Mosaic dragonfly

I came across a tiled mosaic of a dragon fly on the internet and remembered how much the girls enjoyed doing a mosaic whilst studying their Rome theme, so I thought it would be a nice addition to the insect display on the wall.
They did theirs with different shades of blue paper and card.
Eden's dragonfly.
Niamh's dragonfly.

Maths, money and modelling!

Jude has enjoyed maths since I taught him the numbers and he then used them to work out bigger digit numbers by reading all the house numbers on peoples doors. We ordered the first mathusee curriculum a good few months ago, but started on the girls old Saxon curriculum first as there are lots of fun games in that curriculum. Jude has been desperate to do the primer though since his sisters both do the mathusee curriculum. He had already done about half the book on and off over the past few months, but when I said we can do some primer he really took the opportunity to get stuck in and ended up doing 58 pages of it in 2 days. I kept on saying Jude, I think that is enough now, but all he said was, it's not enough maths yet, just not enough and carried on and on. He is now nearly finished the book and the idea of going on to Alpha excites him tremendously, I just wander how he will cope with the material in Alpha at age 5, hmmm we will just have to find out.

I pulled out this game recently which the girls used to play. It is called "Pop to the Shops" and it teaches you about buying things with money and working out the change, Jude really got into it.
Jude modelled this caterpillar out of plasticine.
Jude and Ciara's insect display.

Ciara keeping busy!

Ciara is definitely becoming more and more interested in getting involved in crafty things like cutting, colouring in and drawing.
She loved helping cut small squares for the girls mosaic.
She also enjoyed this threading game.
I wanted a photo of her holding her finished sewing job, but she didn't want her face to be in the photo, so I had to make a joke out of it.
I got some lovely smiles and laughs from her.

Pasta Collage for Brownies and Ciara's art

This is the end result of the pasta collage.
Eden's collage.
Niamh's Collage.
Ciara has been really interested in drawing and asked me to show her how to draw a ladybird. I told her what to do and she had a go on her own.

Romeo and Juliet

We have now enjoyed reading an adaption of Romeo and Juliet which is closer to the form that Shakespeare wrote it in, as opposed to a narration. We loved Leon Garfield's version as he cleverly incorporated a lot of original Shakespearean text but abridged it for younger children.
Eden's Romeo and Juliet picture.
Niamh's Romeo and Juliet picture, her own style is certainly developing.
We really enjoyed this book, we will have to look out for a Romeo and Juliet play to go and watch, but next project is making a puppet theatre, and putting on a puppet show.

Studying the Bard, an English/History unit study.

Yes, it is true that we are enjoying the summer and taking a break from formal studies, BUT you can't keep enthusiastic children down, and we discovered a desire this week to learn about Shakespeare.
And it all started with this book: The children were enthralled by the ending, certainly not your modern day happy ending is it?
And so we moved on to this one.
And a visit to the library has given us a stack of children friendly Shakespeare books, we are excited!

Some beading fun!

I recently dug out a bead set I had bought for Eden when she was 5(but it was too difficult then). It's not too difficult now though and she really enjoyed working with the wire and beads to make this cute ladybird.


And Niamh had fun making this necklace. A lovely pattern!