Muddy Puddles

Yesterday evening I asked E, "What was the best thing about today?"
Her answer, "The zoo."
"What was your favourite thing at the zoo?"
"Walking."

She also enjoyed seeing the animals, especially the rhino which came right up to the fence to see us. The zebras are still a favourite. I thought the baby tortoises were cute.

It was raining a lot. We got wet. We had fun. E and her cousin jumped in a big, muddy puddle.

 

Just like Peppa Pig. Good thing they had their boots.

 



-Polly

A Farmer and his Tractor

Another activity that E worked on this week was this tractor picture:

I got the idea from here, although I didn't use their printout (we don't have a working printer, so I didn't even look at it). I just cut out the shapes myself. It was good practice for E in identifying colours, shapes and sizes, as well as a little bit of counting. It was all pretty easy for her, though.

The farmer and speech bubbles were hand-drawn by me and were to reinforce our latest Latin lessons.

-Polly

Nectarine Blossom

Whilst we still have another month of Winter and I have certainly felt the cold this year, our little nectarine tree is already welcoming Spring.



I love to see the first blossoms of the season in our own backyard. :)

-Polly

D is for Ducks

E's latest letter focus was the letter D. She did a Dd 'dot' painting that I'd drawn up for her and made a collage of things beginning with D. We made a dice using a wooden cube and a permanent marker. We did some dancing. And we did this duck craft:

To make your own ducks, you will need:

• 2 cardboard tubes (empty toilet paper rolls)
• yellow crepe paper
• glue (we used a simple homemade paste)
• orange card
• white card
• pencil
• black marker
• clear sticky tape

Here's how to do it:

• Cut one of the tubes in half so that you'll have one tall duck and 2 shorter ones.
• Smother the outside of each tube in glue.
• Paste on some yellow crepe paper.
• Cut some smaller pieces of crepe paper and glue a few to each duck for tail feathers.
• Let the paste dry.
• On the orange card, draw 3 pairs of feet and 3 duck bills.
• Cut them out and draw some nostrils with the black marker.
• Tape feet and bills onto your ducks.
• On the white card, draw 3 pairs of eyes (using black marker).
• Cut them out and glue them onto your ducks.
• On the white card, draw 3 pairs of wings.
• Cut them out and tape them onto your ducks.

All done!

E enjoyed this craft. She loves gluing things and she loves ducks. She even got to practice cutting with scissors. She later drew a pond for her ducks to play in.

-Polly

Learning Latin

Another book that we bought recently is "Getting Started with Latin," by William E. Linney. No-one in our family has ever studied Latin before, so we plan to work through the book at a snail's pace. That way even 2-year-old E can keep up. Here's an activity that we did after learning the Latin word for 'sailor':

We made basic origami sailboats and little cardboard sailors to sit in them. Here's the folding instructions:

 



We have also watched this [three pigs] cute video a few times. It's fun to watch even if you aren't learning Latin.

vale!

-Polly

Mushrooms



It's been a week between posts because my photos are on one computer and my software is on another and I'm having trouble getting the two to talk to each other. So, sorry if the photos in this post don't show up. They're pretty big and very much unedited.

 

Anyway, onto the actual post:

Mushrooms!

Something I love about this time of year (Autumn and Winter) is spotting all the different mushrooms that pop up everywhere. Here's some that I found in our backyard recently:

I mentioned in another post that we saw some interesting ones at the zoo not long ago. I didn't get any pictures of those. I have realised that I don't know a lot about fungi. Any information on the topic seems a little sparse, too. For Australia-specific information, anyway. We did get this book in the mail recently:

I've only read the introduction and a handful of entries yet, but I like it.

Have you spotted anything interesting in your garden lately?

-Polly

Baking

We have been enjoying a lot of sweet treats lately because I have been baking again. Now that we've been getting some cooler weather, it seems okay to have the oven on more often. Recently I made these orange and date muffins using one of my mum's recipes. I hadn't tried this particular recipe before. Mum always made yummy muffins. :)

One of my husband's favourites is this caramel mud cake from a packet mix. It has been requested 3 times already.

I have also made Gran's banana cake, lemon cupcakes, apple-blueberry crumble, date loaf and vegan lemon slice. I put some of them into the freezer to eat at another time.

They all make a great morning tea with a nice hot cuppa. It has been especially nice to enjoy them together while my husband has been on holidays from work. I have been adding a few slices of lemon zest, along with the tea leaves, to the teapot for a little extra flavour some days. The coffee machine, too, has earned it's keep.

E is learning how to bake along side me. Her favourite part is licking the spoon!

-Polly