Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Day Lilo Picked Up My Camera...

So the other day Lilo asked if she could take some pictures with my camera. I set it up for her (pretty much put everything on auto really) and off she went. I took a couple of shots of her playing with it around the garden  and then I  completely left her to it. She received no tips or advice from me and I wasn't really expecting much worth keeping tbh. 



I uploaded them tonight ~ and was VERY pleasantly surprised! She seems to have a very natural and imaginative eye :D. 

Here's a few of her best and a link to the rest. ~ this is purely HER work! I have only done a little uber-basic processing in LR (to add a bit of sharpening, vibrance and contrast, as, because they were shot RAW, they were rather flat).













Middle click any of the pictures to see them bigger (in a new tab) and CLICK HERE for the link to the rest of the set.


I think perhaps I have another budding photographer on my hands :D


Thursday, September 18, 2014

A Week in the Life...


I thought I'd post a photo-blog of a few moments from this week. Not so much a 'day in the life' ~ more of a 'week in the life' type thing!

There's a lot of 'tot-school' pictures, because kids writing doesn't really make for very interesting photography, but there are a few of those too!

Traffic jams and car-parks are just what small boys do!


Playing Dotty Dinosaurs. Colour matching is easy for him now,
 so he challenged himself with the shapes (also a little easy for him) ...


and then sorted all the shapes into colours too!
 

Some friends of ours make Damson Jam with our damsons every year. 
They were ripe and ready to be picked, so I sent Joel up a ladder...


He shook the tree a little and the plums rained down!!




Chip asked to get out and enjoyed playing with the Stickle Bricks. The 'car' creation is mine, and I have to say, I found them just a little bit annoying!!


He also asked to play with the balance scales, which I failed to take a picture of, but essentially he had fun weighing out various different things; small stones, abacus beads, counters from an old game and these foam tessellation shapes.

When he was done with the scales I suggested he carry on playing with the shapes, and showed him very briefly what they can do. He kept busy with these for quite some time and TP joined in with him (her Catherine Wheel below).



The children have watched all 3 Toy Story movies this week and this has led to a resurgence of Toy Story play in the house ~ I'm happy :D



Stitch is beginning to settle into his work now and not really having any trouble with any of it :D


And THE letter came with regards to Lilo. I can honestly say, without even the slightest hint of doubt, that I am SO glad she will NOT be starting Secondary 'school' next September. I opened this letter, gave it a courtesy glance over and took a photo of it, but within 5 mins it had been shredded, with a great sense of relief that I have this choice! :D


Chip had a go with our new chalk pens ~ which he loved, but I need to buy a new blackboard because this one is too porous and I can't get them off it!!

  
He then had a go at something he hadn't really done before. Last time I got this out he couldn't do it and it quickly was filed away again. This term I put it on his shelf and today he chose to have a go. I showed how to look for the right end of the paper-clip (these are jumbo ones) and he had no trouble at all with the activity :D


Taz has some dexterity issues, so this term we are working on cutting out.
This is an odd one, because it's a skill he began to learn as a toddler and then lost again. He didn't do it much ~ I think he found it too hard, so I think he just forgot how. 
Anyhow, he's beginning to get the hang of it now :D

 

The tessellation shapes came out again. I spend a little while the other evening finding some print outs to make this activity more fun and he loved it. His attention span is not fantastic and he was ready to move on after just a couple of animals, but I think he will ask to do this one again :D


Bugs is doing really well too. 

He actually loves this Maths book ~ although I don't think all children would!


All the children have spent time on the PC's doing various things. 
I just happened to capture Minnie doing her Alison course and TP doing her Garfield typing. 


The weather has been glorious this week!

I have encouraged the children to work in the garden for book-work. They haven't complained!


I love how their technology (mainly for music in this case) is never too far from them!!