Stencils and Counting

Having had a busy morning doing lots of jigsaw puzzles, followed by playing with the water tray in the garden, where the children decided they baking cakes. We spent this afternoon counting, ordering by size and comparing the size of different fish. I had printed of these fish size ordering for the children to use, as well as using our sea creatures. I loved the way the children on their own decided to compare the paper fish to the size of their plastic sea creatures.

We then went on to do some printing with bubble wrap, the children were enjoying painting so much, that I thought I would get out my stencils. We had brought some of the avenue mandarine  stencils before and the children really loved using them, so I couldn't resist buying some more to go with our theme. I wasn't disappointed the children really enjoy painting with stencils, lifting them up to see what they have created.

                       

Jelly Fish

The children have enjoyed watching this short film showing lots of different jelly fish, then giggles as they tried to be jelly fish. We then used half a paper plate, paint and some crepe paper to make some jelly fish. Once they were dry, the children enjoyed running round the garden with them, watching how their tentacles moved in the wind.

We enjoyed this rhyme to go with our craft

 Three Jellyfish

3 jellyfish, 3 jellyfish, 3 jellyfish sitting on a rock

one fell off, splash,

and then there were two.

2 jellyfish, 2 jellyfish, 2 jellyfish sitting on a rock,

one fell off, splash

and then there was one.

1 jellyfish, 1 jellyfish, 1 jellyfish sitting on a rock,

one fell off, splash

and then there was none.

1 climbed up hooray

1 jellyfish, 1 jellyfish, 1 jellyfish sitting on a rock,
1 climbed up hooray
2 jellyfish, 2 jellyfish, 2 jellyfish sitting on a rock,

1 climbed up hooray

                                         3 jellyfish, 3 jellyfish, 3 jellyfish sitting on a rock

There are some cute jellyfish puppets to make out of paper or card to go with the song, if you didn't want to make paper plate ones

                                                  

Father's Day

Copying the very simple but effective Mother's Day art work. I spent a while writing out the word Dad in masking tape, then the children painted over the canvas in what ever colours they fancied, which was mainly blue!

The before the paintings were fully dry, I carefully peeled of the masking tape

 To reveal their pictures.

Half Term Fun

We had friends visiting for the day and decided it was a perfect time to try out this experiment and yes it did look as good in real life as the video shows. All you need is

white vinegar

washing up liquid

bicarbonate of soda

food colouring

some glitter (optional)

jam jar and spoon

We filled our jam about 1/4 full with vinegar and added a good squeeze of washing up liquid, this makes the bubbles really foamy, when the mixture starts to fizz. Then add a spoonful of bicarb, stir and watch. As it starts to fizz up and over the jar, we added some food colouring and enjoyed the way it changed colours as the new coloured bubbles emerged from the jar. Add more bicarb and/or vinegar as needed to keep it fizzing. Add glitter for sparkling bubbles. We all, from toddlers through to adults had a lovely time, we used up all my bottle of vinegar, will be off to the shops to restock as it was such a great activity and they are all asking when they can do it again!

They thoroughly enjoyed showing everyone the photos of our experiment when they were collected at the end of the day, lots of talk about what happened, the colours, sparkles and the smell of the vinegar!

                             

Under the Sea Part 2

We've made the most of the lovely weather we've had here today and moved our under sea exploring out to the garden. We put together our sea creatures, treasure chest and diver, with some glass pebbles and water beads. I had also bought these plastic shells which are absolutely brilliant or in the words of my 2 year old " they're fantastic" they look very live like and it's nice that the littleones can play with them and no worries about them braking and sharp pieces etc

They spent time talking about the different animals between themselves and pretending the animals were eating the water beads.

They then decided to turn the boats over and fill them up with water beads and pebbles, empty them out and repeat again, several times. They tried to count all the beads and how many shells there were.

We also enjoyed Eric Carle's A House for Hermit Crab and made some crab pictures with handprints and finger painting, which worked out very well, the children really enjoy exploring the paint with their hands. We also watched these two clips showing how a hermit crabs moves to a new shell, the second clip also shows how the crab moves the sea anemones across as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jZe_VGLRYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYFALyP2e7U

Tomorrow if the weather is nice we will be going diving in the garden to see what sea creatures we can find. I did this activity a couple of years ago and all the children loved it, I had to keep hiding the pictures again and again, so they could keep pretending to swim and find them all.