Ballet Girl sewed a beautiful starfish this afternoon. We filled it with polystyrene balls and made it into a starfish beanbag.

Apart from a bike ride this afternoon, Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl spent most of the day on their roller boots.

Lighthouse - made with a torch, card, pebbles and netting for sea foam.

Work-time today. Panda Girl wanted to sit next to Ballet Girl and mid work gave her long happy hug.
Today, amongst other things, the girls did some good work in their activity books, listened to a Bob the Builder Story CD, and had an hour of gymnastics lessons. Ballet Girl is teaching herself to do a walk over from the bridge position and her teacher recommended today that we stretch her shoulders back a little to help her.
We took the dog for a good run on the fields and the girls had great fun rolling down the hill as fast as they could - lots of giggles.

In the girls' Ship's Log Books today they travelled from Mexico, through the Panama Canal, West to China across the Pacific. They saw a shoal of fish, went fishing and "swam with mermaids".
They also stencilled some sea animal and named their favourite. Ballet Girl is working hard on her joined up handwriting in her log book.

Panda Girl is 2 and 2 months. She concentrates so hard when she is colouring.

She did this all on her own. It's amazing to watch her.

Dancing with armbands and goggles to The Little Mermaid's 'Under the Sea'. Very funny.

Beach scene in the living room, complete with towels, goggles, armbands, buckets and spades, and a palm tree...!

Bright and early this morning the girls spent 2 hours in a nearby gymnastics centre, walking on the beam, trampolining, climbing through tunnels, racing, bouncing about and generally 'legging it around' - so to speak.

After lunch the girls listened to Paddington Bear on CD, read by Stephen Fry, followed by some really good maths work in their Sea and Ocean workbooks....

...then made steady progress in their activity books...

...while Panda Girl played with a big tray of rice, pearl barley and corn. Can it get any more fun when you are 2?!

I made a treasure map as a surprise for the girls. I put it on their desks for them to find in the morning. They followed the map and found mini spice loaf cakes I had made for them hiding behind the sofa. They were delighted!
Later I showed Ballet Girl how to make a treasure map, tearing at the edges and using coffee to stain the paper for an old parchment effect. She drew a beautiful map on it and hid some blueberries in Monkey Girl's bed for her to find. Great fun!
Monkey Girl made one later and hid a bone at the park for the dog! :)

Wow!! We've had a whole week off. The girls have had a lovely half term week, spent mostly catching up with their friends and/or at the park. Refreshing and fun.

Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

We read the Lourdes story (although a little edited for little ears) and decorated a frame around a picture of St. Bernadette and Our Lady.

Painting sea pictures.

The girls played outside for most of the day today but they did make a funny fish picture with photographs of their heads as the fish's head. We talked about what it would be like to be a fish and Ballet Girl spent a while working out how she would escape from various nets and sharks and whales.

I cut out fish pictures from the aquatic centre brochures the girls were given and they made a collage.

Balloon volleyball at the park this afternoon.

This weekend my Ballet Girl learnt to ride her bike without stabilisers. She woke up on Saturday morning and decided, that was it, she wanted them off. She's been zooming around for 3 days now!

Yesterday we visited our local aquatic centre. The girls took their clipboards and drew their favourite fish. Panda Girl joined in too. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves and even got some fish stickers from the manager.
Today we watched dolphins and other marine life on the National Geographic website.

Working on her ship's log book. Over the past 3 days the girls have travelled from England-Iceland-Africa-Mexico, logging the date, direction, weather. They also saw a lighthouse, cleaned the ship, watched the fish, spotted a school of dolphins, looked at the anchor and the ship's wheel, and enjoyed the hammocks.

Monkey Girl reading a great sea book from the library.

Painting starfish.

A lovely walk to the park.

Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl made some sea themed sun catchers.

Our sea jar.

Pirate ship. This is such a great toy!

Shrove Tuesday - pancakes for lunch :)

This morning the girls made jellyfish. Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl worked on their maths, with their first look at odd and even numbers and some work on tallying.

Today the girls started a Ships' Log. We travelled North (ok, North northwest) from England to Iceland. The girls drew a compass, a picture of their ship (Ballet Girl called her's The Poppy and Monkey Girl The Diamond), the date, the weather and some pictures of their trip. Tomorrow we will go South...

Handprint crabs with googly eyes!

Shell Estimation. The girls had a look at the jar and had to guess how many shells they thought were inside. They then wrote their estimate, counted and wrote the actual.

Out with the polystyrene balls and in with the water. The girls, Panda Girl especially, have played with this for most of the day.

Fishing. Cardboard fish with paper clips on and pencils with magnets on string.

Last week,waiting for their Trampolining lesson, my 5 and 4 year old, Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl surprised me so much. They have been listening to Around the World with the Sticky Kids CD in the car, so I hear it every time they do. Without warning they both suddenly counted to 10 in Chinese!! I don't even know what 1 is. It was a brilliant moment!

Now they can count to 10 in French, Italian, Swahili, Spanish and Chinese. They love it almost as much as I do!

Today's work: map of the world's oceans, ocean mammals, sea things that begin with 's', bookmarks to make, maths work, a collation of dot-to-dots, mazes and spot the difference.

Beach and sea story books for my forever-reading-Panda Girl.

The Treasure Chest. We added pearls to this today after talking about how oysters make them and how precious they are.

Sea shell collection for the display. Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl have been listening to the sea in the shells and Panda Girl, copying, has been using them as telephones "ello?"

Break time: we played ship and used telescopes which the girls had decorated earlier to spot land. The girls shouted "land ahoy" and jumped on sea turtles (Ikea basket lids) to get to the island. We also played 'shark tag' and 'catch the fish' which ended up all very squealy and hysterical.

Fresh water or salt water? We discussed how the sea is salty and how rivers and lakes are not. Using 2 pint glasses we experimented with 2 eggs in salted water and fresh water and which one made them float. The girls drew a diagram of their findings.

We also looked at the Red Sea on the map and discussed how you can float in it because it has so much salt.

This afternoon I took Lucia and Dom to Playgroup. Papa has a week off work so he and Elodie went for a long walk with the dog across the fields and through the next village - about 2 miles away. Elodie called me to tell me where she was, so excited about how far they had gone :)

We are starting a new project this week - seas and oceans. We went swimming yesterday and Lucia, who is like a little goggled fish in the water, had a fine time. Elodie needs more encouragement so we spent a while being mermaids - there is nothing more motivating than that apparently.

Sea images and letters jigsaw. These are washable ones so I put them on the table for the girls to do during breakfast.

Polystyrene balls and sea creatures. Very theraputic.

Farm window display

Some of the farm books we read for our project.

Our memory tray. The girls had to figure out which farm food I had taken away. Lucia, in typical Lucia fashion, touched each one with her finger when I asked her to memorise the items.

Black card and cotton wool handprint sheep.