This week has been a bit slow in the school department with much of my time taken up creating a new learning space out of our old hallway. The reason for doing this is to have a quiet place for the older ones to study, away from the little ones when necessary and also it will give us a place to leave out projects instead of them using our dining table (preventing us from eating dinner at the table). Here is a little peek at the work we have managed to do so far:
1) Gary shelved our old porchway, creating a huge school cupboard to store all our science, needle work and dressing up
2) We’ll be covering the ancient barn door, which used to be the front door (200 years ago) with a wedge of foam. This is easily removable when the weather improves, but whilst it is cold it will go a long way to insulating our hallway/school room
3) We are in the process of completely emptying the whole room, going through all the boxes that used to be stored in the hall way (this has basically been used a s a storage room for the past five years). Once empty we will be shampooing the carpet and then building little nooks and desks for all our students.
4) Our aim is to make a few more cupboards like this one to store home school stuff. The room doesn’t look like much now, but I have big plans!!
Whilst we have been busy school room creating the children have been learning about the Hundred Year War and as always have been doing much work towards their individual project work, which will form the basis of their presentations in April:
1) L11 is burning the edges of her banquet invitation in order to age it (post to come soon)
2) A5 got dressed in her astronaut costume and told me she was just popping to the moon and she’d see me in a couple of days.
3) T12 finally finished his play about the War of the Roses. I was blown away by it! For a boy who hates writing, he sure did write a lot (over 1000 words!) (post to come soon)
4) C11 is sewing the final touches to her peasant costume for her dolly. (post to come soon)
1) Having finished his play, T12 is putting together his costumes for the characters, using the dining room chairs as shoe horses!
2) These are dress designs the girls have done whilst watching Henry V, using inspiration from the film.
3) More costume sewing from C11
4) Here, L11 is designing some shields to attach to the velvet curtains for tapestry decorations for the banquet.
1) Here is Emma (our old baby sitter) playing guess who? with the children. She comes round every Monday night for dinner and play time with the children!
2) Daddy and his girls!
3) C11 helping her little sisters with their school work. This week I have been almost entirely occupied by clearing out our hallway, so I have leant heavily on my older three to help the younger one’s with their school work. The girls, in particular, enjoy doing this.
4) The little ones painting with their new palette paints. I knew I wouldn’t be so available over these two weeks, so bought in lots of bits and bobs to help keep the littles busy, yet still learning lots.
1) C11 is learning a dance called the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ at a youth group she attends. Here she is showing us all she had learnt
2) Then B3 wanted to join in and do a bit of jigging, which C11 was happy to oblige
3) L11 and B3 watching their sister whilst she dances. Look at that smile on B3’s face. Enough to melt the hardest of hearts, I think!
4) Gary and A5 also watching and enjoying a sneaky cuddle at the same time.
And finally a bit of sheer indulgence just for me. My lovely children:
So much gorgeousness all in one place!
And there you have it. Our week in collage. I hope everyone has a blessed week-end with friends, family and lots and lots of fun!
