Enjoying the great outdoors

We have been continuing to do some maths work this week as I've found from past experience that maths is the hardest subject for us all to "get back into" after any kind of break.

I planned to focus on fractions for Ben and was lucky to find a fun and easy to follow book from the library from the "Maths is Fun" series. With plenty of hands on exercises like making and cutting up cardboard pizzas (or real ones, naturally), making a fractions wall (which he loved fiddling with, especially after I showed him how to convert the fractions to decimals to check his answers) and using all his marbles (glass ones, not his brain!) to play a sharing game, this book is going down very well with him. Today, Katie got involved too when learning about ratios. They each made refreshing drinks using a variety of soda water and juices using an egg cup to do the ratio quantities. After following instructions, they made their own versions. As temperatures reached the high 40s again in the conservatory, making cool drinks soon turned to Katie making cool smoothies using yoghurt, strawberries and vanilla ice cream. It was so good we've put some of the mixture into the ice cream molds for later.

Making the most of the sunshine.

Maths and working the kitchen - always a good combination for my two.

Ben celebrated his 8th birthday last weekend and he was pretty chuffed to get a small aquarium from Paul and me for the big day. He was just as chuffed to receive his first proper mechano set (help, it looks mighty boggling all those drawn instructions), a "Best Lock" Lego style racing car building set, a brilliant sized swimming bag and ever popular Lego Exo-Force figure. Any money that he received he very quickly spent on goodies for his aquarium which is now filled and waiting for new fishy arrivals hopefully by the end of next week.

Katie and I made a mini campsite for her woollie ponies and woollie riders. We made tents and rain covers using a roll of plastic and some old material for blinds which we picked up ages ago from our local "restore". Katie added bits and pieces from her dolls house - a bench, saucepans and plates of food while I built a mini barbeque from building bricks. Katie finally added a drinking pool for her horses which, later in the day, the new ducklings (there are 10 this time, mum is "Snowy") decided to use as their swimming pool. They also used our small pond in the nature garden which was particularly cute!


Campsite piccies.

They spent hours on this ... trying to light mini bonfires at the campsite!


Ben found the "old" gameboy - it's getting plenty of use, again.

Yesterday, Katie exhibited some of her model horses at a Model Horse Show and came away with a number of certificates and ribbons, including two first place. Now she's with her Gram and Gambo for a week. I know today she'll be spending her hard earned cash at Utterly Horses and I also know that during the week there will be a few riding lessons as well as trips to the beach if this glorious weather holds.

By the way the temperature in the conservatory today reached ...