We love Mondays

I LOVE Mondays!  No more dreading the start of the week: nowadays we really look forward to our Pyjama Mondays (though I do get dressed, as you know).  Mondays are usually such lovely days, filled wth gentle, flexible activities... making sure the boys are keeping up with their jobs (Eldest unloads the dishwasher; Youngest and Middle take it in turns to empty the washing machine into the tumble dryer/ empty the dryer), doing a bit of online Maths/ English, creating art/ baking, playing - and this week Monday also marked the start of new lapbooks for Eldest and Middle - maybe that will continue for however long this lapbook season lasts.  Eldest, bless him, worked really hard and completed his lapbook on Friday evening, because he wanted to show it to family who we were visiting on Saturday - you can see the finished result at the end of this post.  He and I are really proud!

So this morning I asked if the boys would like to make some bread.  They were really enthusiastic (they love both being violent in their kneading (bashing) and being creative in the shapes of their rolls), so that was a lovely start to the day.

We had MathsWhizz while the dough was proving, then they made a start on their new lapbooks while it baked.  Eldest has chosen Desert Animals as his topic.  I had suggested the World Wars as it's one of his favourite subjects, but no - he wanted to do another "animal-y one", so that's what he's doing.  He wanted to repeat the format of his Ocean lapbook, so I've made another mini book out of a few square-cut folders.  Middle is happy with the smaller, more interactive version, which is good as I bought fifty envelope files for the purpose!  His chosen subject is the Human Body - a topic that he appears to find endlessly fascinating.  Today he asked me if he could watch the Rock n Learn DVD that we have on the subject, and I had to keep pausing every time we got to a different system (msucular, skeletal, nervous etc) so he could copy it down!  I wouldn't even have tackled something that involved myself, but he was full of vision, so away he went - it just goes to show, even the most reluctant worker will put effort into something they really enjoy!

 (he hasn't labelled it yet, but hopefully some of the systems are obvious!)

We had our yummy bread rolls for lunch, then decided to do a little art, based on Antony Gormley's "Field for the British Isles".  Eldest really liked it as it reminded him of Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes)'s army of mini snowmen.  Anyway, we got the playdough out and after making a few little people, soon realised that we didn't have enough.  I didn't have any cream of tartar in the house either, so couldn't make any more.  We took a photo of what we had made so far, then packed it away into tubs until we have replenished our playdough stocks!

More tidying up after that (Youngest was having a "pull everything off the shelves" kind of day) - and an improvised spot of circuit training (the only drawback to pyjama days being those days when they need to let off some steam... so I find ways for them to exercise indoors) and that was our Monday!  Loved it!   And finally, before I log off, here it is (pause for another proud Mummy drumroll): Eldest's first ever lapbook...