Sporty Shakespeare

Friday was Lynnsports in King's Lynn. I've never been much of a sporty person, but I really enjoyed Lynnsports! The general theme was dodgeball, but thankfully we didn't do any dodgeball. We did some basketball and "benchball"instead. I wasn't really sure what Benchball was, so I just ran around following my teammates! After the sports me, Lillianna and our friends had lunch in the café and played in the park until our parents said it was time to go home. I wish we could've stayed for longer, though!

It was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death last week. To celebrate, on Saturday, me, mom and dad, went to see a storyteller tell the story of The Merchant Of Venice. It was in Lincoln, at The Drill Hall. The building was very old and interesting and outside, it had a huge face on the side of it!

The show was awesome and the two women telling the story made it really exciting. The first woman told the story while she played an accordion and got kids to join in and play the parts of Happy and Stern. I didn't want to join in but there were three brothers there who were very eager to join in! Mom said, "I bet they are home educated" and guess what? They were!

One of the coolest parts about the storytelling was the second woman who played a bunch of instruments. She made the sound effects to the story and it was really effective. She had a tiny red piano, a huge harp, a drum and a shiny metal dish. She took turns playing each instrument and I thought it was really impressive! The metal dish was quite weird, though, She had a little stick-like thing that she brushed against the edge of the metal dish and it made really high pitched notes. It sounded really good! My favourite instrument of hers was definitely the harp, though. That sounded really beautiful.
I so wanted to listen to them tell us another story, but there won't be any  more on for a while as they were going back to London. I hope I'll get to see them again!

See the tiny red piano!



Strange people in Lincoln!

Afterwards we went shopping in Lincoln. We spent ages in Waterstone's Bookshop and I bought two books. One is a thriller, "The Dead House" and the second book I have wanted to read for ages, "The Fault in our Stars". I had seen the film already but the book was so much better. I read it in 2 days!


Dad and I had a look at the ICT GCSE books and they looked quite easy, so we bought one so we can go through it together. We were in the book-shop so long that dad forgot where he was and he said "I really like this library because nobody minds if you talk"!!

Eureka!

Myths and Legends!


That was the theme at Eureka yesterday. Eureka is a home-ed group in King's Lynn and it's always amazing! It's a shame it's only on once a month, though.
Anyway, back to myths and legends. There were lots of tables set up with different crafts, all to do with Greek mythology and myths.

You could decorate cakes with grey icing to represent a stone and then stick in a plastic, cocktail sword. This was to represent the Sword in The Stone. By the time mom got her camera out to take a picture of the cake, I had already devoured it!

You could also make mermaids out of a wooden peg. All you needed to do was draw on your mermaid's design and then get some wool for the hair. The tail of the mermaid was a bit more complicated, as you had to cut out the tail shape out of foam squares! I think I did a good job, though!

Another creature you could make was a dragon! I love dragons, so I definitely wanted to do this one. The dragon was made out of pipe cleaners and more foam square. I couldn't get mine to stand up like the example dragon, so I just made mine lie down. He was tired!

My sleepy Dragon!

There was a table where could make a picture of a Phoenix. You took a piece of black card and, using red, yellow and orange chalk and a bunch of colourful feathers, you could create your Phoenix. A Phoenix is a mythical bird-like creature that lives for a thousand years. Even then it never dies as it's re-born time and time again. When it is nearing the end of its life it builds a fire and throws itself into the flames. Then it rises again from the ashes! You can read all about the phoenix here!

My Phoenix

One of the most time-consuming things there was the Medusa Headband. In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster with a human face and venomous snakes in her hair. To make the Medusa headband, I took a plastic headband and wound green pipe-cleaners around it to make the snakes. Next I curled the end of each pipe cleaner to make a head. Next is the tedious bit; I stuck tiny googly eyes and a tiny forked tongues, cut from orange paper, to the snakes' heads. I used those tiny sticky dots and they were so fiddly. It was so tedious that mom took over because I really just wanted to play outside with Lillianna and a new girl, called Rosina (I think that's how her name is spelled.) Anyway, the Medusa hairband turned out really well. I wore it at home, to take some photos and Maisie looked really afraid. The pipe cleaners really do like the snakes in Medusa's hair!

Medusa's scary serpents!

After all the crafts, I went outside to play with Lillianna and the rest of the kids  until it was time to go home. It was a lovely sunny day so we stayed really late!

I wonder what the theme will be at Eureka next month?







In other news, The Queen turned 90 today! She's the longest ever reining monarch, and the oldest, so this is one special birthday! Did you know when she went to Brazil in 1968 she was gifted two sloths? Unfortunately sloths can't really live in palaces, so they were donated to London Zoo instead. So it wasn't just Corgis that she owned!

Belton Horse Trials

Belton House Horse Trials

I'm a true horse lover now as I've been to my very first horse trials! They were at the magnificent grounds of Belton House. There was loads to see but my favourite was definitely the cross country!

Cross-country

Cross country is a bit like show jumping, except it's not in an arena, it's across the fields and the obstacles you jump over are like fences, tree logs and random things like bags of cement. Anything that's jumpable, really. It was so awesome to watch the horses galloping by and jumping, I wished I was taking part in it!
The fences are spread out over a few miles, so it was quite a walk between the fences so we could get some good photos.

Show-jumping!

The show jumping was really cool too. Some of the jumps were really high, I thought the riders were going to fall off! Fortunately, no one did. Me and dad were having a competition to see who could get the best pictures of the horses jumping! I think it was a draw, though.


There were also lots of kids' Pony Clubs competing against each other. It looked like great fun, but quite dangerous too!

Pony Clubs

There were loads of stalls selling horse tack and supplies and I wanted to look in all of them! I know I don't have a horse yet, but I still enjoy browsing around. There were lots of lovely headcollars with padded, wooly straps with matching lead ropes! I wish I had a horse so I could have bought one.

The best part of the day was that it was actually sunny! There was no rain at all. The wind was a bit chilly, though, but that didn't bother me much. I was having way too much of a good time to feel the cold!

By the time everything was over, my feet were killing! We'd seen just about everything, though, so it was definitely worth it! I'll be going to another horse show soon, I can't wait!

Play Dates and Nerf Guns!

We've had some new visitors to the Shovlin hotel lately, Lillianna and her family and Summer! They all came for the day to play, but we did do some educational science experiments!

We did the Magic Milk experiment and the Rainbow Skittles experiment. I've done both of them before but it was cool to go over them again. When you're doing the milk experiment, you put drops of food colouring in a plate (or bowl) of full-fat milk then dip a q-tip with washing-up liquid on it into the plate and watch the colours swirl! Mom told all the kids about how this was demonstrating surface tension of liquids and the properties of surfactants. Very educational!



The Skittles experiment is quite a bit simpler. You put different colour skittles into a plate of water and let them dissolve. In the end it looks very cool as the skittles dissolve and the colous spread out. At first the colours don't mix together so you can clearly see where one colour ends and the other begins. This taught us all about Diffusion in liquids. Diffusion is the movement of molecules from a stronger solution (the food colouring) to a weaker solution (the water).

Rainbow Skittles

After we'd done all the science experiments, we went to the park. We were having a great time until it started to rain! We had to make a dash back home and just play there until the rain went away.


You might be wondering  what the "Nerf Guns" meant in the title. Today, I went to my first session of Lynnsport in King's Lynn and it was Nerf Gun wars! I thought I'd be terrible at it because I get out of breath quite easily, plus I'm not very good at dodging, but I did really well!




Mom says I am very competitive!

After the "war", I went to the cafe upstairs and had some lunch with Liv-astrid and Lillianna and played about. I'll definitely be going to the next session!

Woolsthorpe Manor and Isaac Newton

In the previous post, I said I went to Woolsthorpe Manor with Tilly and learnt a bit about Isaac Newton.

We watched a film about Isaac Newton as a child and a young man

Isaac Newton, a very famous scientist was born and grew up in Woolsthorpe Manor near Grantham over 350 years ago.The Manor is only 20 minutes from my house! Isaac was born prematurely on Christmas Day 1642 and his mother said he was so small he could "fit in to a quart pot". We saw a quart-pot on our tour of the manor and it was pretty small!
Isaac was a loner and a bit of a recluse but he was very, very clever and discovered lots of important things including the laws of motion, calculus, the secret of white light, and (his most famous discovery) Gravity!
Isaac's family were sheep farmers, but from an early age it was obvious that Isaac was not going to be a farmer; he was far too busy asking questions and doing experiments. Isaac's uncle, recognised his talent and paid for him to go to University in Cambridge. However Isaac had to return home because of the Great Plague from 1665-1667. Isaac spent 18 months back home at the manor carrying out experiments and this is when it's said the famous apple fell from the tree and Isaac went on to discover Gravity. Isaac valued this time at home where he was able to work on his own and discover great things. This is when he had some of his best ideas.




Making dinner in the manor house kitchen

The house was amazing and it was set out just like it would have been when Isaac lived there. There was a parlour with a huge fireplace and a cauldron full of meat and vegetables and the large wooden table was set, ready for the farm workers returning to the Manor for dinner. The workers who got  back first would get the best of the stew, the meat, from the pot over the fire. Those that came later would only have what was left; vegetables and stock. That's where the saying "taking pot-luck" comes from!
Isaac's bedroom was full of science books and science equipment. He liked to blacken the windows and let in beams of sunlight. Than he would try to bend and split the light with mirrors and glass prisms. He was so fascinated by light that he stared at the sun for so long, he went blind for three days!




Making "white" light

The most interesting parts of the manor were the scribbles and graffiti on the walls on the staircase and in Isaac's bedroom.There were numbers and letters and sometimes doodles of people! Isaac would write anywhere he could, including the walls, if  he had a good idea.
From Isaac's bedroom window you could see the famous apple tree. It wasn't very big considering it's hundreds of years old.

The Apple Tree

Which falls faster? A feather or a ball?

After we saw the house we went in to the Discovery Centre next door. There was so much to do! There were all sorts of Newton's experiments for us to try. Tilly and I were struggling with some of the challenges but the staff were very helpful. We weren't going to stay long but we were enjoying ourselves so much that we stayed much longer, and we still didn't get to try everything! I liked the Gravity Bean Bag challenge and playing with the prisms and lenses.


Bean-Bag challenge!

Testing pendulums and the effect of Mass.



Playing with Light

Bending light!

The staff were very helpful

We will definitely be going back for another visit!


Afterwards, mom took us to the Sugar-Mill for a delicious dinner.

More sleepovers at the Shovlin Hotel!

A regular visitor of ours has come back to the Shovlin Hotel last week, Tilly!
On the day we picked her up, we went to Neevee's house. I'm not sure how you spell her name, so I'll just spell it "Neevee" for now.
It's always a lot of fun at Neevee's because her garden is like a playground with a cool climbing frame and swings. On the other side of the garden there is a massive field and it was full of sheep and lambs. The boy that lives there said he would get one of the lambs and bring it into the garden so we could pet it! We even got to hold it.

Unfortunately the lamb was getting scared at being separated from his mother so the boy had to put him back in the field.
As much as I enjoyed playing at Neevee's house, I couldn't wait to get back home and officially start the sleepover! We played on the laptop and watched some tv, but we did quite a bit educational stuff too!
The next day we went to Woolsthorpe Manor, where Isaac Newton was born in 1643. There's a lot to tell you about that, so you can read about it in another post. In fact, there was so much about it that me and Tilly each made a little booklet about it.

On the last day of the sleepover, we met with Cat, Lavinia and William at Queensgate Shopping Centre. About halfway through the shopping, Liv-astrid joined us, as well. We had a browse around and ended up buying some sweets and chocolates, delicious!

Dodging the water fountains!

While we were there, we also saw Peterborough Cathedral. There were loads of complicated patterns on the roof that were really fascinating to look at. There were also lots of candle holders with lots of tea-lights on them, and mom let us light our own tea-lights.

After a long day of shopping, everyone had to go back home. I wish I could have taken Tilly back home with me! Oh well, hopefully she'll come for another sleepover soon.

Taking a break from shopping!

In other news, I've finally gotten my piano exam results back! I got a Distinction, which is the top mark!  I haven't got my exact marks back yet, but I know I've got a distinction. Phew!!!

Sleepovers, Bicycles and a Pampered Pooch

It's April! This year is going by really fast.

As you can tell by the title of the post, one of my friends came round for a sleepover! It wasn't Tilly this time though, it was Liv-Astrid. She, and her crazy brothers came for the day but Liv-Astrid stayed over. She was planning to only stay one night, but she loved the Shovlin Hotel so much she decided to stay for another night!
We did arts and crafts, watched movies and even learnt a bit about bikes!(I wasn't expecting that!)

Why do boys always pull faces on photos?!!

Glass painting



My candle holder

The finished result!

At a bike shop called Halfords, Liv-Astrid and her brothers were booked in  to have a talk about bike maintenance. I didn't really want to join in because I knew nothing about bikes or how to ride them, but somehow I was persuaded to join in! We learnt how to make sure everything was safe with a bike and how to fix a puncture in a tyre. I found the whole talk a bit boring, to be honest but I guess these things are good to know. I enjoyed looking around Halfords though; I especially liked the GoPro cameras.

Fixing a puncture

My certificate!

Even though it was only 2 days it was a fun sleepover. We did glass painting one day and then Watercolours the next. We watched lots of TV, including a new show which I love, and now Liv-Astrid loves it too! It's called Miraculous. We took Maisie on some  exciting long walks. I'll definitely be inviting Liv-astrid around again!


In celebration of summer coming, Maisie got a new haircut! She looks like a completely different dog now. Her fur feels like a super-soft teddy bear! The groomer came round to our house with a trailer that was being pulled by his car. In the trailer it was like a mini salon! Maisie didn't approve of it very much, but I thought it was cool.

Good enough for CRUFTS!