This morning Nathan asked where the string was kept. So after locating that for him he disappeared off to his room and after about 1/2hr called me in to show me what he'd rigged up. It was some sort of invention. It was just unfortunate that a 2 and a 3yr old came today to play and it didn't last long enough for him to finish whatever it was that he had started.

He then moved on to wanting to make a gift for a friend and drew her a rainbow (wanted to know what order the colours are in, so I told of the Roy G BIV mneumonic that I learnt when I was younger), then cut it up to make a puzzle, made a box out of some cardboard with my help, put everything inside and closed it all up (we made a closure by attaching a circle of cardboard on the main part of the box, put a piece of wool through the flap lid and then wound the wool around the circular piece to open and close it.

After reading about whittling in My Side of the Mountain, Nathan has shown an interest in what it was, so today I gave him a pocketknife I'd set aside for him and he gave it a little go on a piece of firewood.

This evening, after Nathan had taken himself off to bed early, Danielle got out a box of game pieces and proceeded to have a very indepth game with them. I returned from putting Nathan to bed and she told me about the table full of food for the party of people that she'd set up. There were wonderful little conversations going on between all the people - apologies for knocking another guest over, saying goodbye to others as they sat up at the table etc. She plays like this quite frequently and easily an hour or two at a time. The game changes and then forms something new. She plays like this with her dollshouse, a bowlful of stones, a group of figurines or a basket of plastic animals. No matter what she has, she can turn it into a very imaginative set up. I don't recall Nathan ever really playing like this, so it's all new to me.


Danielle is loving our Bad Jelly the Witch book lately and it's the most requested book of the moment. She's been busy making her own book which she started yesterday (by glueing heaps of pages of paper together) and then today she started drawing pictures and "writing" (squiggles) on some of them.