Excuse me sir, do you have a backbone?

While i was at work yesterday (yes, yes, i really just like saying that!) Max and the girls did some (rather a lot!) of work on the classification of animals. I’m not quite sure what brought it on but when i got home, this is what they were up to.

Max looking his flu-ey best.

Thinking.

Posing.

Sorting.

Understanding?

I took over to help them with invertebrates and we stumbled through that while i realised how much i don’t know about things without spines! Ended up with lots of sheets that look great though and we are going to paper the wall in the “resource” room with them. Around the dinner table that night we played “Yes/No Guess the ANimal” and they had to try and use what they’d learned. Cue lots of “DOES it have a BACKBONE!!!!????!!!!” through gritted teeth but it was good fun. Amelie asked the best questions though.

Today i did Nature/History sticker books with them when i came home which was lovely as all 5 of us (girls) sat on the floor and did them together. Fran did a quite detailed Usborne Horses one, Maddy did Times Tables and Egypt, Amelie and Josie did Appletree Farm ones. It was nice and we all seemed to enjoy it.

Didn’t manage stories tonight as i had to see an accountant about taking over our books in preparation for having a Payroll and also probably becoming Limited at some time in the near future. That feels a bit big and scary! I’m working all day tomorrow (am going to be ordering a ‘proper’ sign for the unit) but i am finding the 5-8 slot quite a nice time to do more meaningful/less prosaic stuff with them and Mrs Frisby is going down really well; i’d forgotten how much i enjoyed that book as a kid. It seems, much like Charlotte’s Web, to have lots of naturally occurring ‘educational’ stuff in it.

Title of the blog comes in homage to my 4 year old self who once called over to a sheep (or so the story goes) “Excuse me Madam, do you know that you have a blue bottom?”