Chinese New Year

We had a little celebration of the Chinese New Year yesterday.

We started with a visual re-telling of the story of how the Jade Emperor decided on the animals of the Chinese calendar. I told the story, read from a powerpoint presentation off my laptop, and acted out the story with toys and a little scene made with tin foil, a couple of chiffons, some pebbles, bits of wood and some plastic stone and tree ornaments.  The boys were engaged, but I learnt it would have been better not to have the powerpoint presentation, for some reason they were more drawn to looking at the pictures on the screen than the story I was acting out for them.

After I told the story a couple of times (again on their request)  they had a go at playing around with the toys on the river, and tried acting the story out too. 

Later we made some Chinese lanterns.  I had to give quite a lot of help with some parts of the lamp making but they were pleased with the results. 

(My example)

Biscuits effort; he mostly did the cutting and I did the rest.

Boris' effort; he had a real go at making the lantern himself, though got frustrated at times when things weren't going exactly his way. 

And for dinner, well a Chinese stir fry of course. 

I hope you all enjoyed a happy Chinese New Year!

Home pre-school - Foot prints in the sand painting

Our theme for the summer is The Seaside, we have had some lovely sunny days this year so I decided it would be fun to do some outdoors painting.  In my mind I was thinking about footprints in the sand and making a way of capturing the footprints that are so fleeting on the beach. 

I got a couple of baking trays and poured some different colours of poster paint into them.  My boys stood in the paint (with help - it was slippy) the walked and ran along the paper, creating a crazy mess of painty footprints.

The paper was some packing paper than came with an Amazon order. 

Gotta love those little feet. 

And those even littler ones. 

It was a fun, quick activity, I have stuck the strip of paper up the stairs in our house and when we change theme I will probably cut a few bits out to keep.

Home Preschool - Sand hand print

Quite often when I come up with an activity for the boys I get caught up in the moment and forget to take photos of the process, sometimes it's only after that I think "Oh I had better take some photos for the blog!"  so please forgive the serious lack of development photos, I will try to describe it as best as I can so you get get the picture. 

Following on with our Seaside theme, and thinking about hand and foot prints in the sand I thought it would be interesting for Boris to help make a permanent memento of his little hands in plaster of Paris, but with a beachy, sandy effect to make you think of holidays on the beach. 

To to do this activity I began with a small plastic bowl that I pressed some sand in to.  I then got Boris to press his hand into the sand and I neatened it up after he took his hand away, I had to press it quite firmly in and press in each finger.  

Next in a separate bowl I mixed up some plaster of Paris by pouring in some water then adding the powder until I got a creamy texture, I got Boris to help me scoop the powder and pour it into the bowl and give it  stir with a wooden spoon.   

Next Boris helped me pour it onto the sand and I gave the bowl a little nudge to get any air bubbles out.  

I left it about 15 minutes to set then carefully tapped it out.  I have it a little brush with a dustpan brush to get the lose sand off, and there you have it!  A lovely sandy hand print. 

Don't forget to stay tuned for my brilliant GIVEAWAY coming soon.

Home Preschool themes - Seaside 1

I have been struggling for a while with coming up with ideas for themes that my children would find fun and interesting, but then the sun really started shining, the shorts were on, the flip flops donned, the sun cream slathered. So The Seaside seemed like an obvious choice, why didn't I think of it sooner. 

I got the water table out (this was a really great buy because it's so versatile): 

and filled it with a scintillating variety of sensory stimulating materials including sand, shaving foam, water beads and hair gel!

The hair gel was just 16p from ASDA!  I used 1 1/2 tubs, the shaving foam was £1 also from ASDA, I got the waterbeads and little animals on line and the sand from our sandpit! It probably cost about £5.15 in total, but of course I can re-use the animals and water table.

I really enjoyed setting it up a little bit secretly then bringing the boys out for the big reveal.  They were very curious and tentative at first, not sure about touching the more slimy materials, but soon getting stuck in and eventually very purposefully smooshing it all though their hair!

I really enjoyed watching them play and mostly left them too it, but could have asked them some open questions to get them thinking such as what does the shaving foam/hair gel/water beads feel like? What are the animals doing/thinking? What creatures do you find at the seaside?  What sort of things do you like to do at the seaside? etc.

Boris even did a bit of imaginative play with the little sea creatures which really thrilled me because has just been getting into it and it's so sweet.  This activity was great for stimulating the senses and relaxing, it was also good for fine motor skills with the boys practising the pincer movement by picking up the animals and water beads, they also had to work on co-operation whilst playing together at the table and taking turns. 

Towards the end it had turned into a bit of a swamp!  But it was fairly easy to clean up.  I scooped out and rinsed the water beads in a colander to use again then just hosed out the table. Good clean fun. 

Check back in a few days time for more seaside related activities for toddlers/preschoolers. And if you have got this far, I will be doing a GIVEAWAY in a few days time so be sure to check back.  You can sign up by email on the right side bar, or you can stay up to date by liking my facebook page.

Home Preschool themes - Dinosaurs part 1

So I have a pre-schooler!!  When did that happen?  Boris is three now and is absorbing information from all around him, he is learning so much; how to think, how to make decisions, how to use materials, how to move, how to make, I could go on and on, it's amazing the things he picks up and remembers, (his memory is much better than mine!)

So as a three year old Boris could be taking advantage of his 15 free childcare hours.  Although we haven't actually made a decision not to send him to preschool, we kind of just haven't.  I am not sure what the point would be, we are planning on home educating the boys so there is no need to prepare them for school as such (how to stand in line, put his hand up to ask to go to the loo, follow instructions without question that sort of thing - only joking...or am I?).  He has plenty of opportunities to socialise with children of his age with friends and at toddler groups, and with children of all ages at home education groups that we have joined.

So with the fact of him being preschool age in mind I have been feeling like I should start making a bit more effort to facilitate his learning. Of course he is learning in everything we do every day, on the walk to toddler group, as we bake in the kitchen, through reading stories, playing in the garden etc, but it is nice for him to be exposed to as many new ideas as possible. We have done a few themes already over the last year or so and have enjoyed this approach so for now, because it seems to work well for us and we enjoy it, that's how we are approaching "home preschool" (as I am going to call it).

This last couple of weeks we have been loosely exploring the theme of Dinosaurs.  It began with Boris and his Dad watching the Dinosaur Zoo Live show which was on in the Hexagon Theatre in Reading, it sounded really great, highly recommended (though I am not sure it is on anymore)  according to my husband Boris wasn't sure what to make of it all, I don't think he realised the dinosaurs were puppets, and he was afraid of the very big dinosaur at the end, and it was also very noisy which unsettled him, but it sounded very exciting.

The first week was off to a slow start because we were very busy with our usual activities, but I managed to pick up a few books from the library and found this cool dinosaur sand mold set in ASDA, (there were legs, arms, ribs and a tail too.) so we had a bit of fun with that in the garden enjoying the glorious weather we have been having recently.

Playdough is always a win in our house so I rustled up a batch in dino colours and we played with it with some dinosaur cutters that I picked up at the Natural History Museum in London when we visited there a few weeks ago.

The playdough is: 2 cups plain flour,

                              2 tbsp glycerin,

                              1/2 cup salt,

                              2 tbsp cream of tartar,

                              1 1/2 cups boiling water.

I cooked the dough in a pan, then kneaded in food colouring and poster paint to achieve the required tones.  I think I cooked it a bit much, or else used a bit too much flour because the dough was quite dry, but it did give a nice wrinkly texture which I felt added a life like element to the dough.

We also stomped dinosaur footprints into the playdough with some model dinosaurs we already had.

And finally of course I had to have a go at making a little model of a dinosaur.  I call this one a imperfectlynaturalosaurus.

We also took a visit to Wellington Country Park, which is a really fun place to spend the day with lots of playgrounds and a little farm and things, but more importantly has a dinosaur trail!!  Here I am hamming it up with a T Rex. (Boris took this photo, hence the slightly dodgy angle) I actually hurt myself on one of those teeth. 

I have more dinosaur activities to share with you in the next few days so stay tuned.  Please share, pin, tweet and like and visit again soon x