Things We Love About Earth

Earth Day is coming up on the 22nd of April so today we talked about the things that we like about our planet. Bubble is very much into the solar system so this activity was just about the highlight of her day :-) I loved hearing the sometimes obscure but all very sweet things she came up with!

WE USED:

* play dough (green and blue)
* pop sticks
* permanent marker

First we rolled a big ball with our blue dough then Bubble went to town with the green dough to create her own version of Earth.

We wrote all the things she loves about Earth on our pop sticks, my favourites would have to be "pears and blueberries to eat" (neither of which she actually likes to eat) and "ponds with fish in them" :-)

We are going to leave our Earth on display for the rest of the month and add to it after each day. It's been a great way to talk about things we enjoy and also explore different elements of our planet.

Easter Egg Roller Painting

Today we put an Easter twist on marble painting using our plastic eggs, both girls really enjoyed this activity and made quite a stack of artwork!

WE USED:

* tray
* paper
* large marbles or rocks
* plastic eggs
* paint

hint: we put newspaper and wet paper towel nearby to make it easy to remove the eggs between paper changes.

We used large marbles inside our eggs to weight them, but you could use anything really - a few smaller marbles, stones, sand etc...).

The marbles fit inside perfectly and made the eggs roll better through the paint.

Bubble rolling and tipping her tray to make Easter egg paint patterns.

Squeak loved this activity, we had trouble getting the tray off of her to change her paper before the piece she already had disintegrated into a soggy mess! :-D

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Playdough Printing - Easter Sight Words

We played this fun game as a variant of our usual sight word activity this week, using Easter words instead.

WE USED:

* play dough
* speech cards
* marker/pen
* alphabet blocks
(if you don't have any alphabet blocks you could make some bottle lid stamps to use instead).

We brainstormed some Easter words and I wrote them on speech cards for Bubble to use as prompts.
Our alphabet blocks are upper case so I deliberately wrote her word cards in lower case so she could practice her upper/lower case letters at the same time.

Bubble rolled out a big sheet of play dough ready to stamp on.

She found each matching letter block to create her words and stamped them into the dough.

Some of the letters printed back to front of course, but the blocks were used to spell out our words as we went.

Bubble loved this activity and spent quite awhile working her way through each word card.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Playdough Eggs

When is an egg not an egg? When it's made of play dough!
This was an extension of our 'learning about eggs' activities and Bubble in particular really enjoyed it. I wanted a more interactive way of teaching the girls the parts of an egg without wasting a real one, and this project worked well.

WE USED:

* plastic eggs
* play dough (white and yellow)
* small laminated picture of a chick, or small plastic toy.
* child safe knife

To make our play dough eggs I took some white dough and made a well in the centre, then rolled some yellow dough to make a 'yolk' to go inside.

Then folded it over and gently rolled the whole thing into an egg shape. The play dough then went into a plastic egg.

I made quite a few for the girls to explore, all with yolks in the middle except for one with a chick inside. Before we cut open our play dough eggs we talked about how chicks develop and hatch.

Bubble loved cracking open her eggs,

and cutting them each in half to reveal the yellow yolk inside.

She was especially delighted to find the chick hidden inside one of the eggs!

Learning About Eggs

With Easter coming up there are eggs everywhere at the moment, so I thought now might be a good time to teach the girls about them. I kept the labels simple since they are both so young, but you could add in the more complex labels quite easily.

WE USED:

* felt (white, cream and yellow)
* scissors
* egg diagrams printed from the net
* laminator
* blu tac

I found a good diagram of an egg on the net and printed it out, then made a 2D version for the girls to assemble using felt.

Bubble especially loved this activity, naming each part (shell, albumen/egg white, yolk) as she put them in the correct order to build her 'egg'.

We talked about how chicks develop inside the egg using laminated pictures and charts (also sourced through Google).

A simple matching game of the life cycle of a chicken. Each loose piece has blutac on the back so it can be matched to the chart.

Glow Stick Hide & Seek

This has been a favourite before bedtime game this last week, and as the days get darker earlier as we head into the cooler months I can only see it getting more popular!
The idea is very simple; we take turns being the hider and the seeker, the seeker being the person who stands outside the door (not peeking ;-D) while the hider hides glow sticks around the room and switches the lights off. The seeker then has to hunt all the glow sticks out of their hiding places.
We count our glow sticks as they are collected and I ask Bubble questions such as "if you have found three glow sticks, how many more do you need to find?" and "how many green sticks have you found now?" to expand on our mathematics skills. We also play a few games using a timer to see who can find the most sticks in one minute during their turn and use lots of preposition hints like "look behind you" or "look on top".

WE USED:

* glow sticks
(we reuse our glow sticks by putting them in the freezer after they have lost their glow and thawing them the next night)
* room of the house
* egg timer

We hid our glow sticks in all sorts of places, some easier to spot than others!

Under large toys so the seeker would have to bend or crouch down to spot them.

Under pillows and cushions.

On chairs and under tables.

Up high on shelves and mirrors.

Bubble hunting out glow sticks armed with her torch. Squeak prefers to hunt around until she finally finds one and then abandons the game to run around waving it frantically in the dark :-D

Cardboard Tube Car

Recently we came across some things called 'cable clips' at our local dollar shop and I knew exactly what I was going to use them for - making cars out of toilet rolls of course! This was really easy to do and the girls enjoyed playing with the finished product, if you cant find cable clips you could also use plastic wire or split head pins to hold your wheels on.

WE USED:

* cable clips (from the Dollar Shop)
* toilet roll tube
* scissors
* paint
* marker/texta
* 4 x soft plastic bottle lids
* sharp pointed craft knife/safety pin/thick needle/nail

First cut a flap in the side of your toilet roll. This will be where your dolls will sit so make it to size. Leave one end uncut and fold the cut section up so you have a little windshield.

Using your craft knife or needle pierce a hole in the centre of your bottle lids.

These are the 'cable clips' we used to attach our wheels to our cardboard tube car, you could also use pipe cleaners threaded through and folded over, plastic coated wire (the type used for gardening) or split head pins.

Our finished product - so cute!

Princess doll going for a ride in her new wheels.

Squeak got to play with this first while Bubble was at Kindy and enjoyed herself immensely. She was too little to be left unsupervised though in case she worked out how to remove the cable clips!

I love where the knight ended up...

Hehe :-D Luckily our car has a roomy boot.