Zoology musuem

P and I went to visit the newly opened Zoology museum.

May Day @Kentell Hall

E and I had a day out at Kentwell Hall's May Day celebrations. Kentwell is about 50 minutes from Cambridge. It is a lived in Tudor mansion which has regular Tudor living history events. 

 There were a couple of beautiful peacocks.

 In an outbuilding is a rather fab camera obscura.

 The grounds themselves are just beautiful, and just walking around the place takes a good couple of hours if you're not walking fast to get it done. There are lots of hidden bits to find including a beautiful woodland full of bluebells and a small farm with hens, 2 horses, a donkey and pigs.

 As part of the May Day celebrations were lots of Tudor participants involved in

May Tree Raising, putting on a Mummers Play, dancing around the May Tree, and the Grand Procession around the Estate and in between the grand events were woodworkers and craftsmen including people making pots, a man carving (he made a E a whistle for free) and a candle maker.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Today we went to London to visit a friend. I asked the girls what they wished to do and they suggested the V and A. WE started in their wonderful (but expensive café) for lunch before spending a few hours looking around.  WE loved the collections of jewellery (no photos allowed) which tell the story of jewellery in Europe from ancient times to the present day.We all decided which pieces we would take home!

We also discovered the Theatre & Performance collection where the girls enjoyed looking at the costumes on exhibit and dressing up!  We also liked looking at the different models of theatres.

They also had, as part of the Get Creative Family Arts Festival, a change for the girls to make a placard for something they wanted to protest about! 

Twilight at the musuems 2016

This evening we went to The University of Cambridge Museums 10^th Anniversary of Twilight at the Museums; a free evening of family-friendly museums after dark. We have been for last few years and every year as I stand in a long queue in the rain I wonder why this event is so popular - baring in mind most of the stuff you can see in the daylight without getting so wet and cold! But never mind - I suspect I will be moaning about it next year too! We went to the science centre (which is free) and enjoyed playing with the exhibits and seeing ourselves with the thermal-imaging camera.

 Then cycling to the Fitzwilliam we stopped (in the rain) to admire the e-illuminate festival!

 We then went to the Fitzwilliam and the girls enjoyed the trail (although I would have liked the workshop which this year was not bookable in advance and all tickets had gone by the time we got there!)

 We also visited the stone lions and P was visited at school by Fitz and Will and wanted to see if she could see them!

treasure hunts

I think this is one of the girls favourite  activities - there doesn't even need to be a prize at the end. It is so easy to differentiate for the different ages - E had pictures clues and G and I had different written clues. Then they all went away and wrote one for P and me - brilliant writing for a purpose!

St Andrew's day and the day before the 1st of December!

Some very excited small children have gone to sleep in my house - "I can't wait to open my calender!".We have several - 3 traditional ones, 1 activity one (which I did for the 1st time last year) and 1 lego one (which we have never done before [although having seen what they are now going for on Amazon I am wondering if we should sell it for a tidy profit)). I have excitedly been planning the activities for a few weeks - it is hard to think of things which can be done in the chaos post school/homework and before bed ... but hopefully I have managed it!



I have also been sorting out our Christmas books and tiding away books from our Space topic! I can't wait for tomorrow either!

Today was St. Andrew's day and I was very excited to find out some facts about him to share with my class, children and here:

•  St Andrew is the not only the  patron saint of Scotland but  Greece and Russia as well.
• He was Jesus' first disciple
• The white diagonally transversed cross on the flag of Scotland represents the shape of the cross he was crucified on by the Romans.
• The day before St Andrew's day is traditional for girls to pray to St. Andrew for a husband. They would make a wish and look for a sign that they had been heard.

I also found out why the thistle is the national emblem of scotland:
Legend tells how the Viking Army of King Haakon of Norway, intent on conquering the Scots landed at night to surprise the sleeping Scottish and in order to move more stealthily under the cover of darkness the Norsemen removed their footwear. But as they drew near to the Scots one of  the Vikings stood on a thistle and shrieked out in pain, alerting the Clansmen of the advancing Norsemen who then awoke and saw them off!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an American festival - but it is close to advent and something to pass the time whilst I am waiting excitedly for December to get the Christmas glitter and stuff out! Last year I went all out and cooked a Thanksgiving dinner but turkey was hard to come by and no-one liked Pumpkin pie or sweet potatoes so this year I didn't bother.

However we did read this book:

which nicely told the story and then we talked about all the things we were thankful for - mainly build-a-bears but I did tease out of them things like food and family.

P (with help) also made a handrpint turkey at nursery:

Autumn leaf fun

I am so far behind in blogging I think I should just stop worrying about trying to catch up and start afresh.  School has restarted, I have returned to work and P has started at nursery.

This weekend the husband returned from his business trip - HORRAH! G has been out to a party and I and E have been having fun with the autumn leaves. I wanted to go for a walk to collect lots of different types but sadly Miss P decided this weekend she was going to have a rare afternoon sleep! Great because I got to play with I and E but not so great for going out for a walk.

So I sent I and E in to the garden and they collected leaves there. They had fun sorting them according to colour and size as well as counting them and discussing photosynthesis and why the leaves change colour in Autumn.  They have enjoyed doing leaf rubbings and then printing with them in homemade playdoh. I used this recipe  - 1 cup of flour, 3/4 cup of boiling water, 1 cup of salt, 1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of cream of tarter and it seemed to work well. I always find it amazing how playdoh seems to keep them occupied for hours - although now they have stopped printing with the leaves and have made a garden centre.  I love how the play evolves.

Write your own story book

Today as bribery for keeping her room tidy I bought Miss I this book. It is perfect for her as she loves to write short stories. The first half of the book offers ideas for how to plan a story, making up characters, different settings etc. Then it gives you different story genres, from a school diary, to a journey through time, an animal adventure etc. Each genre has questions to start you off, wordbanks and some have points to consider. The last bit of the book is Story Writing Toolkit - thinking of good opening sentences, exciting adjectives and verbs etc. She has already written her 1st masterpiece entitled "Rose the lost Kitten"!.