This week, we did 'Big Face' watercolours, which are meant to be sort of Eric Carle-ish; here's how they turned out (youngest to eldest this week) ...
COOKERY ~
Regardless of what I said last week, we did in fact make pastry this week. I decided that as I was going to cook turkey pasties for lunch anyway, we may as well make pastry and pies instead. So that we did and it was a very successful lesson :D
I gave each of them a bowl and the ingredients they needed, then I verbally guided them through the whole process.
This point was the hardest, and I did assist a little with the cutting and mixing, but purely for the sake of their arms - the pastry was perfect.
We cheated a little and used bought puff pastry for the lids, but in all honesty, the shortcrust pastry the chids made had more taste and texture to it :D
I've bought a book this week and Abbie has decided she is going to work through it as part of her studies. It was originally an Irish Home Ec' textbook, back in the 80's. Although it's a bit dated, it is still a lovely text to work with, covering all sorts of different aspects of health & home-keeping :D
We have done a fair bit actually, but I've sadly not taken many pictures. I did take some today though, while Chip was playing with the Spielgaben. We were having some fun with spinning shapes and seeing how they looked as they spun. Chip was quite fascinated with this, but not as much as I thought he might be.
We did another lesson yesterday too, where he matched these 3D shapes with others the same, and began to learn the words for 'cube', 'cylinder' and 'sphere' (or Sophia as he says it). He did well, and still remembered the names today. Spielgaben certainly works for him :D
This week I have also put him on a trial of Busythings. Stitch and DD used to enjoy this site when they were younger, and it's exactly the kind of experimental learning that Chip likes. He has been very fond of PoissonRouge (and still is), but I think Busythings might stretch him a little more now. So far he is loving it :D. He likes Starfall too, but prefers to play the songs on there over and over, which can be a little tedious for the rest of us!
Besides that, he is doing numerous drawings and trying to write things. His writing looks like some kind of binary : l + 0 l 0 + l 0 . Then he looks at it and sees it is lots of ones, zeros and pluses and says he was writing numbers not letters ~ smart kid ;-)
IN OTHER NEWS ~
Saturday saw the girls and I trawling the charity shops in our local town ~ which is pretty much a town full of charity shops, coffee shops, designer shops, and a great market! I need clothes suitable for wearing in 30+ degrees for 3 weeks, and the girls just needed to re-stock their wardrobes since they have grown so fast! Abbie has gradually outgrown most of her clothes, but they don't all pass well to TP, who is a completely different shape. TP has grown loads this last year too, and was running out of choices. Charity shops here often have some very nice stuff, so we can do a big stock up for a fraction of the cost of buying new. My problem is, I have personal issues with the 'charity shop' smell ~ it brings back memories I don't like too much, but sometimes I have to swallow that and just get on with it. We shopped for about 3 hours, spent quite a lot of money, and the girls came home with a handsome stash and a 'new' coat each. I really can't complain.
I, on the other hand was less successful in my search. Why is it that all the plus size clothes seem to be made of nasty polyester/viscose materials? I wanted cotton and it looks like I'm going to have to buy new, or make do :(
TOMORROW ~
Joel has his interview for college. He has applied to do BTec Level 3 in Music Performance. I'm hoping he will do well and win them on side despite not having a piece of paper to his name! Watch this space :D
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