it to the park, while I went to the library.  As well as taking some books back, I wanted to have another look at the exhibition there.

One of the exhibits.

We had agreed that I would come and find M in the park, but we hadn't said what time, which we really should have done, because as I was leaving the library M was coming to find me a bit upset because I'd been too long.  We had a hug and agreed that next time we would make sure that we arranged a time to meet up.  M had been practising riding her bike one-handed.  After doing some shopping we spent some time at the park, enjoying what felt like the first day of spring.

Catkins on a twisted willow

More signs of spring.

She was doing pretty well  by the time we went home.

Today was Asfordby, with a maths theme.  As usual K & M mostly spent time with their friends, but K did make a polyhedron from a printed out net.  K & M are planning something with their friends C & Z, although we're not allowed to know what it is yet, it did entail K doing quite a lot of writing, which she gave to C.  I think it's some sort of play, but we'll probably find out in due course.

Once we got home, I read quite a lot of the next Gemma book by Noel Streatfeild, having finished the first one at the weekend.  K in particular wants me to read all four of them before we move on to anything else and M is happy with that, so I'm going along with it, although they really aren't anything like as good as some of her other books that we've read.

Looking after me.

Yesterday morning I made a doctor's appointment for today (Friday) first thing, which was the first non-emergency appointment that they had (at this point I really must say that our surgery is brilliant, I have heard so much about how difficult it is to get appointments, needing to phone up at a particular time and obstructive ways of doing things, we are very fortunate that ours is not like that).  However, when I coughed up a bit of blood, I thought I should probably go straight away and so called back and got one of their 'end of surgery emergency appointments' instead.  Unsurprisingly, the doctor diagnosed a chest infection and prescribed some antibiotics. 

From the doctor we dropped off my prescription at the chemist, then went to the girls' piano lessons, before picking the medicine back up on the way home.  Once we got home, it was almost as though I had been given permission to be ill, as I spent the whole afternoon shivery and dozing on the sofa.  I had previously said that M could bake this afternoon, so she did.  She made chocobanana cookies, that she has made before, although they didn't turn out looking exactly as they were supposed to.

I've no idea what she did wrong, but they still taste good!

M also did her best to get tea ready, with a bit of help from K.  She made the batter for toad-in-the-hole and prepared carrots and broccoli to go with it.  I really didn't feel up to it, so called A to find out when he could be home yet.  Fortunately he could be home quite quickly and although I don't think he really appreciated the effort that M had put in to what she'd done, since what hit him when he walked into the kitchen was the mess! 

I tried to get up to have tea with A & the girls, but it quickly became clear that that wasn't going to happen and I failed to keep the second dose of the anti

K & M were rather disappointed that our planned trip to Conkers didn't happen today, but they were very understanding and realised that it was out of the question.  It's been a lovely day today and K & M have spent most of the afternoon outside, on our next-door neighbours' trampoline first and then playing in the garden, while I have spent the day in bed.  M has been popping upstairs every so often, to check that I'm okay and see if I want anything.  K went to the Co-op for me and then later to the library, having had a message that they had something in that she'd reserved (another Harry Potter cd set).  Other than that I know that M has been doing some Timez Attack on the computer, and a flag learning game app on the tablet (she's pretty confident on the South American ones now, but hasn't started on the capitals I don't think).  I also saw K doing DragonBox - although we are still waiting for the 12+ version for PC to be released (due out this spring).

A bit of science and French.

I didn't manage to finish my last post, it got too late and I needed to sleep! 

K stayed a bit longer at the library and I went home to take the shopping and check that M was okay.  She had only just got off the sofa from reading her book, so I told her about the new exhibition at the library and she decided to go and have a look too.

After lunch and some computering for the girls, while I read myself, we did the last two of the experiments in the Magic Science Kit.  The first one was more of the same, combining acids and bases, the only difference being that this time we were comparing the reactions when done with hot and cold water.

M mixing in the citric acid.

K checking it's all dissolved.

The final experiment involved some glow in the dark stuff (to be honest I can't remember what it was exactly).  It worked okay, but wasn't spectacular and it was rather uncomfortable squashing ourselves into the cupboard under the stairs to see it!

After this, we had a look at The Happy Scientist website, and watched his video of an experiment that is also in our big Science Experiments book.  This is an experiment that I have been meaning to have a go at for ages, but since it involved burning a candle, and ours wasn't short enough, so we couldn't do it straight away as we had to let it burn down quite a bit, so we didn't actually do this until just before bedtime.  You need a flat bottomed shallow dish, a candle, a glass vase (we used a pint glass, but a vase would be better) and some water.  Use some melted wax (or playdough) to fix the candle in the middle of the dish, light the candle, put water in the dish and place the vase/large glass over the lighted candle.  After a while the candle flame gets smaller and then goes out, as it has used up all the oxygen, then the water level inside the glass rises above the level in the dish.  According to the Happy Scientist, lots of books get the reason for the water rising incorrect, so we checked in our book, which happily agrees with him and indeed is the reason that I said while we were watching the video.  Apparently some books state that the water rises because the oxgyen being used  up by the flame causes the pressure inside the glass to drop, however the Happy Scientist, our book and I all said that it was the drop in temperature that caused the drop in pressure.

You can just about see the water level in the glass.

After we'd watched the video, I asked the girls to have a think about whether we need to have a bit more structure, although with me being ill it's not going to happen immediately anyway.  They both said that they thought we did, and interestingly after M had said she would like to learn French, K said that she thought she would like to as well, but that she thinks that sometimes I might need to insist when she doesn't feel like doing it and she does want me to do that.  K & I had a look at this website, and had a go at games on the topic of pets.

More bleurgh.

I have been feeling completely rotten since my last post.  Since having whooping cough a just over a year and a half ago, I think I'm rather more susceptible to coughs than I used to be and this is a particularly nasty one.

We had friends visiting over the weekend, so everyone else went out to the local park on the Saturday and then Rushcliffe Country Park on the Sunday.  We also introduced our friends to Forbidden Island, as well as playing The Big Fat Tomato Game, which we'd played when we called to see them on the way home from my parents' at Christmas.  They also brought a game with them, The Game of Life zAPPed, along with Mh's ipad which K & M really liked.

My lovely girls have been generally really helpful, both in letting me sleep in (til midday on Monday!), and doing more than usual around the house with no complaints at all.

Tuesday was Fun Club, where one of mums, C, talked to the children about the process of conceiving, designing, making and evaluating a product.  The children then designed and made their own item.  The brief was some kind of storage to go on a desk (although if they wanted to make something else, that was fine too).  Neither K nor M did much in the way of planning or designing and just dived straight into the making, but they both enjoyed it and were pleased with the end results.

M's desk tidy.

Since gymnastics is no longer on on a Tuesday, for the first time in ages we didn't have to rush off after Fun Club, which was good, as I'm not really up to rushing anywhere at the moment!  It was pancakes for tea (and breakfast and M even had cold ones for her packed lunch for that matter), then korfball for the girls.

This morning, K & I went out to the library, but M was so ensconced in the book she was reading (the first of the Charlie Bone series) that she decided to stay at home. There is a beautiful new exhibition in the library, by the local Embroiderers' Guild with some absolutely stunning works of art.

 K stayed to read, surrounded by the beautiful works, while I went and did some shopping.