Work ....

My work, not school work today. I decided I needed a laser printer for our business 'cos I'm spending a small fortune on ink cartridges. So after purchasing one expensive printer and lugging it to my office, we couldn't actually fit it in anywhere, which meant a complete office re-organisation! It was one of those things we wished we never started, especially at 3pm.

However we fitted in our lovely new printer and then couldn't get the bloody thing working. Still dh got the phone working again - I bashed the socket box moving a filing cabinet and knocked the wires out, and tomorrow is another day.

But after a long day we had a nice parcel with our bead frame/abacus and wooden spindles. Thanks Sarah for the extra goodies you sent.

Gnomes and Leaves....

We continued with The Creation which involved watercolours of course. Today was nice and calm with Hettie keen to work, work, work! Which was good because my joints problem has been particularly bad today and so it was nice to sit back, although my hands have been worse than usual and I've dropped countless pots of water. We decided we may not be able to fit in all of the days of creation so she chose the oceans and sea creatures.

As she was so keen today we carried on withsome more Gnome maths courtesy of Serendipity, working on place value. Although we had our usual place value confusion we managed to count 261 gems, swopping units for tens and so on. We also looked at numbers up to a million using our rainbow tray.

So after lunch we finally got round to our botany cabinet which arrived this morning, which is Montessori not Waldorf but I'd already promised to buy it (thanks Sarah). So I decided we could use it for science and nature and we looked at trees in our garden. Hettie picked an oak and we looked for the leaf shape and traced the shape into a new main book (we can continue it through the year) looking at how the tree looks through the year. Hettie scuttled off into the garden to find some acorns and we found some nature books, and made a summary together which she copied beautifully. Thanks to Sarah we've got lots of uses for our cabinet.

Old Testament Stories...And Chocolate Fountains

We started today with the story of the creation, amidst a little groaning. But I overheard a conversation later with Hettie explaining to Isobel how God created the world, so something went in. We followed up with some Gnome Maths courtesy of Serendipity about Odds and Evens with much counting of gemstones.

Creation of night and day (Hettie accidently painted out the moon)

Last night we finally set up our chocolate fountain, yum yum!!!!!!!!!!!

And more painting...

We had to try out those new brushes! Even dh joined in after some persuasion.

Dh work of art! - show off.

Hettie's depiction of the Red Sea.

Isobel painted a boat and told some lovely stories about the fish.

We are now gathering large amounts of paintings which I think I'll bind somehow to make books. As usual Saturday was given over to cleaning and so no chocolate fountain. I have been needle felting and trying to decide how best to juggle work and home school next week, and plan our nature table.

Back to reality...

Normal life resumes and I'm rushing about mad trying to fit everything in, as usual. Issy has been back at school for 2 days, which has been a little trying to say the least. I forgot her PE Kit and dinner money, we both forgot to practice for her Friday spelling test and we had a lengthy debate about joining skipping club this term. I spent about an hour going through washing and ironing for the elusive PE kit last night only to find it was still in the bag it came home in. Spelling test didn't take place and we decided getting up half an hour earlier to be at skipping club just really isn't worth it.

Hettie went to nanny and grandads yesterday while I tried to catch up on paperwork at work. She copied some writing after reading a story from Winter Tales, did some reading and artwork. She came to work with me today and hung out with the staff while I continued my attack on the paperwork. I'd had enough by lunchtime and we went off shopping to buy some expensive paintbrushes (I entirely blame my MIL for introducing us to the delights of good brushes), we plan more painting tomorrow with our new brushes and also to have a go at our new chocolate fountain.

We had several bags on returning from shopping as it happens, new pjs and some slipper boots for Issy, couple craft activities and more watercolour paper.

My books arrived from Bob & Nancys though, two lovely readers which both girls pounced on, two recommended watercolour books and well one about drawing with block crayons which wasn't necessary but I wanted it! And good fun I had too last night crayoning.

A Peaceful Day....

We've had a quiet day today which was lovely after all the seasonal rushing about. Hettie spent a good part of it building lego while Issy made clothes for her cut out dolls.

Then we spent some time painting. Isobel explored with her new watercolour sticks on wet paper.

Then we all did some wet on wet watercolour. We managed much better soaking our paper with a sponge and Hettie's new watercolour brush was lovely, except she didn't want to share it for long!

I'm not posting my picture - it was rubbish. Above is Het's finished piece.

Happy New Year

Well we've continued on a de-cluttering frenzy and got rid of loads of basically junk. Not sure about rest of my family, but I feel much better for it. We did spend new years eve fairly quietly until our drunken neighbours dragged us into their party - which they held outside in the road! But a good time was had by all.

We spent today with my brother-in-law and hubbies cousin, and their families which was lovely. The children all had a great time, as did we. Which was a much nicer way to spend the day rather than more tidying!