Elves in the loft?

I got the Christmas decorations out today.

I don't get it.

I specifically remember putting them all away tidily and well organised into their boxes at the end of the season last year.

But they didn't come back out that way.

Why is that?

I don't get it!!!

Plasticine fun.

I don't consider myself to be the most creative of people especially when it comes to taking part in plasticine and playdough activities. Believe it or not, I've spent a fair few hours trawling the internet for some inspiring plasticine tutorials but have so far been unsuccessful. Hope loves getting these modelling materials out but I often feel a bit useless when it comes to giving her a bit of direction. So on this occasion we had to rely on our own creative skills; as we had just been looking at The Hungry Caterpillar finger puppet book we decided to make delicious plate of fruit.
And counted: one apple, two juicy pears, three tart plums, four sweet strawberries and five oranges. We also had to make a banana!

And a beautiful butterfly with two wings!

Practical life

Here is an update of the practical learning activities that the children have been doing around the house lately. Hope enjoys doing a variety of Montessori tasks such as using tongs (though she often cheats and uses her fingers) to pass objects such as little plastic frogs from a container into the portions of an ice-cube tray.
In these pics she is transferring water from the left bowl to the right using a sponge. These activities are thought to get young children ready for the left to right process in learning to read. Then we played with the little frogs, counting them and making them jump from pool to pool.
Henry uses these base ten blocks which are fabulous for helping him understand loads of number concepts.
Here, we are about to follow a recipe for cheese stars from this jolly phonics book.


And I set up this pet shop to help the kids learn about adding up money and calculating change. This play till cost £10 and as well as calculating mentally, the children checked their answers using the till as preparation for future SATs tests that they sit in school - one of the papers is a calculator paper.
More uses for ice-cube trays! I've almost managed to sort out my homemade moveable alphabet. I just need one more for my vowel sounds.
We use this alphabet for word building. I am currently making a new set of tactile letters for Hope. I used to have a set of sandpaper one that I made years ago but they got ruined when the hot water tank leaked into our cupboard. As I don't much like the feel of sandpaper and find it quite tough to cut the letters out, I decided this time to use foam board and lighter foam to make these.

The website MontessoriMom.com has some great ideas and free resources.

Stuff and nonsense.

I don't know why I don't invite the children's friends round more often as it seems to be the only time they leave me alone to a bit of peace and quiet. At last I get to catch up on a bit of blogging. Today is Children in Need day and the children went to school wearing spots and took part in activities to raise money for this worthy cause. So last night I was up 'til midnight sewing spots on Henry's blue t-shirt. We've agreed to put the t-shirt away somewhere carefully afterwards so that he'll have something to wear next year and I'll be able to go to bed a bit earlier! Before I started on the sewing, I had taken Honor and Henry to the rehearsal for the pantomime that they're involved in with a local theatre group. We absolutely love going to these rehearsal evenings. It's great for the kids to be working alongside other people of all ages and it's such a fun and uplifting way to spend the evening. Of course, the kids love it even more because they get to stay up late. Honor, in particular, is really getting into the performing arts side of life. She's now going to guitar lessons (Hubby goes with her and tries to learn too!) And she has joined a performing arts school on a Saturday which she loves. They practise one hour of singing, one of dancing and one of acting. I think Henry would enjoy it too so maybe he'll join a bit later on.

And I've just received an email from the NHS. They do a national weighing and measuring programme in schools and are about to go into Honor's class to gather their statistics. After they measured Henry in Reception class and called him obese I decided I wasn't going to play this game anymore! So I let them know that HM wouldn't be taking part and to redirect the money they might save into paying for someone to feed the starving and neglected old people in hospital. My comments have been passed on to the head of dept.

Playdough and hand therapy

Some of Henry's hand therapy exercises involve playdough.

I made some myself using the following method:

I mixed 3 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of salt and 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar in a bowl.

Meanwhile, I boiled 2 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and then added the liquid slowly to the dry ingredients.

I divided the dough up and coloured the portions using Morrisons natural food colourings. The colourings were quite wishy washy and it took quite a lot to get a decent amount of colour into the dough. But I quite like the earthy tones that were finally produced.

And all three kids, from age 2 - 10 years couldn't wait to get playing with it...

Honor and Henry got bored after about fifteen minutes, but little Hope needed coaxing away from it when it eventually became time for dinner and was not at all happy when I cleared it all away!

The Waldorf toddler group.

I think I mentioned before that I take Hope to a toddler group arranged by the local Waldorf Steiner private school. It really is a very nice, natural play experience for little ones and this time I took the liberty of taking a few pics of their gorgeous displays.
At the moment, a lady from the school brings all this stuff over to a village hall and sets it all up for us parents and toddlers to enjoy, but soon it shall run from the school itself.
Here is Hope playing in one of the many playstands - this one has been set up with this beautiful wooden kitchen set.

And this mobile, if you can see it clearly in the photo, was made there from natural materials (seeds, leaves, sheep's wool, feathers, etc) brought in by one of the teachers.

Another trip to London

Hello!

What a busy week it's been so far.

On Monday, Henry had his long awaited appointment at The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Kings Cross, London with a specialist doctor to discuss the apparent problems with the nerves in Henry's hand following his accident. The doctor thinks his hand will improve with plenty of physio and probably won't need to have another operation. So that is good news.

We decided to travel up by car because the train is outrageously expensive but the journey up there during rush hour was pretty bad and we only just made the appointment on the dot. We were straight in and straight out again and as Henry has found all this 'arm palava' a bit of a nuisance, and he is very fascinated by London, we promised that we'd take him to The Museum of Natural History.
Having recently visited The Doctor Who Experience, we decided to go back to the same car park by the Kensington Olympia which cost us £15 and take a taxi (costing an average of £9) to the museum which was not too far away. Entrance to the museum was free.
The dinosaur exhibit was, in Henry's words, awesome!

Here is Henry face to face with a King Cobra!


The three of us really enjoyed this part of the trip and it was great to be able to talk to Henry by himself about what we were looking at. Usually, we do stuff all together but Honor and Henry tend to behave like loonies when they are together (Hubby has now dubbed them Berk and Hair after the notorious duo Burke and Hare) and it's often difficult to have sensible conversations with them. And I commented to Hubby about how, if we homeschooled, I'd come to places like this all the time. But then I remembered that I'm the mother of three very crazy kids and there were a couple of times when we had to prevent Henry from launching himself over the balcony of the blue whale exhibit and so I'll let some other teacher worry about that for a while!

On another note (sorry Hubby!) just thought I'd mention that I really like the latest single Paradise by Coldplay. I'm sorry - but I do!