A few days back went to our latest favourite playground and took a little bush walk and discovered a lovely sloping hill that the kids wanted to roll down. Well, it sure was fun, but as Nathan discovered there *is* such a thing as too much of a good thing. He ended up with a *very* seedy tummy that was emptied upon arriving back home. Just looking at the pictures made him feel sick again lol.


Nathan's really picking up the pace on reading and has been enjoying reading early readers to us and figuring out words that he's not familiar with. I realised that he was getting confused over his b and d (he never used to get them muddled) so we worked on little rhymes and a "picture" on how to form them so it might jog his memory (for b he says "bat and ball" and imagines the stick as the bat and the circle as the ball and for d he says "daddy the diver - circle for the mask, up and down for snorkle"). He said he didn't realise they were different till we drew them next to each other.

We went to the library yesterday and grabbed a random bunch of books on Mexico (including some kids recipe books), the Titanic, craft and drawing books as well as some chapter books. I spoke to the librarian who gives advice on book choices for kids and she was fantastic with suggestions for my practical boy who is not into "silly" stories such as the popular Aussie Bites. We came home with some Magic School Bus chapter books that both kids enjoy listening to. I also found an abridged fully illustrated version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to read them. Not as good as the full book which Nathan and I read last year, but enjoyed by both. We've spent a lot of time sitting out on the porch in the late morning sun producing all that good Vitamin D.

Nathan's Castle

Down in the garden this afternoon we discovered a couple of dandelions (woohoo, finally, I've only been finding the "imposters" up till now) and the kids collected a variety of flowers and we decided to freeze them to playing with tomorrow.

(you can see red cup marks around Danielle's cheeks - we juiced some beetroot, apple and carrots for an afternoon snack - yum, yum).

While I was weeding they were "making a surprise" for me up on the higher level. I was then invited up to check it out and they'd made a path all the way across the lawn, in front of the garage and a little bridge had been constructed.

Nathan continued on with "making a surprise" in his bedroom this afternoon.

Saturday

This morning we went for a walk to the Russian Festival that we'd been talking about all week.

It turned out to not really have too many interesting things for the kids (it was a fundraiser and all the cool things were paid extras and bit on the $$ side IMO) and mostly just food tables set up. They must have saved all the costumes, dancing and music for the show later in the day - it was a shame I think as far as educating the general public. But anyway, we did go and watch a little puppet show that was put on for kids.

I think they were more interested in the piece of string one of them found on the side of the road and squabbled and negotiated over that while we walked there...

Later in the day they decided to do their own puppet show and found all the finger puppets and little toys. They decided on a storyline first and who was going to do what and then acted it out. It was complete with different voices.

Then the performance was all on...

They first moved onto dressups. Nathan would appear dressed in a fairy outfit and I'd ask where Nathan had gone so he said he'd go and get him, race back, get changed back into his clothes and reappear, I'd then ask where Princess Nathan had gone and repeat about 10 times lol.

They then started acting out a little red riding hood scene where I was meant to be the big bad wolf (I guess they see that for real on occasion lol) so I suited the role quite nicely and the other one of them was the grandmother. Cute.

Then out came the juggling sticks for a few tricks.

The rest of the afternoon was spent down in the sandpit playing in the new sand that Simon had bought home last night (where *does* sand disappear to?!) followed by a game of Blokus.

My computer time this morning was cut short with Nathan bringing over one of his workbooks to do some work in.

We then spent some time out on the porch reading some more of our library books. One of them was on looking after small animals and had a section on observing earthworms which the kids were keen to try out. So off they ran to try and find some worms (after taking down a wet, opaque (to protect the worms from the UV rays) plastic cup to bring some back for observing). Alas, they were sad because they only found an old potato and I was getting busy on preparing lunch.

Huts, houses and rocket ships have been built out of couch cushions.

Reader Rabbit CD Rom has been played by Nathan and Danielle went onto the Starfall site but quickly got inspired to build a hut under the dining table so went off to do that instead.

Nathan found a dead beetle on his bedroom floor and found his bug catcher to observe it through the microscope. He then got out his Life-Size Guide to Insects and together we worked through the pages to find the one we were after. Ah, it was the Shield bug and being winter it even matched the colour in the book. The photo's in the book are perfect - the bug in the book really was life-size lol. As he was looking at it through the microscope he was talking about the different parts and colours and went off to draw one.

After lunch I recalled that there were some seals making their way down the coast that had been spotted at our local beach, so we went for a wander up there to see if there were any hanging around still. But no, they must have moved on. The day was gorgeous and really quite warm (even I was in a tank top and that rarely happens lol) and the kids were keen to try the water since it's been several months since it was warm enough to do so.









Upon returning home and having had a shower, we went out to find some worms to look at. We then tranferred them into a glass jar to get a good look. We shone a torch underneath them and you could see their food and dirt moving around inside them. Pretty cool. They were then put back outside.

This morning we made a trip down the line to a park I hadn't taken the kids to for ages (in fact I don't know if Danielle's ever been?). We took the bikes and had a wander around the lagoon, the playground, investigated the miniature traintrack and the many little bridges and islands. (Looks like Danielle's bike seat needs to go higher!).


This afternoon the kids got out their activity books for a while, we then did a bit of baking together and then played Monopoly.

Nathan found our Vin Fiz book and wanted to re-read it. Danielle sat with us and listened in too.

A morning on the water...

We joined nannie and grampy (and their dog) this morning for a paddle on the local river.

This was Nathan's first time paddling the sea-kayak on his own instead of being a passenger in the canoe. Danielle enjoyed her ride with grampy and the dog.

I was the stern steerer in the Canadian canoe, with my mum in the front and I'd say we covered more river and used more energy than anyone else due to my lack of steering skills lol! I think I finally got myself sussed right at the end. Ah well, I'll be good for next time hehe.

A week of pics...

I've been without my regular computer (until this afternoon) and my old one had 5 keys that wouldn't work, so was very frustrating constructing things to type and copying and pasting the missing letters into place if I wanted to make sense! So here I am back again.

Saturday
For Imbolc "new beginnings" (half way between mid-winter and Spring equinox as the ground is warming and awakening) we made some homemade musical instruments and decorated candles with flowers from the garden.




Sunday
A day in the garden helping out.

Monday
Off for a spot of mini-golf and a visit to a little museum nearby with a display on Fiji as well as old-time equipment.



Tuesday
A cold and wintery day followed a gorgeous one the day before. I found some old rice in the cupboard that I used to make "rice paste" for papier mache, so decided to pour some into trays for the kids and see what they did with it. It became birthday cakes, then some was poured into the mortar for an attempted grind.


All week
There have been some elaborate constructions. I don't really recall our traintrack being used as part of a "train phase", but it sure has had it's uses for constructing towns and zoos, complete with rivers, houses, shops etc.


The dominoes have been out again as well.

Danielle's been getting into it too.

I found another pyramid this morning

Friday
Then we had a Russian Food day. We picked up a library book last week with a few simple Russian recipes in it so the kids were keen to make a few. (And how neat it was that all the ideas fitted in with our current dietary needs lol). I was pleasantly surprised to open the local paper and see that there is going to be a Russian Festival just around the corner from us next weekend so we might go along to that and check out things for real.

Lunch was potato pancakes with cream and fruit puree (unusual combination, but hey, it was tasty and gone in about 30seconds!)

Danielle preferred just the cream...

Dinner was beef stir fried with prunes, mashed potato (and I added pumpkin), stir fry of cabbage, onion and carrot with lemon juice and honey.

All week
We've watched out seeds "rumble" through the surface of the soil in our seed trays that are in my bedroom and seen the amazing growth from day to day. I was telling Nathan about the time-lapse videos that get made to observe the growth of a plant in fast motion. He decided to draw some pictures showing the stages of plant growth over about 6 stages.
Thursday
Nathan got out some large dice a few days back and wanted me to roll them for him. He then added what was rolled together and hopped for the number given. Danielle then wanted to join in. Nathan then decided to write out the problems on some paper while Danielle rolled, added and jumped.

Saturday
Today we went to visit nannie and grampy. The kids had a play on nannie's Wii Fit - they like the running and the hula hoop. Nathan figured he could cheat the system on the running one by just moving his arms instead of running lol.
All week
Many chalk drawings and hopscotch drawn outside, board games, jigsaw puzzles, sandpit play, racing around the garden, bathing their soft toys, trampolining, playgrounds, ice cream outings, reading books, DVDs, crawling races up and down the hallway (a bit of Brain Gym), music and dancing.