A New Unit

We started our new unit today!  Explorers and Pirates 1400AD - 1600AD.  We chatted a little about Marco Polo and how he inspired so many, including Christopher Columbus.  And then we did a mini unit on 1492 and Christopher Columbus.  Monkey Girl asked if King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were the Ferdinand and Isabella monarchs who were parents to Katherine of Aaragon and she was utterly thrilled to learn that they were.  

A choice of chalk pastels or oil pastels to colour Christopher Columbus' three ships. They created their own designs.

Matching pairs game and puzzles for my darling son. 

 Monkey Girl's watercolour.

Osmosis and Shaving Foam Ice Cream Play

So my Husband informs me that food colouring won't work in the osmosis process of colouring flowers.  He made us a new vase with ink in...

And here it is a day later!

We soaked the elderflower heads we collected earlier this week in lemon and sugar for 48 hours...

...and made some yummy cordial.  

Today The Boy had nursery and then Story club.  He's often a little worn out by Thursday afternoons so I organised some fun messy play for them all.

I made cones with shiny card...

...and used shaving foam to make 'ice cream'...

 ...the ice cream shop...

And a table for messing about with baby lotion, raisins, seeds, and spices.

And then it started to rain and it all got a little crazy!

Papa's Home!

Papa has just returned from seven months in France.  We missed him lots and lots, but he's back for good now and we are enjoying every minute!  The Boy has spent hours helping Papa repair and make all sorts of awesome things in the past two weeks since his return, including a ramp for the garage step, a fully functioning bow and arrow for The Boy's friend when he came to play, bike repairs and tumble dryer repairs.  

Investigating a family of beetles.

This morning's dry rice play turned into soggy rice and rose petal play this afternoon.

The girls took themselves outside first thing this morning to build fairy houses in the garden.  I couldn't bring myself to call them in for school work as the sun was shining and the garden was just beautiful, so they spent all day making these awesome houses complete with mini-ponds and washing lines.

This afternoon/evening The Boy and Papa went swimming while the two eldest went to their tap dancing, modern dancing and then their gymnastics lessons.  Panda Girl missed her gym lesson today as she has conjunctivitis, something she suffers with a fair amount due to a tiny spare-tear duct she has on the side of her nose.  Conjunctivitis aside, the tear duct itself is incredibly cute and completely cool :)

Rainbow Mosaic and Rainbow Food Colouring Play

The girls studied a poem about a rainbow yesterday and The Boy joined in with a rainbow mosaic, a pot of gold and some letter matching.

...and a golden glittery sun.

The Boy did some rainbow drop-painting after lunch today. Fun!

Here he is saying "oh my days!"

The girls had a go too.  

We talked about osmosis in the above activity and then prepared some flowers in food colouring to demonstrate the process,

The Boy wrote '2' so we would know that the flowers went in the coloured water at 2pm :)

Monkey Girl has a bone collection (as you do).  We added a macaw feather to our feather collection following our safari park trip last week.

Late this afternoon the weather was great.  It seemed that chores should be outside ones today :)

They worked hard and were rewarded with cupcakes made by Mummy and an evening picnic in the park...

...where we collected elderflowers for elderflower cordial

Today's sunset.

 Coloured rice play for the Boy in the morning