Other things, apart from penguins!

So, further to my previous post about Club Penguin (B's joined now, on the monthly scheme and is decorating his igloo, and his penguin in mad fashion!), we have done some other work this week. B decided to do his own experiment to find out how quickly water will freeze at -4 deg C in the freezer. While this was happening he made a lovely little Fimo penguin, which slide down the frozen ice cliff once it came out of the freeze some six hours later.

We've finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the children have completed their storyboards. Later in the week we made book review boxes, an idea that I found from Crayola, as it was National Childen's Book Week. K chose to review Mr. Wonka, and B did Charlie. They worked really hard on this boxes, making little characters from clay and plaster or pipecleaners and tissue, to go with their little snippets of information.

It was Prince Charles' birthday last week (Tuesday) and also the State Opening of Parliament (Wednesday), so we briefly covered these events. B was very interested in the life of the Prince Charles so we discussed all the good things he does within the community, his sons, his future role as King, and when he became Prince of Wales. K drew a lovely picture (together with rather large ears) and B added the necessary dates and the Fleur des Lis before placing it on our timeline. For the State Opening of Parliament, B covered this by doing a mini poster all about it. We used the Woodlands School site to help us.

K and B's Flat Travellers have flown to the USA this week. K's has gone to Tennessee and B's to Pensylvania. We are looking forward to receiving our exchanges. Together with the laminated Flat went a little passport and journal and an information sheet giving some details about where we live.

On the "Around the World" front we have been covering India which has been of interest to us all. We are beginning to get a bug for wanting to actually visit these countries - if only the pennies would allow us! We've looked at the Taj Mahal and were lucky enough to find a lovely book in the library showing us the insides of this wonderful building plus lots of extra details. We looked at the languages, clothing and traditions of the different religions of this country. The Himalayas proved to the most captivating of the subjects covered this week. The sheer stretch of it and the fact that some of the peaks are the top highest in the world, including Everest of course. Lots of questions were sparked from this too, like wanting to know the names of all the peaks in this range, why do mountains grow (and how), what exactly is "sea level" and are there volcanoes in the Himalayas. This all led to how hot lava is compared to "ordinary" fire! I love days like this - keeps my fingers busy on the keyboard trying to answer the questions the best I can. We came across this fun volcano site which B liked browsing through.

Went along to the Christmas light switch on in town on Thursday evening. Sad to say none of us have got that Christmassy feeling yet, unlike last year. Until Friday, the weather here has just been far to mild, I'm hoping colder, more winter like weather will put us into a seasonal spirit. The lights were lovely and the children enjoyed going on the carousel (a first for B) and looking around the Continental Market. It was a nice atmosphere in town and we bumped into old school friends too, so we had a bit of a catch-up.

I have been encouraging the kids to do their Christmas lists. K's list from Utterly Horses very neatly filled an A4 sheet! She hasn't even started on all the other Christmas catalogues that have popped through the letterbox. B found the task hard, which was surprising. He seems to like lots of different things, like construction, electronics, colouring and crafts. While B and I were ploughing through the catalogues he asked me to show him joined up writing. Once I'd shown him a few simple words, he quickly picked it up and did some beautiful writing for me and he was very proud of himself. It's quite hard at times to show him the proper formation as he is left-handed, but he soon got the hang of it.

Young Billy the rabbit is rather randy at present and is moving his backside in bunny fashion against various things (including my leg, Herrance and Allie (Jasper's too quick for him!)). The kids have been fascinated by it all (hmmmm) and eventually the question of why, what happens, etc., etc., raised it's head! Amid their whoops of laughter I explained clearly, but simply, the birds and the bees (so it's all done now). There's only one question remaining, "why does Billy do it to Herrance's head, my leg and Allie's side rather than directing his actions to the right area!?".

I'll leave you to ponder on that one!