Easter has arrived

Posted on April 17, 2014 by ofamily

Easter has been very slow arriving at our home this year.  Last year we did lots of Easter crafts weeks ahead of time but this year both kids have been so busy with their other activities and their own learning.  This morning however as their dad left for work Pink declared just one more sleep and then daddy is home for the whole long weekend – yes Easter had finally arrived.

We added some plastic Easter eggs to our flower sensory tub. This tub is mainly made up of green shredded paper, some small sunflowers and some coloured wood shavings.  Pink has been “replanting” the sunflowers into old egg cartons.   Blue has also enjoyed this tub although I must admit he tends to use it to hide his cars – but no complaints he is having fun.

Image

Image

I left some of the Easter Dot marker pages (done by 3 Dinosaurs  for Free Homeschool Deals) on one of their table and they both where soon sitting decorating their eggs.

Image

Pink also saw I had a sand art egg on the shelf so she quickly got that down and both kids did one each.   These are from crafty crocodiles in the UK (they have lots of different sand art pictures if you look on their website).  Blue really enjoyed this, it was the first time he really got into the sand art, I had to help him removing the strips as the bottom card kept tearing but apart from that he did it all by himself.  Pink has done sand art before and enjoys it so she worked on her egg by herself.  This is really a great sensory activity.  Pink has already informed that she will be making another one tomorrow with her dad.

Image

Image

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

Geography with Disney CARS and Disney PLANES

Posted on April 15, 2014 by ofamily

We are suppose to be on our 2 week Easter holiday but that does not mean that my kids have stopped learning.  Today after we go back from a trip to the playground and the shops, the kids asked if they could watch CARS 2 while they eat their bagels.  Normally we do not watch TV during the day but I figured they are suppose to be on holiday so why not.  In the middle of CARS 2 I noticed Pink had her world map puzzle (from ELC in the UK) out and was following the route of the race (Japan / Italy / UK).  This was something we did together when we watched Planes so I was very chuffed to see that she was doing it by herself.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

She also dug out one of my “school files ” and started paging through it.  I lot of the projects or school work that I plan is printed out and filed in a shelf which Pink can reach.   We got the Where in the world maps out and we started plotting the course on the map (again this is something which we had done with the Planes movie so Pink had a good idea what to do).  With this I was focusing on the country more than the city when plotting the course.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So now I am not feeling like a “naughty mom” for letting them watch their movie, we managed to squeeze some learning in without me planning it and without them feeling like they where doing work.

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

Homeschooling easter break !!

Posted on April 11, 2014 by ofamily

So we are having a 2 week homeschooling holiday starting today.  YIPHEE !!!  What that means for us is basically no worksheet activities (unless the kids ask), but lots of art (art is not “work” for us) and getting out and enjoying the better weather at out local parks.

Image

We will make a new sensory bin for Spring – my kids love their sensory bins.  I probably do not make enough new ones. We tend to stick to our old ones and play with them a lot.  The current favourite is our Bean sensory bins, the kids use the beans in their train and car play (we have trains that take beans as cargo to depo’s etc ).  I never knew it would be such a hit.  Getting side tracked.

When we first started homeschooling I did not take proper holidays as I was always worried that we where not getting enough done but I realized that we all need the break.  I love homeschooling Pink but it is exhausting, I often spend my evenings making something for the next day or looking for something on the internet, not to mention the worrying.  We go through phases when we seem to go out a lot and then I worry that we are not doing enough “work” and then we have phases where we seem to stay in and work a lot which just means I end up worrying that we are not getting out enough.  And in the end it all seems to come right.  So yes I have come to realize that having a break from homeschooling is important for the whole family.

So here is to 2 weeks of trying not to worry about our homeschooling adventure !!

 

Posted in Homeschooling | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Colour Mixing Activities with kids

Posted on April 5, 2014 by ofamily

Since both of my kids are going through an ART CRAZE at the moment I though it would be good to do some colour mixing with them.

One of our favourite colour books is Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert.  I always think it is a great book to read in the Spring time as the flowers start blooming.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Pink has already learned about the colour wheel and about which primary colours make which 2nd colours but any excuse for some fun activities

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We got some zip lock bags out and added different paint and mixed them – no big surprise this was a bit hit with both kids.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We also revisited our flower dying experiment from last year.  This time around we used some yellow tulips and saw what happened when we put the yellow tulips into dyed water (food colouring added to water).  This turned out really nicely, Pink really loved this, our photos are not that great but you can still see how nicely the petals changed colour.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We also have these great water colour pencils so the kids had some fun mixing colours using these.  This was one of those lightbulb moments for Pink as she finally got that when you add black to colours you “loose the colour” – in her words.  And the most basic of all is just giving the kids the primary colours when they painted and letting them create their own colours.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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

Baking muffins and learning to wait

Posted on April 5, 2014 by ofamily

My kids are not very good with waiting, so I knew making these muffins would be a challenge, but I knew they where yummy and I thought it would be good for them to practice waiting.  Once you have mixed all the ingredients together you put this muffin mixture in the fridge overnight and then bake your muffins the next morning (the waiting part).  What I really like about this mixture is that you can keep it in the fridge for 30 days and just bake some muffins when you feel like it.  They make a great breakfast muffin.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Photo taken by my daughter, she was very proud.

The Recipe (not sure where it originally comes from think my mom gave it to me).

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 Tbs oil
  • 1 cup oat bran
  • 2 cups digestive bran
  • 1.5 cups flour
  • 1Tbs bicarbonate soda
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 large grated apple (grate skin as well)
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 cups milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix the eggs, sugar and oil

Then add the rest of the dry ingredients and the apple and raisins

Mix in the milk and vanilla essence

Place in a sealed container in the fridge overnight

Take out of the fridge place in muffin tray and bake at 180 C for around 15- 20 mins

This mixture can be kept in the fridge for 30 days but be warned it is yummy so it will disappear very very quickly.

 

Posted in Baking with Kids, Homeschooling | Tagged , , | Leave a comment