Busy Monday

Managed to finish crocheting my bunnies, so have some pretty spring bunting, the girls asked if we could get some daffodils when we did a food shop at the weekend, so added those to a simple early spring display. We have spent a lot of time comparing them to the ones in the garden and why they are flowering quicker. As well as cutting one up to show all the parts of the flower.

Using some left over wool, knitted a daffodil, might make another one, originally thought I would make a spring wreath but don't think I will have time for that this year, have a few sewing projects planned and knitting to finish of.

As well as dissecting a flower, they also spent time drawing a daffodil and talking about the parts they were drawing and the jobs they have.

Enjoyed a game of dominoes

Introduced them to the Princess game, which is great co-operative game, they have to come up with story ideas how to use different objects to reach the princess before nighttime comes and the castle is locked up for the night.

We had lovely sunshine here on Monday even if the wind was bit cold, decided it was perfect for a walk in the woods. We dropped a a new baby present of on route and got to see my friend's granddaughter for the first time, only a few days old and very gorgeous. The children headed straight for the stream and enjoyed paddling in it, L enjoyed splashing but then lost her wellie, ended up standing on one leg, while I went a got it, luckily it had landed at the edge of the stream and caught on some twigs, so it was still fairly dry inside and she can balance well on one leg!

They discovered this tree and spent time telling stories about all the creatures that might live there and the fairies who had built there home there.

You can just about spot the robin in the photo bellow, there was more than one singing away as we walked through the woods, finally spotted this one and we stood and watched him sing and wash his feathers. They also spotted some blackbirds and pigeons, as we were listening to the different songs they asked what a crow sounded like, so when we came home, I searched the RSPB site for them to listen to. The interest in crows comes from the Orchard game we play regularly.

Birds and Nature Walk

We have been very lucky over the last few weeks to see a couple of birds nest, one was an old one than had fallen out of the tree and the other was one was found by a neighbour in their hedge. It was fantastic to see a robins nest up close, it is amazing how they put it all together and shape it, do google robin's nest to see what I mean. They were interested to see the different ways they had been constructed, one was mainly sticks and the other was a mixture of moss and grass intricately woven together. This brought up lots of questions about the different types of nest that bird's build. We have enjoyed reading A Nest is Noisy which is beautifully illustrated book with lots of different nest and not just birds nests. I had also saved an article on bird's nests from a National Geographic magazine for the children to look at.

 On our walks we had been collecting bits and pieces and talking about how birds might use some of them to build a nest with. We then used a paper plate and they used these different pieces, plus some hay, moss and string to make a nest, they cut out a couple of pictures of birds we had seen in the garden to go with their nests. L wanted eggs in her nest, so she tried to roll up some tissue paper to make eggs, this caused lots of giggling as it wasn't as easy as she thought it would be.

On yesterdays walk we came home a different way and L found lots of different types of grasses, she was fascinated by all the different types. So we collected a few different pieces to show her friends and also to try and work out what they are all called.

Other books we have read

A Nest Full of Eggs

Usborne Eggs and Chicks

An Egg is Quiet

My First Book of Garden Birds

and we watched this clip on a chick hatching 

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.

Flowers

We spent near enough all day yesterday in the garden, making the most of the lovely warm weather. The children enjoyed running, hopping, jumping and trying to skip up and down the garden as well as playing on the slide and the swings. Then time spent building sandcastles, playing with the dolls and play food. They were also fascinated with the different size daffodils we had, we talked about the different parts of the flower and they could see lots of pollen. I found a good picture showing some of the flower parts

and a more detailed drawing for M.

Seeing their interest yesterday, I thought we would pop into the florist after toddlers to get some white carnations to dye, some tulips and find another flower with obvious stamen that we could take apart and they could see all the parts and compare them. We were so lucky when I asked if they had some carnations and tulips, explaining what they needed them for, she came back with those and a large bunch of flowers, apparently they were all going over so couldn't be used in any of their bouquets etc but we were welcome to them.

So our first experiment was to show how water travels up the plant stem to the petals. I filled a small glass with water and added a lot of blue food colouring and then waited.

After half an hour you could already see that the dyed water had travelled up the stem to the petals.

An hour later the flowers were dyed a lovely blue, even if I do say it myself

 

and a few hours later even darker blue. 

 We also looked at the tulips and took one apart, looking at the petals, stamen, carpel and pollen. They lined up the petals and stamen and counted them.

 They then enjoyed making patterns and people with the petals etc, this led to much make believe and story telling.

Season Sensory Bottles

Our sensory bottles are looking a little worn now and had been thinking about doing some weather ones, after some thought decided to do four bottles each one representing a season instead of weather.

Spring is water, a little green food colouring and foam and sequin lead and flower shapes.

Summer is lots of small blue beads, water and glycerine, a little blue food colouring and a yellow sparkly pom pom for the sun.

Autumn is water and glycerine, autumn sequin leaves and a little brown food colouring.

Winter is lots of silver glitter, some sequin snowflakes and white pom poms for snow balls in a mixture of water and glycerine.

Leaf and Flower Pictures

We have been discovering how much fun can be had with just a spray bottle of water and leaves, flowers, twigs etc that they found in the garden. Unfortunately limited flowers at the moment as my rabbit loves to eat them, I think he thinks I've planted them especially for him! We've made pictures before from natural materials and they love doing this but they were a bit dubious when I then explained we would wet their designs and see what pattern was left behind! Anyway after a quick demonstration from me away they went, these are some of their pictures, they created.

To start with we collected up lots of leaves, flowers, twigs etc They then created patterns/pictures and with the water bottle on mist, they gently, or sometimes not so gently, sprayed their picture with water.