Autumn painting

I thought that we should grab the opportunity to do some autumn crafts, it is such an artistically evocative time of the year with so many crafting possibilities too.
Ciara choosing some autumn colours.
Niamh's finished autumn tree.

Eden wanted to experiment with the paints herself and come up with some lovely pictures.

Moving up in Maths

This has perhaps been Eden's most challenging maths book so far. It has dealt with mostly fractions, algebra and decimals and area and volume. There has been a lot of explaining from my side as Eden is not naturally mathematical, but we got to the end, and she achieved a great 90% for the final tests, and dark mint chocolate was her choice for a reward well deserved.

She has also done quite a bit out of this Kumon book on fractions to solidify what she learned in her mathusee.
Jude has also finished his Alpha, he is so enthusiastic to do more and more, but he hit a wall when subtracting bigger numbers, like 14-8 in his head. Mastering is crucial in mathusee so you cannot move on until these kinds of facts are known automatically. He just wasn't get them quick enough and was getting frustrated, so we took some time out in the book below for a few months, and when he had come round to understanding these facts, he easily finished the rest of Alpha, and is so excited to start the Beta now. (And we still need to get him his reward.)

Family reading time

After reading a large number of Christian biographies together, we have picked up a fictional series which Grant and Linda gave to Eden for her birthday. She has read them, but enjoys listening to me reading them a second time around, and it is so much fun for all the others to get to hear it too. The first book was extremely gripping for us all, albeit very scary towards the end. The second book is quite surreal and I can understand how Eden gets more out of me reading, and stopping along the way with explanation. We haven't got to the third one yet.
And Eden, Niamh and Ciara love to draw while I read, so they get lots of practice nearly every night.
Pirates, by Eden.
Swan, by Eden.

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.