Tuesday 1 October 2013

Building, Blood and Bazinga!

We had a moochy, chilled out week planned for this week, and although it started to snowball into a busy one again I went down with bird flu (aka a bit of a cold) which saw us holed up quietly at home again by the end.

Sprout designed his new Minecraft skin, "Girl in Pikachu T-shirt", then we headed (suitcase in hand) to the park. Squidge was interested in the map showing how the park is built on the two pit mounds...


Back at home Squidge and Moppet collaborated on some construction...


...then while Moppet napped, Squidge played on one of his old favourites, Crayon Physics.


He also invented his own version of the Gruffalo rhyming game...


...then built his Wallace and Gromit Wensleydale Watcher, and was delighted by the loudness of the siren when it went off :)



After we made these chocolate truffle white blood cells that I blogged about the other day...


...we made blood based on the homeschool ninjas' idea here http://homeschool-ninjas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/homemade-blood-model.html?m=1
We used red hots for the red blood cells...


...stirred in some golden syrup for the plasma...


...added a marshmallow for a white blood cell...


...and some chocolate sprinkles for the platelets, and Sprout even added a little white chocolate chip for a bacterium :)


Then he ate it. 


I had some scrap fabric hanging around, so Squidge and Moppet decided to do some collage. This is Squidge's (there are bad guys, lasers, fire)...


...and here's Moppet with hers, getting annoyed that she was getting glue on her fingers!


Squidge did another with some lava and good guys...


...then drew a new Ben 10 character with laser guns...


...and then went on his new Dino Maker app to design this little guy while Moppet played with her magnets and looked after her baby doll.


We made some popcorn and watched Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins, while Finn played with Flan's mod and the mine4dead map (and he installed map himself).
He came in for a bit and pretended this cat toy was a diamond flail, then told me that if a diamond flail was thrown in zero gravity it would continue forever. i love the things like this that he works out completely by himself based on other things he knows :) We then talked a bit about mass vs weight, gravity on different size planets, black holes and how they differ in real life vs in games he's played, then he told me about his new favourite YouTube channel, sethbling.


Squidge decided he wanted to know the alphabet better than he did, and we happened to see this alphabet jigsaw at the charity shop, so we had fun doing that.


We had a day at Funsters with friends...




(There was much 'Bazinga!'-ing)




And a lot of experimenting with hula hoops.



Back home Gruff and the boys had a board game night with pizza and Monopoly...


...then we made some owl cupcakes for their Grandma's birthday. (Not sure where the idea originated, as they're all over Pinterest, but we made chocolate cupcakes, iced some with vanilla buttercream and some with chocolate buttercream, then had a selection of opened-up Oreos and Fox's creams for eyes, and Reese's Pieces for beaks and pupils. The boys improvised with some writing icing too.)



Carrying on his alphabet interest, Squidge played lots with his VTech Gadget the Robot, and let Moppet join in a bit too.


Sprout got out the mosaic blocks for a while, and made this 'picture of gems' (he explained to me what gem each colour block represented).


Squidge played with them after, looking carefully at what sort of shapes he could put together...


...then Moppet spent a while stacking them. I love seeing how they all play with the same things so differently!


Moppet picked this nursery rhyme book off the shelf, and Sprout read it to us.


Squidge, who will very very rarely let anyone near his hair, became interested in cutting hair; he cut his puffle's, his bee movie characters', we popped and bought a barbie-type doll and he cut thay too, and then he even designed his own style and had it done :)


At their grandparents' house they played sitting down Twister :) ...


...and we rescued a ladybird that had made its way inside. We talked a bit about where ladybirds live (on plants and in leaf litter- always useful to have a knowledgeable grandpa about!), and what they eat.


While we were there, Moppet played some bat and ball...


...Squidge built some Lego...


...and Sprout made Cluedo into a male believe game with spies, terrorists, assassins, scanners, identity documents, and secret identity drawings. It was brilliant, I so enjoyed watching and listening. 


He and I went out for some one on one time that evening, and had some ice cream and a chat, including the first computer ever( http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm )


We met up with friends at the Potteries Museum the next day, and although the boys were initially sad to see their favourite section of the museum has been removed ready to house the new Staffordshire Hoard exhibition, they ended up having a really lovely time.

Here they are showing Moppet how to use the giant xylophone...


... and Sprout showing Moppet the wildlife jigsaw he's been playing with since he was her age...


...the skeleton from a local abbey, which Sprout was particularly interested in given his current fascination with biology...

...the museum game, which was rather more competitive than normal...


...Sprout as ringmaster in the temporary circus exhibition...


...and watching a film about how a local sculptor made a statue of a Saxon following the interest in the Hoard.


Squidge the ladybird asked me about the dragonflies in the display...


...chilled out in a tree trunk...


...and did some art on Tux Paint...


...closely followed by Moppet using it for the first time :)


We headed to the library after, where they haven't wanted to go for ages,  and when we went in Sprout picked a book off the shelf and set down to read it. Exciting stuff!!!


He also read lots of the places on the world map, and made up a game involving the little kids' chairs and the animals.


Squidge chose a dozen or so books off the shelves, then went through to choose which to take home and which to read there.


Back at home, Squidge and Moppet had a dress up session, starting with an envelope hat but moving on to more conventional outfits :)




They have a couple of things they're waiting to do which have been on hold this week due to business/illness, so it looks like next week is (pretend) frog dissection, and making bath bombs.
Oh, and naked green eggs!





















































No comments:

Post a Comment