The Adventures of Library Susan ~ Part Five

It's been a bit of a blah sort of a week in the Beecrafty house this week.

I feel like I've done a whole lot of work with very little to show for it, I had TWO baking failures*, and Susan missed out once again on a Teddybears' Picnic, even though that's what she's been dying to do right from day one!

We've reached the end of level four, but level three isn't much different for us, and this whole thing could drag on for a while yet. So maybe today is the perfect day to dip into the Book of Hopes. This book has been put together by Katherine Rundell especially for kids in lockdown, to "make them laugh or wonder or snort or smile." If your family could do with a snort or a smile, maybe you'd like to dip into it too.

The good thing is we've all made it this far! And even though Susan and I have done less fun stuff than usual, we still found some pretty cool websites and eResources to share with you!

Fun Stuff

First up, Sparklers at Home. Maybe your school has already shared this website with you, but if not, it is a great wellbeing resource, full of ideas to help you and your whānau keep calm and have some fun.

I discovered that Reading Rainbow is available through Access Video! Miss Missy used to love playing Reading Rainbow games online, and we were pretty disappointed when it disappeared. So it was great to rediscover this show. I especially enjoyed If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. 

One of the truly wonderful things about the world right now is how willing to share everyone is, particularly authors and artists. If you and your tamariki like colouring in, I'm sure you'll enjoy these beautiful collections:

• Book Riot has gathered together colouring pages by artists like Liz Climo and Susie Ghahremani
• Adobe is curating a themed colouring book with chapters being added regularly.

If creating is more your thing than colouring, you might enjoy these Learn at Home Worksheets that Imagination Station has designed. I particularly liked the Chair for a Bear challenge. Don't worry about the checkout process you go through when you download them—you can choose your own koha amount, or download for free if that suits.

Anzac Day

Once again, we had a long weekend in lockdown. The Young Lad was extremely pleased to discover that Monday was a public holiday, not a school day!

Susan and I baked Anzac biscuits, and while they tasted pretty good, they did NOT turn out like I expected! Anzac biscuits have a bit of a reputation for spreading, and I actually put mine on a tray with sides just incase—completely unecessarily as it turned out, because I somehow managed to create Anzac balls—they didn't spread, not one bit!

I was going to share my recipe with you, but maybe you'd have better luck with the one shared in this Anzac Makerspace blogpost. 

Ka kite till next time! Keep looking after your bubbles, and if you missed our earlier virtual visits, you can catch up on all our adventures here.

*I'm known among my friends as a bit of a domestic goddess, and while I think the title is undeserved, baking failures don't happen this often when Missbeecrafty is in the kitchen!