Finishing Projects

Last week was a busy week, catching up with friends who are now on Easter holidays, O had his follow up appointment with the consultant after his emergency op last month, he is really pleased with his recovery and has been discharged from hospital care, which is brilliant news.

In the meantime the girls have been busy planting lots of seeds, a tray of sunflowers and beans, then we have direct sowed lots of peas, and scattered a mixture of seeds round the flower beds at home. We ended up with Californian poppies, cornflowers, love in the mist, zinnias and red poppies, the Californian poppies usually do really well and we get a lovely display most years. They usually seed themselves really well but this year only seem to have had only a couple of plants come up this year, so time for some new seeds and fingers crossed we get a lovely display again this year.

We've had a go at some wet felting, they all enjoyed the process, think it needed a bit more working than we did but they enjoyed the process and are pleased with the results, so that is the most important thing.

My girls have enjoyed making patterns with the glass beads and L made paths for her fairies to walk along.

Now I have been determined to try and finish some of my craft projects before I start something new and use up some of my wool and fabric stash, not sure exactly how well I am doing! So finished the birthday cardi in hayfield  blossom, simple pattern but pretty soft wool.  Loved the way the pattern knitted up, there was bit of juggling to get the pattern to match up at the front, just my personal preference, don't mind the sleeves being different but just felt the pattern across the front needed to be in the same place! Now bought some lovely purple wool in the same range to make L a cardi, oops, so much for not buying more wool!

And another birthday gift finished and in the post, just hope it arrives safely, always get nervous when sending something you have worked hard on through the post!

I am now halfway through the second panel of my throw, it's a lot of cable work on each row, so slower going than the first panel.
So projects to finish are

1. second panel of knitted throw.
2. finish sewing L's blouse (fabric from stash)
3. grey wrist warmers, not sure if I like the pattern in the wool I am using from my stash, so might unravel them and start again!
4. have just started a white cardi for L again wool I already have.

Which doesn't sound too bad but sorting through various fabric, I have sorted out enough purple fabric to make L a winter coat, made one 2 years ago that she loves, so same pattern just bigger size, found some white wool to make myself a cardi and some stretch jersey to run up some leggings! So knowing me I will probably start at least another project before I finish the above but least they are all from my stash of craft materials!

I am halfway through reading Honeycomb Kids, just read the chapter on Getting Dirty and the benefits of gardening, so adding to the list I made about what children learnt from gardening with me, the book talks about the benefits of healthy pesticide free food, vitamin d from being outside, reducing our carbon footprint, the skills children learn through growing food, to name a few. Have just been passed a copy of Connect with Nature, looks a beautiful book, having a quick flick through, I think a lot of the stuff we already do but you never know on a closer look might fond something new. The photos are beautiful and think it will be nice for me to sit and look at, especially for those times when you need a positive inspiration moment. Have also treated myself to copy of Alchemy of Herbs, it looks great, really informative, each chapter covers one herb and talks you through the different uses, health benefits and some recipes, looking forward to trying some of them out.

On a childminding planning front, I have put together some of the spring activities into a more structured plan this month. Sometimes, I just have lots of ideas bouncing round in my head, sometimes I just list ideas and other times, I like to write up a more structured plan like the ones below, the second plan is just my ideas fitted into the eyfs, which might be helpful to some people. It really varies on what and/or how many children I have, how busy I am etc, as to how or what I do, it's just what works well for me at that moment in time.

Joining Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and as Kat Knits for Unravelled wednesdays

The Snowy Day

The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats was one of my favourite winter stories when I was little and a few years ago I found a copy to read to my own children. So thought I would spend some time exploring the story and various snow and ice activities with the children. M will enjoy some of the art and science activities and can add to them as she wishes. We have talked about some of the things she could research - Snow Bentley, how icicles and stalactites form, we also have a lap book we made years ago with O and M and thought it would be nice to bring that out  and look through it together.

My planning linked into all the areas of the EYFS.

Autumn Planning

The children really do love Autumn and all the changes the new season brings, the older minded children and L are already noticing the changes in the world around them and are commenting. They are linking these changes to Autumn, spotting the changes in leaves, the first conkers, the pumpkins that are nearly ripening well. So I am using one of our favourite Autumn stories, Ferdie and the Falling Leaves to base our Autumn planning on. I have noticed the book has been re-released as Fletcher and the Falling Leaves rather than Ferdie, just in case you go hunting for  new copy of the book

Some of our Autumn stories ready for tomorrow.

Harry and the Dinosaurs

Catching up on some of what we have done over the last few weeks, we went away for holiday, had a lovely time and came back turned the computer on to load up all our photos and it dies! So we have had no computer for a couple of weeks and I prefer to use a keyboard to type on rather than a touch screen, so have been waiting for it to be repaired, so I can get on with my work as well as update my blog.

The children have been really interested in dinosaurs and they love the Harry stories, I am using Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs and Romp in the Swamp for inspiration. So here is my planning.

I froze some small dinosaurs in some water, some with added food colouring, some with not, then popped them out onto our tray and let them try and excavate them, using a pipette and warm water. Lots of talk about why water freezes and why ice melts, the difference in temperature, how their hands felt after they had handled the ice. They asked if I could freeze more dinosaurs so they could do it again tomorrow, think that means they really enjoyed the activity. I did as they asked and they enjoyed another morning of melting.

They love a game of hopscotch, especially as the older ones are beginning to recognise and try and write some of the numbers, which they love to write, see if you can spot their attempts. Love how pleased they are now they can write them without any help. They haven't got the idea yet of hopping on one square and then jumping with two feet one in each box yet but lot's of giggles as they try.

The Runaway Bunny

Have been thinking of another theme and thought we would do something a bit different instead of having lots of stories we would have one and base lots of activities around it. The Runaway Bunny is one of our favourite stories at the moment. I have been reading it to them at least once a day, will add this is not the only book we have read or plan to read, just the one to base activities around.

We spent this morning reading The Runaway Bunny and then we sat and drew some pictures of the bunny.

This is L's picture of mummy and baby bunny and a chair for them to sit in.

 

We then went through the sequencing cards to sort out the order of the story, we would then use these pictures to draw a story map.

L then sat about drawing the different pictures to illustrate what the bunny said he would do at different stages of the story.

L loves to use this sort of story map to retell the story as well as of course using the book, sometimes she will then add her own bits to the story, or take the map and join her friends and use it for the bases of some great imaginative play.

They have then cut of the tops of some carrots and we have place them on the window sill, will keep them watered and hope they grow.

We haven't used these printables but thought they looked good so would share them with you all.

http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Runaway_Bunny_Printables.pdf

Life Cycles

The children are showing a real interest in the different creepy crawlies they are finding in the garden, so I have put together some ideas to go with their interest and to extend their knowledge. have added in some plant/flower ideas too as we will be doing a lot of that too.

I have put together a basket of stories and fact books based on the above theme. The children really enjoy seeing what new books are out, they are all kept on the book shelf normally but having a selection put out based on their interests, really works well for us.

Next door cut their hedge this morning and we had some of the pieces, along with tree prunings etc from the weekend, I put them on our tuff spot and suggested to L she try and make a nest for her owl, which she did. She then decided the nest needed some eggs, so of she went and came back with two tennis balls for eggs and made a bed for the owl, with leaves as a blanket.

We had a lovely afternoon, some of it spent in the park and then a walk around the woods, L is wanting to know all the names of the flowers we are now finding, so we took some photos with the hope that I might be able to identify them when we got home, as I hadn't taken the field guide with me.

L has decided that an owl and an elf princess live in this tree trunk, as the hole looks like a doorway, I was told we won't see them today as they were busy having breakfast.

Italy

After seeing the enjoyment and interest the children had when we looked at China, I had thought of looking at another country. They had shown some interest in France and Egypt, so had thought we would head there but then the other day we were looking through Maps book and Italy caught their attention, especially the pictures of the Venice carnival, so that is where we are going.

Today we have read about the Venice and the carnival and watched some clips about the carnival on you tube here and here and then they enjoyed making lots of masks and dressing up.

Some they decorated with feathers

and others not.

Later on they asked for some more masks as they wanted to colour in some more.

Some useful sites etc :-
I found an interesting selection of nursery rhymes and songs from Italy here
Vivaldi's Four Seasons for us to listen too
Opera an audio about opera more for M than the little ones
Famous Landmarks of Italy worksheet
Other thoughts for older children would be to look at the explorer Marco Polo and ancient Rome, myths and legends.