Paper Making

Having spent the last week talking about rubbish and recycling, we finished of by making our own recycled paper. I don't think the children really believed me that we would actually manage to make new paper, ok the end result is very rough paper but hopefully they will be happy when they see it on Monday. We stared out with a selection of paper, a newspaper, kitchen paper and coloured tissue paper

The children ripped the paper into small piece.

We then put roughly a cup of paper and a cup of water in the blender

and then blended it until we got a fine pulp.

We then added another cup of paper and water and some coloured tissue paper to dye the paper with.

We then tipped the contents into a large bowl, the children explored the strange texture, you might need to add another cup of water, just so you have enough mixture to cover the mesh.

We then took our mesh frame, an embroidery hoop and some net curtain stretched across it.

The hoop is then dipped into the mixture, making sure the pulp covers all the mesh,

then lift it carefully and allow the water to drain away.

We then left them on a towel to dry, after an hour, I carefully removed the hoop.

It did take over 24 hours for the paper to dry, so not a quick activity.

St Patrick's Day

As we did for Saint David's day, we are doing the same for Saint Patrick's day. We looked at where Ireland was on a map and answered the children's questions as to what different places are called.

The older children 8+ labeled their map, with where Northern Ireland is, it's capital Belfast, it's highest mountain, Slieve Donard mountain 848 m (2782 ft) and  where the River Bann was. We also looked at the Giant's Causeway and found some good information here and some lovely pictures. I then told them the story of of the Irish giant Finn MacCool and the Scottish giant Benandonner and how they had argument and started throwing rocks back and forth and that is how the Giant's Causeway was formed.

We made some tissue paper rainbows and painted a pot of gold. We talked about how leprechauns are shoe makers by trade and they store their money they earn in a pot in the ground. If you follow a rainbow to it's end you might find their treasure. If you catch a leprechaun then they have to tell you were their treasure is but if you blink or look away from them they will vanish.

I then read them the story The Night Before St. Patrick's Day . Which is a story about two children trying to catch a leprechaun but they don't realise how tricky they are.

We also had a go at mixing the primary colours to make new colours, which they loved. I also attempted this rainbow science it didn't work for us, but they had fun mixing the food colouring afterwards, which looked very pretty halfway through the mixing and very murky at the end!

We then made ginger bread biscuits in the shape of shamrocks and iced them in green and talked about how the shamrock is the national emblem of Ireland and could they remember what the Welsh national emblem was?

We made soda bread and it went very well with our chicken stew that we had for dinner that night.

I told them the story of Saint Patrick, who is the patron saint of Ireland, he brought Christianity to Ireland. A very famous story about Saint Patrick, is the story of him driving snakes out of Ireland, another story is how he used the shamrock to explain the trinity. He died on the 17th March in AD 461 and this day has been celebrated as Saint Patricks day.

We read Patrick patron Saint of Ireland after reading this story we made paper chain snakes to remember him driving the snakes away. There was also lots of maths talk, through pattern and shapes the paper made, comparing the length of the snakes, shortest, longest etc and how many paper chains they had made.

I found lots of other interesting facts here about St Patrick.

Eggless Pancakes

In preparation for Shrove Tuesday, I thought I would have another go at making my dairy and egg free pancakes, as last time the one child that they were made specially for didn't like them, though everyone else loved them. This time they loved them, so have frozen some for them to have on Tuesday. To freeze, I put a layer of baking paper between each one and then pop them all in a freezer bag, they don't take long to defrost. These ones are the thicker American style pancakes.

                                                    180g plain flour
                                                    10ml baking powder
                                                    250ml oat milk
                                                    15ml olive oil
Place the flour and baking powder in a bowl and gradually whisk in the milk and olive oil.
Heat some oil in a frying pan, cook the pancakes over low to medium heat.

  

when they are have bubbled and set on top, they should be a nice golden brown on the other side, flip them over and cook until golden brown on both sides

 

and serve with your favourite toppings.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Australia

We have family in Australia and my husband lived out there for a while as a child. Then realised that all the children had some sort of link with Australia or had friends about to go on holiday there, so thought it was a perfect time to do a theme on Australia.

We loved Diary of a Wombat, it's so funny, lovely illustrations had my children in fits of giggles and it got funnier the more time your read it too! We then enjoyed watching this clip on wombats, it is done my the children of Steve Irwin. We discovered they had done lots of videos, so we watched a few of the different animal ones that you might find in Australia, this wasn't all in one go but at different times throughout our theme.

I love reading and sharing books with the children,these are some of the books we used this time.

We spent some time looking at aboriginal art on the computer and the cards I had made up, the children then tried to create their own art, using cotton buds instead of paint brushes, with excellent results.

We watched some clips of Aboriginal dances, with some interesting attempts to do the dances themselves. Listened to some didgeridoo music, then listened to some more songs, nice list of songs can be found here including Waltzing Matilda

After reading Rainbow Bird, we used water colours to create rainbow patterns.

With the older children, well all the children but this was aimed more at the older ones, we looked at Australia and matched up where the different places were. The cards came from Montessori Print Shop these are a free download,  I also bought these which are lovely pictures of Australian animals and some facts about them.

Found were England was and were Australia was on the globe.

Used this book to look at Sydney Opera House, how it was built and some of the close up pictures of the architecture.

Chinese New Year

We had fun looking at the Chinese New Year celebrations, how Chinese people would spring clean their homes, to brush away bad luck. Watched some clips of the dragon dances. Read about how the Chinese dragon is seen as helpful, friendly creatures, that are linked to good luck, long life and wisdom. I read this lovely book Lanterns and Firecrackers which the preschoolers I care for really enjoyed, it talks through why the Chinese clean their homes, wear new clothes, use firecrackers etc to celebrate the new year and scare away bad luck.

 We then made and decorated some paper lanterns. Then instead of just painting pictures of the Chinese dragons I thought it would be a good idea to use hand prints to make dragon pictures. after discussing with the children the colours they had seen in the pictures and video clips of the dragons, they set to work to create some beautiful pictures.

Then instead of just painting pictures of the Chinese dragons I thought it would be a good idea to use hand prints to make dragon pictures. after discussing with the children the colours they had seen in the pictures and video clips of the dragons, they set to work to create some beautiful pictures.

The stories we enjoyed.