We declared today as our official get back to work day as Wayne was also going back after being off since before Christmas to have the operation on his neck.

Skye started with some maths and Poppy carried on with a lapbook she started last week on hamsters. They both did some reading.

As of Wednesday, we are starting the Physics workbook so they read the first chapter of that together

Merry dropped off M, A and J whilst she went off for a hospital appointment. We began with card making, Skye made a birthday card for Poppy and M, A and J made cards for Merry as they both Poppy and Merry share a birthday tomorrow

Next was lunch, finished their cards and then we walked the dog, played pooh sticks on the bridge and stopped off to feed the ducks

Back home, after discussing the surrealist artist, Rene Magritte, we looked at some of his work and concluded that he liked naked women, curtains, bowler hats and apples!! We then created some of our own surrealist artwork with the help of this fabulous website.

Once artwork was done they all played Just Dance 3 on the Wii, played a role playing game and did a quiz using questions from our quiz jar There was also lots of hamster adoration as we got Poppy a hamster for her birthday…….meet Nim

We had a great day, starting off creating this mixed media Poppy picture to mark Armistice day. They worked really well and I was very pleased with the results.

After lunch Helen got on with the science, making and testing for gases. Lots of popping, smoking, fizzing and flames…. like proper chemistry should be

We also managed to catch up on Story of the World with Helen and the girls taking it in turn to read.

We had a go at making some cute miniature owls.

Poppy decided hers looked more like a cat so added a body, legs and a tail

There was also lots of piano practice, including a jazz duet by SB and Helen

The girls had piano lesson in the evening and before we went in, Poppy had more or less decided this would be her last one as she was apparently rubbish! Which she is not! After a great lesson, she came out with a Certificate and is happy to continue. Phew!

Following on from this the girls and I read Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat, watched the clip from Cats and created a newspaper article about him.

Great fun

Can’t seem to find the photos of these so will have to add when I come across them

I had set up skull picture colouring and design as sort of a halloween type art to occupy the children as they arrived so the adults could catch up over a cup of tea Whilst they were finishing their pictures we did some basic French conversation. Saying hello, how are you, asking name and age.

Whilst we cleared the table ready for science, we sent the children out to collect twigs, acorns, conkers, leaves and any other nature related goodies so we could do some nature art in the garden. Once they were back, we split them into two groups, one going off with Merry to do poetry, The Witches Spell from Macbeth. Merry read the poem aloud and then they were given the task of creating and illustrating their own spell-binding potion poem

The other group started on Science – making gunpowder (legally as it was only in very small quantities)

After swapping round the groups and then lunch we gathered our pots of gunpowder and went into the garden to carry out our controlled explosions!

The results were fantastic! Far better than our previous attempt! This time instead of wrapping the gunpowder in paper we put it directly onto a rock and set it alight! Wow!!!

After more tea and playing, Em got out the bells

There was also some glock and recorder playing

A few of the children started on creating some nature art in the garden and finished up with this

Merry and the girls had to leave but Em and Helen stayed for a jacket potato tea. Skye, Poppy, SB, R and E played Whoonu! whilst BB watched Sharks Tale DVD and O climbed on the furniture making me very twitchy!!!

A great start back

Apparently, according to one woman, us he’ers seeing hoards of children together in one place must have been an eye opener! Er, no, not really.

Anyway, film was pretty good; in a nutshell, two bears, a couple of Rangers one meets girl and falls in love, National Park going to close down then a turtle saves the day!

Back to ours for lunch, joined by Merry, then onto the first of our artetc projects of the afternoon.

Pumpkins. Using this website, which has been fabulous for most of our artetc days, we followed the instructions on drawing Hallowe’en pumpkins, colouring them in using Carola twistables.

After a quick play in the garden, skipping I think, it was back for session two. Another pumpkin, but this time using watercolour and outlinining in black marker pen.

Really pleased that we are getting back into our artetc days – I love them

The girls had an amazing time as well as learning new skills they climbed trees, made new friends and just loved it! Skye has blogged about it here

So, what did they do? Well firstly Leigh gave them a small piece of paper and asked them to draw simple shapes onto it.

They they chose a selection of colours and ‘coloured in’ the shapes using the gouache.

Once this was done, they could then add some decoration, swirls, spots and anything else they wanted to enhance their work. Finally they outlined selected bits of their picture with a black marker pen. The results were fab!

They were then encouraged to choose a picture from a magazine and try to recreate it. Skye chose a butterfly and Poppy chose a turtle.

The idea was to sketch the picture first then apply a block colour, building up colour and textures. Leigh did say that many artists who use gouache often have 3 or 4 paintings on the go so as they can allow time for each layer to dry yet still carry on with their art work!

They’ve yet to complete these paintings as we have no gouache at home and they ran out of time in their lesson, but will post them here once they are finished

After the session had finished, the girls had a quick play at the park, sharing the beans picnic as I hadn’t realised I was supposed to bring one with me! So thank you Chris

Griddle cakes
Ingredients
Spelt flour
Butter
Sugar and/or honey
Rolled oats
Dried fruit
Milk or water
First put 1 part butter, 1 part sugar and 2 parts flour into a mixing bowl. Add a blob of honey. Rub in until you get even breadcrumbs (like when you make pastry). Add extra
flour/butter as needed. Add a little milk or water to bind into a dough – not too much or it will become sticky. Knead briefly. Add as many oats and dried fruit as you like and knead into the dough. Take small balls of the dough and flatten into rounds (3-4 mm thick). Melt some butter on a griddle or in a flat pan, and drop the cakes in. Turn every 30 seconds – 1 minute until both sides are nicely browned. Eat while still hot!

Honey Oat Cakes
Serves 10-15 people.
Ingredients
350 g (12 Oz) Rolled Oats (Whole rolled oats if possible)
225 g (8 Oz) Butter
225 g (8 Oz) Honey
Pinch of salt
Method
Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan. Add the salt, honey and oats and stir until they are well mixed.
Spoon the mixture out onto a greased baking tray or swiss roll tin and press it down well.
Bake at 325F/170C for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool for a few minutes then mark into squares while still warm and serve when cold.

Cream Cheese and Honey Slices
Serves 10-15 people.
Ingredients
100 g (4 Oz) Plain Flour
75 g (3 Oz) Soft Butter
100 g (4 Oz) Cream Cheese
50 g (2 Oz) Honey
2.5 ml (half level teaspoon) Ground Cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
Method
Sift the flour and chop in the butter; add 15 ml (1 tbsp) water, work with a knife to a smooth dough. If necessary chill to make rolling out easier. Use to line a 28.5 by 18.5 by 1.5 cm (11.75 by 7.75 by 0.75 inch) Swiss roll tin. I actually used a 7 x 7 inch tin and the filling wasn’t that deep so I would suggest doubling the filling ingredients.
Mix together the cream cheese, honey and cinnamon and add the eggs. Pour this mixture onto the pastry.
Bake at 350F/180C for about 30 minutes.
Cut into slices when cool.

HH was encouraging them to create and illustrate some fabulous sewn books inspired by Beowulf. M bought along Celtic hama bead designs which were fab, B brought weaving, there was also G’s calligraphy badges and K’s ceremonial Anglo-Saxon badges so plenty to be getting on with

Had the usual chatter and cups of tea which is always good

I towered up home made biscuits as a birthday cake for Skye and we all sang her a happy birthday

4.25am we were on our way to Dover, screeching in with only minutes to spare!

Had a good run down to the campsite. Our home for the next 7 days was nestled in the forest across from a lovely lake so lots of frog hunting

We were very fortunate with the weather, although it was not hot and sunny every day, it was warm enough for the girls to swim in the outdoor pool, which we mostly had to ourselves, there was hardly anyone on site!

We managed a trip to see our lovely friends Nicki and Paul and their girls G & C. They own a beautiful farmhouse and gite complex with a pool and had kindly invited us to stay overnight. We had a lovely couple of days with them and wished that we have booked the week there!

Didn’t do a great deal else, had a couple of days out geocaching, wandering round local towns and markets which was nice. We drove past some gorgeous troglodyte homes, some were up for sale

Our next stop was a site about an hour away from Paris, Le Croix de Vieux Pont. This is our 5th visit to this site as it ticks lots of boxes, indoor and outdoor pool with slides, a lake for pedalo-ing/canoeing, close enough to Paris/Euro Disney. Unfortunately the pitch we were given was not great but ok. Very close to the pool so the girls were happy

On our way to the site, we diverted slightly to visit a favourite Chateau of ours, Pierrefonds, where they were filming the next series of BBCs Merlin. We spent a couple of hours watching the filming, unfortunately we didn’t see Merlin or Gaius, (though we saw Merlin’s double), however if we had stuck around for a while longer, we would have seen Merlin

Shame the last pic came out blurry

Most other days were spent at the pool, though on one of the cooler mornings we packed ourselves off geocaching and drove down this dirt track, skidding through some rather large muddy puddles and literally abandoned the car on the edge of a field and traipsed into the woods in search of a cache. There we found caves which served as a depository, a hospital and a place for soldiers to rest during WWI. There were trenches, an old railway track which was used to transport supplies to the soldiers. A very interesting site That is what I love about geocaching, it leads us to places we would never have found.

We found the cache!

..and a bug (a real life one, not a Travel Bug)!

Another cache site took us up a hill beside a cemetery but unfortunately the area where the gps was directing us to was fenced off but Skye did spot a very small, gold coloured snake (unidentified) so not a completely wasted walk!

We visited Tours which we have wanted to do for a long time. Definitely worth the trip, it was beautiful. Especially loved the gorgeous medieval buildings.

Girls especially liked the Boulangerie

Another fabulous holiday.