The Book Matrix

K has been attending drama lessons since the beginning of the year and just loving it. The cast of 20 children have been working long and hard on a play called "The Book Matrix".

Rehearsals have taken up much of her time. On Friday evening they had their first dress rehearsal which went on well into the evening. Monday night saw another rehearsal and finally tonight the first show.

K played the part of a genie called "The Doxologist" or Doxo for short. The story is about four children, two of whom are reluctant readers, who are transported to different times and places by way of books.

K and the other genie basically pull the parts of the play together by taking the children to see Medusa and Athena, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Frances Drake, Tom Sawyer and Queen Elizabeth.It was very well done and all the children appeared to be enjoying themselves on stage.

Below are the four "children" and the two genies.

More Fan Food

Today it has been very cold and wet so it was fitting to eat some soup. My little "chefette" prepared Locro, a soup from Paraguay....it was delicious!

She prepared the soup on her own. It is basically a butternut soup base with bacon, tomato, beans, chili, garlic and other yummy spices. It is something we will make again!

The little guy has had fun building various soccer stadiums over the last couple of days. I love the "mad guy in the corner with a vuvuzela"!

He too prepared a delicious treat for us today. He made Slovenian almond bars....they are yummy!

He wants to make his birthday cake out of these so they must be good! I enjoyed the fact that they are not too sweet.

Here is the recipe of you want to give it a try:

1cup flour

180ml ground almonds

125ml whole almonds chopped

180ml icing sugar

125g butter

4 egg whites, lightly beaten

1 egg lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 180 C

Grease and line a 20cm baking tray

Mix flour, ground almonds, icing sugar, butter and egg whites

Spread into baking tray and brush top with beaten egg

Scatter chopped almonds over top

Bake for about 35min

When cool, cut into squares and enjoy!

Mmmm, wonder what we will be eating next?

Eating our way around the world

The children have spent time making beautiful, bright note booking pages for their world cup studies. They know those flags off pat and I enjoyed walking through the mall with Z as he called out all the flags he saw.

Z bought himself some fun "arm warmers" with his pocket money. I didn't even know such a thing existed until yesterday. He chose to buy Netherlands arm warmers as his daddy is from the Netherlands. ( I really liked the South African ones as they are so colourful.) They are fun to wear as one can wear a T shirt with the arm warmers. They look cute and he has worn them at every opportunity!

When I planned my grocery shopping, I thought it would be fun to eat foods from the different countries represented in the World Cup....

Today my little chefs prepared a German meal.

They made a German potato salad, some red cabbage salad and sausage........

complete with a German Flag!

They had a great time preparing the food and eating it too!

Another Silver Medal

J competed in the Karate Association of the Western Cape Tri-angular Championships on Saturday. He was not greatly impressed at coming second place. Apparently the judges did not penalise his opponent for strikes to the face which were not allowed. He did however bring home a lovely silver medal and should qualify to compete in the Champ of Champs later in the year.

Chaeli Campaign Art and Poetry Winners

On Saturday morning we dropped K off at the Chaeli Cottage. As an ambassador, she was asked to be a hostess for the prize giving for the art and poetry competition. J could not work as he was competing in a triangular competition for karate.

K was always wanted her art to be on exhibition, today she got her wish!

Z and I fetched hubby's parents and later came back to the Chaeli Cottage. We browsed at all the art works and enjoyed reading the poems that were entered. The standard was amazing. After enjoying some tea and scones, the prize giving began. Zelda welcomed everyone and then a differently abled girl, Cherne, sang for us.

Her voice was so powerful and moved many to tears with her message of hope. We heard that she had recently made it into the top thirty for Idols. This beautiful young lady is an inspiration to those who hear her amazing voice! It was fitting that we all stood around her in a circle as the theme of this competition was "circles of hope".

Z had entered a picture of a differently abled person being pushed in a wheelchair on the mountain. He called it "Even if I cant walk, I can explore". You can just imagine his surprise when his name was called out first! ( I had known he was a finalist for his age group in the competition and had kept it as a surprise for him). The timing was just incredible for him as he had had a very hard week. This was just the boost he needed!

After receiving his first place prize of R500, he turned and looked back to where we were standing with a look of absolute pleasure on his little face! It was so good to see him feel like a winner and be a winner.

Zelda and the little man with his certificate and prize.

It was a happy morning and there was much joy as the winners of each category stepped forward to claim their prizes. One young differently abled lady was so overcome with tears of joy at winning first place. She could not contain her joy as she had never won anything in her life before. She had entered a beautiful, colourful work of art.

Group photo of all the winners.

A young home school boy also entered a photo collage into the competition. It has been decided that from now on there will be a new category for photographic entries too. His photography was excellent.

Coaching

The boys had some fun this week when they were asked to coach a friends son so he could be ready for his Karate grading. This little fellow had missed his last grading as he was sick.

We were all happy to hear the little guy did well and got his next belt. The boys were really chuffed as they were rewarded for their efforts.

World Cup Fever

With the Soccer World Cup being just days away, World Cup Fever has hit our home! We don't have tickets to any matches but plan to enjoy the World Cup anyway. I want the children to have happy memories of it being a fun time in our home. We are after all a host city to this fun event! Everywhere we go, we see flags....on cars, in the shops and even our church has all the flags up. People are wearing their favourite team jerseys and there is an air of excitement out and about.

We found this South African vuvuzela and the kids have had great fun blowing it. I think the neighbours might be tiring of the sound by now! Z loves his top in the South African teams colours!

Yesterday the children cut out mini flags and stuck them on our world map. Each of the 32 teams playing in the World Cup was represented. It was a hands on geography lesson where they had to find the countries themselves. The bigger flags had a different purpose....

Tonight we had some family fun playing a game with the bigger flags of the 32 countries represented. I found these South African flag mint humbugs in a nearby store and whoever got 3 flags right could take a sweetie. Z did really well, scoring the highest. By the end of the evening , the entire family had memorised which flag belongs to which country! Hows that for fun learning!

We then learned some flag "etiquette". A flag is not to be hung upside down unless it is a genuine distress signal. The host countries flag is always positioned in a position of honour: it must be first and to the extreme left when looking at a row of flags. No other flag should be bigger than the host flag.

We stuck our flags along the mantelpiece. The South African Flag in first place of honour, and then as is correct, the rest of the flags in alphabetical order. We all learned so much!

I was very pleased to get some links to some sites regarding the world cup and we will have more fun as we complete some activities on the World Cup. The older two children will be coaching Upward Soccer during the World Cup and Z will be playing. It should be great fun!