Rock Climbing

Today we joined our home education friends for rock climbing at The Climbing centre.. After a quick instruction on how to rope up, off we went. R tried hard and managed to get quite high on the rock faces despite being a bit on the short side. L decided that she would have a go up the rope ladder and ended up stuck crying at the top awaiting rescue. Thanks Cass!

Picture By Veronica

Third Birthday

It's Ls third birthday today. Here she is opening some of her presents.

L wanted a turtle cake (and a real live turtle - but she settled for the cake), so I made this one in about 10 minutes.

Ingredients:
Ready made and filled sponge cake
Swiss roll
Jam warmed in the microwave for 10 seconds
A strawberry
2 sultanas

Method:
Slice the Swiss roll thickly for the head. Cut 2 thinner pieces and cut them again into semi circles for the flippers. Cut a triangle for the tail. Cut really thin slices of the roll for the shell. Halve the strawberry. Stick the pieces together as shown with the warmed jam.

Luna Park Art Project

All the children in our home education group have been working on a group project depicting the Luna Park face in Sydney. One of our mums is kindly running this for us.

The image was transferred to the canvases using an overhead projector. Each child has been working in acrylics on an individual canvas as part of the larger image.

Here is the work in progress:

Thanks for the photo Guy

R and L have done the 2 green canvases (left, third down, and bottom centre), they are also working jointly on a yellow and red section (left, forth down).

Check back soon to see the finished picture.

Gooey Words

This week we are working on the tricky words "me" and "we". I made some gooey bags for the children to use. They are made with a zip-lock sandwich bag filled with shampoo (or gel, or finger paint etc.). These are then stuck down to the table so they don't move. The children used the bags to write their words. Once the activity is complete, just spread the contents out and begin the next word. I think these will be even more effective if we place a bright coloured surface underneath. 

R writes "we" with a gooey bag

L writes "me" with a gooey bag

Eton Mess

Today the children had great fun smashing up meringue to make an Eton Mess dessert. Not one of our most healthy recipes.

Lets Count

L can already count objects to 10 quite accurately and can count by rote to 20. We have been working on counting objects to 20 and recognising written numbers to 20.

First we used blocks and a counting tray from Learning Resources to revise counting objects to 10.

Next we did some counting puzzles from Early Learning Centre.

We used some number cards, with animals on, to count to 20.

Then L put the cards into number order.

Floating And Sinking

This week in science we discussed what the word "density" means. We finally had some sun so the children tested their materials collection to see which would float or sink. We discussed which would be good for building boats and which wouldn't. We also discussed how changing the shape and filling materials with air could make them float.

Testing materials in a bucket of water. Do they float?

Eating Our Words

This week we decided to "eat" our tricky words. The children were working on "he" and "she". We used sultanas and bread 'n' butter to make our words. We then ate them for our snack. Hopefully the children will remember this.