Blustery Days

Well Autumn's well and truly upon us now. I've finally succumbed to putting the heating on this week, in short bursts obviously :-) :-)

We had a really busy week last week, including our long awaiting Reptile Handling session.  We were in love!  DS is now even more desperate for a pet snake, and I could happily have brought the gorgeous little Blue Tongued Skink home with me :-)

 So we've had a couple of nice At Home days so far this week. Catching up with ourselves, housework and de-stimulating. Definitely very necessary!

We've also done loads of lovely learning.  Yesterday we started our research on Africa, for our Geography Club project this month -

We also read the final book in the Jack Stalwart series :-)

In the afternoon the kids played outside together and did apple carving -

with the fallen/ bruised apples from the apple tree :-)   They also had a go at ice sculpting, from some blocks of ice DS had frozen.

DD also continued working on our Rainforest theme from our new Learning Group last week. She made a fabulous rainforest picture and cut out pictures of animals and insects that inhabit the rainforest and put them in their appropriate habitat - ground. understory, canopy or emergent layer -

I think she did a great job :-

We also added the food colouring to our crystals we've been growing.  They are coming along nicely -

Then after dinner we settled down and did this wonderful London puzzle together. It was great fun putting together all the landmarks and noting the historical events -

And today I spent some nice 1-2-1 time with DS as he really needed some help focusing his brain on tasks.  We started work on a new workbook together -

Another great find from, my favourites, The Book People :-)

It really sparked his interest and we managed to work through 20 pages before he needed a break.

While we were doing this, DD continued working on her Africa project.  She's been researching The Sahara Desert and while looking at a map of the areas covered by it, she came across a map of the area of Africa inhabited by lions and decided on that as her project.  As well as a lovely fact sheet, she made this awesome 3D scene from pictures she drew herself, of a pride of lions hunting wildebeasts -

  
The kids spent the afternoon playing Spies :-)  This involved leaving notes around the house for each other, to follow clues and solve mysteries.  Great fun, and literacy in action for DS lol!

Speaking of literacy in action, DS also sat for an hour writing his Christmas cards today! Nothing like being prepared :-) :-)