A Quiet Morning After Toddlers

...that was the plan anyway! I just had 'E' today and after visiting our local toddler group Pip invited us over for a cuppa and all the girls could have a little play before lunch. But it turned into much more!!

The girls asked for the magnet set out

 I wasn't sure where 'Es' knowledge about magnets would be, she is 22 months old, so this was a great opportunity to observe her.

 For the most part she watched what 'R' and 'L' were doing with their bits and she copied, testing what would happen. She spent some time exploring the plastic bottle with metal balls in, bringing bits over to me and I showed her if we run a magnet up the side of the bottle some of the balls followed up the side!

 'R' liked these wands and was trying to see how much she could get stuck to it at once!

 'Ls' favourite colour is pink so she was collecting all the pink bits as thats all she wanted to play with

 dangling!!

Now 'E' had the hang of it, choosing a wand and waving it over the top or touching the discs and the all picked up. Getting the off was a bit trickier, she tried wiping the off with her hand but they just moved around. She tried waving it to try and flick them off but this didn't really work either!

'E' spent quite some time with the magnets, much longer than the other girls. Until something else caught her eye. While pip and I had been watching this play we had been speaking about how much her Bearded Dragon 'Toothless' was a bit stinky and needed a cleaning out!

'E' has of course met Toothless before and she finds him fascinating! So we got him out and held him for a bit before setting him on the floor for a wonder while we cleaned him out!

We took out the logs and bowls to clean and put back later

 The Pip showed us her special sieve/scoop that she runs though the sand to pick up and bit of poo, or food that Toothless has missed. And that all goes in the bin!

We found a couple of worms that Toothless had missed so that was put back in for him to grab later!

'E' wanted to be involved with everything including holding the worm and having a really good look at what it was!

Pip showed the girls the thermometer and we spoke about how Bearded Dragons come from hot countries so to keep Toothless happy he needs to be kept much warmer than we would like to be. So he has a special bulb to keep him warm and Pip has to keep an eye on the thermometer to make sure it's just right and not getting too hot!!!

Once the logs had been put back and the water bowl cleaned out and refilled it was time to get Toothless some fresh food!! Out came the pot of worms. 'E' wasted no time getting her hands in there to fish out some yummy treats

 Not squeamish at all this one, I love it!!!

There is Toothless having a wonder, just coming to check up on how we're getting along!!

Then we needed to get a couple of Toothless's other favorite food; Cockroaches!! Pip has managed to get herself a colony of them now, they live in a tank in her airing cupboard. She feeds them and keeps them going and they have started breading! But today the tank looks like it's getting a bit too dirty so they need a clean out too!

 By this point when the Cockroaches arrived 'R' and 'L' have moved right back on to the sofa but 'E' is still right next to Pip wanting a good look at everything! Here we found a bunch of babies clinging to this bit of cardboard

 This one we think was giving birth!

Another baby? I have to be honest Cockroach lifecycles is not something I know that much about....but I can see me planning a big Mini Beasts project soon!!

After cleaning them out they needed some food too! So we headed to the kitchen to practice some chopping skills. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of this but we chopped up some apples and carrots and then went to pop them in the tank with the Cockroaches and they went back to their spot in the airing cupboard!

After lunch we headed home and checked in with our silly cress heads we planted last week, they are coming along great!!

Characteristics of Effective Learning

'E' was so engaged with these activities today! It was fantastic to see her really push to be involved. She wanted to have a go with everything, hold all the animals, see what were doing and why. During the magnets she observed the other children and took some cues from them, trying what they were doing, before then exploring a bit more herself and using her own ideas.

She is at an age where she is understanding a lot more than she can communicate so we talked through everything in simple terms so she could follow. Lovely morning had by all.