Colour by numbers and space pictures

Who says boys can't sit still for long periods of time. If Jude is interested in something(normally anything to do with numbers) he can spend ages applied to it. He loved doing this book of colour by numbers and did one after the other for about 2 hours today.


Finishing off the astronaut for his space picture.
The finished picture.
Niamh had fun with hers too!

Ciara painting and exploring outerspace!

Ciara has started painting simple pictures, she did really well trying to paint the right colours in the right places.


Eden has started sewing her many badges on her Brownie sash. The only problem is the sash seems to have cardboard in the middle so it wasn't that easy for her to sew it's going to take a while to get them all on.
I bought this magic maize to keep Jude occupied while the girls do their music, but I think that Ciara will enjoy it more. The maize comes in many different colours and once you wet it in a bit of water it sticks to each other and on paper, so it is really easy to stick on the design.
The finished crocodile.
Jude has started his outerspace study, but of course the others also want to learn about it too, so I will extend it on a higher level for the bigger girls.
Finger painting fun.
Eden mixed all the colours for this and I really liked the finished painting - the children are so good with painting for a long time, and it gave me the chance to have a nearly two hour long sleep this afternoon.
I have been at quite a loss as to reading books for Eden's age. The library seems to be filled with so much that is just inappropriate for her age, if it is not about magic and sorcery, then it is about girls who are popular and image conscious. So I am very grateful for a friend putting us onto these classic starts. I have ordered quite a few of them, they are abridged classics for younger children. Eden is really enjoying this one, and she is narrating each chapter as she goes along for writing practice, and I must say she is doing a sterling job, capturing all the excitement of the story. I won't ask her to do it with all the books, that may become tedious, but for now she enjoys writing about it.

Niamh's maths

Niamh finished her first level of Alpha Mathusee maths on the 16th December, and naturally wants to get a reward like her sister. So she has also chosen to go and watch a movie which we will try and fit in this week while Mike is off. She has been doing some drills on the mathusee website because there are a lot of number facts to remember, and I don't want all of that hard work to go out the window due to the Christmas break.

Jude's tracing

Jude has enjoyed taking out the tracing cards and tracing them all out over the past two weeks, it certainly makes him concentrate on keeping his pencil hold steady, good practice for fine motor skills. This is just one of the cards he traced today.

A small milestone

I always wonder to myself how old the others were when they could get past certain milestones, and wish I had kept more of a record. Jude has just finished his first handwriting book which he really enjoyed doing, finished up to 3 pages a day too. His counting and Maths skills seem to be quite sharp too, and at 4 and a half he is counting up to 100 as well as identifying all the numbers up to 100, he counts backwards too and has just started skip counting in 10's. Eden was learning skip counting in sixes this week and I could see he was really trying to pick up on it too.
Ciara is slowly learning all the letters, and has just started asking what the colour of things are, she seems to be pretty certain that her most favourite blanket is pink, and says about other things that are pink - "pink like my didi(her name for her blanket)".

Making the Advent Calendar

Niamh has finished sewing her sweet pouches.
Niamh helping mum stitch the pouches on with her new toy - a glue gun.
Gold fabric paint for the numbers.
Planning the layout of the Bethlehem scene.
Eden and Niamh putting the final decorating touches on - the stars!

Ciara's painting, Eden's narration!

Ciara paints a rainbow.


Eden chose to do her narration on the Greek myth Pandora's Box this week, and of course there had to be an illustration to go along with it.