Easter Chicks

Happy Easter to those who celebrate and a good long-weekend for the rest of you. :)

This time of year, whether you celebrate Easter or not, is full of eggs, bunnies and chicks. We couldn't resist trying this cute chick craft found at 'a little delightful'.

I drew the template myself, although Bianca offers one at 'a little delightful' if you'd like. We used foam shapes for the eyes and beaks and pipe-cleaners for the legs and feet.

These two chicks are currently displayed on our fridge.

-Polly

Apples

E recently spent some time learning with and about apples. We spoke about different types of apples and I found a chart online with pictures of many of the varieties grown here in Australia. We went to a local shop and bought three different types: fuji, gala and granny smith. We cut some open to see the flesh and the seeds and had taste tests. E's favourite was the granny smith.

"Ten Apples Up On Top" by Theo LeSieg (Dr Seuss) was read a few times during our apple theme and is always good fun. E liked trying to balance an apple on top of her head like the animals in the story.

There are a lot of educational pages and packs online with an apple theme. We used this size sequencing activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler:

and this puzzle from the 2 Teaching Mommies Apple Tot Pack:

From that same tot pack, I printed two copies of the "apple match" page and we used them for some patterning as well as having extra pieces for colour-matching.

We had some fun in the kitchen and E learned how to use the spiral cutter:

We also made some apple pikelets using a recipe from a book called "Du jour: Easy but Glamorous Recipes for Every Occasion".

E requested an apple colouring page, so I found one at www.activityvillage.co.uk. We made our own little booklet sequencing an apple from fruit to tree. I also made some little vocabulary cards to go with our booklet, with pictures for E to colour. There were words such as 'pips' and 'core'.

There were more activities that we did on this theme, but this post is getting long so I'll share them another time. :)

-Polly

Seeds and Sprouts

It's just a weed, but isn't it cute the way that lupin sprouts and discards it's seed casing above the ground?

Over the past week or so, we have been looking at seeds. We collected different types of seeds for E to examine and compare. We found them in the pantry, in foods we ate, in the garden and in our store of 'to be planted one day' seeds. E liked finding weed seeds in the garden, but I think her favourite method was cutting open fruits to see what the seeds inside were like.

Seeds have been used for counting and for sorting. We collected and dried some rockmelon and chilli seeds from our garden produce to be added to our 'to be planted one day' collection.
I set up a tray with a few different types of seeds for E to play with. It had kidney beans, pumpkin seeds, red lentils, sunflower seeds and mustard seeds. I also included a few empty cups to encourage pouring and exploring. It didn't take long for it all to be mixed together.

Once E started to get bored with her seed tray, I introduced some playdough to the activity. The playdough became the base for seed pictures and creatures with seed faces and some seeds were tucked up into a playdough bed.

E learnt a little about growing seeds, too. We talked about how the plants in our garden started out as seeds and we planted some cress seeds in little egg-shell 'eggheads'.

I also pulled out the dried corn from a few weeks ago and we sprouted some of the kernels in a zip-lock bag with a damp paper towel (thanks to an idea from "Science is Simple" by Peggy Ashbrook).

We finished up by watching "Life of Plants" (narrated by David Attenborough). E liked the time-lapse scenes and pretended to be a plant growing up and up.

-Polly

Parsnips and a New Toy

Whilst in our garden the other morning, E and I decided to pull up the last of our parsnips. They were intended as a Winter crop, but ended up lasting us a whole year. Better than the swedes, which didn't grow at all. :/ Here's the parsnips we pulled that wouldn't fit in our basket:

We decided to turn them into chips using our new toy:

Our first ever food-processor is from the same series as our coffee-machine and juicer both of which we are very happy with. Perhaps we're brand snobs, but after buying a bread machine (of a different brand) that made a total of 2 loaves of bread before dying (and not being able to return it), it's nice to have confidence that each new appliance might actually do what it's supposed to do. Plus, it's kind of nice having everything match. :)

-Polly

Let's Play Outside

Now that we've been getting a bit of cooler weather, we've spent a lot of time in our backyard. Here's just some of the things that E likes to do:

Dig in the sand:

Draw in the sand:

Play on the swing and the slide:

Build sandcastles, sand-sculptures, flower gardens, treasure collections...:

It's also nice to simply sit outside for our morning tea or look at (and smell) the flowers or search for bugs...

What do you (or your kids) get up to in your backyard?

-Polly

Green Garden

Happy St Patrick's day. I don't have anything holiday-related to share, but I do have a 'green' post for you. :P

I love how the garden is refreshed after only one day of rain.

I had recently pulled out what was left of last year's silverbeet and left a couple of roots behind. Now we have nice, fresh silverbeet without having to replant.

We have a rockmelon that seems about ready to be picked. Not bad for a store-bought melon that we buried as 'compost'.

The second lot of chillies are fruiting at the moment (we've had jalapenoes for a while now). It's always nice to have fresh chilli to add some kick to a meal. We had a big, red one chopped up in our tacos last night.

I love Autumn. :)

-Polly

Mud Puddles and Raindrops

Yesterday, we finally got a rainy day! Above is a picture of E wearing my old slippers to check out the mud puddles. Last Winter's gumboots are 2 sizes too small.

To take advantage of our first rainy day in what seems like forever, we did some 'rain drawings'.
We got out the washable markers and drew pictures onto ordinary copy paper.

We placed the pages one at a time onto a large tray and took them out into the rain.

Then we brought them back inside to dry,

And that's how we made our rain drawings.

There seems to be no more rain today, but the weather is slightly cooler and the sky is still overcast. We spent the morning in the backyard, E playing on her swings and slide, both of us simply enjoying some much-needed outside time.

-Polly