Art

Marisca is getting much much better at drawing all in a hurry. She will now do some pretty decent stick people and pays attention to colouring within the lines, and even produced a decent cross section of a kiwi (fruit, not bird) the other day.

This morning after breakfast she asked to do some painting and produced this modern masterpiece. It started off as a face, turned into a train, added a little planet called Mars where only aliens and spacemen can go, and finished with a lake. It's lovely to watch her imagination in action!

Cheeeeeeeese

Did I mention that Tom is smiley?

Tom's report card

Tom has had his first report card from nursery.  Well, it's called a 'My Learning Picture Summary Sheet' but it looks like a report card to me.

It is interesting to see what we already know being noted and written down by someone else.
"Thomas is a very sociable child"
"Thomas knows all the colours and counts with help"
"Thomas is very stable on his feet and climbs on everything we have to offer in nursery"
"Thomas enjoys learning different words"

They don't really say that he's super smiley or that he loves giggling to himself and calling everyone cheeky.  Or that when we mention Bonbons he immediately tells us he'll play with trains, cars, and Michael.  He's definitely getting on well there.

School

Someone was very excited yesterday:

She was excited about putting on her uniform, she was excited about putting on her new school shoes (polished by her the day before), and she couldn't wait to go to school. We live five minutes walk from the playground, but an hour before we needed to leave she was dancing round the backyard and desperate to go "so I'm not late for my first lesson".

Eventually we convinced her to sit and wait. Here she is reading the 'first day at school' instructions:

When we finally took her to school we were able to take her inside and find her peg (with an astronaut on it), have a look around the classroom (with penguins to count and a book corner) and finally wave goodbye and leave her in the capable hands of her teacher. I have to admit I didn't feel remotely teary - it feels like completely the right time for Marisca to be moving on to school, and I know her teacher well so know she is in safe hands.

Unsurprisingly, Marisca had a brilliant first day at school and bounced in and out of the classroom today as well. So far we have found out that:
 - they do some singing at the beginning and end of the day.
 - she sat next to a girl and a boy at lunchtime.
 - she likes playing outside.
 - she read alot of books!

So, two days down, many many more to go. We even have our first homework this weekend, with five 'tricky words' for us to work on with her. Marisca of course took one look at the list and read them all straight away - reading is her favourite thing after all. We will see what the next weeks bring, but I am so glad her first experience has been so positive. What a grown up girl!

Kettlewell camping and scarecrow festival

Fans of the blog will surely be wondering where all the camping has gone this year.  A rudimentary google search for "blueberry curls camping" suggests we've blogged about it c. 3.36 million times.  But this year we've just not found the time.  Having got back from Australia we sought to rectify this and booked a weekend up in Kettlewell.  

Fans of the Mosedale children (multiple generations) will know that when camping, you take photos of football being played.  

Those same fans will know that breakfast consists of multipacks of cereal.  Two boxes each day, with this pair.  This might be the last year that Marisca gets her own choice each day though, I imagine those coco pops will be quite coveted.

We had a lovely walk up Consitone Dib and to Conistone Pie.  Marisca did great, nearly 3 miles of walking and quite hilly.  She loved scrambling up the gully and we loved watching her have so much fun.

It was very windy on top!

Fans of Elspeth will know that Elspeth doesn't like me publishing pictures of her mid-eat, so this is the best family photo I have.  Marisca is mid-eat and mid-sulk too.

Fans of Wharfedale will know Kilnsey trout farm.  We had good fun exploring and feeding the fish.  

Even fans of scarecrows will find Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival a little bit too much.  There were some very good scarecrows and some pretty dull scarecrows.  There were a lot of scarecrows.  We abandoned after c. 75% of known scarecrows and had cake in a cafe instead.  A wise choice.  Here are my favourites: may pole scarecrows and wedding scarecrows.

And I'm not sure how this happened.  I mean, I remember taking the photo so it definitely happened, but I have no recollection of any blue sky whatsoever this weekend.  That didn't stop us having a lovely time though.  More camping next year!

Butterflies in the park

I'm catching up on weekend photos - I think these are about a month old...  Elspeth found out on the local grapevine about these great willow butterfly sculptures that some people had installed in Northcliffe Park, at the top of the hill.  They really were quite impressive (and hopefully they're still there).  We had a nice walk up, looked at the art, made out own (much simpler) version, and just had a bit of a run around.  Very much a nice local thing to do on a warm summer's weekend.

Visiting grandparents

We've just had a short overnight visit to Harmby to see Gran and Grandad.  Book reading, train sets, wall walking, and playgrounds all made an appearance.

And here are a bunch of Crockers.