Our week in review

Outside our window: Snow and sunshine, icicles, snow men and a very little orange balloon. Excited birds who found the enormous big fat ball that I put out for them yesterday.

From the kitchen: The highlight was without a doubt the party food for Little Monkey's Birthday party. My favourite were the rainbow fruit skewers, they looked so pretty and were so delicious I forgot for a second that most of the fruit were out of season and had come a very long way. But then it's February and really one can't do much with old crumpled apples that looks as pretty. The rest of the week we had simple and warming food that fit the season.

In the learning room: Boring old math although Big Monkeys is motivated to get better on the speed sheets we've been doing. One morning she said, "gimme one of those minute ones, I want to get faster". Now that's a good thing. We also use http://uk.ixl.com where she can get medals and stickers which also helps with the motivation. In science we grew some beans in a glass jar which was good fun. Their start was a tad bit slow but then they had a burst and they suddenly went from tiny little stem to 5 cm with the first true leaves and hitting the lid practically over night.

It's amazing how something that simple really made us all so excited. Everybody gathered round to marvel at the little bean plants like it a miracle happened.
In art we talked about Frida Kahlo, Big Monkey drew a picture of fruit a rather untypical subject Frida Kahlo's. So for next week the plan is to create a self portrait.

We've been creating: Valentine's cards, decorations, presents, scrapbook layouts and drawings. Little Monkey missed out on his weekly messy play class as he and Big Monkey had too much fun at the Science Museum. At home he was too busy to build a train track than to make the finger prints I had hoped he would do with me. I made two more letter post cards for my Alphabetica swap for my Yahoo group.

Favourite things: Plants that grow. I had taken a leaf cutting of my African Violet and while it had grown roots and been in its new pot for a while now nothing else has grown. This week, however, not one but three set of tiny little leaves emerged.
Polite Little Monkeys who say please even in the middle of the night when their blanket needs putting back onto their bed.

Things we've done: A visit to the library to which Little Monkey showed the way. We read lots and lots of books and took out a dvd about Thomas the Tank Engine much to the joy and excitement of Little Monkey. Big Monkey chose one about Polar bears, she found a little cuddly one in a Kinderegg and thought she wanted to know more. A trip to the Science museum, the swimming pool and Clowntown where Big Monkey met a Monkey friend from school just by coincidence.