ofamily learning together

We’re going on a Lion Hunt

Posted on March 20, 2014 by ofamily

Both my kids have loved the book “we’re going on a bear hunt” so when I saw the “we’re going on a Lion hunt” version I thought we would give it a try, plus it had African animals in it. The book is good, in my opinion not as good as the bear hunt story but it was a good starting point for some fun activities around African animals.

We started off by looking at the Africa page in our Animal magnet book (what an amazing book this is). We spoke about what animals we knew that lived in Africa and where Africa is one the map.

We then started reading the Lion Hunt. As I read the story the kids dug in their tub of plastic animals to find the different animals in the pictures.

After we had finished this Blue had enough so he went off to play but Pink and I got out the animals book that she is making and did her lion page and her elephant page. Pink is loving her animal book so much that we have also started a flower book. The idea behind these books is that she colors in a picture and then on the opposite page writes a few words about that picture. It is great for her writing and spelling and she gets to learn about her favourite animals.

Posted in Book Ideas, ks1 English, Science Ideas | Tagged africa, african animals, animals, home ed, lion | Leave a comment

Fun in the trees

Posted on March 18, 2014 by ofamily

The kids and I have been going to a new great activity in Richmond Park lately, the group is called nature play. It is basically an opportunity for some moms/ carers and their kids to get together in the outdoors and play with nature. My two have been having a blast climbing the trees, running through the grass, and a quick splash in the stream, basically just being kids. If you hear of a group near you I would highly recommend it, if not why not just go and enjoy some outdoors with the kids and watch them smile and have fun the way we all use to when we where kids.

Posted in Homeschooling, Kids Outings in London, sensory play | Tagged nature play, sensory play | 1 Comment

Yoghurt cake / cupcakes with kids

Posted on March 15, 2014 by ofamily

So I thought we would try a new recipe I found this one for a yoghurt cake and thought it sounded good. Yoghurt cake recipe.

I have noticed a few signs this last week that Pink has been getting overwhelmed very quickly again (she seems to go in phases where she will be fine for a while and then the smallest thing will overwhelm her senses). So I was not that surprised when I sugeested we try a new recipe that she did not get physically involved in the baking like usual but rather watched and talked about what I was doing. I am not sure what happened but without Pinks help it turned into a flop.

But I thought this was a good opportunity for us to discuss the fact that sometimes mommy does something and it does not work out but that we try again. Both Pink and Blue are perfectionists and can get very upset when their attempts at something does not result in perfection. This seemed to make an impression on Pink. Anyway we had some mixture left over so we put the extra mixture into our muffin trays and ……………………..

This time there was no flop. YIPHEE !!!

I was very happy when later on in the day Pink came to me and said “don’t worry mommy next week we can try and make the cake again together. ” Fingers crossed no flops next time.

Posted in Baking with Kids, Homeschooling | Tagged homeschooling, yoghurt cake | 1 Comment

Shape Art

Posted on March 14, 2014 by ofamily

We saw Mister maker on Cbeebies do a shape picture recently and I thought since we had done some work on shapes lately it would be fun to give it a try. We used some old cereal boxes as the cardboard for the stencils. Pink helped me cut out the shapes, we did 2 of each so that they kids could work on the pictures together.

We used the stencils with our pastels to make the shapes. Some of the shapes we coloured in and others we just did the outline. This actually ended up being a great activity for Pink’s sensory processing as she has a very sensitive touch and so does not like holding anything firmly but with the stencils she had to hold them down firmly.

Blue used the stencils in the beginning for his picture but he also tried to draw the shapes by himself. He was very proud of his end picture and asked me to hang it on the wall.

Pinks final picture

This ended up being a great, simple art project which did not require lots of different material.

Posted in Art and Craft Ideas | Tagged art, ks1, shapes | Leave a comment

Number Train

Posted on March 13, 2014 by ofamily

Blue is train and car mad. And he has been begging me lately to teach him his numbers. He can already count to 20 but he wants to know what the number looks like and how to write it (very determined that he must be able to do school work with big sister). So I wanted to find something fun for him (I think he has now had enough of the hopscotch maths games) and was thrilled when I can across this number train from the Twinkl website.

I printed off the pictures (only did 1- 10 to begin with), laminated them and Blue has been having a blast creating the train (with some help from big sister when he gets stuck). Number train link

They really do look good.

After Blue had sorted the carts for a bit Pink got out her bead sensory bin and we helped Blue put the correct number of beads in each carriage. This was also a fun way of checking Pinks understanding. I kept putting the wrong number of beads out and then Pink would correct me and tell me if I needed 2 more or 3 less etc etc. I love it when she practices her maths without even knowing it.