Paper Mache and Cupcakes

Things have been relatively calm here over the last week. The children were all back at school and it was the adult's turn to be poorly. Still, I'm pretty much fighting fit again and ready to crank up the machine for the last craft fair this Friday.

Some crafty-ness has been occurring here. Last year the school attended by our youngest two introduced 'home learning', which involves families in the current topic being studied. Whilst the current topic is being studied, the children are asked to do a related piece of work at home. Usually there is a choice between a report-type task or a model-making one. Our middle son's last topic was India. When I noted that the choices were between producing a powerpoint presentation and making a model of the Taj Mahal I felt sure he would choose the former, being something of a computer whizz.

To our dismay, this was not the case. He felt that constructing the Taj Mahal from the inside of toilet rolls would be far more appealing. I have to say, it turned out to be an enjoyable occupation. Mr Magpie deserves most of the credit, but the whole family got involved and we were all really pleased with the result.

Our version of the Taj Mahal. Please ignore the far superior version on the right!

Our youngest son is in the nursery at school. His topic has been 'Rainbows' and included the reading of the Elmer stories. For home learning we were invited to make ingenious 'Elmer' models by cutting the tops off of 2 litre milk bottles. I'm so glad we were given instructions for this, I would have gone into a minor panic as to how I would help a three year old make a model elephant otherwise.

First we covered the plastic in paper mache and sprayed it in white paint (done in conjunction with Taj-making).

Next we put my felt scraps to good use. It was quite hard for control freak me to let him decide where to stick the squares!

We finished him off with some of big brother's 'googly eyes'

Yesterday, the youngest demanded that we make cake. He is something of a cake-monster and I wonder whether he enjoys baking only because he gets to taste the goodies at the earliest opportunity. Sometimes he can't even wait for the finished batter, and I'll catch him putting his finger in the creamed butter and sugar!

Notice his tongue peeking out, eager to get the spatula in his mouth! Unfortunately, I can't show you a picture of the finished cupcakes. Whilst they were supposed to  be cooling for icing, my little monkey crept back into the kitchen and took a bite out of every last one!

Thanks for stopping by,

Beth x