Polar Regions and Colours

I set up our sensory tray with a variety of animals from both polar regions, we have made a start reading through some of our polar books.  We have also been working our way through the Frozen Planet documentary and on Curiosity Stream we found a wonderful penguin documentary called Penguin Central, looking at 4 different locations around New Zealand.

L spent some time building an igloo out of lego

and then attempting to make one out of marshmallows, not easy!

On twinkl we found some lovely polar yoga cards, so I have printed and laminated them. I have also bookmarked cosmic yoga polar bear and penguin sessions to use later on.

I have found out some more books for L to read, I've also bought her Eve of the Emperor Penguin, I hadn't realised that the magic treehouse now do books for the older reader as in 7+, we have read lots of their younger series and enjoyed.

We've also mapped the climate across the world using a Mystery Science lesson.

We have also been looking at colours, starting with primary colours, the secondary etc, L loves to mix and experiment with colours, so thought we would have a play again with skittles. Place skittles on a plate in a pattern, add some water and wait and see the colours emerge.

We have used some of the sheets from Evan-Moor's Teaching Children Art, looking at how overlaying colours can create new ones.

 We have also been creating a colour wheel, starting with primary colours and then working through to tertiary colours. Then on another session we had the paints out, my idea was for L to enjoy mixing the different colours and painting her own picture but actually she wanted to recreate the colour wheel with paint, drawing it all out by hand.

We have an amazing games shop in our town, we popped in before Christmas and asked for some recommendations, they are spot on with what they suggested. Game one was Carcassonne, a strategy game that we are all enjoying playing and then Timeline, a brilliant game causing lots of interesting discussions and time after researching various facts!

Our art class this week was based around Gyotaku fish, it apparently dates back to the 1800s when Japanese fishermen wanted to create a record of their fish they caught, so they literally printed the fish. Printing in today's session used cardboard, foam shapes,bubble wrap and textured wall paper. L also made a cat shape but then decided to she didn't want to ruin it with paint!

August

August we made the most of sunshine, lots of time spent in the garden, which is producing a nice lot of veg for us.

The girls have been enjoying different art classes put on by our local art centre, M attended a couple of teen classes which she really enjoyed and L attended the younger group, she made a diorama with her favourite animals in it.

The following session she made a penguin puppet with a fish for his supper.

All the years of watching me set up various tuff tray scenes, L now does her own.

We have adopted a new rescue bunny, he's another mini rex, not the best photo of all 3 but its very difficult to get them all together! So going from left to right, here is Lucy, Rosie and Jack.

L has started a nature journal, she has spent ages drawing and decorating various pages.

I know its upside down, I have deleted the original and can't work out how to rotate it the right way but wanted to share it anyway as L spent ages going through her bird books and then drawing all their eggs.

August

Well its been a while since I have posted and we have been busy, another round of hospital appointments, I'm now on the waiting list for a hip replacement and alternating between a yay I will get my life back and oh no help!!! L has been back to see her allergy consultant and after the successful introduction to peanuts, feeding her peanut butter now feels normal, it took a couple of weeks to stop watching for a reaction I can tell you! Anyway skin prick tests look good for nuts, have had blood tests, if they come back negative we can go for a nut food challenge too, if she passes that, oh wow life will really change for her and us, well around food anyway. Editing to add I now have a surgery date the 12th September, only have 12 days notice,pre op on Monday, so will be a while before I blog again.

L and I are working our way through our planned summer reading, we bought a mixture of books for her birthday, so plenty to choose from. She is loving The Wombles, think we will be reading the rest of the series, she adores how they tidy up everyone's rubbish and reuses it. Giggled through the first of the Worst Witch Series, goes without saying she loved the next couple of secret seven. We've also read the first of the Harry Potter books, she's been desperate to add these to her bedtime story pile. I say bedtime but we read not only at bedtime  but throughout the day to, depending on what we are doing.

I am determined to work through the pile of books by my bed and those queued on my kindle before I have surgery. Ended up reading the Elly Griffiths books back to back, as there was a twist in the plot that meant I just had to read the next one straight away, can't wait for the next one in the series to come out next year. Also reading Sapiens, well worth a read, its well written and informative, without being too heavy, loving the comparisons to modern day tribes, the various theories on how myths,legend and religion started.

Max is doing well, has now been neutered and is enjoying exploring the garden, he has yet to attempt to leave the garden, much to the relief of his youngest owner. Will add that the kitten didn't listen to the vet when we picked him up after his op. Keep the lampshade collar on for at least 24 hours, by the time we made the short journey home in the car, he had got one paw through and stuck, unhooked paw but 15 minutes later he had it of. As to the bit where they said he would be very sleepy for the rest of the day, oh boy he was the complete opposite, he was hyper, finally crashed at midnight and woke at 5am still hyper, lunch time he finally slept and woke back to normal!

L is enjoying the sassafras zoology, we had chapter on a Canadian farm, had fun creating our own small world farm.

We then had friends come and visit and they had an amazing time creating different bases for all the animals to live in.

We have also spent time looking at ancient Sumer and the use of cuneiform and trying to make our own clay tablets, writing on paper is a lot easier!

Now along with the hip issue, I also managed to compress a nerve in my wrist, resulting in painful wrist and pins and needles/numbness in little finger and ring finger. Physio has helped but he wants me to rest, as in lay of the knitting for a while, to let everything settle down. So have been busy working through my fabric stash, made two geranium tops,one for L and one for a friend's granddaughter.

Fell in love with Nanoo bibiana skirt, L wants another one in a large pink gingham print I have.

New Editions

I know it wasn't long ago that Frodo sadly passed away but our house feels so empty without any pets, so I had started to contact local rabbit breeders to see if they would have any available rabbits soon, I was expecting a bit of a wait! My husband a few years ago came across the Rex breed at a show and had fallen in love with them, researching the breed, they are intelligent, inquisitive rabbits, with a relaxed nature, have been told they are more cat like and thought they would really suit us. Late Sunday afternoon we had a call back from a lady saying she had 2 that could go today and others in a few weeks, she sounded lovely on the phone and really into her rabbits. So we delayed dinner to go and meet her, she adores her animals and handles her rabbits all the time, her enthusiasm was wonderful to see, this wasn't just something to make money, she was passionate about them too. I really like it when someone asks about your experience of rabbits, other animals etc, what sort of set up you have, size of hutch, is happy to spend time talking to you and showing you all their rabbits. So we chose these two sisters, they are about 11 weeks old now and are so friendly, they love to come up to you and be fussed. I think we are going to name the black one Lucy and the brown one Rosie but early days, so might change.

Making the most of the wonderful sunshine, we got out the tuff tray, added some cornflour, spray bottles and water and left the children to decide what they wanted to do with it all. Which started with them drawing patterns in the dry cornflour, then seeing what happened when they sprayed it with water.

Pouring lots of water and seeing what it felt to walk in it.

Pouring it over their feet.

They then had the bowls and other kitchen bits out and spent time making cakes and cooking them in the sun.

The Little Red Hen

Today I had my friends girls over for a morning of activities based on The Little Read Hen, we read the story, made some bread, talked about what yeast does and the different types of bread you can get, which ones we have tried, liked and or made.

While the bread was rising we watched Come Outside Bread, as we watched this I talked about how flour was made, a long time ago people would of used a quern to grind their bread, then later windmills or water mills would of been used before the factories that we saw in the program. I found some photos of a quern and we talked about how long it would of taken to grind flour compared to the factories today. Could of also talked about in how in some parts of the world people still grind their flour by hand. We then watched this short film that looks a bit more at the process of wheat to flour and then looked at some resources that we got from grain chain, one was little packets of wheat as it goes through the different process, which they found fascinating.

They then enjoyed creating their own farm yard and playing with their set up.

They also spent time drawing pictures based on the illustrations from the book we read.

and finally the cooked rolls, the girls have asked to come again and have another session with me, which is great, I really love doing small group sessions like these.

Just love the way one simple story could have so much potential for different idea :-

• making different types of bread
• looking at bread from different countries
• history of making flour, farming etc
• the lifecycle of wheat, for older chidlren the pros and cons of different types of farming, genetics
• how windmills and watermills work, cogs and gears

to list few, I am sure there are lots more ideas but these are just a few on what we touched on today, who knows were it could lead.