Studying Volcanoes!

We started studying volcanoes a few weeks ago, it was really coincidental that we got to see the volcano is Iceland erupting this week and see how it affected so many peoples lives.
As soon as we start reading books and learning a new topic, the children go off and start their own paintings or drawings, they always get inspired.
Jude especially enjoyed the reading of the story of Pompeii, this is Eden's narration of the story.
And Niamh's narration.
Eden's poem and illustration.
Jude's illustration.

Cabbage white butterfly and hama beads symmetry

Niamh made this hama bead butterfly, and I asked her why she used such plain dull colours. She then she was making a butterfly she had seen in the garden last year, a whole 6 months ago. I went online to see if I could find her butterfly, and when we saw the image of the one below she said yes that is the one, see how similar her butterfly is.

Cabbage white butterfly.
I always love how their symmetry is so perfect in their designs.
Jude's design.

Finishing off the galaxy

Come see his hands and his feet,

The scars that speak of sacrifice,

Hands that flung stars into space,

To cruel nails surrendered.

Our finished wall display.
The girls really enjoy copying, illustrating and memorizing poems. We always try to find poems for the themes we are studying.

A jumble of activities

Over the past week we have taken things a bit easier and not done too much work. The girls both have music exams coming up next week(Eden has two), so a lot of time has just been devoted to that.
Making a playdough car park.
Once it was all set up, Ciara had great fun enjoying it too.
Jude enjoying his hotwheels.
Oh and girls enjoy it too.
The children have enjoyed playing History maker and World explorer on the laptop, Jude really enjoying the History maker as there were games at his level too.
Niamh has been very interested in what the baby will like to look at. I told her that babies normally focus on contrasts first like blacks and whites and then reds and yellows. She drew a big picture with all these colours for the baby, then I suggested she make some pompoms with contrasting colours to hang from the moses basket. So here she is making her first pompom.
The children came across a recipe for moon rocks in their recipe book and wanted to make them for their space theme. Niamh and Ciara ended up doing the work, Niamh is getting really good at measuring out ingredients by herself.

Everyone enjoyed tucking into the finished "rocks".
Eden hasn't done much in her nature book since summer, but she picked it up today and wanted to draw the winter trees in the garden.
Our finished solar system. The balloon in the middle has an led light in but you cannot see that with the flash. I had to explain to the children though that nothing is in the right proportion, we would need a huuuuge box to achieve that so spread out is our solar system, also the planets are not in proportion either, for instance earth can fit inside Jupiter 1000 times. I wonder if any science museum has achieved a proper to scale model of our solar system.

We enjoyed watching the following space movies:
Apollo 13 was to be the third mission to land on the Moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during flight and the crew were forced to circle the Moon and return to the Earth without landing. Apollo 13 was launched on Saturday, April 11, 1970 at 13:13 CST on a Saturn 5 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Unfortunately there was some swearing and blasphemy in this dvd, the children did not notice the swearing at all, but were aware of the blasphemy,

BBC iplayer on the internet is such a valuable resource for free documentaries and movies of all kinds. I downloaded this one and it was really an eye opener. Footage I had never seen before of the 12 men who have walked on the moon, the video footage and narration by the astronauts was phenomenal as they explained everything they felt and saw.

Adding planets and Galaxies!

I was pleased to come across some polystyrene balls of various sizes for our 3D solar system in our local supermarket, today the girls had fun decorating them.


It's really nice using techniques discovered in other projects and then applying them to new projects. We used the glitter glue on baking paper for snowflakes, and now the same technique has come in handy for making different shaped galaxies.
This is a GREAT detective novel set in Ancient Rome. The children love it, it feels like we are walking through the streets of ancient Rome, entering their houses, walking past the Forum and being submerged in the culture.

Monday brings some new starts!!

Bulk shopping brings big boxes and I am always trying to think what to do with them before they get thrown in the recycling. This box gave me a great idea to get the children to make a 3D solar system scene, so with great enthusiasm they started painting the box black to look like space. Over the next few days we will be filling it with planets and all things space.

Ciara has started button threading, a great task for refining those fine motor skills in preparation for writing and drawing.
She enjoyed it straight away.
I find the children all enjoy doing their spelling tests on the whiteboard rather than a piece of paper, and Jude has started to join in too. Doing a little often seems to be helping Jude a great deal with his blending, reading and spelling.
This is how all the children eat their breakfast - with their noses in a book, in fact they never sit down to breakfast until they have all fetched themselves a book to read, and they make sure they take their time eating :D
Jude was so pleased that his Maths curriculum arrived in the post, the girls make such a fuss about theirs. I wish I had the photo of his happy face when we opened the box and he realized it was for him. He started it today and did the first 12 pages. He is also going through the Saxon curriculum but funnily most of the first book is about playing out maths with manipulatives and no writing which the girls loved at his age, but he doesn't enjoy it. He wants to be able to write numbers and work things out, he also has a very good grasp on high numbers so this seemed really suitable for him as the Saxon is still on the first 20 numbers which is frustrating for him.
And Niamh finally got her Beta curriculum so was also very eager to start this today.

I have just come across this series of books and they are fantastic. The kids are enjoying this story as it ties in with their space theme.

I have read through this book with the girls and started to read it to Jude today(although I noticed the girls having a listen in from what they were doing too). It is a lovely book which presents many doctrinal truths on a level for a young child to understand.

Pattern blocks, holiday scrapbooking and maths games

The pattern blocks were left out in the playroom for a couple of days and I was amazed at the designs that Jude made completely on his own.
The symmetry in all of them was perfect.


Carefully painting his rocket scene.A rocket with Saturn, he has loved learning all about the planets.
Another amazingly symmetrical pattern block design.
Niamh and Eden have been busy making a holiday scrapbook of our 2009 holidays.
Niamh particularly enjoys the journalling side of it. It is lovely how many small yet important memories come back to them as they go through picking all the photos they want in their scrapbook, they would not have been the same pictures I chose, but for them these memories are exciting.

Niamh has enjoyed playing this addition and subtraction Bingo game and is trying to show Jude so he can play with her, but the calculations are a little over his head still.