Pumpkins

We have been embracing all things pumpkin this week.

– pumpkin volcano

– pumpkin m&m colour run (instructions here, using Reese’s Pieces. We made one with cold water and a second with warm water to see if it reacted differently)

– pumpkin battery

– pumpkin word sort (words with /s/ sounds and words with /sh/ sounds)

– pumpkin maths (adding to 10)

– pumpkin patch collage

– pumpkin play dough (idea from here)

– painting pumpkins

– baking with pumpkins (chocolate cake recipe from here)

– movie night (Melendez, Bill, et al. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 2008.)

– pumpkin bowls (a take on lawn bowls, rolling small pumpkins as close to the larger pumpkin as possible)

xo

Dogs

The little men have been interested in dogs lately so we made a kennel for some pretend play and a few other activities too.

– Sensory play with dog ‘food’

– building a kennel (idea from here)

– matching numbers with bones in bowls

– sorting dogs (mostly by size but also by colour or stance) and matching dogs with adjectives

xo

Magic Show

The little men wanted to do something special for me so they put on a magic show and organised a few other ‘magical’ activities for us to do together.

– magic maths questions (inspired by this)

– magic triangle maths (idea here)

– read-rhyme-write magic hats

– magically appearing star (instructions here)

– magically moving pepper (instructions here)

– magician’s rabbit craft

xo

 

Space

We’ve been exploring space here recently.

– Mission control station for pretend play

 

– Pop rockets (instructions here)

 

– Identifying space objects wrapped in foil (inspired by this and this)

– Adding to 10 with moon rocks

– One-to-one correlation with moon rocks in craters

 

– Rocket lunch

 

– Balancing planets (balls on golf tees in play dough. Inspired by this)

– Sensory space play with play dough and dried beans and space objects

– Painting moons (idea from here)

xo

Love

I like to take the opportunity of Valentine’s Day to talk to the boys about God’s love for us and our love for God and each other, this year using 1 John 3 as we did so. If you would like to read more about God’s love I would recommend this article by Paul Tripp.

– matching verses and answering simple questions about love

– bicarb soda and vinegar fizzing hearts

– crayon resist heart paintings

Happy Valentine’s Day!

xo

Polar Bears

It has been hot here lately, extremely hot. So we’ve been trying to cool ourselves off by thinking about snow, ice and polar bears.

– sensory fun (snow made from flour and oil, ice, water, clear beads, toy animals)

– polar bear paintings

– true or false with polar bear facts

– sorting snowballs into words starting with “ch” and words starting with “s” (to work on speech sounds)

– polar bear snack (idea from here)

xo

 

Christmas Activities

We have been enjoying lots of Christmas activities and using them to to talk about Jesus as the joy, hope, peace, saviour, light, king and judge of the world (see here).

– tape resist Christmas tree paintings

– shadow puppet nativity

– decorating play dough Christmas tree

– decorating cardboard Christmas tree

– target practice (aiming for stars with the descriptions of Jesus written on them)

– bell maze (inspired by this one)

– trees from paintings with the descriptions of Jesus on them

We hope you are enjoying preparing for Christmas too. xo

 

 

Christmas Countdown

With little more than 5 weeks until Christmas the boys have been begging to start some Christmas activities. As we read about Jesus’ birth in the Bible and do crafts and activities in these coming weeks we will be talking about some aspects of who Jesus is, being:

– Jesus is the joy of the world

– Jesus is the hope of the world

– Jesus is the peace of the world

– Jesus is the saviour of the world

– Jesus is the light of the world

– Jesus is the king of the world, and

– Jesus is the judge of the world.

We made some stain glass windows with these descriptions of Jesus alongside pictures I drew of parts of the nativity (Mary, Jesus, angel, shepherd, star, wise man, Herod) using black paper, contact and coloured tissue paper (cellophane would also work well). (Inspired by these).

xo

Olympics

Like many others we are looking forward to the Olympic Games beginning. We had our own celebration afternoon tea today and a few activities hidden away in these black paper bags for the coming days. Hope you enjoy the Games too.

– Finger olympics: mini versions of some Olympic events using tiny balls, sticks, arrows, nets and so on

– Olympic countries: learning about different countries and in particular the host country, Brazil

– Olympic spirit: to install good sportsmanship

– Your Olympics: imagining some new ideas for the Olympics

– Olympic charades: acting out some key components and events of the Olympics

xo