Caribbean fruit kebabs!

I wrote a book for Ballet Girl and she read it and drew appropriate pictures. Big reading progression today :)

Today's worksheets.

Monkey Girl made a Caribbean island out of plasticine :)

At Playgroup this afternoon. I face-painted them before we left:

Playing in the garden before dinner. I put on some great Caribbean music in my studio (at the bottome of the garden) and the girls had a good dance. Here they were practising their gym tumbling :)

Friday, 18th April 2008


Papa has had a whole week off work this week so we had a day off today, although Ballet Girl did paint a big Caribbean picture.

Thursday, 17th April 2008

Lots of worksheets today, including a story written by Ballet Girl about the Caribbean.

Today Mummy had a day off for her Birthday!! Papa took charge and I got: a lie in, breakfast in bed, lovely presents from my girlies, time for a workout, a whole afternoon off while the children went out for some fun time with Papa, a tea party and a lovely evening with my parents and brothers and sisters. Thank you to my Yummy Wonderful Man :) xxxxxx I love you! xxxxxxx

A Tea Party for Mummy :)

Tuesday, April 15th 2008
This morning we measured bananas! We discussed whether it was better to use a ruler of a bendy tape measure for this. The girls the spent a good 15 minutes racing around outside measuring everything they could see.

Worksheets and seashell bookmarks.

Ballet Girl practising some new Caribbean vocabulary.

Palms and sand pictures.

Imagining. We looked at photos of the Caribbean coastline and then listened to some calming sea music, while 'floating in the sea'. They imagined the hot sun, the dolphins, the warm sea water, the fish and the feeling of bobbing up and down on the waves.
Then we turned on some Cuban music and they had a good old boogie!

Face painting time! Caribbean Carnival girls!

Island collage.

Tuesdays are gymnastics lesson days :)

Monday, April 14th 2008
We began our Caribbean project by making banana bread.

Our banana bread :) We ate it for lunch with strawberries and yoghurt.

Being hurricanes.

We looked at some Caribbean flags, the Island of Puerto Rico, the idea of Island hopping, the weather, palm trees and started learning the names of the Islands.

We read some lovely books about the Caribbean.

A perfect excuse to set up the play-sand :)

Spring window display

To finish our Spring project, we took the children to a working farm to see some new-born lambs.

Monkey Girl and lamb :)

Panda Girl :)

Watching sheep shearing.

Watching the wool being spun.

At Gambado's. Burning off some energy.

Feeding the horses.

The last of the girls' Spring work. Ballet Girl had her first look at fractions and Monkey Girl completed a booklet about the lifecycle of a frog.

This morning I discovered Ballet Girl had changed Panda Girl's nappy and was in the process of choosing her clothes and dressing her, tights et al.

The result!! 

Monkey Girl has spent a great deal of time recently teaching Panda Girl how to play catch. Panda Girl thinks it is the most fun thing to do ever :)

The girls' peas are growing so well I have transferred them into a larger pot.

Ballet Girl spent the day today with Nanny M to give her a change of scenery, before term-time activities re-commence.  Monkey Girl asked to do some painting so we made symmetry butterflies, where she painted one side and then folded it over.

Monkey Girl's symmetry butterflies.

Monkey Girl's writing practice. She made a lovely book about the life cycle of a butterfly.

Panda Girl did some glueing today and then, no kidding, spent AN HOUR AND TEN MINUTES peeling it off her fingers. She was so, so quiet!

New story tapes. They love them!

Monkey Girl beaded a caterpillar using a fluffy pipe cleaner and green beads.

The finished caterpillar complete with half-eaten leaf.

Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl spend most of their spare time doing lots of boy things two houses up the lane with their little friend. They spend a great deal of time digging up this patch of earth, or laying bricks. Today I found them hammering nails in to bits of wood and raking mud.

It must be so lovely for Ballet Girl to know that when Papa comes home he will be able to fix her bike. And he did - first thing! :)

We woke up on Sunday morning to a beautiful white world. I personally was woken by the sound of lots of squealing and small children running round throwing on hats and gloves...