Mmm, let me think ....

Falling behind on the old blogging of late. Not sure why, just feeling really tired and finding there's not much time in the day once we've done some HE and then sorted out the house, ironing, gardening (weeds, weeds - they're coming out of my ears!), etc., etc., (you get the picture) and then getting stuck into a couple of brilliant books!

Forgotten half of what we've been up to, naturally.

On the geography lapbook (Our World) side of things we've recapped on the water cycle by making small 3D collages. Pleased to see the children could remember how the cycle worked and most of the "big" names, although Katie initially typed "perspiration" instead of "precipitation"! We also did a simple experiment to show how condensation works as well as transpiration.
Started to look at extreme weather finding some amazing tornado vids on You Tube and we've started to keep a 2 week weather chart turning our findings into bar charts/graphs etc. in due course.

Katie has been drawing lots, Ben has been doing lots of Lego building and I've been doing lots of weed pulling. The combination of warmth and rain has made them sprung up in an uncontrollable manner. We have three exit doors in our house, the side one only really gets used for the postie and Tesco man so I was horrified to see the path completely covered in those horrible sticky weeds (they were fastening themselves to the Tesco man's leg as he delivered my monthly shop!!). Have been pulling and pulling to banish them but I know they shall be back! On the other hand, the warmth and rain has done wonders for the veggies; they are looking mighty good. Just need to sow the sweetcorn and we're done for this year.

At Katie's art lesson this week she studied tone making an object (horse) out of white paper to witness light and dark and then drawing what she saw using white chalk and charcoal. Everyone produced some lovely results. She's really enjoying these sessions and carries on her learning at home in her spare time, drawing, pastelling, inking and now charcoaling in her art book. While Katie was doing all this, Ben and I enjoyed the beautiful surroundings of Kings Cliffe walking through the narrow alleyways, admiring the stonework on the old buildings, looking for dates in the churchyard and, more than anything else, having great fun in the streams that run through the village. Typically I forgot the camera, I could have taken some fabulous shots.

Charoal and chalk - prickly pot plant.

Ben is expressing more and more his desire to do woodwork. This week he decided to use a hacksaw, hammer and nails to make Katie a mini jump for her model horses. He was adament to do the whole thing by himself (only needing a bit of assistance in working out the best way to keep the small sticks for moving during the hammering), even down to working out how to make the jump stand by itself (rather than being pushed into the ground). He was pretty chuffed with himself.

Have been engrossed in this book and this book. "World Without End" is, just like "Pillars of the Earth", fabulous - finding it hard to put down (I try hard not to read novels these days purely because it stops me doing anything else). In between reading this, I've been thumbing through "The Complete Secrets of Happy Children" which is actually a very well written and thought provoking book. Reasons for reading this? I'm finding Katie and Ben push me and push me more and more to do what they want. I find it harder to be as firm as I used to be as I quite often see their side of the argument, but I still feel I (or P) need to be the grown up figure they respect and listen to and they shouldn't expect to get their own way every time. Reading this book has really helped me find a way of getting my kiddies back on track without getting really annoyed. So far it's working and I noticed today that they were playing together and treating each other alittle better too.

Oh and finally, two more ducks have produced a total of 13 ducklings overnight. Fingers crossed this time.