busy week...

another busy but fun week here at Scoil dai....of course lots of Halloween crafts being made...and Daisy is very busy painting...Aideen and myself are cutting up her dried paintings and making them into our Christmads cards so that way Daisy has "helped" make our family cards too :0)
Aideen is very busy with History this week ,Vikings and also Geography...Peru. Aideen is finding writing much easier the last couple of weeks now she has her new (prescription) glasses...no more headaches !!!!!! Of course in the next few days we`ll post some Halloween photos for you...we love hearing from you all and reading yoru comments, so thankyou ! After that we`ll be starting on Thanksgiving ...have a lovley Samhain/Halloween everyone !

PUMPKIN TIME :0)

Hi friends ! Remember a while ago we posted photos of us planting pumpkins in the garden here at Scoil Dai??? Well Oscar thought it would be fun to dig them up ,so our idea of having pumpkins this year grown by ourselves didnt quite work out ! We were hoping there would be pumpkins in the local shops and yesterday Sean came home with a great one ! Now , we discovered that our HS friends Sadhbh and Caoimhe never actually carved a real pumpkin before so we just had to remedy the situation ! They came over today and all enjoyed a fun pumpkin carving evening...we also gave them the seeds and pulp to bring home and some choc chips along with our fav halloween recipie for pumpkin and choc chip muffins (yummy) but Naughty HS mommy Nora ate all the choc chips !!!!! Never mind the girls are cooking their muffins tomorrow and will posting the results on their blogspot (abc123) so be sure to check them out ! Thanks for making the evening such a fun one guys , as always great to have you over !

a great start to the week

when looking through the book of poems we got in the library today we found this rather cool poem , suited the day as it rained most of the morning ,and then like a gift from the Heavens the sun came out and shone all evening !!!

a grand selection of books we got today in the local libraries book sale...science, geography ,history and english books all for a song !

"Chaos" (without the "h" ,an AMAZING song Aideen wrote today !!!!!!!! The words are just SO profound ...

Our "school pet" Henrietta comes out to play :)

Look at how big the chestnut we sowed last year has grown !!!!!!

Mary Poppins

"for every task that must be done there is an element of fun..." just as Mary Poppins sang, here at Scoil Dai we believe chores can be great fun :0)
Today, Saturday is Aideens day for cleaning out the hamsters cage in the school room...Daisy "helps" too ! And as you can see getting the corners of the duvet just right can take a lot of movement hee-hee ! But Saturday chores finished leaves us the evening for watching a film and other nice treats...

Irish Myths and Legends

Note from Aideen : DON`T forget to feed the birds now, its really getting cold and also leave some water for them too :0)

Today saw the turn of "The brown bull of Cooley" , another famous Irish legend , staring Queen Maeve , Aideen wrote a great review on this legend and its meanings, etc...also today saw Daisy painting (again) she just loves painting...so we are using her painted pages to make some of this years Christmas cards !

Sadhbh and Caoimhe came to visit so the girls did a bit of tidying for me in the schoolroom with Aideen , (thanks guys), while we are in wexford they are going to call to make sure the animals are all feed and warm,etc...lots of plans were made by the girls for Halloween....very exciting time ;)

Samhain

Samhain , the Celtic New year is almost upon us ... and here in Scoil Dai , we are busy preparing for the Halloween...always homemade decorations , costumes ,etc abound...and as the mornings grow darker we look forward to the last of the harvest...today Nora and the girls came, and Nora made us all lovley dinner while the girls plotted and planned their costimes etc...we are HOPING ,weather premitting to have a small fire after trick or treating in our back yard , along with cups of hot chocolate and Sean has even got sparklers (am I as excited as the kids? YES !)

We received our lovley Samhain card from Laura in America today , even though we are catolics ,we love being open minded to all religions , so that gives us lots to talk about in class these days, respectiong other peoples choices ,etc...we have printed out our own "Happy Halloween" cards and are busy colouring them in...theres just something so "human" about this time of year ,everyone gathering together to eat ,play and keep warm by the fire...truly we have a lot to be thankful for !

Halloweeny crafts !

As Aideen has swimming on a Monday , its always our "quite" homeschool day , so we generally do less academic lessons. Today was extra special as our HS friends , Sadhbh and Caoimhe were over while Nora (their mam) was doing some painting for me , so in return I did lessons with the girls (isnt the barter method unbeatable?)...when Aideen went swimming , the house was quite as Daisy went too , so the girls and me got down to some serious crafting. All you need is loadsa cereal boxes really and your imagination ! Caoimhe made a pumpkin and to make it more "real" we cut out a window frame from a cereal box...also the girls made witches and we stuck some long strands of hair (green wool) on them , then the girls had fun "styling" the witches hair :0)

And we finally cut out some cauldrons and painted them black ,and when they were dry we went over them in silver to make them look "real" . As you can see, Sadhbh is a "leftie" or a "Citeog" (kit-ough) as we say in Irish...imagine years ago teachers would bind a childs left hand sp they would HAVE to write with their right hand !!! So we had a conversation about this too...then Caoimhe , not one to waste even a scrap of wool , made her eraser into a "witch" !!!! a wet Aideen came home and greatly admired the girls handy work ! Then the girls went upstairs to help paint and after that everyone had storytime in the new chillout corner !

You can eat what ?!?

Hips and Haws....yes thats right , the fruit of the Rose bush and also of the Hawthorn tree !!! (Be very careful you pick the right berries and also remember to leave some for the birds). We had great fun picking the fruit off our own rose bushes (roses are actually a member of the apple family) , in our garden , and now we will use some of the fruit to make rose hip tea. During the war we learned that the government encouraged the populace to grow roses as the hips have a huge vitamin C content in them. You can dry them out also. To make the tea , put 4 or 5 rose hips into a cup , pour over boiling water, leave for about 10 minutes and add some honey if wished...free and good for you !

Also we are going looking for some haws soon as we have a recipie for haw sauce, great with icecream ;)

Daisy is still fascinated with the beach after our holidays this year...so far we havent found a sand table , but she seems to enjoy playing "beach" with a bowl of sugar!!!! Necessity is the mother of invention and all that !