Drama And A Tour Of Portsmouth Guildhall

In drama class the children learned ballet this week. They are learning the dances from the stage show Matilda.
After class we all went into Portsmouth for a tour of The Guildhall. It was pretty interesting, especially the music memorabilia and going behind the scenes of the concert stage and dressing rooms.

Art work on the walls of the box office.

Music memorabilia

Spike Edney's guitar (Queen's Keyboard player)

 In the Lord Mayor's chambers

Glass wall mural in the Zodiac Hall

The Logomania Christmas Tree - all the snowflakes are made from brand logos!

 In the main dressing room back stage.

Lighting men at work

 

 On stage!

Gunwharf Quays Firework Display 2015

Hannah and I went on our own this year as Dean was working a late shift. It was crazy busy, the busiest I've ever seen it and we did have an anxious few minutes from Hannah when she was squashed in the crowd. But we fought our way out   and changed viewing location which turned out to be pretty good with room to breathe and see the display.

I didn't get many pictures as Hannah thought that climbing on to my shoulders would make her view perfect - it's quite hard to take pictures with an 11 year old balancing on your back!

It was lovely though, and afterwards we walked around the newly installed Christmas scenes.

Hannah is looking forward to the tree going up later as it's always really pretty there.

Into Film Festival 2015

The Into Film festival is a free, annual festival of films for children aged 5 -19 in the UK. Every year Hannah picks two or three films to see from the list on the website and this year she picked Inside Out, Minions and Sponge Bob.

Inside Out was lovely, a really nice film, Minions was crazy but fun (and in 3D) and we've yet to see Sponge Bob but Hannah is excited to see it!

Here she is in her 3D glasses waiting for Minions to start!

Riding Lesson

Hannah had an entertaining riding lesson this week. The indoor school has a massive new mirror so that the riders can see their positions during their lessons. Hannah rode Coco who thought the mirror was just for him. He kept trying to stop and look at himself, so sweet!

Very handsome Coco!

And the drive home through Stansted Woods  is looking very autumnal now, especially after rainfall.

Halloween 2015

 Cool display at the local garden center this year. Hannah doesn't really do scary but I enjoyed it! They had a tunnel set up in store with lots of ghoulish scenes along it.

 Halloween afternoon took us to the marina at Port Solent for a Trick Or Treat pumpkin hunt - much more Hannah's thing. She dressed up as Hermionie Granger  from Harry Potter this year. I actually shopped the school uniform sections for the first time ever! Her Hogwarts robe and tie came from Amazon, and my friend crocheted the Hogwarts scarf and hat for her. I lieu of a basket Hannah collected her treats in her hat :-)

After dark we headed to Grammy's house. Her street is a fun one to trick or treat as most people enter into the Halloween spirit and decorate their houses.

and at home, Hannah carved our pumpkins, a cat and a traditional jack 'o' lantern.

Currclick American Girl Club - October

This month the American Girl Club book was Kirsten Learns A Lesson by Janet Beeler Shaw which is the second book in the Kirsten series.

Kirsten starts school in America, but she doesn't speak English very well. Miss Winston, her new teacher, is strict and not very understanding. Things get worse when Miss Winston comes to live with the Larson family. Kirsten's only escape is playing with her secret friend, Singing Bird. When Singing Bird suggests running away forever, Kirsten must decide where she belongs. Kirsten does learn some important lessons in school, but she learns something even more important about herself.

Hannah loved the Native American connections in this book and really enjoyed learning a little bit about Sweden (Kirsten's homeland) during the class.

After talking about the book and discussing some of the characters the children did some really fun crafts.

Hannah made a replica patchwork quilt in paper such as Kirsten would have made,

and a buffalo skin native American writing craft.

Currclick American Girl Club can be found here American Girl Club , if you'd like to join in.

Beach Day

We had an awesome beach trip yesterday, I love the beach in autumn it's quite possibly my favorite place to be.

Luckily Hannah shares my love of the beach and had a lovely time wave jumping, sand dancing and running around.