Reptile Haiku

Eden was having fun with Haiku poetry today, using reptiles as the subject

Snakes

Slither snake go by
Gliding through the green green grass
Eyes never closing

Chameleons

Grasping tiny feet
Anxious little eyes twist round
Changing colour now

Studying Reptiles

It makes my job so easy when the children decide what they want to learn about next, I know what ever they have chosen they will have an appetite for it all of their own. They have already read all the library books I have got out on reptiles, and are learning more about the classification of animals too. Eden is desperate to have her own reptile as a pet, whether it be a lizard, snake or tortoise, she doesn't mind, she would just love to have one to observe.
We used a favourite craft - stained glass water colour. Eden did the drawings for everyone.
Eden is getting more artistic with her use of shades.
Jude doing a tortoise.
Niamh painting a turtle.

Chinese Wall display and crafts with big sister

It's nice to have a lovely bright wall display up again, and the younger ones love to see their work up on the wall.
Eden has been organizing some crafts for her little sister Ciara.

Some Chinese crafts - Fireworks

As the school year comes to an end(well we don't strictly follow school holidays, but it will be our church holiday soon, and then I am sure a lot of playdates with school going friends), we decided to keep the Chinese theme going till the end, it would be disjointed to start a new theme now.
Ciara loves doing crafts, and loved this fireworks craft, though the blowing took her a while to workout.

Eden's.
And Niamh's firework display. I have noticed that Jude is not really interested in craft work lately, I had to encourage him to do this one as I thought he would enjoy the blowing, but it only kept his interest for a short while, and then he was back out playing in the sandpit again.
Another firework craft. This one uses cupcake cases.
They are flattened, then lines are drawn on, the folded a few times and cut so that a spiral kind of shape is achieved, and then finally they are glued onto black card and decorated with glitter.
A really effective outcome.

Chinese inventions, making ink

The children made ink from blackberries this week to reproduce how the Chinese make ink. The juice is squeezed out of blackberries(or any other berry), and then a little vinegar and salt is added to preserve it.

And the next fun part is actually painting with the ink.
Ciara did some rainbows.
Eden was keen to try an ink picture she had seen previously that had two different colours of ink.
And then she painted a horse with the blue cartridge ink.

Being creative!

Eden is just always drawing, writing, painting, creating that sometimes I can take for granted all that she does, and then sometimes I will find her work in her room, or the playroom and it will strike me how very creative she is. I think back to myself at that age and I had no idea how to even draw, so it is amazing to see a gift from God in action in my big girl. (What I have included below is just the tip of the iceberg of what is in her room and the playroom of all that she has created.)

A cartoon about frogs.

A pirate picture.
A new book - "The adventures of Swandy sheep.
A code I found on my bed late one night. I spent a few minutes trying to crack it, but at that time of night the brain was not functioning. I found out the next morning what it said before I had a chance to crack it, Eden had reversed the entire alphabet, so "a" was "z", b was "y", c was "x" etc.
A detailed pictured.
Acrylic of a wave.

A poem I found:

The sky is empty
The sun is rising
The plane has passed
The trees are swaying
The birds are singing
The breeze is warm
The bees are dancing
The vixen is hunting
The flowers are rising
The fly is prancing
It's wonderful on a spring day.

Some Chinese art, and Chinese Dynasties

The girls had a great time painting some Chinese ink paintings. The ink has been diluted with water in various strengths to achieve the dark and light contrast which makes them very effective. The paintings would normally be done in black ink, but we only had blue cartridge ink to use.
Niamh's painting.
Eden's painting.
We also read some Chinese poetry, the beauty in it is it's simplicity. Some of them were really sad - about the loss of loved ones, so Eden did not want to copy any of those, instead she chose one about Rural life.
We have explored how Chinese history has been recorded in dynasties, so the girls made a chart of all the dynasties and what happened of importance in each dynasty.

Jude was chuffed to read a Magic Tree house about China.
We are reading through a new book of Chinese short stories, we sooo enjoyed the other, we just didn't want them to end.