Half-Term & An Ultimate Party

I guess the weekend is as good a time as any for a catch-up :D It's been half-term here this week, so no formal educating has happened. It's been a chill-out and play kind of week :D There's been lots of friends around here and lots of going to friend's, a couple of sleepovers and the Ultimate Party last night!

8 little girls ages 7- 11 went Bowling ~ then home to ours for a Movie & Pizza, Pop-corn and open-fire-toasted, chocolate dipped Marshmallows ~ a 'stay-awake-over' which they took much too seriously and it was 01.05 when I heard voices (having thought, in error it seems, that they were already asleep around 11pm) and went in to tell them it was seriously not funny and they NEEDED to sleep now!

I was amazed to be woken to the sound of rowdy laughter at 8am!! I hauled myself out of bed to make pancakes (with Maple Syrup and the remains of the chocolate dip), but was astounded to find out that for most of them this was seconds as they had nearly all already had cereal! What time did they really wake up?! I strongly advised a video (some people were still sleeping upstairs) so Princess Diaries 1 was the order of the morning, followed by a slightly mayhem-ish round of collecting from parents and apologies from me for the wrecked children I was sending home with them! I know the kids all had a fantastic time and it was a party that the girls will remember with high-spirits. I love it when I hear them, and others, say "this is the best party I have EVER been to!" ~ I love creating memories!! It's not every house we have been, or may be in the future, able to do this kind of thing in, but I love that just right now, right here, we can - and so we do!! :D

Meanwhile, over the week, Stitch has continued to work on learning to count and this morning Paul spotted him with paper and pencil, 'writing' and counting - he got to seven without error! :D

Lilo is also working on her numbers and asked me to teach her to count to 100. I tried my method of explaining about tens and ones and following a sequence ~ she looked lost! So I printed her out a 100 chart and laminated it. I showed her how the sequences work. She has consistently picked it up all holiday (almost every morning) and counted through to 100, the penny dropped, she understood the sequence and can now be heard counting to 300 on a regular basis (she gets bored a bit after that!). This girl is SUCH a visual learner, but it seems she really has to steer her own boat. I look forward to the day she asks me to teach her to read - or just brings me a book and reads it to me, which I think is just as likely! At the moment though she happily brags to her friends about being 6 and not being able to read!! ;D

Some snapshots for your pleasure :D...