Jude has crossed his rubicon.....

well at leasts that is how Grandad explained it.

Watching Jude learn has reminded me how absolutely different each one has learnt along the way. It is marvellous to see how the Lord makes each one of us so special and unique. Jude has not picked up writing as early as Eden, or Niamh(or reading for that matter). But even when Niamh started writing at an early age, she still had problems with neatness and forming the letters even up until she had just turned 6, so I honestly thought Jude would take a lot longer. But this week he surprised me. He was learning to write the numbers and getting really frustrated that he couldn't do a number 3. But one of the nights this week he suddenly got it(see page below), and it was like everything else fell into place too. He wanted to write everybody's name all of a sudden, and all he wanted to do was write, write, write. He wasn't even happy with writing from 1 -10 anymore, he wanted to go further past 10 and on and on. Every day this week has been so fruitful with Jude, his appetite for learning and schoolwork has been great. I am blessed to be by his side and witness him learning these important milestones, it is just sooooo rewarding.

Detail and Eden!

Eden always likes to put a lot of detail in her pictures. This one made us smile. Niamh is showjumping, and a large crowd of her friends and family are watching. She named each one for me and told me exactly what they were doing. I especially love Ciara who is 6th from the left, she can hardly see over the fence.

Making pipe cleaner snowflake sugar crystals - part 1

Another winter craft
Make a snowflake shape from pipe cleaners.
Make a saturated solution of 1 cup of boiling water and 3 cups of sugar. Add the sugar slowly and stop as soon as the sugar stops dissolving.
Pour into a new container leaving any sugar residue in the old container(crystals will just grow on that), and put the pipe cleaner snowflake into the solution making sure it doesn't touch the bottom(we used a pencil to help).

Winter Crafts

A snowman painted by Jude.
Making glitter glue snowflakes - the idea was to do it on baking paper and then peel it off, but we used the wrong paper, so will have to have another go.

Studying Winter - Making crystal snowflakes

We have finished Autumn, but will be going to Kew Gardens to see the trees starting to change. So now we are learning about winter, it does feel a bit strange to be doing winter crafts when it is not winter yet though.
Jude mixing a saturated solution of salt water.
Once the salt no longer dissolves, the water can be used to paint a snowflake with.
The picture must be left overnight so the water evaporates and all that is left is sparkly crystals.

Roman Numerals

Eden enjoyed working out everyones age in Roman Numerals.

Studying Autumn: Display

Even though Jude was learning the seasons, all the girls wanted to get involved in the crafts too, so this is their final wall display.
Niamh's handwriting is getting so lovely and neat, she is really careful.

I wonder what Jude is thinking about?

I saw this quick sketch Jude had done of a lady(presumably me), and noticed that she had a baby in her tummy. Jude does talk about the new baby a lot, and now it has come out in his drawings, so sweet.

Studying Autumn: Making scarecrows

The children made stick scarecrows out of lollipop sticks.
Glue the sticks in this form.
Cut out some clothes.
Glue them on, with some "straw" and a face.
And you have stick scarecrows.

Learning about the Seasons - Autumn

Jude and I have started a theme on the seasons, we started with Autumn first because it is just around the corner.
Jude spent a lot of time and care on this tissue paper sunflower. It was nice to see him complete a craft in one go, he normally loses interest halfway, but his concentration span is increasing steadily.
His painting is a lot more careful too and the end product is lovely.
Autumn leaves, I had to help out with the colours a bit, he had started to use blue, so needed a bit of explanation about colours of autumn leaves :D

The Roman Army

It was amazing to learn about how organized the Roman army was. We created a make believe army, with Jude in on of the conteburnia(actually his name was Yudius as there are no J's in the Roman alphabet).

Dragon sketch by Eden

Eden sketched this up in about 10 minutes after asking daddy what she can draw. He gave her the idea and this is what she came back with.

Roman shields - a finished project

Our finished shields.
Jude in action with his shield.
The girls testing out some Roman battle formations, umm I think the soldier at the back is a bit short.

The Roman shield was called a scutum, and the boss in the middle was used for bashing into the enemy's stomach.

Roman Shields - part 5

Finish off by giving your shields some Roman like designs and glue on the boss in the middle.

Roman Shields - part 4

Make the handle by gluing a long piece of corrugated cardboard over on itself.

Cut two slits in the back part of the shield and slot the(dried) handle in.
Paint the shields Roman red.

Roman Shields - part 3

This part creates the metal boss found in the middle of the shield.
Cut the bottom part of a plastic drinks bottle in a star shape around, and glue on card.
Once dry, paint it with metallic gold paint.
The finished boss.

Roman Shields - part 2

The next stage is to reinforce the shield and create a protective covering with a mixture of PVA glue and water, brush this all over the surface of the shield.