Yesterday was the Imot, and Jan, Libby and I had all brought stuff for the kids to do, as we’d discussed previously. They made felt pouches – Dougie and Katy sewed a rectangular pouch with a flap, and Hugh and Clare threaded a drawstring through pre-punched holes in a round pouch. Libby also brough stuff for making cloth boardgame boards for tic tac toe and nine men’s morris. The kids also spent a fair bit of time on the computers, but it was unusually harmonious…
Today was a quiet day at home for the most part, after Dylan took the scroggins off to town. Mr Bat and the kids went to the local markets for a Mysterious Purpose in the morning. I played a lot of recorder, which inspired Katy to be similarly musical. Because I’ve ordered a new recorder book which includes Anitra’s Dance from Peer Gynt, I played that for them this afternoon, which led to reading them the book of the legend we have, and listening to the Classics for Kids radio show on Peer Gynt. I really need to get into more composer studies, since the kids lap it up, especially Katy.
Katy has been reading a lot when she gets bored. She’s currently reading through a book on kitchen science recipes, called something like Freaky Food, and doing some of the experiments. She has a second go at the rubbery egg (eggshell dissolved in vinegar) experiment happening, after her first one was unsatisfactory. Hugh has one of his own going as well.
Friday afternoon we did indeed make some furniture for the dolls house. I made one wooden chair (cut out of a cylindrical section of branch) and Mr Bat made the other one, then he made a table and a bed as well. The bed is still too small for the big Echinacea dolls but they fit on it with their heads on the bedhead so that will have to do! I made an all-in-one felt mattress, with pillows and blanket attached so they won’t get lost. The dolls house is not quite at the right scale for the Echinacea dolls and their furniture but the kids don’t seem to care.
Mr Bat has been playing board or card games with the kids each evening after blitzing the bedroom and learning room to keep them tolerably tidy, which seems to be working out well. Katy is loving Bartok in particular, but even Hugh can play, although he would still rather watch “David Aperture” most evenings. Tonight I think they played Bingo, but they’ve had Kakapo Rescue out lately as well. I have several new boardgames arriving in the near future, courtesy of eBay, so family games night can continue without us all getting intolerably bored of the two games we currently own.