Weekly Wrap-Up: Two in one

I am so ready for this weekend. The last two weeks have been full and generally rather busy. Here's a bit of what we have been up to.

The weekend before last we opened our home to a teen friend of the kids and she had a birthday party here. It was a pleasant evening with loads of great kids coming and going and enjoying themselves around the pool and braai. The past weekend we enjoyed a braai with family friends too. Keren and I also visited the Portobello Road market. A lovely girl's time out.

The pace of school has been stepped up....

Some of Keren's books arrived and we expect the rest in the week ahead. We love her new curriculum and she loves the fact that she can tick boxes as she goes. She has been working on English, Afrikaans, Math and Life Orientation. She is reading Lord of the Flies and The Hobbit for her literature studies. She managed to complete a weeks worth of work in Life Orientation in one day! It is good for her to get ahead in certain subjects as she will need to make up time on others when those books arrive.

Her art has also kept her rather busy. Her visual diary is looking great...

 I love her next Mona Lisa...

Her research essay was presented in an interesting way...

Today her art class went on an outing to the National Gallery.

Zak decided it was time to loose the locks and his new haircut looks rather good on him.

He has been drawing too...

and at art class they have been working with clay. 

This week we are enjoying reading The Swiss Family Robinson together. I can't believe we haven't read it before. I love the footnotes on natural history that add facts to the story. 

Basketball practice is in full swing twice a week and he played a game on Wednesday. A fantastic action packed game in which his team won 28-14. 

He enjoyed his nature club outing to Kirstenbosch Botanical gardens last week.

Keren and I have been enjoying early morning walks with walk/run for life 3 times a week before school. She tends to run and walk but I prefer to walk. The summer mornings are beautiful and it feels great to exercise. She has also resumed ballroom dancing and is enjoying it immensely. 

There were more exciting parcels in the last weeks...

The one shown above was from a family in Ireland. It was part of the International Children's Book Exchange, but the sender and I had been in contact and decided to send more than just a book. 

We received a friendly letter from the family, telling us all about their lives in Ireland and the area in which they live. Included were some old Irish Punts which are out of circulation in Ireland since they have switched to the Euro. Maps, traditional Irish recipes and a wonderful Irish Mussel Cuisine recipe book made up the remainder of the parcel. The Jaffa Cakes went down really well, we love Jaffa Cakes and those were excellent! 

In return, we made up a South African package including a letter, SA mini flags, rooibos tea, a pamphlet displaying our National symbols, SA coins, a Zulu beaded bracelet, a sand art card of the SA flag and spices for Cape Malay Chicken Breyani . With a bit of horror I now realize I totally forgot to put a book into the package! 

Another parcel came from a family in USA.  The family lives in Boone, North Carolina, and we are eager to learn about their rich history. We also look forward to reading the historical biography of Daniel Boone.

Besides the wonderful surprise parcels, the high-lite of the last week was definitely our visit to the Da Vinci exhibition at the Waterfront.

Having read about this genius, it was amazing to see replicas of his art and inventions. A once in a life time experience that has made our learning real and memorable.

We enjoyed exploring life sized interactive machines. It felt as if we were at an old fashioned science center!  It is amazing that one man came up with as many concepts as he did. I particularly enjoyed his anatomical drawings. 

 

I loved the delight expressed by Keren when she came face to face with the Mona Lisa. Having been the focus of her art over the last couple of weeks, she was absolutely intrigued by this section of the exhibition. She really appreciated the beauty and mystery of this masterpiece. We all discovered so much more detail to the Mona Lisa than we had noticed before. There was a replica of the original and the colours were just magnificent...soft and so much detail which is missed when one looks at the now faded and darkened replica as we know it.

This exhibition has now been extended until March 23rd and it is highly recommended if you have not yet been!

We enjoyed strolling around the Waterfront and browsing the craft stalls and of course we had to get a pic with our famous mountain!

Josh heads of to work daily and is enjoying his work. He booked himself a driving lesson this week...all on his own steam. It is good to see him taking ownership of things like this.

The week drew to a close with Keren as master of ceremonies at youth again tonight and Zak all dressed up in shirt and tie for the evening of fun.