Words

It occurred to me today that although I am proud of the way Joplin's language is developing, there are some wrongly pronounced words that I will miss so much when he looses them.
The main ones that sprang to mind today:-
Amliance (Ambulance)
Serventry (Conservatory)
my personal favourite:-
Teasure-mape (Tape Measure)
Tyre Monster (his current favourite song 'Alternative Ulster')

I'm sure there are more - will update if any come to mind!

Eden is talking loads more too. I find it very funny that his first very clear sentence is "Naughty Joplin!" He is great on beginnings and endings of words and sentences but does a very cute "blululula" in the middle, so Mike the Knight becomes "Mike blulula knight".
He is managing a very clear "Joplin" now as well as a very cute Mummy and Daddy ("tank Mummy" melts my heart each time!) but Nannah and Grandad are still Na and Gra. Love you lots is just "Lots". He is really making himself understood though and is coming out with so many more each day. I think he may even turn into a chatterbox in the end!

A day in London!

We all had a day out in London this week to see the sights! The plan was to head first to Kensington Park before taking on the museums but the rain changed our plans a little. The roads were flooded on the way to the station and we found out that after a bit of puddle paddling Joplin's boot's weren't waterproof! After wringing out his socks on the train a new pair of boots was the only real option, so we headed first to Oxford Street and found a pair of crocodile wellies which went down a treat! 

As we were in the area he had to stop at Hamleys. First stop Lego Floor! I was very impressed with the Lego Queen, but Joplin and Eden just adored the Lego full sized red telephone box complete with Lego phone and talking voices!

 There was lots that the boys could do - remote cars, scalextric,  and reindeer on roller skates to walk!

 We headed back to the tube, passing a life sized statue of the World's tallest man on the way!

 Then arrived at my favourite London building The Natural History Museum. The boys were impressed with the dinosaurs - particularly the T Rex exhibit (that moves).

 After a couple of hours we headed next door to the Science museum to see the vehicles and press buttons!

 The Launch Pad was a massive hit.

 Eden was great at the block building! Joplin was quite happy to watch this one!

 Eden even managed to rope in some help when he couldn't stack any higher. I wish I could have captured it on film when it all tumbled down!

 Finally our tummy's told us it was time to leave and so we headed back on the tube to find dinner. 

 We went to Wagamama's as it seemed something we would all enjoy. Eden did amazingly with the child chopsticks and ate most of his dinner with them!

 Yummy food and a great family day out!

Santa's Lost Map Grid Activity

I found this print out last night on Teachers Notebook and knew instantly that Joplin would love it! He loves maps and we are trying to teach him how map references work, so this was a perfect activity. You can download the printout here - you need to sign up but there are loads of great printables.

Anyway - here is Joplin engrossed! He had to pick up a sleigh with a child's name and a map reference on it. He then looked on the chart to find the map reference on the grid - eg. Ryan is at D4. On each grid reference is a picture of a toy and on D4 is a train. Therefore Ryan's toy is a train. Joplin then had to write the child's name by the toy picture on a recording sheet.

It really kept him occupied for a while and he used his writing skill as well as leaning to read map grids. Great game and even better free!

Cupboard door blackboard

After my spice rack on the inside one of my cupboard doors I have been thinking I really should utilise the other cupboard door. I had some chalkboard cloth left over from the chalkboard / placemats, and as I'm always forgetting what I need to buy by the time it comes to setting off for Tescos, a blackboard seemed the obvious solution.
I had some left over fabric from the seatcovers (gosh - a lot of links in this post already - sorry about that!) so it all tied in nicely for a pocket at the bottom to store the chalk and a fleece cloth to wipe the board.

So here it is!   I was slightly concerned that I may have to write it all out again when I went shopping but I just took a picture on my phone of the list and referred to the picture whilst shopping! I'm really enjoying it - there's something about writing in chalk that makes you feel special! Maybe it's because it was such a treat to get to write on the board at school!!

Eden's afters!

Eden made afters today!!

He chopped the banana really well and put it in a bowl, then chopped the melon (after I had chopped off the skin and cut it into wedges) then peeled in an orange. He then spooned in yoghurt and then later dished it into bowls on the dinner table. It was actually pretty yummy!!

Shape matching

This was a really easy and fun activity for the boys put together in a couple of minutes and actually kept them entertained for a while!

Random objects were drawn around on a sheet of A4....

 ...then removed!

 The boys had great fun putting them back!

 Joplin wanted to make his own later in the day and chose the objects for me to draw around, then eventually drew around them himself.

Chalkboard / Placemat tutorial.

I saw a few of these on Etsy recently as I was buying laminated cotton for my seat covers and have been dying to have a go ever since! 

I cut a rectangle of laminated cotton (I love this Robert Kaufman cheeky monkeys design!) and a rectangle of chalk-cloth fabric both about 32cm X 46cm. I also cut another small rectangle about 13cm X 9cm of the patterned laminated cotton. 

I then hemmed 2 sides of the smaller rectangle as shown here with a generous hem at the longer edge:-

I placed this smaller rectangle on the chalk-cloth and tacked it to the Left bottom corner. I then sewed a vertical line 3cm from the RH hem as shown.  (note the top edge in the picture is not sewn to the chalk-cloth but left an open pocket)

 I placed the whole chalk-cloth right side down against the right side of the large Monkeys rectangle.

 As pins were no good on this fabric I used sellotape! There's probably a better solution out there (Auntie Peggy will know I'm sure!) but as it was that was what I had handy and it seemed to work!

I sewed along 3 edges then trimmed the fabric close to the stitches. I used a long stitch at around 3 in length as I didn't want to perforate the fabric too much and risk tearing. 

I then turned it inside out.

Before top stitching and sewing up the remaining side I again got out the sellotape! 

 

 Confession: I actually ended up unpicking all my topstitching and re-starting it but this time with a walking foot on the sewing machine. The regular foot stuck on the laminated cotton and ended up bunching the thread a little. The walking foot made a huge difference!
So here is the finished result - a chalkboard on one side complete with holder for chalk and pocket for wipe cloth.

 Then on the other side a handy and happy place-mat!

 It neatly rolls up for travel.

 I just need to suss out a way to fasten it in it's rolled state now - watch this space for an update!

Your comments make my day! Do let me know what you think!