Here We Are Together

We picked up these two Aquadraw mats in the thrift shop for £0.50 ,
& while I did expect them to entertain the little ones a bit I never would have expected how much of a success they really are.
Emi absolutely LOVES using water and see it change the colour , and I must admit that I find it a lot of fun, too!

We’ve been using paintbrushes instead of the pens that you get with the mats, which means the mats get wet pretty quickly, but as they dry quite fast it’s not really a problem.

Now I just need to find a travel version of these & we are all set for our trip to Germany in September!

We will be a little quiet this week as we have a lot of doctor’s appointments and birthdays coming up,
but I might check in with a picture or two.

I hope you all have a good weekend!
♥

When I saw this children’s sewing machine in the shop I simply could not resist,
I bought it for Emi and she absolutely loves it. But oh, she is a lot like me, my girl.
A perfectionist, who wants things to work the first time ’round.

We have had so much fun, she’s been drawing her own patterns,
cutting pieces, making clothing for her toys.

Her favourite friend, WhiteDog , got a new hat:

Now, excuse us while we go back to sewing & using up every tiny bit of scrap fabric in the house!
Wishing you a lovely day!

♥

We made some bubble prints yesterday,
though they really ended up being basically just wet paper.
This is definitely more a -enjoying the process- kind of activity , but Emi absolutely loved it, she spent well over an hour blowing bubbles with her straw, making them disappear again, & trying to create the biggest bubble possible.

I asked her to explain to me how to make a really big bubble,
here is what she came up with:

First you make lots and lots of tiny small bubbles with the straw,
then you find the biggest one and poke the straw in it ’till it’s in the middle.
Then you blow it up!

That’s pretty accurate I’d say.

You really should try it, i know we will do it again!

Have a beautiful day!
♥

We made goop today!
It was a lot of fun.
It’s solid when you poke it:

It’s sticky & runny when you try to pick it up:

And things will sink if you try to place them on top!

We are going to start to do a lot more learning around here from now on,
things have been very slow and we all really want to try lots of fun experiments ,
so from now on this blog will be a lot more about our homeschool journey.
If you have a minute please share your favourite craft / science blogs for kids with us,
we’d appreciate it!

Wishing you a lovely day.
♥

There’s a guest post I wrote about England up at the Crafty Crow today, hop on over, and check out all the other amazing & interesting crafts and countries, too!
I love Curly Bird’s giant cardboard teacup and Joscha’s rain boot painting!

♥

A thing the British are very well known for is drinking a lot of tea,
so this beautiful teatime candle seemed a great craft to share.
We make these as hostess presents and thank-you presents, as they are quick and easy to make & always look great.

You will need:

An old teacup & saucer
a metal tin
small pieces of wax. (This is a great way to use up all those tea-lights and old candles you have, all you need to do is cut them up into bits. Save the wick, too!)
a wick ( we got ours out of one of the candles we reused)

How to:

Put your pieces of wax into the old tin , fill a pot with about 8 cm of water and put your tin into the middle. Now start melting the wax in your tin. Don’t place your wax directly in a pot over a heat source, always use this double boiler method.
You can add a crayon or colourful wax if you want your candle to be a certain colour.

When all the wax has melted carefully pour it into the cup and add your wick to the middle.
You might need to hold on to the wick for a couple of minutes till it stays in the right position.

Carefully place your teacup in the fridge and leave it to cool down for one to two hours.

After that , all you need to do is trim the wick and enjoy your new candle.
It makes even pretend tea parties feel very special.

Have a lovely day!
♥

A friend recently suggested this recipe to me as something to cook with Ezi, but it is lots of fun for little ones of all ages,
and as Fish & Chips is a very traditional English meal , especially here on the coast, I thought I’d share it with you.

You will need:

1 fish filet
3 potatoes
2 slices of toasted bread
ketchup (for a healthier version take a look at our homemade ketchup recipe!)

How to:

Start by turning your bread into breadcrumbs, just pull off tiny pieces till you used it all up:

Put your fish onto a baking tray and spread ketchup all over it.

Now it’s time to put the breadcrumbs on top, make sure you cover all of the fish.

Put this into the oven at a high temperature for about 40 minutes.
Your chips will not take as long, so you can prepare them now.
To make the chips you peel the potatoes , cut them into strips, cover them with oil, salt them
and put them into the oven for about 30 minutes.

When everything is cooked you can sit down and taste your traditional English meal!

Enjoy!

Yesterday , as a very special treat, we got Emi a magazine.
She chose the Charlie & Lola magazine, and as we already have many Charlie & Lola books and other books illustrated by Lauren Child I was really quite happy with that choice.

There were lots of pages to colour, stick sticky stickers and cut wriggly lines (the magazine came with wriggly plastic scissors and some crayons),

but our favourite were the fish & mermaid pictures to cut out.
We decided to make an ocean diorama from a cardboard box,
we started to cut out the shapes and stick them to the background :

We even made a little bed out of tissue paper with a sandpaper headboard:

The pink & sandpaper table complete with a plate of fish & wriggly chips:

We enjoyed making this so much that we will start making these as part of our country studies for geography, just imagine all the possibilities!

What did you do today?
Have a lovely weekend!
♥
`

Purim is not far away, and Emi will be going to a special Purim party, complete with costumes & everything,
so yesterday we talked about what sort of costume she would like to wear.
She decided to be a queen.

Even though I do feel a little bit guilty for cutting up Anthony’s favourite shirt, I do think that this costume was definitely worth it.

I present “Queen Esther, a jewish superhero” (that’s why she’s got a cape, of course..)

Emi loves it, and I am so glad she does.

My favourite might be the wonky crown on the back of the cape..

It’s far from perfect, but it’s an Emi – Mama project (she loved picking out the buttons!),
and I hope it will last many years.

♥

Auntie Katrin gave us some lovely sticky colourful paper, so we cut out some shapes.
Emi then put the sticky shapes onto photo frames to make pictures.

There obviously needed to be a fairy ;

(& glitter, of course!)

They are on our windows now and look great when the sun shines through them.

Wishing you a lovely day
♥