Ciara learning!

She is so excited that she can read simple words. She has never been very interested in learning letters or numbers, but of course she knows quite a few from looking through letterland books and listening to the cd, but she has never wanted to take it further than that. So imagine my suprise when she read the first time I wrote some three letter words up on the board. We are now just adding a few new letters each week and she seems to be just fine with that.
We also had some writing practice in flour. She is actually great with writing all the letters I show her to write, aswell as all the numbers, but all kids love playing a bit messy, and she had fun just forming the letters in flour.
Every time we make a new colour playdough it renews their interest in playing with it, and who can resist this lovely bright orange playdough. Thanks to gel food colourings the possibilities are endless.
She had fun making biscuits with her big sister, as well as rolling the balls for the biscuits.
And I think we have another budding little artist, she spends hours just like her big sister Eden used to when she was that age.

Jude on violin

Jude loves playing duets with Eden on the piano, and during his lesson asks the teacher to play song after song on the piano so that he can play along.

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.