Remembrance Day

This morning we learnt about Armistice.  We looked at Flanders on the map, discussed the poppy fields: so destroyed in battle that only poppies could grow, and the idea of Remembrance for all the wars and conflicts since the Great War.

We held a two minute silence at 11am for all our fallen soldiers.

The two smallest painted poppies on stones which we are going to varnish and take to Great-Nanny and Great-Grandad's grave this coming weekend.  They are our war heroes and we love them.

We read three war poems and the children wrote their own Remember acrostic poem.

Here is Ballet Girl's acrostic poem:

                                                         Righteousness is betrayed,

                                                        End of War, people laid.

                                                       Mud, guts, blood and sweat,

                                                      Every body lay that let

                                                     Mighty leaders sign a paper,

                                                    But more of it was like a caper,

                                                   Endless wars are still occurring,

                                                "Righteousness" the dead are murmuring.

And this book got us talking and thinking.

Then I managed to to something horrendous to my elbow.  I'm still not quite sure whether or not it is broken but in a very unheroic way I did a great deal of yelling and pacing in trembly pain for a couple of hours, then spent a while recovering and drinking herbal tea with my lovely friend.  Papa took charge with the kiddies' Spanish and Nature Study and took them to their trampolining lessons, made dinner, washed up and basically did all things brilliant.

Bestest Uncle Anthony came over for a visit and played screamy, shouty, cushion fighting crazy games with the children while I moped about.

I am still moping.

(Update 3 days later:  A lovely bruise and a very tender elbow but my arm is in full working order.  Hooray for that.  I have also quit moping.)

Remembrance Sunday

When you go home

Tell them of us and say,

For your tomorrow,

We gave our today.

This post is especially dedicated to my late, heroic Grandfather who was an RAF Desert Rat in WWII, my wonderfully gentle and kind Grandmother who was an ambulance driver in the WAAF in WWII, my husband's maternal Grandfather who faced and escaped a firing squad when caught as a member of the French Resistance in WWII, my Great-Grandfather who fought in WWI and was a night-watchman in WWII, and my Great-Grandmother whose house was bombed twice during the Blitz in London but continued to use her skills as a seamstress to make parachutes throughout WWII.  And to my parents, who grew up on rations in the post-war years. Thank you. 

Today my two Sea Cadet daughters and my Royal Marine Cadet Instructor husband paid their respects to the fallen.

Two parades, two services and one roast dinner with their unit later, they came home to snuggle in jim-jams and rest their feet.  

How blessed we are to live in a free country.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

..........................................................................................................


Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valour led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honour of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

Love Them All!

We had great news this week and so we celebrated with a family meal out.  Yum!

At The Movies

Today my Boy made this cute stop-animation movie about The Great Fire of London.  Good job little man!

Visiting the Library First Thing in the Morning. Because We can!

This morning we visited the library.  

Books for our thematic unit.

On our return The Boy requested some train track time.

The kiddies did some great work today and they didn't finish 'til 4pm.

In Picture Study we looked at moving figures and had a go at drawing without lifting the pen, like Paul Klee's work.

The Boy looked at sources of light in his Science work and made a mini display.

Panda Girl finished this book today.

And Ballet Girl learnt how to make shepherds' pie.

This evening these two had to be ultra-ready for Sea Cadets and:
 "Ceremonial Divisions - TONIGHT

Best Blues, all personnel to be onboard by 1900."

Love them!

The Great Fire of London Facts, Stories and Poems

The Boy started the day role-playing as a rat, passing the Bubonic Plague to anyone nearby.  Always a good way to start the week.  :)

Great Fire of London sensory tray.

When my two eldest were two and one, I re-painted for them my old doll's house, made for me by my grandfather.  It's in Tudor/Stuart style so we used it today for our work on the Great Fire of London and the loss of over 100 000 houses.

The Boy kick-started the day with some letter work.  He knows all but six letters of the alphabet now and I'm impressed with his clever work as I didn't intend for him to learn his letters so soon.  I followed his lead and his interest and hey presto - here we are!

Opposite his beloved big sister, Panda Girl.

Painting silhouettes of burning London

The Boy requested more painting time so he experimented with water colour and osmosis.

The two eldest focussed on creating a character about whom they could base a story on the Great Fire of London.  They initially used  thesauruses to gather words about what they would smell, touch, hear, see, and taste during the fire.  Then their character came to life with a drawing and adjectives for clothes, facial features, personality, likes, dislikes, position in society etc.  With all their ideas ready to go, they then created a story each.

Monkey Girl learnt how to draw St, Paul's Cathedral. 

Monday's poetry work had to be about fire!  Papa is home so The Boy and Papa worked together on his ideas about fire and London.  

Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl drew from their recent work on narrative and lyrical poetry and chose rhyme schemes to complement their ideas.

Everybody produced lovely poems and finished it off by creating artwork in their poetry books using coloured pencil.  This is my favourite medium and I showed the children how to blend and use colours to create vivid pictures.  They even got to use my expensive and most precious pencil set :)

Panda Girl used vocabulary sheets to help with her spellings. She worked hard on this, racking her brain for interesting and rhyming words.  Here's her brilliant poem:

Orange, yellow, red, black,

Thick smoke on my back.

Hot fire, rising heat,

Ash and embers burn my feet.

Crackling wood, crying tears,

Flames whooshing around my ears.

Papa and The Boy explaining poetry ideas.

And the day ended with their weekly trampolining lessons at the local leisure centre.  Roll on tomorrow :)

The House of Stuart and Pudding Lane Bakery

Returning to our House of Stuart theme we are looking at the Great Fire of London this week.  We made our own Pudding Lane Bakery and the kiddies got baking.  

We used play-dough instead of real dough to allow the children to role-play and make a mess.  They spent almost three days playing with this!