The week began with the local pet shop celebrating being open for a year. We happened to find out about it whilst B5 and I were buying dog bones (for our paleontology dig!) and the lady gave B an invitation. Well, B talked of nothing else all week, and how she had been invited to a party. She counted how many days left every five seconds or so for three whole days! I was relieved when it arrived. Her sisters took her and A to the party and they had enormous fun getting there face painted and bringing back some decorated fairy cakes (!) for the dog. Yes really.
Remember the loom band craze we had going on a year or so ago? L led that particular craze as she leads the latest one – polymer clay. I am trying to decide which I prefer. It is basically between having billions of plastic bands everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) or finding polymer clay trod into our rug and stuck to the tiled and wooden floors. I am left wondering why my children don’t take up something less messy….stamp collecting for example, or train spotting. Actually train spotting is perfect on account of it being out of the house. But alas, no, it seems polymer creations are my current lot in life, and many a pleasant hour is spent being shown the hundred and one creations made on a daily basis 🙂
I have to admit, the children’s creation are really very good, and it is one of the first things ever to hold A7’s attention for longer than 1 1/2 seconds. Even B5 is absorbed and creates all sorts of wonderful items, such as the apple and lemon tree she is holding below:
L is very nearly obsessed. She has two main topic of conversations (well, three, but I’m fairly certain if I mention the third she will disown me as a mother). The first is jewellery and the second is polymer clay creations. She has even asked me to do a post on them.
To provide us all with a bit of light relief from polymer clay and all its creations, T has helpfully finished his bass guitar, which he is now teaching himself to play:
He is so proud he made it himself, he is saving up for a kit to make an electric guitar. I see lots of noise music in my future.
C has been keeping herself out of mischief reading for Great Britain. She completed Hugo’s Les Miserables, and surfing on the exultation achievement brings she worked her way through CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, and book three and four of the Percy Jackson series….in a couple of days. Sigh. Keeping her in books is a very expensive endevour. War and Peace is arriving today alongside the final Percy Jackson, so maybe they’ll keep her busy for a while.
When she wasn’t in the middle of reading a book, C could be found in exactly the same position each time I looked:
She’s planning her Jane Austin party, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find L had left some modge podge on the sofa and she was glued there!
L, on the other hand, is up and about creating the whole. day. long. She never tires of it, and I completely think if she never had to do anything else for the rest of her life, bar create, she would be a very happy girl indeed.
She was very pleased with her mixed media lesson, half of which she winged:
She was not pleased by her still life, which this week was some grapes. She found the size of them frustratingly small, and by the end of the week she was ready to give up drawing all together. I encouraged her to continue, after all, even the pieces of work which are not so great will still teach her something, as well as having the advantage of keeping her humble 😉
For her African jewellery study, she came up with a fabulous idea for making a hands to display the rings she has made. She mixed some plaster up and poured it into an open glove suspended in a vase using sticks:
After it was dry, she pealed back the plastic glove and painted it dark brown:
Unfortunately whilst she was modge podging it two of the fingers fell off! This week really hasn’t been a good one art wise for little L, but sometimes life is a bit like that, isn’t it?
Both she and C have been thoroughly enjoying taking it in turns to read Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice outloud during morning meeting:
And there is many a giggle from both of them as they enjoy this familiar story. It is one of the required reading for IGCSE English Literature so, as T is not taking that particular exam, he can be found in his room reading The Story of Science by Joy Hakim, a ‘living’ science book, which he is really enjoying:
During his delight learning he is learning chemistry for one of the IGCSE’s next year. It is not coming as easily to him as he had hoped and, whilst I have both GCSE and A level chemistry, I never did actually understand any of it, so I am of no help at all 🙁 But between us we get there in the end, and he is doing well on each assignment he does. This week he was learning about moles, molecular volumes and atomic numbers. You can see him here, using his rather snazzy Christmas present – a periodic table tea towel!
The Littles have been enjoying all the review crew have to offer and are benefiting hugely from all the various curricula which we wouldn’t even known about, let alone use, had it not been for this opportunity. As I do separate posts for them, I’ll not share much, but suffice it to say A7 is in her very own scientific heaven, whilst B is being exposed to every reading problem known to man (or so it seems). They are very much enjoying the variety of work to come their way.
I’ll finish my post with my ‘really, really real’ angel. Butter wouldn’t melt 🙂
Have a fab weekend everyone!
