ofamily learning together

Basic 4 Season

Posted on December 4, 2014 by ofamily

Blue has been asking me more and more questions about the different seasons so I thought we would do a very simple lapbook together (not sure that lapbook is the correct word as it is more of a folded poster).

We started off using the FREE four season display banner from Twinkl on our cover with the 4 season wheel (Platinum on Twinkl) I really like this wheel as it shows how the months of the year are grouped into the different seasons. His big sister also loved this. In fact she has asked me to reprint it and hang it next to her wall calendar.

On the inside of the flaps we started off by dividing it into 4 sections each one with a different Season header. Pink liked the idea of using the different trees for this. We used the FREE My seasons poster for the different trees.

Then I gave the kids the FREE seasonal bingo sorting activity pages. They had to cut and past the pictures and words into the correct seasons.

Very simple but both my kids love any excuse to cut and stick pictures into different categories.

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged foundation stage, home ed, homeschooling, reception, seasons, Twinkl | Leave a comment

Stick Man activities

Posted on December 1, 2014 by ofamily

We love reading Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. It is definitely one of my kids top 10 favourite books. We read it all year round but I do have to admit I love reading it in the build up to Christmas, just love how stick man helps Santa deliver toys. And yes I love doing activities around the book so here are three of our favourite stick man activities.

My personal favourite stick man activity was making our own stick man inspired people. We used pipe cleaners, some pom poms and some wooden spools (if you are in the UK we bought all of these from crafty crocodiles).

We made lots of different versions. I can always tell when the kids are proud of something that they have made as they insist that I take photos. And when I am proud I tend to load lots of photos (sorry).

And my lazy art activity of using colouring pages for collages worked really well with the stick man pages. My daughter was actually the one who thought of using wool for these pictures and I love the way they turned out. The stick man colouring sheets are part of the platinum package from Twinkl.

And lastly a few weeks ago we also tried our hand at making some stick people cookies, any excuse to do some baking. Unfortunately I did not get any good photos of the cookies all decorated – they got gobbled up too quickly.

And just in case you have never heard of Stick man this is the book

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Posted in Art and Craft Ideas, Book Ideas, Homeschooling | Tagged baking with children, children's book, children's craft, home ed, homeschooling, julia donaldson, Stick man, Twinkl | Leave a comment

Cup cake Christmas Tree

Posted on November 29, 2014 by ofamily

Not that my kids and I ever need an excuse to bake cupcakes or eat them (my daughter loves cupcakes) but just in case you need an excuse in the festive season here is our cupcake Christmas Tree.

Just use your favourite cupcake recipe – and it helps if you have a willing baker to assist you

Let them cool, ice them and decorate as you wish – we used M&M’s. Get your star (or whatever you want on top of your tree) and a flake for the tree trunk.

And enjoy your festive cupcake Christmas Tree.

Posted in Baking with Kids | Tagged baking with children, Christmas baking, Christmas ideas, christmas tree, Cupcake Tree, home ed, homeschooling | Leave a comment

Christmas Tree Cards

Posted on November 28, 2014 by ofamily

We have been trying to finish making our Christmas cards this week as we need to post them and sometimes the post to South Africa can take some time to get there.

These tree ones are cute and very simple to make. The kids folded the paper in half and then drew half of a basic tree shape and cut it out. Once they had finished cutting they stuck some craft jewels on the front and wrote the message inside (well I had to write for Blue).

We also made some with out tinfoil art. First we painted the tinfoil. Pink loves using these paint dabbers (affiliate link) when we do painting and I have to admit that I think the effect on the tinfoil is great.

Once the paint had dried we cut and folded the tinfoil into our tree shapes and stuck them onto the card. On some of the trees the kids added some decorations and some snow flakes using some ear buds dipped in paint.

We actually found that by folding the tinfoil quite a bit before sticking it down makes the tree stand out – I really like this effect.

So now we just need to finish making our wrapping paper get to the post office.

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas, Homeschooling | Tagged children's craft, Christmas cards, Christmas ideas, christmas tree, home ed, homeschooling, Tinfoil Christmas trees | 4 Comments

Finger painting Dinosaurs

Posted on November 27, 2014 by ofamily

Both my kids love painting but they like to use their paint brushes, they have never been that keen on finger painting. However I have found with my daughter if I show her how to do an animal with finger painting then she will give it a go. So to go with our new Dinosaur folder that we finished this week I thought we could try to paint some Dinosaurs.

We started off with just a small circle for the head and a bigger one for the body.

Then we added the legs, the neck and tail and left it to dry for a bit (well you are suppose to do that but my kids just wanted to finish them).

Once it had dries we used a different colour to add some details (for some of the smaller details the kids did use some ear buds). And yes the kids are painting in their PJ’s (my son was not feeling well).