Rainforest

After enjoying the Eco Kids magazine and the children's enthusiasm for the rainforest, we have enjoyed watching some clips of different rainforest animals, tigers, tapir and macaws, which seem to be the favourite at the moment. Then there was that wonderful moment when they came across a picture of an ocelot and the children realise that they aren't just something made up in minecraft but a real creature.  I've also made the most of my twinkl membership and have used various power points they have put together including this one, which is photos of various rainforest animals and this one on the rainforest habitat. This then led on to a discussion with M about deforestation and I came across this you tube video which worked well for all ages, not always easy to do when you are working with a wide age range. M has decided that next week she would like to look more at deforestation and it's impact, I've found a couple of videos to start her of with, this on the effect on the climate and the lungs of our planet, plus a recap of photosynthesis.

We've had the books out looking at the different layers of the rainforest and the children spent time painting their own rainforest and decorating them with some animal stickers.

Perfect time to introduce  Henri Rousseau, we based out art on Surprise! we'll be looking at some more of his art work next week.

I am hoping to use this power point with them next week as it goes over some of what we have already learnt, plus a bit more.

Weekend has been busy mainly with a lot of time spent at the allotment, planting out plants and more seeds, harvesting a few red currants, strawberries and golden raspberries. Also painted one side of my husbands shed, this is the side that will be seen in our secret garden, when we finish it but was the old chicken run, I've gone for a purple colour bright but not over powering! The rest of the fences I am leaving brown with all the climbers over, think painting it all purple would be too much and today we picked up some lovely butterfly solar lights.

Hedgehogs

We have enjoyed lots of walks to different woods and parks near us, the children love to watch the squirrels scampering about, they loved the story of the The Very Helpful hedgehog and we have added some hedgehogs to out display. These foam hedgehogs came from Baker Ross and were a nice simple craft for the children to enjoy.

They were really fascinated and had lots of questions about hedgehogs and I thought it would be nice to make a lapbook with them, with all the info in that they have found out. The printables for the lapbook are from Home school Share, I think we might add some bits from The Tale of Mrs Tiggy Winkle but we see what they say next week. I know lapbooks are in many ways very adult intensive activity at this age but they have loved the process and looking at how L has wanted to share her book with everyone, it was worth it.

We've looked at how hedgehogs are nocturnal, that they hibernate, roll into a ball when scared, compared their footprints to other animals and what they eat.

Our Autumn display so far.

Butterflies

Over the last few weeks we have been watching our caterpillars grow, make a pupa and then become butterflies and releasing them in our garden. We have spent time looking at a variety of books on butterflies and their life cycle and spent time finding caterpillars in the garden. We watched this lovely you tube video which shows a caterpillar pupating and then becoming a butterfly.

Love this picture you can see so clearly the butterfly's proboscis

We used mirrors to look at reflection and symmetry, using some of our maths shapes and buttons to make pictures and then to see them reflected in the mirrors. I talked about how both sides of the butterfly's wings are the same and they enjoyed some painting and printing.

I found some free printables here at  The Butterfly Site lots of lovely butterflies and some life cycle pictures.

Pandas and Ice

We have been looking at China again this week, including pandas, The Great Wall of China, The Forbidden Palace. Also how we would get to China from our home, as they asked if we could drive to China now to see everything.

We sat and watched this short program on pandas, the children thought it was funny, when it said the bears were doing some exercises, as they said bears can't go to the gym but I explained that every time we go for walk, run, play on the climbing frame or do some dancing we are exercising. They also enjoyed looking at and learning about pandas using this book, Giant Pandas.

I put together a small sensory tray with some of our pandas, using rice as they had asked the other night for some rice play but it was just as I was about to serve dinner.

They enjoyed playing with the pandas but then

some dinosaurs came and played and made the rice tray their home

and the pandas created a new home, so everyone was happy.

L is very interested in where different countries are, so I  used these wonderful cards, they are not free but I can see me using them again and again over the years, whether it's for history, geography or Chinese New Year, so worth it for us. The set includes picture cards with labels, picture cards with facts and colouring in pages.

I also brought out some of our flags for the children to match up and then see if they could remember were the country was. They are all countries we have looked at before, that the children have visited or have friends and or family that live their.

We've had some frosty mornings followed by some lovely sunny days here, the children were intrigued with the frost patterns on the back porch window.

Then they found some ice in the garden, they were fascinated with it, the spent time running their fingers over it and seeing how it felt.

They managed to pick up some pieces, it wasn't easy as it was very slippery, they realised that they could see through it a bit like a window.

They discovered it breaks very easily.

We were chatting about why their fingers were getting wet when they touched the ice, that the ice is melting and I said that if they put some ice in the sun in would melt quicker than in the shade. So they gave it a go and spent the time running backwards and forwards between the ice in the sun and the ice in the shade to see what was happening.

We bought a couple of seed kits from Asda, one was a bucket of sunflowers and the other sweetpeas. L had remembered what seeds need to grow, sun, water and soil. They set about filling their buckets with some soil, using the scissors well to cut the soil bag,

pouring the soil into the bucket

adding some water

and then planting the seeds.

We have enjoyed the sunshine spending many a morning this week in the garden as well as going to the woods for some lovely walks, the children are busy spotting all the new plants growing and listening to the Robins sing.

Brown Bear

Today the children have enjoyed making their own brown bear to go with the story, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Will You See?  I cut out a large paper plate for the body, used a smaller plate for the head, some foam for the eyes and nose.

 

One littleone decided it was more fun to paint their own hand brown all over and pretend to be a bear.

                            

                            

After the plates were dry, I glued the plates together and then the children made their bears faces.

I think they turned out very well, there was a point when I wondered if they would look like a bear, this was before the face was put on, I got the impression of a lion, with the edge of plate making a very good mane, will have to remember this if we do a story with lions in.

My oldest sorted out some old mobiles phones for the littleones to play with, they spent a lovely time, pretending to text their Mum's or each other about how their baby dolls were doing. I loved the fact that they were telling each other what they were texting to each other e.g. A asked B what they are doing and B replied "I'm texting you to tell you my baby had a big lunch and is having nap" and A replied "I've got your text, I'm texting you to tell you I'm going shopping for food." They ended up packing up two bags of clothes and bottles, then took their babies for a walk around the garden, telling them what they were doing.

Later on we had an animal and colours scavenger hunt. I had some animal picture cards, which I laid  out on the table, the children then went on a hunt through the toy boxes to find the animals to match the cards. When they had found all the animals, they wanted to do it again so I then hid the animals in the garden for them to find, at least doing it this way I know exactly how many animals I've hidden! 

They then wanted to match animals to these cards.

Then of to find things that matched the colours.

The cards came from 1+1+1=1 and can be found here , they are free and they have lots more activity cards and suggestions for you to enjoy.