Baking and making.

In between completing projects:

Katie made some yummy cookies and rock cakes (using her special recipe which replaces currants with chopped chocolate) and Ben has made a large batch of leek, potato and carrot soup to see us through most of the week for lunch time.

We also sowed cress seeds inside clean egg shells and toy boots which we found in the craft cupboard.

Following the instructions in Katie's "girls' handbook" for Ukrainian eggs, she and Ben decorated eggs using melted wax followed by a dipping in the dye. Blowing the eggs was a new thing for us and looked extremely funny (at the right angle). Katie tried to melt the wax after but it was awkward and we thought the waxed version looked quite lovely. Ben's yellow egg is "Eggbert" a character he's adored from a PC game for some time. The eggs on the website above look fabulous; I think a little more practise is needed at our end!



We've finished our Pop Art, Myths and Legends and How to Write Stories projects:

We studied the works of Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton and Roy Litchenstein and made our own paintings, collages and computer generated images.

On the writing stories front, I think in the end the book by Celia Warren was ever so good. Katie said she'd thoroughly enjoyed following it, but then she is a bit of a reader and writer anyway. Ben struggled in places. He's not good at writing in length and prefers to use the PC - his ideas seem to flow easier using this method. He has a brilliant imagination when it comes to playing, but he get a serious case of writer's block when it comes to getting things down on paper. He's still reading his Tintin books avidly and we now have an on-going Scrabble game out on the table as a free for all which he's eagerly participating in.

We found some brilliant websites for myths and legends. Particularly liked this one and this one. Reading myths from our local area was interesting and we all enjoyed writing our own using the website's story maker. Drawing a dragon head was fun too.

I'm going to start decorating Ben's room over the next few days. We have some of Katie's cream paint left over and were able to get another tin half price in a closing down sale so hopefully his room won't be as costly as Katie's! He's asked for "splodges" of different paint colours on one wall! Sounds fun. We've come across magnet and blackboard paint in various bright colours which we may use tester pots of to get the splodge effect. Clearing out his room was much easier than when I had to clear Katie's! It's given us a good opportunity to give the fish tank a good clean. Fishes are in the baking bowl at the mo, much to the amusement of the visiting puss! He's learning the word "no" very, very quickly.