ofamily learning together

Flower Drawing using Free Twinkl play dough mats

Posted on April 6, 2016 by ofamily

We have had these FREE Twinkl Flower playdough mats for awhile now but today instead of using our play dough on the mats we got out our STABILO 3-in-1 pencils and had a quick impromptu drawing lesson.

My daughter often gets very frustrated when drawing but today she really got the drawing and did three sheets by herself. We looked at each flower together and then on a scrap piece of paper I showed her how I would draw it. So for the daffodil page I started doing the center and then added the petals. I made sure it keep my own drawings very simple as I think part of her frustration comes when she compares her drawings to mine. Then she had a go on her laminated play dough mats.

I was really proud that she kept trying and drew each picture a couple of times.

She liked the fact that she could easily wipe off her attempts on the laminated pages and retry over and over until she got it.

It was ended up being a long drawing session (for her that is) and it was definitely a confidence building drawing session. She is already talking about trying to draw the pictures on a piece of paper tomorrow.

In case you have not heard me talk about how much I love our STABILO 3-in-1’s – we do love them, we use them to draw on laminated pages, on windows and sliding doors as they are super easy to wipe off. You can buy them in a number of different size packs – we have the large box which we have used now for almost 4 years.

The large box of 18 pencils

A pack of 10

and the pack of pack of 6.

I have included affiliate links in the post. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, I will be paid a very small commission, however your cost will be the same.

Here is an old post about using the STABILO pencils on sliding doors and windows

2D shapes verses 3D shapes

Posted on April 4, 2016 by ofamily

I have already done a bit on 3D shapes with my oldest but lately it has been my youngest who keeps asking about them. He seems to have picked up a number of the names from his sister but he was not sure what a 2 dimensional shape is and what a three-dimensional shape is.

I printed off these great 2 D shape pages from Twinkl (Platinum) and laminated and cut them out. I laminated ours as I knew we would be using them with play dough and I wanted them to last so that we could use them again in a few weeks time. I also printed some of the 3 D shapes from Twinkl Platinum- we like the Houses and Homes (the ones in the photos below) and the real life objects. We started by comparing the two. It was quickly clear to my youngest that the 2 D shapes where flat and the 3 D shapes had depth.

Then we got our play dough out and both kids had a go at creating 2D shapes and 3D shapes with their play dough.

The play dough shapes actually ended up being very popular with my two. The kids have kept coming back to doing it the last few days and they are both trying really hard to recreated the harder shapes.

The have both become mini-experts in creating pyramids with their play dough and now I think the only shape which they still battle to create (they can make it but it is not yet up to the standard that they want) is the cone shape.

My oldest also had a go at matching the 2D shape 3 part cards and the 3D shape 3 part cards both from Twinkl and she asked me to print out a poster for her to use with her doll school (I printed this 2D and 3D shape poster from Twinkl Platinum for her as it shows both 2 D shapes and 3 D shapes). I have heard her telling all their toys what the different shapes are called and even asking the toys ” so is a circle 2D or 3D ?” Poor toys they never realised when we bought them that they would be attending toy school.

Posted in ks1 maths | Tagged 2D shapes, 3D shapes, home ed, home education, shapes, shapes and playdough, Twinkl | 1 Comment

Simple Daffodil Spring Wreath

Posted on April 2, 2016 by ofamily

The kids have been noticing lots of daffodils lately and my daughter seems to be quite taken with them. On Friday when we were out she spent ages just walking through a small field of them.

So it was no big surprise when she asked if we could do a daffodil craft and as both kids are still on a slight paper plate painting craze – where their crazes come from I never know.

I thought we could use one of the painted paper plates and make a Daffodil Spring wreath.

We used the daffodil colouring page from Activity village but I reduced it in size (I printed 4 on a page) and we cut them out and the kids coloured them in. The Daffodil colouring page is now included in the Activity Village membership deal.

And my daughter could not resist the temptation to add tissue paper – I think she was trying to use it create some depth – something new which she is just started to play around with in her crafts.

And finally on her painted paper plate.

Not bad for a totally spur of the moment weekend daffodil craft. And it has given me a new idea on how to use all of our green painted paper plates next week.

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Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged activity village, children's craft, Daffodil craft, home education, Spring craft, Spring wreath | 7 Comments

Paper Plate and Sticker pictures for younger kids

Posted on March 28, 2016 by ofamily

My kids love stickers. We started using stickers when my youngest had speech therapy and I saw how her therapist used them to encourage her to express herself. My daughter loved the feeling of the stickers on her hand and she enjoyed creating pictures and stories with them. So our sticker collection started. And although they are no longer as popular as they use to be (we possibly verged on sticker obsession at one stage) we still do find ways of using them in our learning and crafts (especially with my youngest).

Over the easter weekend the kids painted a lot of paper plates. We had some wet weather and my youngest just got into paper plate painting and ended up doing around 5. I think he found it relaxing. Anyway I wanted to do something with our paper plates so we got our box of stickers out the kids created a few pictures.

Honestly it is very simple but both kids enjoyed themselves and my youngest had a blast creating stories to go with each paper plate picture. (The home educator inside of me is already thinking I might use some of these pictures as a story starter for my daughter this week).

We also experimented a bit with adding some of our coloured sand to the paint and my son painted another paper plate. My youngest loved this as it gave the paper plate a lovely texture. He used this plate for another under the sea picture. I think we are going to try the coloured sand mixed with paint again this week when we paint some pictures as it does add some lovely texture.

A few more of the pictures

The stickers used for these pictures are from three different packs here are the links

The Spring Garden Bird Stickers – I was given these in a recent box of goodies which Baker Ross kindly sent me.

Space Stickers – I bought these from Baker Ross over a year ago but they still have them.

Under the sea stickers – I can not remember where I bought ours from but I found a lovely looking set of stickers from Baker Ross which are very similar.

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged children's art, children's craft, home education, homeschooling, paper plate and sticker picture | Leave a comment

Eggshell Tulip Picture

Posted on March 23, 2016 by ofamily

UPDATE – when I initially wrote this post the Tulip template that we used was free to download but the Activity Village website has since changed and the tulip template can now only be downloaded if you are a member.

The kids painted a bunch of eggshells last week.

The idea was to use the painted eggshells to make some Easter Egg mosaic pictures but the kids wanted to do a Spring picture instead. My daughter choose this Tulip Template from Activity village and she cut out two (one for her to use and one for her brother).

The kids broke the painted eggshells into smaller bits (I think this was my sons favourite part of the entire project) and then the kids used their Mod Podge glue to stick the eggshells onto the cut-out template.

The kids found that once you put the eggshells onto the glue it was best to press done onto the eggshells to make sure that they stuck properly. We left ours to dry for a few hours and while it was drying the kids painted some paper plates to use as backgrounds.

This was enough art for my youngest so he went to play and left his sister to finish the picture.

We did find by trial and error that not all paints work that well on the eggshells, some just flaked off. The two best brands where the Crafty Crocodiles paint and the Crayola paint.