Elodie and Lucia's chocolate finger pioneer log cabins, complete with marzipan pioneer figures

Dominique's beautiful attempt. She's so wonderful :)

Elodie and Lucia made lollipop stick pioneer log cabins this morning. A little too brightly coloured perhaps but they had fun all the same. A nice way to start the day.

Playing fun games with their lollipop stick cabins and various creatures.

I made a pilgrim bonnet for the girls to wear. Elodie wore it for most of the morning.

Elodie showing me the washing line which she assembled as part of our pioneer-living role play.

Lucia planted some lupin seeds a couple of weeks ago. They are growing beautifully and she is very proud.

Lucia's lupin and her cactus which Nanny Mo gave her for her 4th Birthday, both growing nicely on her desk.

Today we met up with a cousin who I have not seen for a while (currently living in London, normally lives in New Zealand, but will shortly be emmigrating to Australia) and Lucia spent most of the afternoon chattering away about every subject under the sun. She also:

Counted to ten in Swahili
Counted to ten in French
Counted to five in Spanish
Recited 'Ring a Ring a Roses' in Italian

Not bad for a 4 year old! :)

USA theme paper chains which we spent a happy half hour making.

Starting with the image of a Pilgrim the girls painted while I told the story of the Pilgrims travelling on The Mayflower to America. They were intrigued about which picture I would give them next according to the development of the story. Lucia was SO happy when I told her about the Wampanoag Tribe coming to help the Pilgrims after their first terrible winter. She was all smiles and exclaimed "oh that's really kind!".

We discussed the First Thanksgiving and I have now given myself the wonderful task of throwing a Thanksgiving Party next week - the girls are excited so I have no escape!

I spent a fun evening colouring these in (sometimes it is nice for the girls to not have to colour all their work in) and gave Ced the wonderful task of cutting out each piece which he dutifully did :) The girls were not sure how the final picture would look but had fun gluing the hands and baby and feet and feathers on etc.

Lucia's Mayflower complete with her choice of Pilgrims

Elodie's Mayflower complete with Pilgrims

Taking our Pilgrim theme one step further we spent a whole morning looking at The Pioneers and Wagons West.

I created a booklet for the children to look through including a map of the Oregon Trail and pictures of families travelling across America in the Gold Rush. We discussed what we would take with us, how cattle were used for pulling the wagons, how most people walked on foot beside the wagon train and how a fire was needed for breakfast. The girls enjoyed the idea of singing and dancing and telling stories around the fire in the evening before sleeping either under the stars or under or inside the wagon.

We discussed building a simple wooden house on reaching our destination and then how many men went to the rivers to pan for gold.

Here the children are panning for gold (gold paper I had screwed up into balls and hidden amongst the stones). For every five gold nuggets they found I gave them some play money.

Gold!

The girls were able to 'purchase' warm blankets and food for their families by selling the gold they panned in the river.

We realised that Elodie was wearing an appropriate stripey top for our American project so we made a blue star sticker (albeit minus a few stars) for the top corner! Her top tooth fell out the night before so she looks yummier than ever!

Making American flags

Elodie and Lucia's American Flag - srips of card, blue sticky-back-plastic and silver stars.

Lucia doing a puppet show for Elodie

Elodie painting and Lucia creating things with boxes and sellotape.

I decided to make ginger biscuits with the girls. During the mixing Dominique disappeared and returned with this woolly hat which apparently she wanted to wear whilst she cooked. It didn't last for long but it was very funny.

The girls shaping the mixture into balls

Ginger biscuits!

We are currently working on a new project about USA.  Watch this space...

We've been busy over the past few days since the girls recovered from their 'poorliness'.  Papa took Elodie and Lucia to a Craft Fair at Woburn Safari Park for the afternoon on Saturday and then bowling and watching snowboarding on Sunday while I took Dominique to a party for a friend of hers that turned 2!  

Elodie lost her third tooth yesterday and looks ultra-cute as this time it is a top one!  

Here are Elodie and Lucia's activity books which they have completed this year. They range from dot-to-dot to maths, phonics, counting, motor skills etc. I have found some of the best ones come from France -I have a regular supply from my Mother-in-Law for which I am truly thankful.

The girls have learnt an awful lot from these and watching their progression has been extremely pleasing. I let them pace themselves - on the whole Lucia generally spends a great deal of contented time doing her activity books. Elodie does less work but is more precise and neater with hers. Lucia is very quick at activities such as 'spot the difference' or 'match the pairs' and Elodie is doing really nicely with her addition and subtraction and she enjoys using her abacus.

Elodie's reading books - Primary Phonics. These are great and evolve really nicely.

Elodie and Lucia's Jolly Phonics books

The girls' religion books - Treasure box.

Elodie and Lucia have been poorly for the last few days with a throat infection so we have done a lot of relaxing and fun play. Both girls love their workbooks however and we have spent a fair amount of time on these. Lucia spent over an hour on hers and completed a whole book with me today AND asked for another one!

I set up a mini-gym for them in the living room this afternoon (which is basically all the sofa seat cushions and throws spread about on the floor - a bit of music and off they go!) Lucia wasn't up to much but she did try to teach herself to somersault in the air...

Lucia deseeding Lupin pods and planting them in her flower pot - which she had previously decorated with butterfly stickers.

Dom and Lucia experimenting with glitter, star sequins and blue food colouring water!

This is the remains of our sweet factory. The girls used tissue paper, boxes and playdough to 'make sweets' and then sold them in their shop.

Firework window display.

I suddenly decided to do a mini-firework project which was really just lots and lots of craft, a poem and some sparklers.

We made star and lameta rockets, sequin swirly things, glitter glue pictures, and lots of gluey, sequin-ey, sparkly, pictures on black paper.

Neither of the 2 eldest are too keen on fireworks. They find them too loud. I decided to use this project as a way of getting them to understand that they are merely pretty, sparkly and exciting. They enjoyed all the sticking, especially Lucia. Elodie spent a lot of time sticking things in order; the sequins in a row, the hexagonal sequins in a pattern , the stars in the different colours etc. Dominique is developing an amusing habit of painting her fingers with glue and then picking off the dried glue with her other hand. It keeps her so quiet that I let her get on with it!

Firework display

Grandad and Elodie with their sparklers

Dominique inspecting her sparkler

The girls with their sparklers and Aunty Grace

Elodie and Lucia making firework pictures

November, Month of the Holy Souls, All Saints Day

"To be a saint is a wholly practical and realistic growth into our own truth. It is what we are meant to become, it is our deepest fulfillment, our own personal realization of what we have been potentially from birth." (Sister Wendy's Book of Saints, pg. 8)

Scotland window display.

Elodie and Lucia are so enthusiastic with their learning at the moment - it is very pleasing and encouraging. Things may change but for the moment all is well :)

They enjoyed this project - we looked at lots of Scottish images, watched some videos of Highland Games and also of Scottish dancing. Elodie learnt to sing along to a Gaelic song about porridge and Lucia learnt that the Loch Ness Monster can actually have a smiley face if you want it to. We used different media to create lots of pictures of traditional Scottish images, we made flapjacks, wore tartan kilts, and had great fun making funny looking pipe-cleaner skiers - see below.

Scottish thistles, castles, the Loch Ness monster, lochs, the Highlands, tartan and bagpipes

Locating Scotland on the map

Elodie and Lucia chose colours for their tartan and created this Scottish man (each part was cut out). A few days later I asked them to then observe their pictures and find the corresponding felt-tip colours from their desks. They then had to create tartan-looking bagpipes (using horizontal and vertical lines) with the same colours.

The girls really enjoyed this - each flag is on transparency paper and they girls were intrigued to see how it made the Union Flag when you put it all together - Lucia, out of the blue, demanded to know where the Wales flag was :)

Skiing in Scotland

The girls' pipe-cleaner and pom-pom skiers on our snowy Highland mountain

Elodie trying to spell the word 'Scotland' from memory - she did it too!

Dom pouring in the honey

Dom (of her own accord) holding the pan for Elodie while she stirs.

My gorgeous girlies putting the flapjack mixture in the dish

Scottish flapjacks - the girls and Papa (and Fendo because he stole Dominique's) devoured them over 2 days.

Yesterday we made Scottish flapjacks -yum!  The girls had gymnastics and they are both progressing well with their tumbles.  Dom and I had a lovely walk on the field with Fendo the dog while we waited for them.

Today I took the girls to a large activity centre to burn off some energy.   Elodie and Lucia took themselves to the toilet (this is a secure and safe place and I would NEVER normally allow them to do this) and laterI spotted them, walking with their arms around eachother, evidently looking for me as I had moved on with Dominique.  Dom and I shot down the huge slide (we were at the top)  and I raced after them. Lucia was upset and Elodie looking after her.  After big hugs and kisses Elodie told me "we were looking for you Mummy and Lucia was sad but I told her it was ok because we are sisters".  Elodie is such a good girl.  Later in the car on the way home, after 10 minutes of no talking at all I heard Lucia say "I love you Elodie".  Makes me proud to be their Mummy.

Well, Dom has croup and she has spent the last 3 nights waking at impossible hours.  Saturday night we went down to the kitchen to steam her (sounds really funny when you write it down!) and her and I ended up making pancakes at 4am.  

Today all 3 girls spent a while using coloured sticky-back-plastic to create pictures of the Scottish Highlands - mountains, loch (Ness monster included), lots of grass and a real thistle.

Elodie and Lucia made pipe-cleaner and pom-pom skiers to go on our Ben Nevis snowy mountain top - they played for ages with them and even Cinderalla got involved.

I gave the girls a blue square and they had to cut it correctly and stick the pieces on to white card in order to make the St Andrew's flag.  

Elodie learnt how to spell Scotland and she got 14/15 in her spelling test.  Hooray!  Lucia drew and drew and drew while Elodie sewed a cushion for her friend's birthday and both the girls made birthday cards.

I had a few errands to run in the car so the girls' listened to "Around the World with the Sticky Kids" which has a funny gaelic song about porridge. Elodie secretly sings along but refuses to sing it to show me :)