Backyard Renovations

Our backyard got a bit of an overhaul.  Needing to move one of our caravans meant rearranging things, giving me a perfect opportunity to revamp some areas to make them look fresh for the coming summer.

I made the decision to sow just over half my large veggie garden patch back into lawn.  We let one of our chickens out to forage for slugs and other bugs.  She was joined by one of our pigeons.

Josh the pigeon and Pebbles our old lady chicken joined us for the afternoon

 This corner brightened up when we transplanted our huge Yucca tree from the wine barrel it called home!  A few months ago my friend gave me a selection of succulents from her garden so they found a new home around the Yucca.

~Lorna

Antarctica

For our geography, we have been looking at Antarctica.  In preparation I made a Continent Box full of information and activities to inspire learning through experience and fun.
{I will be making more of these Continent Boxes, and I will share them as we go.}  I found the idea on *this blog*

Plenty of reading material 

Maps and Charts
The 2 penguin drawings were done by Crystal and Blossom two years ago for *Penguin Science*.

Pictures of flora, fauna, land forms, transport each with a short explanation on the reverse of the card. 

Tactile resources

To begin with, on a suitably cold rainy day, we watched 2 dvds - Arctic/Antarctic and an Arctic Tale.  I thought about whether or not to include the Arctic in our resources for this unit, and decided it would be useful to make the comparisons.

Next I gave the children chunks of ice on a baking tray to play with the little animals.

Arrow's and Cedar's tray

Blossom's and Crystal's tray

A lot of action

All playing together

A few library books

I enjoyed putting this together for the children.  They enjoyed looking through all the bits.  On occasion someone will mention an Antarctic fact they have learned, or ask to look at a resource again.  Excellent!

Watch out for my next box... ''New Zealand''.  Coming soon.

~Lorna

Holiday Card Making Day

During the holidays my mum came to visit and spent a whole day making cards with the children!  They had such a lot of fun because Grandma has lots of special stamps, paper, glitter, and a very neat heat gun that makes glitter do cool things on cards!

Blossom and Crystal trying out different tools and things

I set the little boys up at their own table with the kiddy stamp set - for obvious reasons!

Butterfly, looking pretty as always, whilst trying to decide upon something.
Blossom listening intently to Grandma's instructions.
Crystal may be taking a nap...or maybe she is having a Oh-no moment...I'm not sure!

It must be said, these two lasted a lot longer than I expected!  

Arrow's patience paid off and he finally got Grandma all to himself to make some cards using the SPECIAL stamps!

Such a lot of fun (and a lot of cards!)  

THANKS GRANDMA FOR THE FUN DAY!

~Lorna

Whistling Tree Frogs

We have our new tadpoles for this year.  They are Whistling Tree Frog tadpoles.  Their names are as follows:

Bartholomew Bubbles

Hunter Puddle

Riley Froglet

Emmett Croaky

Samantha Greenfield

Estella Water-Lily 

I am quite unsure how we will tell them apart!  

Our freshly arranged froggy home

I thought this would be a great Lap Book topic for the children.  I like the idea of Lap Books but haven't done very many of them over the years. 

First we talked about what we already know about frogs.  Then we read this little book and looked at the frog model from our science box.

Then the girls got busy making the front cover of the Lap Book

Crystal was finding it hard to draw a frog freehand so she found a How-To-Draw book which had instructions to draw a crab.  She got the basic outline and then modified it from there.

Lap Book cover by Blossom and Crystal

The spread inside

Arrow looking under a lily pad for a frog fact

Crystal looking for little frogs hiding in the habitat picture

Vocabulary frog tongue

I got some of my ideas for the Lapbook from Pinterest, and others I imagined on my own.  A lovely afternoon activity.  Memories together.  

We will make some jumping origami frogs, and read a few froggy books - Beatrix Potter's Mr. Jeremy Fisher, Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows

~Lorna