Missing Ballet class

Posted on August 26, 2014 by ofamily

Pink loves her ballet class and she has really been missing not having her classes over the summer holidays.  She goes to a lovely class which is part of Twinkle Toes ballet.    They have been wonderful with her and have accommodated her sensitive hearing allowing her to wear ear muffs when she needed and on one occasion when the music was upsetting her they even gave me a copy of the music so we could play it at home.  I have been so impressed that even though we moved out of the area we happily make a trip back once a week so that she can still have the lovely teachers.

So after having her ask me yet once again ” when is dance class starting ?” and having to say she still has a few weeks of waiting left I thought I would try and do something dance related for her.  Just before the summer holidays they where using cheerleaders Pom Poms in dance class (she loved them) so I thought I would make her some.  I had some rolls of thick tissue paper in the house so I used those hence the multicoloured Pom Poms.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I layered out the paper, folded them into the width that I liked and then cut down the folds (remember not to cut all the way down) used some tape to bind them all together and we have Pom Poms.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Pink has been dancing around the house having a blast.  She even had her own dance class with her stuffed animals and tried to teach her brother how to do an arabesque ( which he could not do properly – I had a good laugh).  But Blue did enjoy join in with shaking the Pom Poms – he likes the noise they make especially when he jumped with them.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAPink has now requested some ballet art so busy making some templates of dancing girls for her.

 

Come and visit us on the blogs new facebook page

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch

Posted on August 25, 2014 by ofamily

We have been reading the The Lighthouse Keeper Stories: Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch AND The Lighhouse Keeper’s Picnic by Ronda Armitage.  The kids have been totally taken by the story they love the seagulls that steal the lunch and their reaction to the mustard sandwiches.

lighthouse2We have had so much fun building out own little white cottage, a lighthouse and putting the whole scene together, all making use of things in our house.

The lighthouse is just a cardboard roll that has been painted in red and white stripes with a yellow dome on top.  All done by the kids (we actually have 4 lighthouses in our house at the moment).

lighthouseThe little white cottage was a white shoe box that I cut some holes in.  I made sure that the ceiling was open (the side where the lid would go) as I knew the kids would enjoy be able to put their toy people inside.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The roof is just 4 cardboard triangles that we stuck together with tape, painted yellow and then attached onto the lid of the shoe box.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe kids added the blue and beige towels to represent the rocks and the sea.

We attached a piece of thick string from the cottage to the lighthouse and then took the metal spring from an old cloths peg an attached a small kids toy bucket to act as the basket in the story

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe kids have had great fun placing corn and beans in the bucket and sending them down to the lighthouse.  We have also had a few toy people and smurfs climb on the bucket and “fly down the wire to the lighthouse” – Blues words.  As I am writing this I am sitting in the lounge listening to the two of them having a great play with the scene and their toy people.

Lighthouse 5

I also used their interest in the story as an excuse to download the story sack resource pack from the twinkl website (EDIT  – after I wrote this post Twinkl removed the story resource).  We really liked the sequence cards, both kids had a go at putting them in order

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWe also liked the look of the stick puppets and the self registration sheets are great for spelling practice.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd as always we love the word Mats – great way to get Pink to practice some words

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I also downloaded the free days of the week on Hamish’s basket (Twinkl also removed these from the site but I searched and found another set of FREE to download baskets with the days of the week on them).  These where a big hit !!

lighthouse6

EDIT – Twinkl have removed their Lighthouse Keeper lunch resources.  I have decided to keep this post up because I really like the activities tha the kids and I made – the house and the cable line.

I have been searching for other Lighthouse Keeper resources and I found this set on tes (£3.99) – The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch Set

I also found some resources on Primary Treasure Chest – Lighthouse resources

Save

Posted in Book Ideas, Homeschooling | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Animal / begining of autumn sensory bin

Posted on August 24, 2014 by ofamily

I have been very lazy about updating the kids sensory bins over the summer, my excuse has been that we are enjoying the garden and the sand table (well really mud table) but with the weather turning a bit I decided to make a new bin.  Well technically there is nothing new I just took our old bins mixed them up a bit changed the animals and the result is two bins and two very happy kids (and lets be honest – probably more importantly two happy parents who are being left in peace for most of the afternoon.)

For a change I used two of the green trays (Ikea plastic green trays from a kids toy storage unit) just because I thought the green colour would go well with the animal/ start of autumn theme (at a recent trip to a farm the kids noticed that some of the leaves on two trees where changing colour so I have been informed that autumn is here).  I have included photos of the two trays showing all the items separately but in reality as soon as the playing starts it all gets mixed up.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The first tray included :

  • some British toy animals out of our animal bin
  • some autumn leaves (artificial leaves left over from an art project last autumn)
  • some tree bark that I picked up at a local garden center.
  • green shredded paper – great for making pretend bird nests and hiding animals in
  • some artificial flowers (also left over from an old art project)
  • some plastic Easter eggs – great for sorting and using as animal homes if you add some of the shredded paper

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The second tray included :

  • some of their toy insects including some wind up insects (trying to get Blue to strengthen his fingers)
  • popping corn / kidney beans / butter beans / red beans
  • some pebbles that we got at the garden center
  • a few of the plastic Easter eggs

As soon as the kids saw the trays they immediately went for the toy animals and started making up stories using the animals.  Blue quickly removed the green shredded paper and made one of the toy birds a nest while Pink hid the moles in the bean mixture.  The 2 trays have kept the kids completely occupied for the last 2 hours and that is just on the first day. I am sure they will be played with a lot in the coming week.  I do not have lots of photos of the kids playing with the tubs as I honestly did not want to distract them (I was just enjoying my cup of tea and some quiet time too much).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

 

 

Posted in Homeschooling, sensory play | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Year 2 Maths planning

Posted on August 23, 2014 by ofamily

Our learning tends to be a mixture of structure and child lead.  I let the kids take the lead in areas and topics that they are interested in but I like to do Maths and English in a structured way as I think there is a natural order of learning in these subjects but we are flexible. (In Pinks year 1 Maths we did cover some of the Maths that the schools cover in year 2 but we largely ignored learning about Pounds and Pence which is normally covered in year 1).  So lets say flexible structure with child lead topics.  This means I do like to have a basic plan for my year but we do not plan per day we are more weekly / monthly planned and even that is planning done in pencil.  August was suppose to be a holiday then we thought we would learn about India but in the end we learned about the stone Age – so pencil planning.

This week I decided that I did not have enough going on (hmm  – what was I thinking) so I thought I would try and re-look at my year 2 Maths planning.  Some late nights and a lot of new printing and cups of tea later and we now have a Maths file which I think is far more interesting so this is some of what we have penciled in for our year 2 Maths.

I started off  by printing out the year 1 Math checklist from the Twinkl website (these are part of their platinum package).  I went through year 1 checklist to make sure we had covered everything (well excluding the money side).  And then I printed off the year 2 Maths overview (also part of the Platinum package),excluded a few things we had already covered and used it to make an Index for my Maths file.

Here are some of the great printouts that I used in our Maths file

I used a bunch of the pages out of the free valentines Maths pack done by 3 Dinosaurs for Free Homeschool Deals.  (Pink did the odd and even page while I was sorting out the file)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Number Bonds Butterflies – we love these Butterflies – free from Twinkl.  We have already looked at them but have included them in our file as a Revision.

Skip counting Number mazes – free printout from Confessions of a homeshooler

Counting in 2’s, 5’s 10’s etc posters – great visual (Twinkl gold package)

I really like these 3D posters as they show the shape and list their properties (Platinum on Twinkl).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I also printed off these great 3D alien people (Platinum on Twinkl).  The kids saw me printing them off so we have actually already made them but we might redo this later in the year as both kids enjoyed this.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Word problems from Royal Baloo

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

I just love the  fraction tree from itsybitsyfun   I know Pink will love it

And the teaching time clock from Twinkle (platinum) is just what I was looking for – I started making a clock for Pink showing the face divided into half and quarters but this one looks much better.

I also found this great Egg Symmetry excercise which I just could not resist including

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Place value challenge cards (platinum on Twinkl)

And yes I have included addition and subtraction pages (but I am not going to list all of them or I would fall asleep).  And yes I did include some pages about Pounds and Coins but we are mainly going to do this through our shop role playing (will explain in a post next week).

Taking the night off planning and then going to try and redo our English file.

Posted in Homeschooling, ks1 maths | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Making a Post Box

Posted on August 21, 2014 by ofamily

I really want to try and find fun ways to encourage Pink to write more.  She likes writing shopping lists for me and writing small notes for her dad but that is about it.  So I thought maybye we could expand on the love of writing daddy notes and make a family post box.  The idea being that everyone can write a note or in the case of Blue draw a picture post it in the Box and over the weekend we will open up the box and read the notes.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

When I suggested the idea to the kids they both loved it.  We still had some of the boxes left over from a recent trip to Ikea so we found one that was not too big or too damaged and began sticking it back together making sure we left the bottom open (so we can recover the posted items to read).  I cut a hole in the front and the painting started.

post box

I had forgotten how much fun the kids have when they get to paint a 3 dimensional item instead of just paper.  We had lots of laughter and giggling.

post box 1

Once all the red paint had dried we made a sign and stuck it on the front.  And without me even asking the first letter was posted.  The kids are very proud of the post box as they made it all by themselves (I only helped cut the hole).  Fingers and toes crossed the post box will end up being as big a success as our art trolley (our art trolley is getting used multiple times every).

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas, Homeschooling | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments