Viking Helmets finished

Once the paper mache dried, we popped the balloons and they had formed really nicely.
Jude painting his helmet metallic.
Eden's finished helmet.

A Viking Helmet - adventures with paper mache

I figured the children were old enough to have a go with paper mache. Niamh is busy mixing the glue while Eden tears the strips of newspaper.

Erm, I think Eden got a bit carried away.
Right, we didn't expect it to be this messy. Strips of newspaper dipped in gluey water and attached to half of the balloon.
Niamh should just be called Neat Niamh, what a perfect outcome. As soon as the paper is dry, the balloons will be popped and the top part of the helmet will remain and be hard.
They all turned out quite well. We will decorate them when they go completely hard.

Bible reading

Eden has recently finished reading through the New Testament. She has also been keeping a bible journal for all her readings. Each chapter she reads, she illustrates, writes about, or chooses a verse that she found helpful. She was pleased that as the last chapter of the New Testament finished so did the last page of her Journal get filled in. She has since started the Old Testament and a new journal.
Niamh has been reading through the Ergemeier's Bible Story Book and also been keeping a Journal, she started in the Old Testament and is now on the New Testament.
Jude has been thoroughly enjoying reading through The Beginner's Bible. The girls also read through this book at the same age, and it has been very helpful for them when they move on to more difficult bible books as they are so familiar with how to read the more difficult Bible names.
And while we are on the subjects of Bibles, we are reading Gofors and Grumps together and we highly recommend it. A lot of sound applications are brought out as each short chapter deals with a Bible character.

Time Line

I have been wanting to put a time line up in the playroom for years now, and I feel now the time has come where there will be a lot of benefit. I was very fortunate to pick up a big pack of these timelines from freecycle so at least no work has to go into making them. They are now up on the wall, and the children are drawing pictures(see below) of history subjects that we have covered to put up on the timeline.

Eden's Tutankhamen death mask.
Jude's Death Mask, I didn't ask him to do this, he just wanted to copy Eden's.
Roman Soldier by Eden.
Queen Victoria by Eden.
Shakespeare by Eden.

More Shakespeare

Eden has been enjoying reading these stories, through reading many versions the girls are getting very familiar with the stories which should make the process of digging deeper into the language easier.

Eden's portrait sketch of William.
Niamh's portrait sketch of Shakespeare.
Eden's sketch of King Lear, what a lot of twists and turns in this story.
We have loved watching the animated puppet versions of a few Shakespeare Stories, original language is used, highly recommended.

The following few images are just a few of Niamh's copywork sections from Romeo and Juliet. I have found that using a combination of copywork and dictation has really helped the girls with their spelling and writing. They really enjoy it too.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

We all enjoyed watching this movie of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. It was in the original Shakespearean language. There was a bit of nudity(not full) which was not appropriate so we forwarded past this.

A Shakespearean Sonnet

We really enjoyed reading and learning "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
As usual Eden learns best when she can draw what she has learnt, so each line that she could she depicted in an artistic way, and then placed the explanation at the bottom. It was quite an eye opener for Eden and Niamh to learn how the poem was structured in terms of the usage of syllables and rhyming. It has made Eden more aware of looking out for patterns in other poetry.
It turned out so pretty that I have put it up as a wall display in the house.


I do love seeing whatever the children are learning coming out in the free art and their imaginative play. I noticed Niamh had created this picture of Romeo and Juliet. Niamh has also done quite a lot of copywork from the original score of Rome and Juliet.