Easter nests and lemonade

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On Wednesday we made our first batch of chocolate Easter nests.  I did it with Rabbit and Tiddler and they had fun, though the results weren’t brilliant.  I knew they wouldn’t be because we didn’t really have enough chocolate, and we added rather too many cornflakes to stretch it out to make 12, so they were a bit crumbly but they tasted fine.  We have since made better ones which I will blog later. (I am planning to stay in bed until I have caught up.  The kids may have other ideas, but I’m hoping the combination of CBeebies and Easter Eggs will keep them busy for a while.)

While I was making the Easter nests with the little ones, and Monkey was at Beavers, Owl and Supergirl made lemonade, following a recipe which we haven’t tried before.  Instead of squeezing the lemons, you cut them up and blend them with water, then add sugar.  It was quite a bit easier than squeezing them, and the children all liked it.  We are going to make it again soon by the traditional method to compare the results.

When Monkey came back from Beavers and daddy came back from work, and everyone had had supper, we all enjoyed Owl’s lemonade with our rather crumbly Easter nests, and the leftover mini eggs (from the nest making) and foil-wrapped eggs (from the Home Ed group rice activity.)  Tiddler was very keen for me to take a picture of the eggs for the blog as well as the nests and lemonade, so here they are!

nests lemonade eggs

One Tuff Spot, 11 children and a lot of rice…

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We got the Tuff Spot out again for Home Education Group on Wednesday afternoon, and the children really enjoyed sharing it with their friends.  I told them we would be playing with rice, and helped them to choose some suitable toys to put in and around the Tuff Spot.  I then turned my back for a minute, and found that they had added rather a lot more, just as the other families were arriving!  Once we had removed some toys to make space for 11 children to play in and around the Tuff Spot (we really need two!) I added the rice.  With some help from Monkey and one of his friends, I had hidden 22 foil-wrapped chocolate eggs in a flexible tub containing 5 kilos of rice, and I invited the children to come and see what buried treasure they could find.  This had the effect of drawing them into the activity pretty quickly, and once they got stuck in they continued to play quite happily with the rice for the next couple of hours.

It was quite hard to fit 11 children around the Tuff Spot, so I encouraged some of them to play at the table as well.  I gave them some split peas and the remains of the flour from Monday’s messy play, and they added some Playmobil figures, our rock collection and some grass, twigs and blossom from the garden.  Monkey spent a long time constructing a mini camp scene with Playmobil figures in the split peas.  I think it is not quite finished – he is planning to make a tent to add to the scene.  Rabbit made a garden which is also not finished.  I think we will have to start again when we have more time together, to make it a more satisfying activity for her.

Next time we play with rice, I think I will introduce some equipment for weighing and measuring, to extend the play and learning.  I am also planning to experiment with dyeing rice for some more colourful fun.  Do you have any more ideas for playing with rice?  I’d love to hear them!  And watch this space for a Tuff Spot/ Messy Play linky hosted by Jennie at Edspire coming soon…

Playing with flour in the Tuff Spot

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In common with quite a few other bloggers, I have been inspired by Jennie at Edspire to buy a Tuff Spot, or cement mixing tray, to add a new dimension to our messy play.  It arrived last weekend, and on Monday the children couldn’t wait to get started.  I asked them what they wanted to play with, and they suggested flour.  I had set aside an hour before bathtime for the activity, but they were so engrossed that I let them carry on for an hour and a half, and it would have kept them busy for much longer if we had had time.

These are some of our ideas for playing with flour.

  • play the flour cake game: make a flour cake (like a sandcastle), place a sweet on top (we used some raisins wrapped in foil instead), take turns to cut a slice off the cake until it collapses, the last person to slice the cake can use their mouth to pick the sweet out of the flour – in our house the last bit is optional and if they don’t want to do it they still get the sweet!
  • set up a village scene with wooden houses, using the flour as snow; drive cars down the road between the houses (Owl and Monkey took turns to do this, and both spent a long time getting the scene just right.)
  • add split peas, and mix to make a cake; Rabbit turned hers out onto a plate and stuck a feather in top; Tiddler found it was easier to turn it over and just use the bowl as a cake, decorating the top with his small Postman Pat van and some more flour!
  • drive cars, trains and Postman Pat’s vans (we have a big one and a small one) through the flour, and sprinkle flour and split peas on top.
  • spread out some of the flour and split pea mixture on a plate, make a hole in to plant a seed (another split pea), then add a feather to be the plant that grows up.
  • write words and draw pictures in it: I wrote some words for Rabbit that I knew she would recognise, and she enjoyed reading them to me.
  • pat down the flour and walk in it to make footprints.

Have a look at these lovely blogs for more Tuff Spot inspiration:

Moon sand dinosaur world

Painting with trains

Oats so simple sensory play

At Granny and Grandpa’s house

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Last week, from Tuesday to Sunday, we were at Granny and Grandpa’s house.  During the week, Daddy and Grandpa weren’t there because they were working, but we were all together again at the weekend.  These are just a few of the things we did:

Owl and Monkey worked on their Maths and English, practised the violin and did lots of reading.  Owl did some Latin, reviewing his flashcards and teaching some of the words to Monkey.  He later had a more in-depth Latin lesson with Grandpa!

Monkey and I played Scrabble, Tiddler did puzzles and I played Frustration several times with Rabbit.  They all had a go on the NASA kids website, and did BBC Bitesize (Science and Literacy).  We read a lot of stories, including some new ones which we bought with our World book day tokens.

Rabbit and Tiddler iced fairy cakes with Granny.

Rabbit made a cafe with real and toy food, and wrote labels for the food and drinks. She also made Smarties and carried them around the house in a tray, selling them.

Rabbit wrote a pirate story.  It was all her own idea.

The cafe game was so much fun, we had to do it again the next day.  Rabbit and Monkey made some new signs.

Owl went to a church kids’ club, where they made Easter baskets, played games and ate chocolate.

We celebrated our Wedding Anniversary, and it snowed!

Rabbit and Tiddler made cards for us.  All the children performed in a show they made up for us , reading or reciting poems, and dancing.

Owl and Monkey played with Lego a lot.  Among other things, they made a statue, a swimming pool and a display of figures from my childhood collection to match a picture in their Lego book.

Lots of works of Art were created.

The last one is Rabbit’s picture of “The Whole Wide World.”

The Big Bang Science Fair

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This post is written by Owl.

On Friday 15th March we (mummy, Monkey, Rabbit and I ) went to the Big Bang Science Fair at the Excel Centre in London.  We went on four trains to get there, and waited for our Home Education Group friends to arrive.  Then we went and watched a Strange Science show with lots of good experiments.  These are a few of them:

  1. The man presenting the show placed a glass funnel in a large jug of oil, and put his finger in the narrow end of the funnel to keep the air inside.  We could see the funnel clearly.  Then he took his finger out and the funnel became invisible.  It was still there but we couldn’t see it because there was no air trapped inside and it filled up with oil.  The reason we couldn’t see it was that oil and glass have the same refractive index, while air is different, so the path of the light going through the oil does not change when it hits the glass, but it changes when it reaches the trapped air.  The man demonstrated this by shining a laser on it, to show how the path of the light bends when there is air in the funnel, but it is straight when there is no air.
  2. The man passed a low level of electricity through three volunteers from the audience.  It didn’t hurt them but was enough to play some music.  One person on the end of the line held a wire connected to a laptop which was playing music, another stood in the middle of the line, and the one at the other end held a wire connected to a speaker.  When their fingers were touching the music played, and when they separated it stopped.
  3. Finally the man touched two plasma balls at once with one hand and held a fluorescent tube light with the other.  The electricity passed through his body and the bulb lit up.  He said it hurt a bit so he didn’t ask for volunteers this time.

After the show, we had lunch and met up with some of our friends.  Then we explored the exhibition, which had so many stands but we could only look at a few.  These were some of the best ones:

  1. There was a stand about drugs, and I helped to do an experiment about caffeine.  I had to use a dropper to pick some daphnia out of a jar of water and place them on a slide under a video microscope.  We could see a heart beating on the screen and I had to count the number of heartbeats in 15 seconds and then multiply by 4 to calculate the number of beats per minute.  We then added some caffeine and counted again, and the heart rate was higher.
  2. On another stand there was a presentation about what happens when someone is in a car accident.  There was a dummy the size of a man, and some air was pumped into his chest to make it look like he was breathing.  There was lots of fake blood.  Some volunteers put bandages on him, and we discussed ways of making him comfortable.  I helped to put a mask on his face so he could have gas and air.  They said he would have to go the hospital for further treatment.
  3. Then I talked to a man about the landscape of Mars and he showed me some pictures of features of Mars to compare with similar features on Earth.  There were craters, volcanoes, plains and river beds that would once have been filled with water.

After that the little ones were tired so we went home.  I hope we can go again next year.

More Spring Art and Messy Play

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I was already a little behind on blogging when my laptop finally broke beyond repair last week (it was around 7 years old.)  I have now borrowed a temporary replacement, so I can catch up a bit.  There are so many things that I would like to blog properly, but it is probably not going to happen.  So anyway, these are some of the things we did in the week beginning 11th March.  Having enjoyed experimenting with finger paint, we continued on our theme of writing and drawing with our fingers in a variety of materials.  At the beginning of the week we played with flour, and later in the week repeated the activity with cornflour mixed with water, which was very messy but great fun.

After the success of the daffodil pictures, I decided that we would do some more Spring drawings while we were on a roll.  Our garden has been full of beautiful crocuses for a while, and I brought some of them inside for the children to draw when we had Home Education group at our house.  I’m glad now that we got round to doing it before the snow returned.

We also had fun drawing the blossom tree in our front garden – a lovely springtime activity, though we did need to wrap up warm!  The children sat on a picnic blanket and observed the tree very carefully, taking their time over their drawings.  I think the passers-by were quite amused, by the looks we got, but the children took it very seriously and were proud of the results.  I haven’t taken photos of the drawings yet, so will have to add them later.  I was hoping to draw some more Spring flowers and create another display, but now that everything has been covered in snow again I think we will have to wait a while.

blossom tree 1

This week

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This week I have been

playing with the children and trying not to rush onto the next thing too quickly

making a mess with fingerpaint, flour and cornflour

enjoying simple things like going to post a letter or to the shops with one child at a time

talking to friends and making time to catch up with them, spinning out the birthday celebrations for as long as possible

learning a lot at the Big Bang Science Fair (mainly that Owl knows more than I do about certain aspects of Science)

relaxing with my lovely husband on an overnight stay in a pub hotel, which really felt like getting away from it all, even though it is walking distance from our house!

feeling proud of Owl for singing beautifully in his choir concert, and Monkey for behaving well in the audience

remembering Matilda Mae x

Puppet playhouse theatre

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One of the most successful presents we gave Rabbit for her birthday was this puppet playhouse theatre from Manhattan Toys which I chose online at the last minute, not quite sure if it would arrive on time.  Luckily I ordered it from PlayMerrily who are always reliably quick to deliver, so she got it on the day.  The description said there would be room for two children inside, so I thought they would have to take turns but all four of them have managed to squeeze in quite happily.  They have spent a long time planning and rehearsing shows, designing and making props and scenery, and performing for family and friends.  It has been really nice to see them all working together and having so much fun.

The pictures above are of the scenery for their jungle show, complete with palm trees, a snake and a teddy dressed as tarzan.  I love the ideas they came up with and the way they organised it themselves.  It was the perfect present for a five year old girl, but has been enjoyed just as much by the boys (aged 2, 7 and 8) so if you are looking for a birthday present for a child who loves imaginative play, it is highly recommended.  Especially if you are cutting it fine.  Thank you PlayMerrily for saving the day again!

Egg box daffodils

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We made some egg box daffodils yesterday for our Spring display.

Here’s how to do it.  You will need:

  • An egg box (we used one with twelve sections which was about right for four children.)
  • Some old cereal boxes.
  • Yellow paint, paintbrushes.
  • Scissors, stapler, double-sided tape or PVA glue, normal tape.
  • Green paper (for the stems, if they are for a display.  If you want them to stand up you could use sticks, straws or pipe cleaners.)

Cut the bottom of the egg box into sections, and trim round each one to neaten it as much as possible, but don’t worry too much if they are a little rough around the edges.  Cut petal shapes out of an old cereal box.  You need six for each daffodil.  Paint everything yellow!

When they are dry, arrange 6 petals in the shape of a flower head and staple them at the centre.

Use double sided tape or PVA glue to stick the egg box trumpet to the flower head.

Tape a strip of green paper to the back of the flower head.

These are the finished daffodils, along with our daffodil drawings, on our spring display.

While I was thinking about doing this activity nearly a week ago, I saw a blog post which reminded me to get on with it.  So if you’d like to try another (more detailed) version, have a look here.

Learning through play

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The night before last a conversation on twitter got me thinking about learning through play, and in particular messy play activities to support early reading and writing.  So yesterday morning I decided that it was time to get the finger paint out, which I had bought a couple of weeks ago for this purpose.  I scooped some red and green paint out onto paper plates and Monkey and Rabbit spread them around and started exploring the texture.  Tiddler asked for white paint, so I found a black tray to give a more interesting contrast, but he asked for a paper plate so we transferred some of it onto one as well.  Owl came and joined in and for a while all four of them were happily occupied with spreading, squidging and mark making.  Then Owl extended the activity for the others by suggesting colour mixing, so we made brown and pink.  After a while, I suggested they might like to write or draw in the paint, and they wrote several letters, and drew a bus, a train, a sun and some shapes.

We had to stop when it was time for piano lessons, though I’m sure they would have carried on for a lot longer if we’d had the chance.  But it was a special day, as Rabbit joined the big boys and had her first piano lesson.   She did really well and enjoyed it, as did Monkey who is making very good progress, and Owl who was thrilled to start on his Grade 1 pieces after taking his prep test on Friday.  He enjoyed showing the certificate to his teacher, who said that if he got such good comments in Grade 1 he would get a distinction.

Back at home in the afternoon, I offered the children the chance to continue the finger painting activity.  Tiddler was really too tired, and the big boys decided they had had enough painting for one day, so Rabbit and I did it together.  This gave us the opportunity to focus on letter formation, and it was a really satisfying way to practise writing because any mistakes can be quickly “squished” and you can start again.  We did the letters from a to e first, and then m for “mummy”, some capital letters and a number 7!  Rabbit also enjoyed doing hand prints on paper, making “scratchy patterns” with her nails and drawing a spiral shaped fossil.

After snack time (some fruit arranged in a pretty pattern by Rabbit), we did some Maths together.  The boys were working on their times tables, and I decided to set up an “invitation to play” with plasticine for Rabbit.  I started making numbers, but had only made two when Tiddler came over and wanted to sit on my knee and “help” me.  He enjoyed counting the numbers, starting at 1 again every time I made a new one, carefully pointing to each number in turn.  He also self-corrected consistently, going back to the start when he made a mistake.  I knew he could count to ten (at least) but wasn’t sure if he had mastered one-to-one correspondence yet. Well it looks like he has!  While we were doing this, Rabbit came over to watch and I suggested she might like to make some numbers of her own.  She worked very hard to make the numbers 1 to 4 and was very pleased with the results.  She needed a little help to get the 3 to be the right shape, but did the others herself.

At the end of the afternoon, after a little bit of thank-you letter writing, we decided to draw some daffodils for our Spring display.  This was a second attempt, after drawing some flowers last week which were beautiful but didn’t look like daffodils!  This time, we looked carefully at the flowers, and discussed the shape of the petals and the trumpet before we started.  There was some initial reluctance as it seemed quite challenging, but they soon got into it and decided it was fun after all.  Tiddler did not want to be left out so I drew him a flower to colour.  But then he asked me to do the yellow bit for him.  And then the green bit.  However, he did write his name.  It is the yellow squiggle under the picture which you can see if you look really really closely!

Daffodils always make me think of a little boy called Freddie so I’m going to dedicate this post to Merry, and also to Jennie who started the conversation on twitter which made me get round to the finger painting.  Thinking of you and remembering Matilda Mae x

finger painting 26