April Activities

April has been a productive month.  We have enjoyed the settled autumn weather of cool nights and warm, sunny days.

I sometimes think, when I see other peoples photos of their nature walks, that we don't have anything as pretty.  But really the beauty is there if you choose to look hard enough.  It is more about perspective than it is about location.  

Life is just like that too.  Sometimes what we see around us seems boring or maybe ugly, but there is beauty there if we choose to see it.  The same goes for people.

This day I decided to take the youngest 3 on an adventure.  We headed down to the local river and went exploring.  It was great fun.

Life's simple pleasures - dandelion blowing.

The adventurer.

"This is my kingdom!" he cried aloud

Then we headed into the forest.

This is the only shot we seem to be able to get of these 2 lately.

Besties <3

 And sometimes I find lovely things on my camera...

Lego is a daily staple for the little boys.  One particular day Arrow saw Master Yoda from Star Wars on the computer and he wanted to make him.  This is where we found the instructions.  Yoda Lego Instructions

Our city clock tower was lit up red for Anzac Day.  We had made a family trip into town for dinner and we walked to the clock tower to see the Anzac displays.

Our silhouettes - can you guess who is who? 

 Autumn is my personal favourite season.  We found a decent pile of leaves in a park and had some fun with them.

We joined a community food harvesting group which gathers food to give to the organisations in our city who distribute free food to those in need.
The first harvesting we did was the University apple orchard.  We got to take some apples home with us too, which was a lovely bonus.

The second harvesting we went to was an enormous paddock of pumpkins...hundreds of thousands of them!  The estimate I heard was 500 tonnes!  Can you even imagine it!

The girls did a great job, and I am sure they now have a deeper appreciation of giving to others.
It is quite a humbling experience to work hard to collect food for others, and knowing that it was just going to rot and that it was impossible to gather all that was there so most of it will is a real life lesson.  There is so much waste in our world.

Look at those happy faces!  Good job girls.  

~Lorna

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge - FIAR

We have just finished this book after 3 weeks of activities.  The boys REALLY enjoyed it all.

You can listen to the Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge on YouTube.

We usually use the Before Five In A Row Guide to do a few learning activities to go along with the story.

This year I found some extra resources online to add to what we would do.

I gathered all our own books from our shelves that had to do with rivers, lighthouses, and bridges.  Then we went on a library visit to find more.

Lighthouse books

Bridge books

River books

On Google Maps we found the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and the Little Red Lighthouse.  We followed the river all the way north to the lake where it begins.

The children built a lego bridge of their own design.

And we made a sensory play box with a river and bridges.  The boys loved playing with this.

The boys and I made another sensory play box with a lighthouse.  They thought this was so neat and played with it for ages!

Here is a lighthouse we made.  I had to do most of the assembly as it was a bit fiddly for young fingers.  They absolutely LOVE their lighthouse nightlights!  They have one each which sits on their dresser beside their bed.  They look really cool flickering away in the dark as the boys fall asleep.

Materials: large red disposable cup, small clear disposable cup, electrical tape, and a LED tealight candle.

The girls did some artwork of the Great Gray Bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse

There are many different types of bridges, and here the children are constructing the different patterns.

Popsicle sticks with velcro dots and a chart of bridge types.

 Some of the finished products.

We talked about the use of personification in the story.  I had the children make their own faces to cut out and find something to personify.

Arrow personified the door in his room.

Crystal personified the clock. 

Blossom personified the stock pot.

Cedar personified the junk box.

We watched 2 documentaries as part of our learning.

The building of the Bellrock Lighthouse

The building of the Brooklyn Bridge

The very best part of our study was our visit to Castlepoint to see the lighthouse there!

Castlepoint lighthouse.

The walkway up.

The children (with boundless energy) running up.

Under the tall lighthouse.

Beyond the lighthouse was a further climb to the highest point of the rock.  I have to say it...it scared me to the point of feeling sick with all those little people bouncing about!

The amazing view from the top.  Breath taking.  

The view looking back the way we had come up.
We went swimming in the lagoon in the background.

Swimming

Digging

Butterfly and Blossom wanted to swim in the waves at the mouth of lagoon. 

Blossom and Butterfly went exploring on the rocks between the lagoon and the open ocean...only because it was a calm day as I suspect it gets really rough sometimes.

At the end of the day the children all sat down and fed the seagulls.  Seagulls are hilarious to watch.  When one seagull stole the food from another the victim would throw a little tantrum, screaming and flapping it's wings.

~Lorna