ofamily learning together

Lets go on a colour hunt in English, Afrikaans and Spanish

Posted on March 2, 2015 by ofamily

We started off last week doing a colour hunt when we were out for a walk at one of the National Trust sites. We had our colour hunt pages on some clip boards and my daughter tore off running around the gardens trying to find all the colours.

My son was not that interested, he just wanted to run and climb but afterwards when we where sitting down at the local coffee shop for something to eat (and for something hot for me to drink – I had lost all feeling in my toes by that stage) my son then decided he wanted to join in and do a colour hunt. So he did his, much to the amusement of some very friendly pensioners who were also enjoying a cup of hot tea, in the coffee shop.

Two days later we tried a colour hunt again but this time in Afrikaans and indoors (rainy day). I took out the kids number sensory tub and they rummaged around finding buttons, beads and even numbers in the correct colours. The colour hunt pages can be downloaded from Twinkl (platinum) there are a number of different versions – English, Afrikaans, editable and soon a Spanish version.

It was great Afrikaans reading practice for my daughter and even my youngest is starting to recognise a few of the words now.

We have done a couple of activities with colour mixing in the past and my daughter knows it all now but little man still sometimes asks. So with all our colour hunts going on I thought it would be a good time to revisit some of the colour mixing ideas. We have these lovely colour mixing cards from Twinkl in English which we have used a number of time but this time we used our Afrikaans colour mixing cards. The colour mixing cards can also be downloaded from Twinkl (FREE) in English, Afrikaans, Spanish (soon to be added) and an editable version.

My daughter thought it was great being able to do the cards in both languages and then started telling me what the colour mixing cards would be in Spanish. So yes you guessed it I quickly translated a colour hunt page and colour mixing cards for her into Spanish and she had another go at finding objects around the house with the same colours but this time saying the Spanish colour words.

She also went and fetched her English colour mixing cards and sat with her English and Afrikaans cards and compared the words. I thought this was great. She starting pointing out certain things like Pink in Afrikaans also has an “e” in it and white and wit are almost the same but the English word includes a “h” and an “e”. She says that blou and groen have a “o” instead on an “e” like in English. I am so glad that she is seeing these differences and noticing them for herself I think it will make writing in both languages much easier for her.

Posted in Afrikaans, foundation stage, Homeschooling, ks1 English | Tagged Afrikaans, Beginner Spanish, colour hunt, colour mixing, home ed, homeschooling, sight words, Twinkl | 1 Comment

Paper chain learning

Posted on February 27, 2015 by ofamily

Our paper chain craze started a couple of weeks ago and we have ended up making so many different versions that I thought it was time to put it all down in a post.

Our first paper chain activity was aimed at the little man of the house. He keeps getting “he” and “she” mixed up. And I know this will come with time but big sister is getting a bit upset with him always calling her a “he” so we made him a “boy word” paper chain. It is now on their bedroom door and when he uses the words incorrectly he often points to it and corrects himself – with the help of big sister of course.

My little girl thought this was great and wanted to make her own ones. So we made some rhyming word paper chains (any excuse to get her to write and spell words herself). She also did one with the new words that she is learning (but some juice got spilt on it before I managed to get a photo).

And we also did one for her number bond revision. She thought this was a fun way to do her maths.

I also made one with some of the basic words that little man has been learning to read. Our original version of this did not last so when Twinkl made an editable paper chain (platinum) available, I typed the words out for him and hey presto a new basic word paper chain. And he actually goes to the door where it is hanging and points and reads the words. I am going to try and keep this going for him, as he learns a new words so I am going to add it to the chain.

And as things work in our house – once big sister saw the new colourful paper chain she also wanted one. So this time I typed all the number words on the editable paper chain and she had to make it herself.

It really is a great fine motor activity for the kids to do

and the end result (words from one to twenty).

The kids where enjoying the new craze (and I believe milking any new craze for everything you can) so I also printed out some editable paper chains with no words and let the kids decide what topic they wanted to do with them.

Little man asked for one with colours. So big sister got some more writing and spelling practice writing out all the words for him. You could use these editable paper chains for any language.

And she thought it would be a good ideas to use it for some more Maths. We have started looking at place value, discussing how many tens and ones are in a number so we wrote out some together (she dictated and I wrote) and then she put them together for the different numbers (and we used our snap cubes -affiliate link- to help).

The kids have really enjoyed these paper chains so I have now actually printed off a few pages of the blank colour ones and left them in their art trolley. I have no doubt that they will find some more creative ways to use these.

Posted in Afrikaans, Homeschooling, ks1 English, ks1 maths | Tagged Afrikaans, home ed, homeschooling, number bonds, paper chains, rhyming words, sight words, Twinkl | 3 Comments

African animals continued

Posted on February 24, 2015 by ofamily

My kids have really been enjoying our African animal theme so we have continued a bit longer than I had initially planned.

All of our discussions about which animals are carnivores and which are herbivores seemed to naturally lead us onto food chains. My little boy is totally fascinated by this. I downloaded these great food chain cards (platinum on Twinkl) and we had lots of interesting chats about which animal would eat which.

They also both had a go at making their own food chains with the cards.

I was really chuffed when we went for a walk later on that day – I heard both kids chatting and asking each other “what animal do you think would eat this ?” Some of the answers where a bit creative, but I love that they are thinking and discussing it with each other.

We also made our very own African animal factfile book. We used these Safari factfile pages (gold Twinkl).

We slotted the pages into plastic A4 sleeves and then tied them together with some ribbon. We also included the lion life cycle page in our little book.

And my daughter made her own cover. I have to confess that when she asked me if she could use the pictures lying on the table I said yes without really thinking about what I was saying yes too (the pictures she used are the pattern matching cards which I had printed for my little boy to do). But she did make a lovely cover for her book, so I just need to reprint the cards for my son.

And one of our obsessions are the great cone characters from Twinkl. My kids love them, we currently have a box filled with cone people and cone animals and I am not allowed to throw any away. So naturally we could not study african animals and not have fun decorating our own safari cone animals

I have really enjoyed spending the last few weeks doing African animal inspired activities with the kids.

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas, Homeschooling, Science Ideas | Tagged africa, african animals, children's book, food chain, home ed, homeschooling, lion life cycle, Twinkl | Leave a comment

African necklace craft for kids

Posted on February 20, 2015 by ofamily

We have been doing quite a bit about Africa at the moment and one of images that has sparked my daughters interest is that of some of the equisite necklaces and jewellery.

They are so bright and colourful so naturally we had to have our own go at making some. Unfortunately most of our art supplies are out of reach at the moment (our floor saga continues) so we had to be extra creative with what we had.

We started off with some paper plates. We cut out the center circle of the paper plate. Try and cut it so that you can re-use the center bit.

We started off by colouring in the paper plate and the inner circle as well. We used a combination of our oil pastels and some water-colour pencils for this but paint would also be great.

We cut the inner circle into smaller shapes and and rolled them and glued them (we used some clothes pegs just to allow the glue to set nicely).

We then used our punch to make holes in the bottom of one of the necklaces and in the glued strips. We attached the strips to the necklace with some string

On another one of the necklaces we glued some buttons and beads.

My daughter loves them.

Save

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged africa, african art for kids, african necklace, art, children's craft, home ed, homeschooling | 7 Comments

Editable resources that are great for a second language

Posted on February 13, 2015 by ofamily

As I have mentioned before we have a bilingual home and we try to include both languages in our home learning. There are a number of different ways to find the resources for home learning in english but I have found that when you start looking for another language it is not so easy.

So one of the things that we have been doing is using the editable resources that are available on the Twinkl website. I have been translating them into Afrikaans for our use but you could translate them into any other language.

These are my favourite editable resources with the links attached. I hope you find them as useful as I have.

Editable train (Free) – I love these. We have used it lots in our home. It would be great for doing months of the year of even days of the week. We have also used our train with rhyming words.

Editable days of the week poster (platinum)

Editable colour splats (free). Great for a display of the colour words or print them 4 to a page and multiple copies and play a game of snap.

I also like the editable colour crayons (free). Great for colour words. We have ours up on a board in the kids room.

We often use word mats so here are a few editable ones that we have found useful.

My emotions word mat (free).

Under the sea word mat (free)

My clothes word mat (gold)

African animal word mat (free)

We have also often used the editable labels (we like the animal ones). My daughter likes using these to practice writing the animal names in Afrikaans. Here are our four favourite ones.

Editable African animal labels (free) and the Editable African animal self registration labels (free)

Editable Australian animal labels (free)

Editable cute animal labels (free)

Also for those of you who like using loop cards you could use the editable version. I think these are a great way of doing 2 languages.

Editable loop cards (gold)

And lastly these great editable autumn leaves. I love autumn. Last year we made an autumn tree and we wrote words on the leaves. You could use these leaves for a bunch of different autumn activities.

I hope these links help provide a little bit of extra colour and cheer to your 2nd language learning, whatever it may be. I know both my kids have been enjoying them.