Some dog sketches

Impromptu sketch of a beagle.

Supposed to be a Golden Retriever, but mom thinks it looks more like an Irish Wolf Hound.

Starting Latin

We have started our theme on Rome, and what could be better than starting to learn Latin too since it all ties together so nicely. We have just got this starter set for children from age 7(but Niamh is joining in too of course). It is audio, and books, aswell as a set of reading books in Latin. It is set in 2nd Century Roman England and includes a lot about the culture and history of the day, so we get to learn more than just the language. Since Latin is the basis for English and most European languages I though this may give the children a better insight into their own and other languages(as well as mom too). I am thankful to a lady at our church who lectures the classics, and teaches Latin since she pointed us in the direction of this resource.

Books we have read

We did get lots of dog books at the library, but mom bought these ones for us to keep.
This is a huge book with so much in it.
This is a true story that I am reading at the moment, it is about one of my favourite dogs, labradors.

Learning about Dogs

Spending so much time with the dogs on holiday in Spain got us really interested in doing a study on dogs. Eden - It has been one of my favourite studies and I would like to carry on learning about dogs always.

For this theme we have tried a new way of displaying what we learnt, it is called a lapbook because all the information is stored in a folder which is small enough to fit on your lap. (We still need to decorate the outside of the book.)
Once it opens you can see all the many mini books inside.
And they all open up to show more information.
We loved learning about all the different groups of dogs and all the breeds in those groups. It is so much fun spotting all the breeds we have learnt when we are driving or at the park.
It was fun to learn about all the wonderful jobs dogs do.
This is about a guide dog, we had already learnt about them when mom read us the book "Follow my leader" which is about a boy who lost his sight when his friend threw a firecracker at him, and how he got a guide dog to help him get around. You can see that this mini book has a few tabs so that you can turn to lots of different jobs that dogs do.

Studying Henri Rousseau

We have been studying the paintings of Henri Rosseau over the last few weeks. This was the children's favourite painting at the National Art Gallery, so we were excited to learn more about his other paintings. However the children did not enjoy looking at a lot of his other paintings as a lot of them were too dark and mysterious for them, the one below(Surprised) being one of his lighter-hearted ones.

Jude's jungle study.
Niamh's Jungle painting.

Eden's painting was done with oil pastels and watercolours.

A Hampton Court Palace inspired drawing by Eden

Eden drew this after seeing the ladies dressed at Hampton Court Palace. I enjoyed seeing the detail she had captured.

Sunflowers - part 2

Eden's seedling was the first to exit the soil, and so she went running around the garden in excitement, but a few days on they are all out, and they're all looking strong.