CharlieandHenry homeschool ideas

A recycle robot

2010-04-01T02:19:00.000-07:00

I am in the habit of collecting boxes and tubes for some future art project! So we put them to good use building a recycle robot!

I gave Henry all the things he could use on a table. Boxes, toilet rolls, paper plates and a flower pot and some wool and googly eyes! and asked him to design his robot.

Just be aware to have some very strong glue handy if you are going to stick tubes on as legs and arms.

We covered the cereal box body with plain paper so Henry could create whatever design on it he wanted. Henry asked me to help with the arms and legs, but after that he added everything else inc. hair and eyes.

In the end Henry gave the robot a name - "Stanley" and stuck some packing polystyrene bits to its tummy.

Stanley still stands proud in Henry's bedroom, even though we completed this activity months ago.

Creating with shapes

2010-01-26T11:00:00.000-08:00

With one of Henry's friends coming over to play, I decided to create a little project to keep them both occupied for 10 minutes!

You will need some light weight card or paper of any colour. I had black already, so used this. Next, cut the card into shapes of any type. I tried to cut at least two of everything, so if Henry wanted to he could create a symmetrical piece of art.

You can make the shapes as large or as small as you want. I stuck with squares, rectangles and triangles, but circles and stars would be great too. I supplied a couple of googly eyes as well just for an interesting twist!

Provide your child with the shapes, any little extras such as the googly eyes or stickers, a blank piece of paper and a glue stick and suggest they create.......anything!

Henry started out by creating two trees in pots (symmetrical), using squares for the pots, long rectangles for the trunks and triangles for the tree tops. Then found the googly eyes and got creating a monster! It was great, because as he added shapes he told me what he was doing, its interesting to be in on the thought processes

some times!

We labelled the creation and attached it to the fridge........something so simple, kept two 5 year old boys occupied for about 20 minutes!

Name alien!

2010-01-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

I found this great idea on another blog today by Allison McDonald. So simple, but a great idea.

First provide your child with a piece of paper (any colour goes), then ask them to fold in half long ways. This on its own is easier for some children than others.

Next, ask your child to write their name across the width of the paper. Try & encourage writing down to the fold. That way, the resulting alien

shape will be more fun to work with. Big letters are a lot of fun and actually quite challenging when kids have started to write small for school purposes.

When the name is written, draw a line roughly around each

letter so that your child has a guide to follow when they are cutting. Then off they go with the scissors. It really does not matter how neat the cutting is.

Next stage is to open out the paper & turn it over to the blank side....this is where the creating comes in. Supply your child with whatever you think they would like to embellish their alien with! Googly eyes, paints, glitter, feather, pipe cleaners, stickers...whatever works.

Henry had fun with this and requested 6 eyes for his alien...then added some hands, feet and general glittering!

Another great blog to follow

2010-01-26T03:05:00.000-08:00

I have just found this great blog, which has some excellent ideas for simple craft type projects to do at home. Can't wait to try a few with Henry.

http://blogs.familyeducation.com/parenting/14452

Torch light sabres

2010-01-23T13:45:00.000-08:00

I just found this link from a friend. Looks a great idea to try. I'll post pics when we do it!

http://filthwizardry.blogspot.com/2010/01/balloon-and-torch-lightsabres.html

The most wonderful egg in the world - Book

2010-01-19T03:27:00.000-08:00

During our day of hen themed activities we read "The most wonderful egg in the world" written and illustrated by Helme Heine.

This is a story of three hens who want to become princesses. The king suggests that whoever lays the most wonderful egg will be crowned princess. The first lays a perfect egg, the second a huge egg

and the third....a colourful cube shaped egg! The king can not decide,

because they are all wonderful in their own way....and all the hens become princesses!

We have read this book so many time, so Henry knows the story off by heart. However we read it again, and then I suggested that Henry, Kevin and I all went to a different table and drew what we considered to be the most wonderful egg in the world.

Kevin got out the scissors and created an egg mobile! I created a colourful Easter egg. Henry got to work with his favourite colour - red and drew a rectangle red egg! Then labelled it.

We discussed how he would describe his egg - rectangle, red, sharp edges. He then described my egg in various ways.....even I was at a loss how to describe daddy's egg!

Henry does Hens!

2010-01-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

At Christmas we became the proud owners of two brown hens - Henry took delivery of them on Xmas day from Santa! Named Henrietta and Peck Peck, they have become integral members of our family! As I write this blog however, I am recovering from finding one of said hens in the middle of the road near our house after she decided a re enactment of "chicken run" would be fun! Luckily I found her, caught her & delivered her back safely!

With a number of snow days in the last couple of weeks, I dedicated one day to lots

of activities with a "

hen" theme. I'll try & outline them all here, but in summary we had:

Create a piece of hen related art (painting, collage, drawing etc)
Words rhyming with "egg" and "hen" - thought of and written down by Henry.
Read some hen related stories (see another post).
Sight words bingo (with an egg theme)
Simple addition of how many eggs have the two hens layed!
Provide an egg shape and suggest that it be turned into a person/animal etc.
Create a story about Henry and his hens in simple words and read it.

I apologise for the long post, but we did quite a few activities!

1. Hen art

Henry's piece of hen art was a collage using tissue paper cut up and scrunched up. I drew the outline of the Hen, and provided the

squares of cut tissue paper. I did originally offer this in gold, orange and yellow, thinking Henry would use all colours for a multi coloured hen.....however he

stuck with gold and I cut adequate bits for him to finish in that colour. Peck Peck the collage hen was a great success!

2. Rhyming words

On the internet you can find images of

anything you want. A search for "eggs" brought me a great egg picture which I replicated loads of

times. For the rhyming words, Henry had the egg shapes to write each letter on to create the rhyming words.

3. Hen & egg stories

We have on our shelf - Coriander the contrary hen and The most wonderful egg in the world, which we read. We also did an activity with the latter title which I will post as a separate activity.

4. Simple words egg bingo

For Egg bingo I printed a page with 8 eggs on, and onto each of these eggs I wrote one of Henry's sight words. I then printed out a further 8 eggs that I cut out and wrote the same words on. I replicated each of these so I could play with Henry. We took it in turns to take eggs off the pile and read the words then cover the eggs. It was a bit more fun that simple squares with words in.

5.Egg addition eggsercise!

I found a picture of a hen on the internet & printed it out twice. I then printed about 10 eggs out. Under each hen I placed a number of eggs and we did simple addition with Henry recording the number of eggs layed next to a picture of his hen run.

6. Egg head

I provided Henry with a blank piece of paper and a cut out of an egg, and suggested he turn it into a face. I imagined he would add some hair, eyes, nose and mouth......I was wrong - he actually turned it into an egg person! Then when asked to name it...called it Henry Egg!

7. A story about Henry and his hens

This I prepared in advance. I created simple sentences that Henry knew the words or could sound out the words with some help. I then added a few images to help with the story recognition. Henry thought this was great, that he appeared in the story with his hens!

Name that sign!

2010-01-13T07:02:00.001-08:00

This little project was a bit of fun, though it made me realise how much Henry actually knew about signs!

First I used by creativity to draw a few signs, and Henry identified each....amazingly he knew them all (not helped by my artistic skills)!

Then I asked Henry to draw me a sign warning about anything he wanted.....he came up with a tree across the road, which he drew and labelled for me.

I then suggested he did another. Very into his hens and the moment, he created a sign to warn that one of his hens was about - I might just have to stick that one to the back door to remind me!

This occupied us for about 15 minutes, but got him involved in being creative and imaginative, writing, sounding his letters and discussion.

Smarties maths

2010-01-13T05:43:00.000-08:00

Ever looking for hands on ways to make maths fun, Henry has just found that working with chocolate smarties is GREAT! We did a few things within this little project.

1. We estimated by looking in the bowl of smarties, which colour would have the most smarties, and drew the colours along the bottom of the chart in the order we though before we started graphing.

2. Henry picked out each colour and sorted the right

smarties out of the bowl, then lined them up on the graph to create a smarties bar graph.

3. Henry then counted the number of smarties of each colour and recorded this on another piece of paper.

4. The favourite bit I think for Henry was then eating all the smarties!

5. Lastly I got Henry to draw the smarties on the graph according to the numbers he recorded.

We were at this for about 50 minutes! Never once did Henry wander off!...I think it was the promise of the smarties!

A farm park trip out

2009-11-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

During school half term we ventured out in the rain to our local farm park - Cotswold Farm park it is a fantastic place about an hours drive from where we live. The weather certainly kept most visitors at home, so we nearly had the place to ourselves. Henry and i went with one of his friends from school.

Henry loves animals, and so the touch and

cuddle area was a BIG hit!

Henry started with a very fluffy bunny....then moved onto a very small yellow cheeping chick!

He thendecided that the pen full of ducks looked like they needed some loving, so he asked if he could hold one. Judging by the assistant's response it was obviously not a regular request! But she managed to catch a very large duckling/small duck......and Henry loved it. Fascinated by its webbed feet and the fact it had small claws on the webs.

During the rest of our trip Henry fed a VERY LARGE lamb by bottle! Chased piglets,fed goats and drove electric tractors for about an hour! We also checked out the nature trail in the wood, and took a trip round the farm by tractor and trailer.

Altogether, a FANTASTIC day out!

A garden on a plate

2009-11-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

This is one from my childhood! Making a garden on a plate. With a little imagination Henry created a little garden on a tray.

I placed some soil in the bottom, about half an inch deep, so that anything i poked into it would stand up. If you compact the soil this may work even better.

I made Henry a little silver foil pond for him to put where he wanted.

We wandered around the garden and looked for things to use. We chose Rosemary for spiky trees, i had some bits of bush with red berri

es on that became apple trees, and small path pebbles for stepping stones and wall. We broke some twigs up to create a fence, and even bent a piece of flt twig into a bench! Henry decided some moss he found on logs in our log pile would be great as grass.

This wasn't something that Henry could do on his own yet, but with my help we hung out in the garden for half an hours exploring and fresh air.

His finish project - a cute garden with pond, stone walls and fences (like our garden) a bench by the pond, apple trees in an orchard surrounded by mossy grass so that the apples wouldn't get damaged when the fell off the trees! GREAT IMAGINATION. A final fun thing, i let him fill the pond up with water, which tested his accuracy and concentration considerably!

Better late than never!

2009-11-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

Some more photos on our move back to the UK

I so meant to post this....well about 4 months ago now - where does the time go!

After 4 weeks in a container, our furniture arrived into Felixtowe in the UK. We didn't actually see it arrive, but Henry and i took a trip down to see where it did. He was amazed at the size of the cranes and all the ships and tug boats.

We moved back into our

house in August, and those of you familiar with American sized trucks....how well they fit American sized roads! Well we had the biggest lorry arrived to deliver our furniture - but our village has TINY roads...enjoy the photos of the fun the drivers had!

This was the lorry turning to go back the way it came as there are weight restrictions out of our village in all directions except 1!

Oh yea, and in this picture you can just about see our little house behind the huge lorry! The house is actually 3 stories high!

Making letters fun!!!! - Flour.

2009-09-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

Henry has started learning his letters at school, and we have been asked to support his learning for a few minutes each day, to help establish the letter sounds.

I'm not going to do a blog entry for every letter, just when we try something new that could be used for any of the letters.

With Henry; the hands on touchy feely approach is best. So i got out a wooden board, spread flour on it, then suggested Henry try writing the letters with his fingers in the flour.

The first time we do any letter i write it with him; i stand to his left and we write at the same time, so he can get the formation of the letter correctly. Using the flour, i then put dots where he can start his letters and let him roll with it. For the letter "t: he got very enthusiastic and i think we managed 7 of the letter "t". Henry loves to use the rolling pin to roll the flour flat and start again.

Painting without paint or a brush!!!

2009-09-29T04:41:00.000-07:00

Outdoor Hour - Challenge #3 - Time to draw

For Henry, who doesn't go a bundle on doing art work, i try to steer away from plain drawing or painting, trying to make the experience a little more unusual if possible.

Most days we get out for a walk with our dog. So for yesterday's walk i took a bag to collect all kinds of things from nature that we might be able to use for an art project.

Henry got very into putting things into the bag...so much so we had an overflowing bag by our return home! During our walk i asked Henry to think of what we could use to draw or paint with, with some help he suggested sticks and feathers. I picked some blackberries and elderberries and got Henry to guess what we might use these for, he was very intrigued by the idea of making paint from them......even more so wh

en i told him we would paint with mud when we got home!

Back home i put all our findings out on a piece of paper and provided a fairly absorbent type of paper for Henry to create his art work on.

To start with i suggested Henry try painting with

mud, He chose a stick and created brown lines all over his page.

Next Henry tried out squashing black berries then rolling them with a stick....beautiful purple designs started to develop. Amazingly, every blackberry had a slightly different colour! Elderberries were squashed and rolled, and finally back to the mud with a rose hip and a feather to create some more brown patterns.

I was totally amazed how well this idea worked. After a good hand wash, the very unusual piece of art has pride of place on our fridge! - whoever said you needed paint and a paintbrush to create a masterpiece!!!

Henry starts school

2009-09-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

This post is a little belated...but better late than never!

Henry started school on the 3rd September 2009. One very excited boy rand down to school in his very smart school uniform! Very eager to learn...or rather "play" as we were told by Henry!

Needless to say, three weeks in, he is loving it. Finally making some friends, and even coming home with homework!

Orienteering with the National Trust

2009-09-20T05:37:00.000-07:00

Kevin thinks that i have finally admitted to being middle aged!....I have joined the National Trust. I would like to point out that i joined to gain access to the amazing gardens and estates for walks and exploration; not to spend hours looking round inside boring houses!

So our first National Trust property was Dyrham Park, near Bath. A huge country estate with large house in the valley, it is a stunning place to visit. Our specific reason for visiting however, was for a family orienteering day.

Armed with clipboard, map, compass and instructions, we were about to see if we could find our way from the top of the hill to the main Hall at the bottom of the valley.

Whilst i tried to remember how to use a compass (good thing instructions were included) Henry headed off to find the first clue with the use of the map.

At each clue we had to either write or draw the clue answer - animals of one sort or another. Henry & i took it in turns to record the 6 clues (to maintain Henry's enthusiasm levels!) In finding each clue we were making our way down the hill to the hall.

Our final clue found and my reward to Henry was an Ice cream as we explored the beautiful formal gardens of the house. A quick game of croquet on the lawn and then we made our weary way back up the very long hill.....good thing they had a shuttle bus....there is no way Henry would have made it back to the top after 3hrs of exploration at a fair pace!

A fantastic venue and great activity.

Henrys new hobby - Horse riding!

2009-09-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Much to my delight, Henry is showing an interest in horses! Actually at the moment it is all animals....dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, cows...you name it Henry wants to get up close and personal which is great.

Back in the UK however, i have been given a great opportunity to use a small pony to teach Henry to ride. The pony is George...a very placid and fluffy pony who seems to cope with Henry very well!

Prior to George, Henry had never been on a pony; only horses of 16hh or higher, unsurprisingly he was a little daunted by the idea of riding. It was love at first sight with George though - a pony his size and one where there was no pressure to ride if he didn't want to.

In the last month, Henry has been on George about 5 times; each time getting a little more confident. Normally his interest lasts a lap around the field (about 10 minutes) - but he has tried a little trot (with a lot of giggling) and today Henry mastered slalom around buckets and going through the mouth of a cave (between two buckets) so he is getting the steering as well!

We will take it steady, ride whenever Henry wants to and get off as soon as the interest wains...at this stage it is important to keep it fun, so he wants to come back for more!

We are back...I think!

2009-09-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

After what seems like months away, (well it is over 2 months since we left the USA) i think we can finally get back to this blog!

We have done a fair bit over the last few months that has not been documented, so i'm going to attempt to catch up with our activities in the next few posts.

Just as an idea i'll finally get around to blogging our trip to Niagara falls, our move from the USA to the UK. A visit to the Postal museum, a fish and chips art project, Henrys first day at school and his new found hobby of horse riding........

Takes a deep breath and gets typing!

Happy reading!

Meeting a lobster!

2009-08-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

My parents live close to the coast, and as a result we have taken a number of visits to the coast whilst we have been staying with them. This one was a little different.

All togged up in several layers, we took a trip to Orford in Suffolk to catch a small boat called "Regardless" to go and see what is caught in lobster pots. Detailed as an 'excursion for the family', the boat was full of kids and accompanying adults - 23 of us in total. It was run by Orford Marine services.

The trip is all about seeing what comes out of lobster pots, and getting up close and personal with the catch of the day! On request we all chanted "lobster, lobster" as the pots were lifted...assured by our skipper that this would ensure the catch included a lobster!

We got lucky on the first pot and actually had a lobster on board the boat in the first ten minutes. The deck hand was very good at explaining about the lobster and quickly banded its claws so that it could not hurt anyone! That done, the lobster made a trip around the boat numerous times, and hit the deck several times as well. All the kids got to hold it. Henry was pretty unsure of it, but eventually we held it together, and he looked pretty proud that he managed that.

In addition to the lobster there were crabs of all shapes and sizes. We were shown how to carefully pick them up without getting nipped, then it was all hands on crab. There were hermit crabs, regular crabs and a velvet swimming crab, which actually felt like velvet to touch. How to tell the male and female crabs apart was detailed, as was the fact that they shed their shell every year.

The whole trip was extremely educational and informative, and fun. At an hour long it was perfect for the kids, and the boat was small enough so that everyone got to hold and touch whatever catch was available.

At the end, everything is returned to the sea, and a crab throwing competition ensued, even Henry threw a very small crab over board, returning it to where it belonged.

Looking a little wind blown - Debbie, William, Henry and I.....daddy was there, just behind the camera for once.

Henry paints his bedroom!

2009-08-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

This weekend we returned to our house in the UK to do a spot of decorating - namely Henry's bedroom.

One of the top floor rooms (in a three floor stone cottage of around 250 years old) is to be Henry's bedroom. It's last paint job however, was completed about 10 years ago when there were no thoughts of kids and Kevin and i were not even married. Hence the terracotta (Kevin calls it orange) colour of the walls!

We decided the room needed to be bright and either blue or green - we decided on green.

Henry was so excited about being involved in the painting of it, i was very impressed.

Dressed in one of my mum's old T shirts he enthusiastically got on with the paint job using a huge roller! Luckily the whole floor was covered in plastic and anything of importance removed from the room.....as Henry and paint get a little messy!

He stuck with it for about 20 minutes before getting bored the first time. We gave him his own wall and told him to paint it however he liked! Lots of crosses, race tracks and faces appeared on the wall which was fun.

Henry returned to paint three times in total over the weekend and was very helpful...i think! He is totally excited about moving into his room, and can claim to have painted it himself...how cool is that!

A ride in a combine harvester

2009-08-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Henry is in love with John Deere tractors!....Well anything John Deere actually. When back in Chicago, we drove over to Moline in IL (over 3 hrs drive) just to visit the JD tractor museum for the day! At the museum, Henry got to climb in and out of full size tractors and harvesters of all sorts, which he thought was just great. However, his god mother Debbie totally topped this, getting him a ride in a combine harvester, actually harvesting the crop.

Henry is in the combine harvester in all these pictures, some you can spot him, others not.

The anticipation you could feel coming from Henry as he watched the combine harvest around the field was completely exceeded as it turned towards us and we told he he was about to get a ride in it.

With a bit of help to get up the steps, he and William took seats in the cab and began their trip around the field harvesting the barley crop. On the way round the combine was working to cut the crop, but the boys also got to see the tank emptied into the tractor and trailer travelling along side.

Tractors and combine are fitted with satellite guided harvesting equipment, so the driver has to do very little steering except around the corners and changing direction, so the boys were fascinated to watch the computer screen and harvesting details.

Paul, the driver was so patient with the boys, that they actually circled the field twice and cut the headlands a fair bit, spending about an hour out in the combine. Needless to say he asked if either of them ever stopped talking...ever!

Henry had a fantastic opportunity to experience something i have never done, and I'm sure he will have sweet dreams about it for many a long summer evening to come!

A Knight for the day!

2009-08-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Henry has a love of all things castles, knights and of course the weapons! So it was with great excitement that we found a local castle offering "knight school and battle reenactment" for school age kids.

Framlingham castle in Suffolk is a fantastic old castle that has been well preserved and offers a great experience for adults and children. We visited during school holidays and as a result there were lots of activities aimed at kids of all ages.

Henry and i started with a walk around the ramparts of the castle. He really enjoyed this. We discussed what the slitty holes in the walls might have been used for (shooting arrows). We looked at the chimneys and the views around to see where an attack might have come from.

Back on the ground, Henry took part in 'knight school' - learning how to fight in battle! I spend all my life at home telling him not to hit anyone with anything, and there i am on the side lines shouting "hit him Henry" as my poor son tries to attack a 10 year old with a blow up sword! He really was not sure he should be doing it, but soon realised everyone else was hitting him, so he might as well join in!

There are great grounds around the castle, and you can actually climb the hills to the bottom of the castle walls, then encircle the castle by walking in the dry moat. We did this and had a lot of fun climbing up the hills and rolling back down, and climbing all over the broken down parts of the castle.

Back in the castle, there was just time to try on some of the original armour worn by the knights in battle, before Henry took part in a reenactment of the battle of Agincourt!

About 60 kids became the English army, ready to take on the French (the parents). Henry and about 10 other smaller children were the knights on horseback, who rode through the battle scene on regular intervals! He had a lot of fun, although seemed to have got the idea of sword fighting no problem as he battled with those in his own army while they awaited orders!

A really fun afternoon, we shall look out for other English Heritage events near us.

Outdoor Hour Challege - Ladybugs/Ladybirds

2009-07-31T14:44:00.000-07:00

After a couple of weeks off the challenges with our move, we managed to complete on this week - our first in the UK.

This week we tackled Challenge #26 - Ladybugs and aphids.
At this point just let me explain that in the UK we call these little red & black bugs "ladybirds". In an attempt to have Henry speaking English again we used the English terminology for this challenge!!!!!!

Having noticed literally hundreds of lady birds flying around the garden, i looked at the list of challenges and was delighted to find one on ladybirds. However, on the day we did our challenge, the wind was blowing hard and i think we were rather short changed on our bug availability!

However, we went on an explore of my parents gorgeous garden in Suffolk, England. My parents have a great veggie patch, wild blackberries, apple trees and just so many flowers it is amazing. After about 5 minutes; no ladybirds. Armed with a magnifying glass and a pot to put a bug or two into, Henry had been pretty enthusiastic, but that started to dwindle as we found no lady birds. We did however find flies, and huge bumble bees.

Our eagle adult eyes however soon spotted the first lady bird, and after that another 8. I had Henry keep a tally on a piece of paper of every bug we found, then add them up at the end.

We caught a few for closer examination, and also had some crawl onto our arms for fun. Henry overcame his fear and even had one on his arm. Henry had a lot of fun using the magnifying glass when the bugs stayed still long enough.

Back in the house (after about half an hour outside) we journaled our experience. We discussed number of legs, spots, colours, how they moved and where they lived.

Henry drew around a cup and saucer to create the outline of the bug and then painted a great lady bird.

An couple of extra fun activities were:

Finger painting lady birds - where we put splodges of red paint on paper using our fingertips, then when dry we added legs, spots, heads, eyes, antennae etc.

Face painting - I found a face painting kit in a draw never used and Henry agreed to let me turn him into a lady bird - red face with black spots.......in return he painted my face as a tiger!

This challenge was a lot of fun for us.

Niagara Falls - A road trip

2009-07-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

How can you live in the USA and not visit Niagara falls? Well, we nearly managed to miss it, but with 6 days till leaving the USA to move back to the UK we managed a road trip from Chicago to the Falls.

Taking my VW Taureg on a road trip was no hardship.....however, the 12hr journey across was a little longer than expected. However, we all remained in high spirits, Kevin & i shared the driving and Henry caught up on his sleep, and a large number of DVDs.We left Chicago on a Thursday morning, and arrived in Niagara on the Lake early evening. Our first night was at a great B&B called Hoppy's B&B. Although self publicised as more of an adults retreat, our hosts were really welcoming, coped with Henry's exuberance brilliantly and provided him with a great roll out bed in our room. I can highly recommend it for families...just check with them first at booking. A swim in the B&B pool and dinner at a great pizza bistro saw us fall into bed exhausted!

On Friday I'd like to say the day dawned bright....however it didn't. All day it rained. However we knew we would be getting more than a little damp so were not put off!

First stop, a walk along the river from above where the Canadian falls make their drop all the way to opposite the Ame

rican falls. T

otally stunning, but very wet with all the rising mist.

The Maid of the Mist was the next activity. Having seen the boats from above, we were fairly excited about this one.

You know all those times you tell the kids never to play with plastic bags....this was the first activity of three that required us all to climb inside a bag (otherwise known as a poncho) and have it well over our heads! To say we got a little wet is an understatement, however it was fantastic. Up under the falls it was like being in a very cold shower, you couldn't even open your eyes. Henry coped great though and was very brave.

We took a walk behind the falls as well on the first day, which was good....and wet!

A trip back to Niagara on the Lake for dinner (to escape the awful touristy location that Niagara is) was perfect with a horse and carriage drive around the beautiful town.

Back at Niagara (where we stayed the second night), we enjoyed the fireworks display & illumination of the falls.

Our last day saw a trip to the local souvenir shop for photo opportunities, then a few hours at Fort George, near Niagara on the Lake which Henry thought was fun to explore.

We broke the trip home up by stopping at Port Stanley on Lake Eerie for the night. Arriving home the following evening after another day of driving.

Henry goes camping!

2009-07-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

So the first night under canvas should ideally be somewhere warm and dry......well tonight we have the dry, so that is what Henry and Kevin are doing. They are camping out in my parents back garden in Suffolk!

It was with much excitement that my small 2 man tent was retrieved from the cupboard, last used 15 years ago, it is in good shape still. Henry helped with putting it up. He loved wielding the long poles around every ones heads, and then hitting my hand as he tried to bang in the pegs. The enthusiasm was impressive though.

After playing in the tent during the day, the idea of a night stop over was put to him. It was met with such excitement we decided it was a "must do" while staying with my parents.

The weather has not been that great, but with a dry night forecast, all hands were on deck to pump up the camp bed and lay out the sleeping bags.

Stories were read by torch light, and Custard tucked up in her own little bed (the little pocket in the wall of the tent lining).

To the sound of the church bells, Henry fell asleep......or did he?

Next day update - Henry was asleep very quickly, daddy took a little longer though! Henry thought the whole experience was a lot of fun and wants to do it again......daddy has suggested mummy spend the night on a hard blow up bed in a tiny tent with Henry who apparently likes to spread out across all but 4" of the bed!!!!

A trip to the beach

2009-07-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

I love a trip to the beach, Henry loves the beach, so it doesn't take much persuading for us to make a visit.

Back in the UK now, beaches are rural, unspoiled, hardly populated and COLD! Still, an opportunity to dig in a giant sand pit, jump a few waves and dig a sand castle is still a lot of fun and a great way to get fresh air, time with the family and learn a few things along the way.

Toady our trip to the beach started with fish and chips...a real English tradition. Just on cue, as we sat and ate our lunch, a fishing boat was winched up the beach. Henry was intrigued by the process and wanted to see what they had caught. Unfortunately it took so long to winch the boat up the beach he lost interest before we had chance to find out about its catch. I plan to do a follow up exercise on this one.....something to do with fish and chips.....keep your eye on future posts.

A spot of sandcastle building, stone throwing and exploring the beach for stones to decorate the castle followed.

Despite the water being pretty chilly, Henry wanted to jump some waves, which he did for about 30 minutes! Lots of exercise was followed by a quick change into dry clothes.

To round up the beach visit we all had 99 flake ice creams...another real English seaside tradition....Another follow up project possibly.

Henry managed to smuggle half the beach back in the hood of his sweater, which we stowed in a bucket for the trip home. At home he had a great time filling up small containers with the small pebbles. At bath time, we selected some of the larger pebbles to go in the bath, which he tried balancing on the ducklings in the bath.

A holiday in Oregon

2009-07-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Henry and i took a 4 day trip over to Portland in Oregon, USA to see our good friends Celina, Cory, Julian and new baby Will.

Despite not having seen each other in over a year, Henry & Julian got on great for the whole stay.

We did a lot of fun activities.

A drive over to Hood River was great. A lovely pub lunch then a trip to a lavender farm, which was just beautiful. Watching the kids run up and down the lavender plants was lovely.

Next stop was a cherry farm, where we all got to work picking the most amazing tasting cherries i have ever had. At $1 per pound, great value as well. On the was home we stopped for a look at Multnomah falls.

On another day we took the boys to the Chinese gardens in Portland. Trying to hush two very wild boys in a place of tranquility was a bit of a job though, so this was quite a quick visit! A trip to Voodo Doughnuts followed which was just yummy!

Our last day was spend over on the coast at a town called "Seaside". Despite being a little chilly we spent a couple of hours on the beach with the boys.

We had thought the weather was too chilly for swim gear, so left that at home; good thing we brought change of clothes though, as both the boys found the water warm enough to sit in fully dressed! Lots of fun in the waves, sand excavating and ice cream made this day a great hit with all of us.

The great move has begun

2009-07-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

On Monday this week (the 6th July) the movers arrived to start packing up all our worldly possessions. In the space of a day, everything was wrapped ready for loading the following day. We were left our beds for the night. Amazingly Henry coped really well. Made rather a lot of chat with all the guys doing the packing, and made sure all his toys were loaded safely into the boxes.

Yesterday everything was packed into the 40ft container that arrived early in the day. On the way into the USA we brought only a 20ft, but with new beds and other furniture we are taking home way more!

Henry had a pretty special day, what with getting rides on the mover's trolley, and getting to ride his trike flat out down the ramp from the container to the drive (before taking a nose dive over the handlebars)...he just would not be told it was not a good idea!

However, the highlight of his day came when everything was loaded. Garry the foreman helped Henry into the huge cab and let him start the engine. He then showed him where the air horn was and Henry blew it so many times i think we let the whole neighbourhood know we were going. His face was a picture.

I have loads of pictures to add to this blog article, but have no way of getting at them right now, so i will update this post when i have the pictures.

We all waved goodbye to the container before making our way to temporary accommodation in the apartments where we started when we arrived in the USA.

Our container is going to take approximately 4 weeks to reach our house in the UK.

If you would like to track it, check out sea rates.com and put in the container number as GATU4295280 with the shipping line as MSC. We expect the container to leave New York next week by ship. This is the ship we expect our precious cargo to be sailing on.

4th July celebrations

2009-07-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

For our family, the 4th of July was one last chance to spend time with our friends and party before moving back to the UK. So this year we did it in style!

On Friday the 3rd we started with a trip to Arlington Park race track to watch a couple of races and then wa

tch the fireworks. We went with friends of ours and Henry's great mate Derek. When Henry & Derek get together, you can be guaranteed high jinks will follow.

Given the confined space we managed to secure at the race track, Henry, and 4 other kids all under 5 managed their boredom very well. Glow sticks and lollipops were a great help.

The fireworks were fantastic, Henry realy enjoyed them this year, and we eventually rolled into bed at 11pm.

On Saturday 4th we watched the Arlington Heights parade with more friends. Henry loves the spectacle of it all, and the fire trucks were a big hit.

After the parade we walked over to the Frontier days fair, where Henry had a blast on the mini roller coaster, dodgems, slide, and he & Kevin even managed to get me on a very whirly waltzer ride.....Henry enjoyed it far more than i did!

The afternoon saw us at another party on our street, which eventually saw us home at 11pm. Needless to say we all slept in late most of the weekend.

When Henry is old enough i look forward to explaining to him about the 4th July, i'm not sure we will get away with the celebration when we get back to the UK though!

A good excuse for a party!!!

2009-07-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

The fun

This week, Henry and I had a great send off from a large number of my mom friends. With overcast weather, we had a great afternoon play date in the back garden. 21 children raging in age from 1 - 7 played great together (well most of it) for over two hours. I got a chance to catch up with all my mom friends who have been of great support to me in the last two years, and Henry got to play with so many people!

The swing was a big hit, the ball pool was completely emptied and the sand pit spread across the patio mixed in with cake....but it was great!

A note about our move

After two and a half years living near Chicago in the USA, we are finally moving back to the UK. Before moving to the USA Henry was barely two years old, i worked part time and i had never even heard of home schooling.

I have however, always known that i wanted Henry to enjoy life, and Kevin & i are both keen for Henry to have every opportunity possible to experience everything that life has to offer.

In the couple of years i have adjusted to being at home with an increasingly active toddler, who has a mind of his own, can be as stubborn as they come......that said, the love he offers and joy i get from watching him experience all that we do together far outweighs his moody moments!

When we return to the UK, Henry will start school full time in September, and i am sure i will be lost without him. I fully intend to keep up with lots of family activities at the weekends though, so that we can all continue to learn together.

Sunflowers up date

2009-07-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

About 2 months after we planted our sunflowers, the time spent looking at their growth has rather reduced! We originally started the sunflowers as part of an Outdoor Hour challenge. However, with our move back to the UK imminent, i thought we should record their growth one last time.

Henry decided which wasthe tallest sunflower of the group we have.

He then used the tape measure to see how high it was. A massive 24"! Last time we measured we took a reading of 37cm (a month ago). We have changed into inches as i did not have enough squares on my graph paper to continue in cm!!!

After measuring, we counted the leaves. There were 18 leaves.

I asked Henry to draw what he saw & make a record of what the plant looked like. He started off really well with two sets of leaves on the stem & one set at the top....i then asked where the other 12 should go; they then got placed all the way down the stem wherever they could be fitted in, hence the great drawing of the sunflower plant.

I then removed a leave from the plant, Henry traced around it. we then discussed what he could see on the leaf. He could see "lines" - i explained these were veins, and showed him my veins and we found his in his arm. We discussed how blood moves in our veins and how the veins in a leave moved the food and water to help the plant grow. Henry then had a go at drawing the veins in the leaf.

We are very sad to leave our sunflowers before they have flowers, but they are going to a great home with one of Henry's friend's who has promised to update us with lots of photos when they flower.

A little exercise can be a fun thing!

2009-07-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

Henry loves my exercise mat, and you can guarantee that if i want to try and catch a few minutes to try some exercises on the floor mat, Henry is there jumping on me!

So yesterday he came to me with the balls and band that i use in an exercise class that i do each week called Restore The Core run by Stroller Fit and said "can i do my exercises", so i thought why not, we could have some fun together and both get a work out!

We started with a warm of up of stretching up to the sky, down to the flowers, out like a big balloon, and then started on what Henry called "the exercises".

We did some fun moves with the exercise balls and band, that when executed correctly can improve core strength. With Henry i just wanted him to have fun, so i wasn't to worried about how he looked.

After finished our exercises (which lasted about 10 minutes) we finished with warm down stretching. Henry was particularly good at the "cat and the cow" stretches where you arch your back and then drop your belly alternately holding each for 5-10 seconds. Even more funny was when we both added the animal sounds to the moves.

If i can keep exercise this fun for him, I'm on a winner!

Car painting and washing

2009-07-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

This is an idea that we first tried out last summer. Since then we have replicated the activity a number of times. Great for a warm day outside.

Last summer we attended a street art show, where the most occupied booth of the whole show was a real full sized car, being painted by kids. After putting on an apron, the kids were given paint and told to go make a masterpiece, it was amazing.

Henry went straight for the headlights with the yellow paint, then decorated it all over with purple sports here and there. It gave him an idea........He was going to paint mummy's car when we got home......It gave me an idea.......to let him loose with his washable paints on his outdoor ride in car (his Cosy Coupe).

Dressed in messy clothes Henry was very enthusiastic about the idea. The car was painted in a multitude of colours, and this activity kept him occupied the first time for hours! The second time not quite as long, but the novelty was still there.

After all that hard work painting the car, Henry got to work with water, a sponge and washing up liquid to clean the car, so he could start all over again.

This fun activity allowed him to create art on a large scale with absolutely no expectation or suggestion from me as to how he should do it. A great way to develop creativity i think.

Pizza making

2009-06-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had pizza for dinner. Rather than buy a ready made one, Henry prepared and designed ours for us!

With a little guidance, he added the ingredients one by one, then proceeded to design the toppings into faces.

I expected mushroom eyes, pepper eye brows and mouth and ham nose...

Henry as unpredictable as ever created me an "alien face". Very carefully he arranged the peppers in a circle, ham in the centre and one mushroom for the mouth.

The alien!

For my pizza, he created another face of sorts!

Very excited he waited for the pizza to cook then enjoyed eating it!

Eric Carle Art project

2009-06-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Eric Carle books are favourites in our household. I never thought the art work in them was that impressive though. However, on a trip to the Du Page Children's museum, we created a piece of art work based loosely on Eric Carle's style of illustrations. A Fire truck.

I found out about his processes and became quite fascinated, so much so we completed the process at home.

Very simply, Eric Carle paints layers of differing colour on top of each other, letting each layer dry before adding the next. After that he draws an outline of the illustration. Then he cuts out shapes from the previously painted paper and adds them to create a design such as the Hungry Caterpillar.

If you want to follow the process in the correct order as we did, we discussed the subject that Henry wanted to create. He chose a dinosaur this time. Your choice of subject matter may influence the colour of paints you use to create your painted paper with. Henry just wanted to use every colour however and deal with what it made the dinosaur look like later!

We painted using water colour sponge brushes (the ones that already have paint in that you just dip in water). Rather than paint numerous layers, i just suggested to Henry he use a few different colours. - The paper before it dried.

Once dry, Henry cut the paper into random shaped bits. He loves cutting, and with no lines to follow, and the instruction "cut as many bits as you want" given, he was very enthusiastic about this bit!

Henry then drew the outline of the dinosaur then got sticking. To finish off the masterpiece he drew on the arms and legs with pen.

Henry's take on Eric Carle's art style!

The simple pleasures of being a child

2009-06-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

Puddle jumping and sand pits

With so much emphasis put on our children's learning and development i think it is sometimes just great to see them enjoy those things that we as adults just don't quite get!

Our weather this week has been interesting to say the least.

With much excitement when we got home the other day after torrential rain, Henry was desperate to put on his rain boots and go jump in the puddles! Sometimes you just have to ignore the washing and mess it will cause and just take a look at the face of the child you have just made soooo happy!

Henry jumped, ran, splashed and explored the puddle for at least 20 minutes! On entry back into the house the boots emptied out at least an inch of water each and he was soaked. But he was one HAPPY Henry!

Following the rain we have had amazing weather for the last few days. Humidity like a jungle, but at least it feels like summer might be here. With that, Henry is now once again attached to his sandpit. With a new load of sand added into the tray he was occupied for hours yesterday. Digging and sand moving with his trucks and diggers!

When asked, he was building new roads and bridges. Creating foundations and earth moving...what an imagination!

Outdoor Hour - Challenge # 27 - Bees

2009-06-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

This week's Outdoor Hour challenge for us is Challenge #27 - Bees

This week, Henry has been at camp at the Botanic gardens. Yesterday the class spent the morning studying bees and discussing bees and their activities. I thought I'd jump on Henry's enthusiasm and we could do this outdoor hour challenge with his new found knowledge.

I checked out the bee's in the Botanic garden today and found out some interesting facts and snapped a couple of good pictures.After much discussion on the subject, I thought we would start with a craft. A bee!

Using tissue paper (in balls and cut into squares), we designed our bee. I drew the basic body, head and wing shapes which Henry cut out.

I then tore tissue paper up and Henry helped me screw it into little balls; very good for developing strength and co-ordination with the hands. He drew stripes on the bee's body, the proceeded to stick the tissue paper on in stripes.

With the head, we used a more mosaic approach, using little squares of tissue paper. I offered Henry one eye or two - he chose two. For the wings, i was going to have him use tissue paper, but he announced that he would like feathers! Good thing i carry such stock!

We put the bee together, and it looks great.

After the art, we did a little writing practice and made our journal entries.

With a little help Henry drew the bee honeycomb shapes and practiced his letter b and B writing, and described bees a little.

Patio words

2009-06-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

At every occasional glimpse of the sun at the moment, we take the opportunity to enjoy a little fun and learning out doors.

This simple idea kept us busy for about five minutes, but it was a lot of fun.

Henry is starting to recognise a few words from some reading books, so to make sure he's not just learning the book off by heart (rather than reading) we look for original ways to practice the words.

A few months back i did something similar just for letters, on the beach. I use chalk, so it washes away and we can practise new things each time.

I write letters, numbers or words on the floor, then i ask Henry to find a specific letter or number and "JUMP ON IT".

Alternatively i suggest an object and ask him to find its first letter. With the words i asked him to find specific words. Then as a follow up i asked him to randomly jump on words and tell me what they were.

Polar bear encounter

2009-06-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post this, purely for you to see the photos I took today of Henry up close & personal with a polar bear.

At Lincoln Park zoo in Chicago we visited Henry's favourite animals; giraffes, penguins and now polar bears!

We shall add an entry with follow up activities, but for now, just have a look at how close Henry got to this bear, and the amazing wonder of this huge

animal swimming so gracefully.

Peggy Notebart Nature Museum - Trip Out

2009-06-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

One of our favourite museums in Chicago is the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum. Packed full of kid friendly exhibits and experiences it is a real treat.

Today we struck lucky and had an amazing visit.

The butterfly house was great, and Henry was far more relaxed as they fluttered by in close proximity. We went hunting for Henry's butterflies friends the painted ladies, but saw so many more. Check out the great slide show of some that i caught on camera at the bottom of this entry.

Although the butterflies are the main draw to this museum, every day, an animal that can be petted is normally on show as well. However today we found three, just waiting for us. Hen

ry, much to my amazement showed no hesitation in getting up close and personal with all three!

First he was intrigued by a HUGE python. He stroked it and described it as "warm and smooth".

Next he got down in amongst some very long suffering tortoises! He picked them up, turned them over, checked out their legs, eyes, tail, and shell. He even tried out his own experiment to see what happened when he put them on their backs....needless to say my intervention on behalf of the poor tortoise was needed at this point!

A lizard was also sat calmly (did not move a muscle) on an arm chair, so Henry checked that out "hard and rough". I'm not sure he believed me that it was real though, as it was so still.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Create a "Twombly" - Art project

2009-06-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

After over two years in Chicago, my husband & I finally made it to the Chicago Art Institute last week. After browsing musch of the museum, we came across a tempory exhibit by Cy Twombly. My first comment to my husband was "I have to try this with Henry...he will manage one of these easily"!

Twombly's work is bright, bold, and appears to follow a simple technique; splodging paint on paper and letting it run to the bottom!

So today, Henry and I tried to replicate this famous artist's work.

We used water colour paper as a solid base to work on. Then Henry colour washed the paper to form a colourful base on which to work.

I then provided 4 different coloured paints for him to splodge with. Using a piece of balled up kitchen roll, Henry added paint to the paper a couple of times, before returning to get more paint.

To replicate Twombly as best we could to start with, I suggested Henry use just one splodging colour.

For our last piece however, I just let him loose on all the paints, but suggested he add each colour to the paper maybe only 4-5 times before moving to the next colour.

We worked on this for about half an hour, and I think we made a pretty good attempt at creating a Twombly!

The outdoor Hour - Butterflies

2009-06-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

This week's Outdoor hour challenge was Challenge #22 Butterflies. If you have been following the blog so far you will know that we have raised our own butterflies from Caterpillar stage.

The whole experience of watching the middle stages of the life cycle of a butterfly have been fascinating for both Henry and I. I can't think of a more engaging way to learn about this subject.

After 32 years, I saw first hand, caterpillars close up, eating leaves, spinning silk and creating a large amount of poop for such a small creature!

The change into chrysalis was fascinating, as was the change in colour of the chrysalis over the 10 days they developed. This morning, to see the chrysalis wiggle intermittently and then watch a butterfly emerge as we ate our breakfast was a unique experience.

With live creatures and detailed photos on hand. Henry went about recording the appearance of his butterflies.

We started with finger painting our painted lady. Looking carefully at the photo to add detail in the right places.

Henry then did an amazing drawing of the butterfly with its wings closed (rather than open). With little guidance from me he drew the butterfly from the photo.

He made a point of telling me what he was drawing at each stage: the wings, its head (with a x in the middle of its eye), its body. It has 4 legs. It has 2 antennae with white dots on the end. It has a long tongue. I encouraged him to look carefully at the photo and count specific features such as circles and colours. Which he then carefully added to his drawing in crayons and pencils.

In addition to recording his observations in art form, Henry and I also discussed in detail how to describe the butterfly. I captured his thoughts and he wrote the key words.

We also went over the life cycle of the butterfly once more - a process I think Henry dosn't even need to think about anymore, because he has been exposed to it in such a physical way.

The first butterfly has arrived

2009-05-31T18:58:00.000-07:00

First in the kitchen this morning, Henry was more than a little excited to find that his first butterfly has emerged from its chrysalis in the early hours.

After watching it intently, we decided to provide it with some food. Watermelon on hand we gave it a nice juicy bit...only for me to have to re think an hour later as it kept getting soggy in the watermelon juice that pooled around the fruit!!!

Anyway, as usual my inventiveness shined through! Emptying out the mesh basket with all the paints in (which are now just dumped on the floor) we gave our new butterfly a more satisfactory home. It even spent the afternoon outside in the fresh air in its new home!

On the last few occasions that we have visited a butterfly house, Henry has been scared of the butterflies as they fluttered past him. However today, his inquisitiveness got the better of him. I showed him how the butterfly walked onto my hand with no hesitation and described how it felt to him. Regardless of Henry's education, this was a new one for me......it was FANTASTIC.

Shortly after, Henry had his hand down into the habitat and the butterfly climbed obligingly onto Henry. He was literally shaking with excitement and intrepidation. He was so excited by the experience though, it was amazing. It was all i could do all afternoon to keep him from making the butterfly a permanent attachment to him!

At bed time we read all the Caterpillar and butterfly books he has in his collection. With another butterfly expected tomorrow (with two of the other chrysalis's darkening) he went to bed a very happy boy.

Caterpillar update

2009-05-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, some of our caterpillars made it to chrysalis stage. It took about 4 days for 5 caterpillars to make it to the top of the jar to create their cocoons. One of those making the top never cocooned.

It was with great excitement, and Henry very worried about disturbing them, on 26th May that we moved them into their new habitat, to hang as cocoons and hopefully come out as butterflies.

The chrysalis's are fascinating to look at. A silvery grey green colour, you can see the caterpillar inside, but also an area where i guess the wings are forming.

The caterpillar's spikes appear like a gold colour through the chrysalis.

So we will wait with patience and hope that at least one of these creatures will make it through the whole cycle so that Henry may experience this amazing natural wonder first hand.

We will keep you posted!

Spring Valley Nature Centre - Field trip

2009-05-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

With my moms group, we take educational trips to Spring Valley Nature Centre each year - it is a fantastic location offering great programmes for all ages of kids.

For our group this time, the theme was "spring has sprung".

After watching a puppet show about fledglings, we ventured out to the greenhouse to plant sunflower seeds, and explore what it was that was going to make them grow.

On outside we went nest spotting in the entrance to the centre.

Out in the woodland the kids went on a great exploration. First they explored the bugs found under an old tree trunk.

Next they were given a small piece of card with 4 different textures on; rough, smooth, soft and hard. They then went touching leaves, bark, and dirt exploring what each thing felt. They were all totally into this, and its something I'd like to reproduce at home sometime.

Bugs often see different colours to our eyes, so with coloured paddles each of the kids viewed the world from a different colour perspective.

After our class we went for a walk to the working farm museum, where we saw a cow being milked, and the horse powering the corn grinder. Henry tried his hand at talking to the geese, then decided it was far more fun to try being a sheep dog herding the ducks!!!

Taking the train to the City

2009-05-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

We have lived in the USA for over 2 years now, and this weekend was the first time Henry and i have ever taken the train into the city. With our departure back to the UK now in the near future, this was one of the "must do's" before we leave.

With Kevin's sister and cousin in town, a trip to the city was the ideal opportunity to take the train...surely four adults and 1 Henry could manage the trip!

Henry found the arrival of the train rather noisy!

We took the trip from our local station on the Metra. Only a 45 minute ride, we sat on the top floor and took in the views. Racing the cars and even a fire truck. Seeing who could spot the city first and laughing at all the cars stuck on the freeway in a jam.

Henry enjoyed the trip a lot, although did utter "are we there yet" a number of times on the way there, and counted down the stations on the way back. He repeated every station arrival announcement as well.

Once in the city we checked out the memorial day parade.

Spent some time in Millennium park and down at the yacht club enjoying the great weather.

Chicago Botanic Garden - Trip out

2009-05-22T17:14:00.000-07:00

My most favourite place to visit around Chicago is the the Botanic Garden. No matter what time of year you go, you a get an amazing and varied view of the garden.

As a learning experience, every trip to the garden is full of exploration, colours, playing in the water, spotting animals and birds and getting a lot of fresh air. We spend at least 2 hours each time and never see everything we want to...still i am always happy to promise a return visit.

This week, Henry and I took a friend and her two children with us. The boys had a great time running around and getting soaked in the water.

Henry was captivated by the water falls that part as you place your hand into them. They are really cool and create a lot of opportunities for seeing what kind of shapes you can create with different body parts! Hands, feet, whole arms, and once he even stuck his head in!

The great thing about this garden is the signage and information. In the sensory garden we found Lambs ears, which the kids loved touching. The youngest in our trip exclaimed that the plant felt just like her favorite soft toy.

On our way round the garden we spotted huge fish, tiny tadpoles, lots of robins, and even dragon flies.

An absolutely fantastic trip. Somewhere I can highly recommend.

Chicago Botanic Garden

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Thank you cards

2009-05-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

With the end of Henry's first year at school almost upon us, there was a flurry of activity in the last week making cards for friends and teachers.

Despite Henry's insistence at school that art is not for him...he can be very creative when he puts his mind to it.

Early planning and preparation ensured that Henry's teachers cards were created with enthusiasm and no nagging on my part! I suggested he should draw two different flowers and left the rest to him.

He very carefully drew flowers with petals, stems and leaves. Prepared on water colour paper he then got to work painting his masterpieces - each one a complete Henry original.

With the end of school, Henry also prepared good bye cards for his friends.

I wrote each individuals name in oil pastel (white), then suggested he used water colours to find which invisible name of his school friends was written on the card .

We used colour mixing; red and yellow, blue and yellow, and red and blue. And he was intrigued by the way the colours mixed on the card.

13 Henry original note cards...I'm going to use this idea for thank you cards in the future, as i was surprised how great they came out.

Pirate treasure fun

2009-05-19T19:07:00.000-07:00

With the sun making a warm appearance today, we got out in the garden to play. Pirate treasure was the theme.

First things first Henry needed to think he was a pirate - out came the bandanna....and two socks tied together for an eye patch...a scary pirate don't you think?

We then got busy preparing the treasure chests for our first activity. Henry coloured them in and then cut them out. While he was doing that i was busy burying the treasure; Lego's to you or I....golden nuggets, ruby stones, emeralds and diamonds to Henry!

We then got digging with desert spoons for the treasure, which was a lot of fun.

Covered in sand, the treasure then needed a wash! The empty liquid soap bottle i was just about to throw away, suddenly became the best thing ever to wash the Lego's with...not to mention feet, the dog and the patio.

With clean treasure, Henry then sorted it into the right treasure chest by colour.

We then counted our pieces of treasure and graphed our findings

Out in the back garden Henry had a lot of fun pretending to be a pirate, and our poor dog was dragged in to be deckhand!

The caterpillars have arrived!

2009-05-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

After much anticipation, our caterpillars arrived today.

We have one of my friend's; Melissa, to thank for the idea and the provision of these tiny creatures.

We have seven small caterpillars of the painted Lady butterfly, living in a jar in our kitchen now for the next few weeks!

Henry saw a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis when we were in New Zealand, and ever since he has been intrigued by caterpillars and the process by which they become butterflies. Hopefully we will have some success with these creepy crawlies and he will experience first hand, how caterpillars transform themselves.

We are going to create a caterpillar calendar, by which to keep an eye on these small black lines (which are about 2cm long today), to ensure we check regularly their progress.

I'll update the blogs as changes occur.

Today, Henry created his first journal page - drawing and describing the caterpillars.

The Outdoor Hour - Squirrels

2009-05-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

Today we took a nature walk around our neighbourhood to check out our local squirrels for the Outdoor Hour Challenge #45 - Squirrels

Now, it may be that we had our dog with us, or it maybe that they had all got a little scared and were having a sleep in after the storm last night......whatever the reason we did not see one squirrel!

However, we did spot what we think are two different squirrel nests.

We discussed everything about squirrels as we walked around....where we were likely to see them, where they lived, what they ate, what colour they were, how many feet, what their tail

was used for. So despite not seeing one on our walk, Henry was in squirrel mode for the walk!

On return home, i threw out a load of bread onto the back lawn, and within 10 minutes we had two squirrels in the back garden, which Henry watched, as they chased each other across the lawn, along the fence and up and down the trees.

Henry did a drawing of a squirrel, in oil pastels and water colours after we looked carefully at a photo i took recently in our garden. We also made a journal entry about squirrels.

We then read two squirrel books:

Nuts to You - By Lois Ehlert - a simple book with unusual illustrations about a squirrel who comes to someones house to get food.

A Squirrel's Tale - By Richard Fowler - An interactive book, where you move a small squirrel through flaps in the book on his hunt for his nuts. This has been a favorite of Henry's for some time and he knows the words off by heart!

The latest on our sunflowers.....

2009-05-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

This is an update to my earlier post on growing sunflowers, which we started as part of the Outdoor Hour - Challenge #16 - Growing sunflowers

Much to my amazement, Henry's sunflowers are all going pretty strong. I guess they do have 6-8 foot to grow in a couple of months, but since our first entry on 29th April, when the seeds were planted, the plants have grown to a stunning 19cm to date!

Henry and I are measuring them every couple of days and recording on a bar chart their growth. We have chosen his school sunflowers to follow closely, so these are the stars of his blog.......must give them names!

We are also creating a journal entry, every time something new happens to the plants.

So here are our journal entries, and a few photos to go with them.

Henry's school sunflowers on 6th May - seven days after planting the seeds.

Some still had their seeds holding the leaves shut, whilst other seeds had popped off to show 2 leaves.

Some of the other 50 sunflowers we have planted!

Today, Henry's followed sunflower had produced two new small leaves. So wemade a journal page for this.

We potted on his school sunflowers at the weekend out of the cramped starter pot. Examining the roots as we went.

A simple science experiment with lemons

2009-05-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

I got this simple science experiment from The snails trail a great pre school blog that I follow.

What you need:

2 Lemons, baking soda and liquid soap

Apparently, there is some suggestion that if you roll a lemon and squash it a little, before squeezing, the extraction of juice is easier, and you get more...we set out to find if this was true.

Experiment 1.

Using the instruction sheet prepared my momma snail (see link above), Henry got about trying to figure out what we needed to do this

experiment.

As a bit of fun, I dressed him in one of Kevin's old white work shirts and he wore a pair of Kevin's reading glasses as goggles!

I cut the first lemon in half, then Henry got

squeezing "pretty hard...mummy you do it" was Henry's answer. So i squeezed

all I could and got about 1fluid oz of juice.

Henry then rolled and squashed the second lemon, after which i cut it in half. Henry once again got squeezing....so i asked "is this any easier"...he replied "no its harder!" so much for the hypothesis of this experiment! It was pretty hard for him to squeeze the lemons, so once again i finished the squeezing and Henry recorded his observations....

There was a tiny amount more squeezed from the rolled lemon. But it was just as hard to squeeze both.

Experiment 2.

The second experiment was a little more exciting, as we promised Henry an explosion of sorts!

This time we were going to see whether we could create lemon suds!

To start with i had Henry make a prediction about what was going to happen and record that idea. He thought there would be bubbly lemon juice.

With daddy's help we got started on this one.

We placed 1 teaspoon of baking soda in a glass, added a teaspoon of washing up liquid, then poured in the juice from one of the lemons.

Quickly stirring, Henry's excitement grew quite quickly as the bubbles and froth headed towards the top of the glass and then over flowed!

Daddy, ever the scientist wanted to see what happened with a tablespoon of each of the ingredients and a whole lot of lemon juice...the result, a table covered in white frothy bubbles and a giggling Henry....boys will be boys!

The data sheets from the experiment

2009-05-09T17:55:00.001-07:00

So...thanks go out to Henry's Aunty Janet for this activity. Replicated several times on the last few weekends, Henry loves to make this cake for breakfast. This morning was the first time I caught it on camera, as I normally hear the hysterics from the comfort of my bed, as this seems to be a good daddy activity.

This cake is so simple. The utensils you will need are measuring spoons, a large coffee mug and a microwave.

Ingredients

4tbs Self

raising flour

4tbs caster sugar

2tbs cocoa powder

1 egg

3tbs milk

3tbs sunflower oil

3 tbs chocolate chips (optional)

A small dash of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Add dry ingredients to the mug and mix well.

2. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Check out the pictureof Henry breaking the egg! A skill he still needs to perfect! Do it into a separate bowl while learning though and it dosn't hurt to

practice!

3. Add the milk and the oil - mix well.

4. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla extract and mix again.

5. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes (in a 1000 watt microwave)

6. The cake will rise above the top of the mug...its supposed to!

7. Allow to cool a little, tip on a plate and serve with cream/ice cream etc.

This serves 2, however Henry seems to like this cake and managed the whole thing this morning without any help!

Colourful Chameleons

2009-05-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

With the help of the Mailbox magazine this month, Henry and I spent just under an hour doing several activities based on the book "A color of his own" by Leo Lionni. This story tells of a chameleon who desperately wants to have a colour like all the other animals. in his search for one colour, he finds something even better - a friend who changes colour just like him.

Prior to reading the book, I explained about chameleons changing their colour to match the object they were close to and asked for him to tell me what colour the chameleon would be on the grass; green, in the sky; blue and on a strawberry; red. We discussed whether Henry changed colour "don't be silly mummy" was his reply. So I asked him what colour he was...now this stumped him! So I asked what colour he thought I was..."pink". We then had a quick discussion about the other colours of people skin.

After reading the book, which he thought was great (especially the purple chameleon pictures)...which rather inspired his art work.... we did our first activity.

I provided Henry with a chameleon drawn on paper (downloaded from Mailbox website), which he cut out. We then discussed what colour he wanted to make his chameleon...purple of course. So I then asked for suggestions on what he may sit on to be that colour. Berries and flowers were good answers, but he decided on a purple berry, which he drew and coloured. then he placed the coloured chameleon on top and wrote a description at the top of the page.

Our second activity was a fun bit of art. Again I provided another chameleon which he cut out. He then covered a page in purple paint using his fingers...he loves messy stuff! He even realised he could draw shapes and write his name during this painting exercise using his nails. Insisting every last inch of the paper was covered in purple paint, he then added the chameleon on top and proceeded to change the chameleon the colour of the paper with more finger paint......a lot of fun.

Our last activity, which we did outside was colour matching chameleons to their leaves. Once again I used templates from Mailbox to do this. With only three colours this was a fast exercise, but one which reinforced the whole colour matching exercise.

A nature reserve field trip

2009-05-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

With one of our moms groups we headed out to enjoy the warm and dry weather today. Around our area there are some fantastic nature reserves with educational centres attached.

With a group of around seven kids we ventured out around the reserve on a nature walk. Henry spent most of the walk around running, and playing with sticks with a new friend he met.

When we spotted something worthy of notice, we called the kids over to have a look with a quick discussion.

Today we found some animal tracks which we asked for ideas on what they could be. Lots of very sensible answers. I checked them out, and based on this identification leaflet I think we found raccoon and deer tracks.

There are are also a lot of seed pods still about, and we found some milk weed seed pods, which the kids enjoyed dispersing through the reserve! With much exploration of the undergrowth, various other seeds got stuck to clothes, which gave us the ideal opportunity to discuss how sticky seeds moved and dispersed.

The reserve had large areas of grassland, some woodland and water areas. all of which we explored during the couple of hours we were out. With company for Henry and myself, this was a fun but educational walk experiencing nature.

Our indoor garden!!!

2009-05-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

We have been very enthusiastic with planting things just recently. So much so we can hardly see the kitchen table for greenery! Every time Henry finds a seed he wants to plant it!

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to keep you updated with the growth of our plants...so here goes.

The sunflowers that we planted only last Wednesday, have now popped through the soil today. It appears that we have about 90% germination rate on the home planted seeds.

Henry also planted 3 sunflower seeds at school on the same day and they all appeared today as well...breakfast was exciting as we checked on seed progress!

The beans we planted weeks ago are still healthy and climbing up their little sticks. One may even have flowers developing????

Our cress heads are almost all done now, with just one surviving, they have grown for a whole couple of weeks before we forgot to water the others! This picture was taken a few days ago whilst they were all well alive.

We planted a kit of grow your own sensitive plants a couple of weeks ago. And despite being tipped on the table just after they emerged by an over enthusiastic Henry...we have 50% germination rate. Not bad for a kit costing a whole $1 from Target! They are just starting to develop their second set of leaves.

I planted an avocado seed in water a couple of weeks ago, though i'm not sure if anything is happening! Info i've found suggests maybe a 3-4wk germination on this one, so we shall give it another week and then try again if nothing appears.

Not forgetting the oregano, basil and rosemary on the floor of the dining room and the lettuces which are just about rabbit ready!

Jim Gill Concert

2009-05-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

This week seems to be a very cultural one!

This evening we went to a Jim Gill concert held at our local library. For those of you not familiar with his music...he is great! Henry loves all his songs, knows most of the words and loves the actions that go with them.

The sneezing song is a lot of fun, as is the silly dance contest! With out even realising it, Henry is listening to instructions and following them! He is moving and clapping in time to a beat and is singing along and learning words....good thing he thinks it is so much fun!

One of Jim's books May there always be sunshine, was the idea behind one of the projects that Henry has done at pre school. The book asks you to think about what you would always like there to be, and then sing it. Traditional words from the song include "may there always be sunshine, may there always be good times"...whilst the ideas kids add range from ice cream, to dinosaurs thru cake and birthdays...anything goes!

Jim introduced us to his new book and CD "A Soup Opera" tonight. A story all about a man who orders soup in a restaurant then calls for the waiter, police, mayor, president...singing "i can't eat this soup"....you will have to read the book to find out why!

I highly recommend his music. Check out his website for details on his books and music.

www.jimgill.com

Seussical the musical

2009-05-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a family trip to the theater. We went to see Seussical the musical and it was GREAT.

Henry loves Dr Seuss books, and this show captured his imagination for the full 70 minute long show. Loads of music, dancing, bright costumes and identifiable characters.

No doubt, Dr Seuss books will be high on the agenda for bedtime stories again!

Join the Cat in the Hat in this fantastical, magical, musical extravaganza! Seussical lovingly brings to life all of the favorite Dr. Seuss characters, including Horton the Elephant, Gertrude McFuzz, Lazy Mayzie and all of the Whos of Whoville. These classic, colorful tales are seamlessly brought together by JoJo, a young girl and "thinker of strange and wonderful thinks." Seussical is a musical that appeals to all ages!

Website with synopsis of the story and short clips of the music.

www.mtishows.com/show_detail.asp?showid=000229

Caps For Sale

2009-05-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

We recently read the book Caps For Sale, written by Esphyr Slobodkina. A tale of a peddler, some monkeys and their monkey business!

A couple of activities that we created to go with the book were a lot of fun.

What you will need:

As many hats/caps of any size, colour or shape as

you can find. Try and provide a variation for the second activity. I searched out my winter and summer hats and my horse riding helmet!

The first thing I did was to balance as many hats/caps/helmets as I could find in the house on my head as I read the book the second time. I got Henry to help as the pile on my head got taller.

I then challenged Henry to balance as many hats as he could on his head. It was a challenge for both of us, with all the hats of different sizes nothing fitted very well together! Half the fun was watching them all topple over.

The second activity was to take photos of each of the hats on Henry's head and create a little book of hats. With the book we did two things:

The first was to find the hat in the pile that matched the hat in the photo.

Second was that we tried to guess who may wear each hat and what they may do wearing it. I tried to spark his imagination with so many winter woolly hats...one we decided was for the snowman, another for a skier, and another for an Eskimo!

These are all the hats Henry tried on and the photos we created for our book.

Sunflower measuring

2009-05-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so in May there are no sunflowers to measure....so we embraced the whole spring thing, and made our own! You could make any flowers, but i found a template for sunflowers so i went with that one.

This activity is great for developing the concept of measuring, and counting above 20.

You will need:

4 - 8 flower heads - whatever shape or size.

Some green paper cut into strips for stalks

A measuring device - for fun we used a ladybug measure rather than numbers

Small pieces of paper and pens to record the measurements

Some tacky stuff to fix it all to a wall.

I started by sticking 6 flowers to the wall at different heights, then adding their stalks. I then encouraged Henry to measure their heights. He needed my help for the taller ones to hold the measure as he counted, but otherwise he figured out how to hold the tape and count at the same time!

I let him decide which order to measure the flowers. We measured in ladybugs then recorded the number on a piece of paper which we stuck next to the flower head. He wrote the numbers as best he could - all good practice.

After the first three we both started to estimate how many lady bugs tall the other flowers would be. Henry was amazingly accurate and didn't give me wild answers!

With all the flowers measured we then set about measuring each other for a bit of fun. I'd deliberately made the measure tape way longer than we needed. Henry had to stand on a chair to get my height which he though was very funny.

This is a reusable activity, so take everything off the wall and keep safe, then the next time set the flowers at different heights and start all over again!

Tot School

2009-05-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, so i'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing, but i found this great website on home schooling ideas, which runs something called "tot school". The whole idea of blogging my activities with Henry was to inspire others and share the type of ideas i am always looking for, so love the fact that this site shares so many ideas i can use with Henry.

Each week i will produce a run down of our week's activities, all of which are covered in greater detail in my blog.

So here goes!

This week we planted sunflowers and documented the process to complete challenge #16 with

handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com

We also took a nature walk around our neighbourhood to spot and photograph all the flowers we could see. Henry loves using my digital SLR..although its a little big for him at present. I got the photos developed and we are now working through them and doing a piece of art and a few lines about each flower to put in our nature journal.

We had a great trip to the aquarium in Chicago this week. I love getting out and about, and Chicago has so many great places to see and do.

We started to develop our recognition of letters and words with a simple activity. Placing flower shapes with letters on at the top of stems to create words. We started with Henry's name then moved onto words with strong letter sounds.

We also did a fun measuring activity. I stuck pictures of sunflowers to the wall at different heights and Henry measured each in number of ladybugs (on the tape). We concluded by measuring each other.

The outdoor hour

2009-05-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have found a fantastic blog; The handbook of nature study.

handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com

It offers laods of inspiring and simple activities/challenges to get you and your kids out and about noticing the outdoors. It only requires 15 minutes outside for each activity, and this can be in your back yard, the street...wherever.

I will feature a

number of the challenges as we do them.

Our first outdoor challenge is #16 - Growing sunflowers.

This week we planted our sunflowers..alll 50 of them that were in the packet!

Henry got fully involved, puting the soil in the pots, puting the seeds in, covering them up, and watering them.

He got some really good practice with his listening skills, fine motor and measuring as well.

We then did our journal entry, so Henry drew what the sunflower seed looked like and then we described it.

We shall look forward to monitoring the growth of all our sunflowers, and their eventual move into the back yard!

The sunflowers this week.....day 1....not a lot to see!

A further part of this challenge was to take a walk in the neighbourhood to spot any flowers, and journal these. We found so many, its going to take a while to work through them! We found, violets, daffodils, tulips, hyacynths, blossom on the trees and azaleas. Henry and i shared the picture taking during the walk, and will document them gradually!

In the mean time, enjoy the slide show of what we saw!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Letter and word recognition activity

2009-04-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Our theme this week is flowers. So i have tried to produce activities to tie to this theme.

To encourage Henry's interest in letters and word recognition further i created a simple activity, which he has enjoyed a couple of days this week so far.

I tend to to a lot of our activities on the floor, as Henry is more receptive to learning away from a table!

You will need:

Cut out shapes of flower heads in different colours, labeled with alphabet letters (at least 1 for each letter of the alphabet). For the purpose of learning mummy and daddy i added extra 2 extra Ms and Ds!

A sheet of paper with flower stems drawn on. I made ours big enough for 5 letters - so that Henry could start with his name each time.

We started with Henry's name. I laid out all the letters in his name randomly below the paper on which he would put the flowers together. I then suggested the letters would spell his name and suggested he made the flowers bloom. He loved this.

I then moved on to some simple words with strong sounds at the start and end: dog, cat, sat, mat, hot. Then we did mummy and daddy to finish.

A few words at a time we will build each time we do this activity. But Henry seems to find it "hands on" enough to not resist its learning potential!!!

Aquarium visit

2009-04-29T09:01:00.001-07:00

Last week we took a trip into the city and had a morning at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. www.sheddaquarium.org

We last visited over a year ago, at which time Henry was not that interested in looking at anything for any length of time. This visit was a whole different experience. It was all i could do to drag him away from the turtle tank, the marine reef exhibit and the rays.

We started the visit watching a diver in the marine reef exhibit feed the huge turtle, sharks and rays. This scared Henry last year, but this year he was enthralled, and was full of questions regarding why the diver didn't get eaten by the fish!

Onto all the other tanks displaying salt water, river and lake species. He asked so many questions about why the fish were certain colours or sizes.

It was so much fun. Henry & his friend spent ages sat watching a ray as it played peek a boo with them, up and down the glass of the tank...its mouth smiling!

We saw Nemo as well!

On returning home we read a number of Henry's fish type stories including:

Tiddler - The story telling fish - by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffer

(a firm favorite on the book shelf). A story all about a small fish who has a lot of excuses for arriving late at school every day!

Fidgety Fish - by Ruth Galloway

A story about an adventurous little fish who feels the need to explore.

Our activity was matching words to pictures.

I found photos on line of some of the fish we saw at the aquarium; shark, clown fish, leaf fish, plaice and sting ray, and printed them onto paper at home. I cut each picture out individually. I then printed out the name of each fish on paper and again cut these out separately.

Together, using the first letter of each word we paired the fish pictures with their names.

Shearing a sheep!

2009-04-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

Henry needed a hair cut, so yesterday we finally got around to it! Henry has also fallen in love with this book called "Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep - a yarn about wool", so i figured a way to link the two together for

a project.

I created cardboard cut outs of two sheep and explained that we were going to give one sheep wool, then give it a hair cut and then

give the other a woolly jumper (as per the story).

Henry got about cutting lengths of wool to attach to the sheep. Then we stuck them on. I made sure the lengths were plenty long enough, so that when we gave the sheep a hair cut there would be enough for the jumper!

We then left that sheep to dry.

It was then time to shear the sheep! Henry loved this bit and gave the sheep a real nice trim!

With all the wool we sheared from the sheep we then got to work dying the wool.

Henry chose purple, so we added a few drops of food colouring to some water and then dunked the wool in a small bowl to dye it. Once coloured we left it to dry for some time. We then came back to the project later.

In the mean time it was Henry's hair cut time.

We discussed that Henry was like the sheep and didn't need all his hair, and that the hair dresser used clippers, just like Farmer Brown!

Hair cut complete, it was now time to give the other sheep

its woolly jumper! So we stuck lots of bits of dyed wool all over the sheep. This time i let Henry stick the wool in whatever direction, and then we filled in the holes.

The end product - a sheep with a purple woolly jumper on!

We read the story again at bed time and discussed the project we had done. It's a great book, rhyming story & really colourful art work.

Farmer Brown Shears his sheep - a yarn about wool. By Teri Sloat. Published by Dorling Kindersly Inc.

www.terisloat.com/books/sheep.html

Great illustrations in this book which gave me the idea for this project!

Earth day art project

2009-04-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

The world in my hands........

I searched for Earth Day art projects for pre schoolers on the internet, and from the few ideas i found i created the following project.

You will need:

Blue paper

Paints to create green and brown

Pink paper

Paper to place the project on

Glue

A small photo of your child

Something to paint with - today we went green and used broccoli!!!!

First Henry traced around a baking tin circle to get the earth

shape, which he then cut out.

Next we mixed yellow & blue to create green paint, and the same plus orange to create brown paint - an ideal chance to discuss colour mixing.

We then used broccoli to paint with. Henry loved this idea and was well into it, discussing which countries he was creating - America, UK and New Zealand and who he knows that lives in each. We then let this part of the project dry.

I then traced around his hand, then let him cut them out. I wasn't sure if the hands would have 5 fingers left after he had attacked them with scissors, as this is by far the trickiest thing he has used scissors for. But he figured it out gradually and left both hands intact!

I then cut some pieces of paper for him to write each of the words on. "the world in my hands" and guided his letter formation.

I then took a picture of him and printed it out (at fairly low quality) on my home printer, then put the whole thing together. A great keepsake for the first "earth day" he and i have celebrated.

Recycling sort out

2009-04-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

With Earth Day about to occur, i figured now was a good time to introduce the idea of recycling to Henry. We recycle loads in a very easy no sort system, picked up every week where we live nr Chicago.

A put a good selection of recyclable stuff in our washing basket, placed pieces of paper on the floor labeled: Paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminium and glass, then set about the sorting process.

First i asked Henry to try to identify which label is which from the first letter of the word. All good letter practice.

Next we started to take articles out of the basket and figure oat where they went. We used our senses lots. We felt the object for any idea of what it may be, we tapped it for the noise it made...i discouraged smelling however!

Gradually we placed the articles into groups. For the plastic items, i got Henry to turn each upside down to look for the recycle logo, and to tell me the number in the middle each time. This allowed us to discuss what this symbol meant.

I took pictures of the articles, which we will use to make a recycling book tomorow.

On the next recycling collection i will try and get us to watch the collection of our articles from their box and atke further pictures for the book, and discuss where Henry thinks the articles might go and what they may be made into.

Mr or Mrs Cress Head!

2009-04-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Today, six of Henry's 3-4 year old friends completed this fun activity. This is one from my childhood that is considered by some to be a "must do" before you reach 10 yrs old!

Incorporating a craft project, science, and fine motor skills, kids learn without even realising it.

What you will need

Egg shell or top half of a plastic Easter egg (the type used for Easter egg hunts)

Cress seeds

Cotton wool

Decorating materials (we used stick on stuff, but you can just use felt pens on egg shells).

Small container for easy water pouring

Egg cup or something similar to hold the project safely.

Having completed this many times before i made my own way through the project, but for a comprehensive outline and more info check out this great web page.

www.planet-science.com/parents/easter_pdfs/cress+foil.pdf

Firstly i had Henry and all the other kids decorate their eggs. We used plastic egg halves as we had plenty left over from Easter and they are less fragile for small hands. We used googly eyes, felt and sticky foam bits for extra fun. But on egg shells you can easily just use felt pens.

Next, we put cotton wool inside the egg shell, and added water. No science here, just keep pouring till the cotton wool is saturated. Using a small jug, even the

smallest kids were able to water their own eggs.

Next i measured out cress seeds into a small pot, which allowed the kids to put their own seeds onto the cotton wool with very little intervention. Some just tipped the lot on top then spread them with fingers, others carefully places seeds a few at a time into the egg shell - fantastic for fine motor skills.

We will continue to water the cress seeds for the next few days, and look forward to a full head of cress sprouting in a few days time.

FYI, none of my friends in USA knew of cress. You could use fast growing wheat or cat grass instead and have a grass head instead of a cress head if you can not get hold of cress seeds.

2009-04-19T07:27:00.000-07:00

Create a machine

2009-04-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

This idea is brought to you from Kevin!

Sitting on the sofa on Friday evening, wondering how to entertain Henry on a Saturday morning whilst i was going out, Kevin came up with a great project that Henry found fascinating and a lot of fun.

What you need:

Coloured paper (at least 3 colours)

Scissors & glue

An imagination!

In preparation, Kevin cut out around 20 different shapes that he imagined Henry would identify with as part of a machine - cogs, levers, conveyor belts, switches and funnels, using two different coloured papers to make it more interesting. He then stuck the frame work onto the paper (the box in which he envisaged Henry would make the machine).

With Henry they discussed that they were going to make a machine, what the parts might be that Kevin had prepared and how it might work. after that Henry had a free hand in the design of the machine.

Sticking each piece down individually, Henry came up with a pretty impressive end result....it could possibly even work!

When i got home he took the project off the fridge with great enthusiasm and explained what all the bits did in this "gravity making machine".

Definitely one to be replicated.

Build a log cabin from twigs

2009-04-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

A number of Henry's friends have a toy that allows you to build log cabins from perfectly moulded imitation logs, small scale of course. I've not got around to purchasing that toy yet, so whilst out dog walking in the local woods and throwing sticks, i came up with this idea for us when we got home at absolutely no cost.

You will need.

At least 20 small twigs. As long, short, thin or fat as you want, just try & get them relatively similar so that the building process is not too frustrating! We had twigs about the thickness of your smallest finger and about 6" long, they worked very well.

Bark. This is optional for the roof. I came across this on my walk and instantly thought "roof"! Otherwise provide more twigs for the roof.

I built the log cabin first so Henry could see what i was suggesting we did with the materials.

I then dismantled it and said, "see what you can do".

Henry needed a little guidance for the first 6 sticks, then i was no longer needed and the structure grew very quickly. With twigs rolling if not balanced correctly, and the slightest nudge destroying the structure this was a patience building as well as a logical thinking exercise.

Once built i asked Henry who may like to live in the small cabin. He came up with "Warehouse Mouse" from his favourite programme of the moment - Imagination Movers! We discussed what the mouse might do in the house - "eat cheese" and how he would get in and out....hmmm that's a tricky one as this rather crude log cabin has no door. Still suggestions of cutting a hole for the door and using different sized twigs were offered...very logical!

The whole exercise lasted maybe only 10 minutes, but Henry enjoyed it. We got rid of the twigs into the garden, and so will look for some of a different size and length again sometime, to repeat the process.

Cooking: Banana,oatmeal,raisin cookies - Yum yum!

2009-04-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Henry loves getting involved in the kitchen. All too often however it ends in me getting cross and it not being fun, because the recipe i've chosen is not really that kid friendly. THIS ONE IS!

Everything is measured in cups or tea spoons.

Henry measured all the dry ingredients in himself with me just showing him where to fill up to in the cup. Then he stirred them all together.

I then added the wet ingredients, let him stir as long as

he wanted then finished the job.

For measuring out the cookies onto the baking tray there is no exact science. Small piles of dough make small cookies, large make large and so on!

We used two teaspoons and i showed Henry how to scrape one spoon off the other to deposit the dough onto the baking sheet. He did about 5 and got bored, but at least he had a go.

One bit of the process that he really got involved in was the tasting! I got a thumbs up for these, from Henry & Kevin and i've managed a few more than i should have too!

Happy cooking.

Recipe provided by a fellow mum Jill - thanks for this! Taken from www.cooks.com

Makes about 25 cookies.

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup mashed bananas

1/2 cup raisins

1 3/4 cups old fashioned oats

Add chocolate or nuts (optional)

Mix everything together in a bowl. Drop dough by teaspoon on a baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes.

Garfield Park Conservatory - Chicago - Trip out

2009-04-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

Our family love this place, and at less than an hour's drive from home it is a great resource we have for fun, relaxation, and learning as a family. A great plus is that it is free! We took a trip out on easter Sunday, and had a great time. Henry was happy to explore the whole location for over about two hours. Taking charge of the map and his parents off we went!

First exploration was in the "sugar from the sun" hall. A great voyage of discovery as we explained how the air

plants suspended above us did not require soil to live, how all the plants needed sunlight to thrive. Great excitement ensued as we all spotted the bananna trees and real fruit - something Henry could relate to as he LOVES bananas.

In the children's garden the emphasis is on using the senses. Once Henry found out how sensitive some plants can be to touch, he couldn't help himself from making them all look dead as he stroked their leaves lovingly then disolved into hysterics as the leaves closed shut and the branches drooped.

Spraying the plants with water from a bottle was a hit, as was spraying me!

The children's garden is full of great resources for learning, books and hands on stuff. A very filthy Henry emerged after playing in the soil, potting plants and uncovering bugs for quite some time. Totally engrossed.

With so much to explore we visited the desert house full of cacti, the palm house, where we found a double coconut tree and chocolate plant.....you could see Henry trying to figure that one out!

Every year the conservatory puts on an amazing display of colours in its show house. A fantasic place to explore colours, smells and just to feel a little spring in the air. We did a few plant identifications with simple flowers like tulips, daffodils, and blubells, played find a flower the colour..... and took some amazing photos.

All in all a great trip out, and a great learning experience for Henry.

www.garfield-conservatory.org

Easter egg treasure hunt

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Henry has a love of treasure hunts, which Kevin devotes hours to preparing on demand. So this year, the easter bunny prepared a treasure hunt around the back garden to find the eggs.

We placed the first clue inside an egg in a basket on the back step, and the hunt began. Each time Henry found an egg it had to be opened to reveal the treat and the next clue.

Clues consisted of drawings of places in the garden where the eggs were hidden, with some words written on as well, which Henry was at least encouraged to think about!

According to Henry..."the bunny does the best treasure hunts"!

When we complete treasure hunts in the house we try to make some of the clue drawings a little less obvious (not difficult with my drawings) and write the description of the clue location, and encourage the sounding of at least the first letter to get Henry started on what the drawing may be.

As Henry's reading and sounding of letters develops we will move more to words and less pictures.

Sequencing

2009-04-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

When i think of sequencing i think of drawing shapes or colours in a row and getting Henry to try & tell me the next one. This however has a short life as it gets boring pretty quickly.

I get as hands on as possible, encouraging the use of words as well as the act of choosing the next item in sequence. The more Henry can actively touch the better. The following are a few fun ideas that i've done.

Pizza making - we made the pizza together and i took photos of each stage, which i have since printed out and get Henry to order on their own. But while we made the pizza i encouraged the words "next" and "then". I've done a little slide show of the pizza sequence.

Other ideas we have had fun with are:

* Making a sandwich - encouraging the description of what we are doing, but also encouraging Henry to actually work out what physically comes next (e.g. butter before the cheese).

* Getting dressed - lay out clothes and ask what comes first, last etc.

*Using coloured M&Ms for actual sequencing lines on the floor - every time he gets the sequence right he gets one to eat!

* Use socks of different colours to create sequences.

*Pieces of clothing layed out - figure out what comes next - sock, T shirt, sock......

*Playgough shapes - make the first 3 or 4 then get Henry to make the next out of the playdough.

*Favourite books or characters - we do this with Thomas books and Paddington and Dr Seuss. Simple is one after each other, but this can be made pretty tricky.

You can sequence with ANYTHING. Forget the drawings in a book, if you want an attention grabbing exercise that is developing so many areas of learning go physical and touchy feely!

Easter egg tree

2009-04-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

So we are making the most of having Easter as our theme at home this week. Yesterday we made an Easter egg tree. I guess you could make the eggs out of anything to hang on the tree, but the following worked well with Henry.

You will need: card, tissue paper, glue, scissors, twigs, sand and a pot.

I cut out loads of squares

of tissue

paper of different colours. Both Henry & i did a page each (moral support and racing each other seemed to improve Henry's attention span).

We then pasted glue onto the card & got sticking. I totally let him do his own colour choices! A few white spaces are no big deal, but look to try & cover the card, and then paint a layer of glue over the top of all the tissue to secure it down & make it shiny.

It took us about 30 minutes to do the sticking, after which

we took a break to let the glue dry.

Once dry, flip the card over & trace around an egg shape as many times as possible on the page. Henry is just learning letters so i wrote "egg" on the back of the egg. Our eggs were about 3" long.

This was the first time I've ever asked Henry to trace anything other than his hand, it took a few goes, but he quickly got the hang of it.

I let Henry cut out as many eggs as he could, but it was pretty tough for

him with the card & stuff stuck on top. He managed 3 which was more than i expected.

We then paired the eggs up so that when they hung they would look good from any angle. We punched holes near the top of each egg, then threaded cotton through the holes & knotted it. I encouraged Henry to do some threading, and he managed a few eggs, though it was a pretty fiddly process, real fine motor skill development & hand & eye co-ordination.

The most fun bit for Henry - running round the garden to find

twigs for our Easter tree, filling a container with sand from hi

s sand box, then making the tree!

Hanging the eggs was really satisfying after such a long process - kept us occupied for a few hours & the tree looks great in our living room.

Easter cards

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Being easter week, with the family so far away, we got creative with our easter cards. Its fair to say Henry was very proud of these cards he made. He was 100% involved and did everything except fold the cards.

Cutting the body & head of each of the chicks out. - I drew the shapes on light weight card.
We used oil pastels to colour the body parts - Henry loves using two different colours at a time.
Use of the glue bottle - just hand it over and clear up the mess afterwards!
Henry chose the colour of feathers he wanted then stuck them where he wanted. We also added googly eyes and a foam beak...all his choosing as to their location on the body!
Finally drawing on the legs - i showed him how i thought they should look and he was more than happy to try & do it that way.

The finished article ready to make its way through the postal system....lets just hope they don't quarantine easter chicks entering the UK!!!!!!

Growing seeds

2009-04-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

Henry had farm week at pre school and ended up bringing a bean home for us to plant. It was carefully planted in soil and within a week it appeared. It now stands about 6" tall and he checks it every morning for progress.

We have also planted herbs

seeds in a mini greenhouse in the dining room and placed beans against kitchen roll inside a glass so we have watched the roots develop then the shoots...all in all great success.

Rolling with Henry's enthusiasm i came across a great jigsaw from "Judyinstructo" that i found in our library where you gradually piece together the process of seed through sunflower he loved it and we discussed it as we did it.

Our art project involved Henry cutting out the beans, discussing where we should draw the ground line, drawing the roots and other plant features as the plants developed. Then he told me what to write under each drawing. Now a prized piece of art on the fridge!

This is us...Henry & Charlie

2009-04-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

Henry & Charlie out on the beach in New Zealand.

Welcome to our Blog

2009-04-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, here goes, i'm going to attempt to capture some of the fun stuff Henry & i do at home in our spare time together.

Henry, an active 4 year old does not like to sit still, hates to think he is doing something that may cause him to be "learning" and seems to have the attention span of a gold fish! He is a very hands on kind of person and would much rather sort beans into pots than circle things the same on a page in a book. Therefore i've deveoped activities towards his style of learning and we both enjoy it a lot more.

So.... all of the activities are highly rated by Henry! I'd like to think that they have all developed his skills in numerous areas as well, and he has probably done "learning" without even realising it.

Whilst i'd like to think i am fairly creative (and my husband will vouch for that with the amount of crafts materials overflowing from drawers in our office) i use numerous resources for my ideas. We love our local library and visit nearly every week, i have just subscribed to "Mailbox" a teachers ideas magazine, and i trail the internet endlessly looking for ideas and activities.

Henry & i both hope you enjoy looking at what we do and that you may like some of the ideas enough to give them a go yourselves.