Today we started A Pair of Red Clogs. It went well I feel.
The story is set in Japan. We talked about how Japan is an island, reaffirmed their understanding of what an island is and coloured in a map of Japan. Despite a little discreet encouragement Hermione refuses to take her time when colouring anything. Her pen control is reasonable but that isn't reflected in anything she colours. We also coloured the Japanese flag and I had intended to place the story disc on the wall map but forgot to do so - a job for tomorrow!
There are some snippets of Japanese in the book which I struggled to pronounce - I suspect this will help them to remember that Japan has a language of it's own - the world doesn't all speak English. I explained that Japanese writing is unlike ours. We looked at some examples and I gave them each a 'badge' with their name in Japanese.
We went on to trace some figures as they appeared in the FIAR Manual.
We overlaid them on the illustrations in the book till we found figures which matched. Many of the figures in the book are basically drawn from the same stance but this isn't really apparent till you do this exercise as they are all dressed differently and have different expressions.
We then went onto flesh out our tracings with clothes and faces etc. The photograph below doesn't show well as we used baking paper to trace which is slightly brown and doesn't photograph well. We all enjoyed this exercise.
Craig just worked a half day today with it being a Bank Holiday. He took Hermione ice skating at Billingham this afternoon. Hermione said she fell down most but I've not yet heard how many times Craig fell down - he's keeping that one quiet!
I went to a plant nursery this afternoon to buy more veg plants. I was very impressed with this place which I just heard about by chance the other day. The plants were all really healthy and sturdy looking - what's more they were only £1.70 per tray and in some cases that was a dozen plants. I bought broccoli, sprouting broccoli, sweetcorn, courgettes, lettuce and beetroot. Add these to the things we already have in the ground (potatoes, onions, broad beans, garlic - wild and cultivated, leeks, rhubarb and herbs) and I think we are doing really well. Nana is really enjoying the veg garden. It's keeping her very busy and she's becoming quite possessive about it, which I guess is a blessing really as although I am very keen and interested I struggle to find the time to do the amount of work it requires. Craig went to B&Q today to buy some netting to make a barrier to keep Miles off the young plants - let's hope it works!
Lots to do this week. I feel there is lots of mileage in Red Clogs, lots of things we could cover. I would like to fit in a trip to the Oriental Museum. We are visiting friends tomorrow and it is the TVHE meeting on Wednesday. Busy, busy, busy....
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