Chalk Painting

We often have chalks out in the garden, I will draw out a road for the cars and extend it to include fields for our farm animals, or a zoo area too...sometimes even the Dinosaurs come join in!!

Today I got out the chalks, but added some water and black card. My idea was to do some mark making, perhaps finger painting too. But let see where the children took it!

 'J' began with some mark making following my example but he chose to draw straight on the patio as he has done previously.

 After a bit of drawing 'J' decided instead to do some transferring and poring of the coloured water and chalks

All together in one pot!

 So far 'S' had been sat back watching our play, but at this point she decided to come over and have a go herself! She tried some mark making first, seeming to connect her movements with the marks left on the patio

 Next 'S' tried combining her paint brush with the chalks. Perhaps this was exploring combining objects in a variety of ways; poking, stirring etc. Or perhaps she was transferring her knowledge of other painting experiences to what she had available to her today?

'J' came over to have a little look at the different colours and they had a little babbling chat between them, I do love their little interactions!

 'S' went back to her mark making, trying some different colours and looking closely at her work on the floor

When she was done 'S' spotted the little ride on toy which she then spent some time pushing back and forth through the 'paint' on the floor. Unintentionally making some great track marks and foot prints on some of the black paper which had previously been discarded for use in our arty activity.

Characteristics of Effective Learning

'S' made links from her previous experience and transferred her knowledge to this activity. Testing her theories (trying to use a paint brush) and then moving on to different approaches.

'S' began by observing 'J' and I to see our approach. She was keen to engage with 'J' when he came over, looking and babbling with each other to share the experience. I had begun with an idea for the activity but was keen to follow the children's ideas. 'S' knew she had plenty of time to explore the material at her own pace, pausing to interact with 'J' at his initiation, before then returning to what she was previously doing. I took their cue's when they were done and ready to move on.

Next Steps

Spend some more time mark making to ascertain if 'S' has an established knowledge connecting her movements with the marks she leaves.

Introduce some cars, balls, marbles etc with painting to roll through and see the different marks they leave

Crafty Monday

Happy October!!

Another beautiful Autumn day and as is becoming our routine we headed straight out for a walk.

After some fresh air we headed home and Little 'A' headed off for a sleep and I could have a sneaky cuppa. I have a new starter Little 'O' who arrived after lunch and we had a bit of quiet play time with animals and cars. Once 'A' had woken up and had some late lunch we decided to finish off some of the crafty bits we started last week.

I don't often do organised 'Arts and Crafts' with very young children as it's so easy to get caught up in making something to send home. Which is of course a lovely thing for families to have, but it becomes an exercise in leading children to make something you want rather than what they want to do. Which is often simply exploring the media, feeling textures with their hands and just practicing control with various tools.

At the end of last week however I did do a bit of painting with Little 'A', took a print of his hand and arm and he also painted a couple of empty toilet rolls brown

Something Little 'A' is really enjoying at the moment is making sticker pictures. I put a bowl of stickers down on the floor and 'A' sits and picks out the sticker he wants and then puts it on the picture.

I then have to pick it back up again and tell him "peal the back" and then hold it out for him and say "stick" for him to place it back where he wants it. He hasn't yet started trying to get the backing off himself, but I'm sure that will come in time!

A lovely Autumn tree!

Next we finished off our toilet rolls, the idea was to make some owls so I drew on some marks for wings and then asked Little 'A' to put on some googly eyes (more sticking!) and then gave him a pen so he could do some more 'detailing' for the owl.

Little 'O' had said he didn't want to join in any of this so far and was happy playing by himself. He has only been here a few days and has had a lot of changes to his routine in the last couple of weeks so we're taking things nice and slow. He had however come over to the kitchen gate by this point and had started watching with a bit more interest so I asked again if he wanted to join in. He said yes but he didn't want to make owls, but did want to make a monkey and an elephant instead!

So I gave 'A' some paints and a brush to play around with and a quick improvise, (and a google search) we found some paper in the right colours and started cutting out arms, legs, trunks, tusks and tails and 'O' stuck them all on with some more googly eyes and even drew on some banana's for the monkey!

'A' had a lovely time with the paint, using the brush and then watching the marks his fingers make and then wiping with his whole hand. I took a couple of prints in some lovely autumn colours

After all this crafting there was just enough time for the boys to help me set up the Guinea Pig cage again. We got a bit covered in hay but it was good fun!

Our previous baby boys went to their forever home about a week ago so we've been waiting for our next foster piggies to arrive which I am off to collect tonight. We are having a pregnant mum this time so that will be lovely for the boys to see mum alone and then a few new ones 'appear'!! We don't know exactly when the babies will arrive as mum came to the rehoming place just pregnant so some time in the next 10 days is the estimate but we shall see....

Autumn Beginings

We are most certainly well into Autumn, the weather is getting colder, the leaves are beginning to turn and I'm starting to get my hibernation feeling! Not that I want to hide away from the world, but I do want to be curled up in a blanket with a book or some knitting in front of a fire....shame we don't have a fire!

This morning we got out of the house for a nature walk! We went looking for those tell tale signs of the change of seasons

Beautiful red and orange leaves

Also took this last chance to get some blackberries before Michaelmas and began collecting some bits for our Autumn Nature Table!

Not many leaves have fallen yet so we didn't get as much for the Nature Table as I would have liked but we did add a bit to our already HUGE conker collection and found a bit of a branch.

It was a lovely morning out in nature, letting the dog have a run around and snacking on some wild blackberries, Little 'A' however slept through the whole walk so I enjoyed it by myself!!

Back home after Little 'A' woke up and had some lunch we sat down to read some nice stories we got from the library earlier in the week. We read 'Knight School' by Jane Clarke (also linking in nicely with Michaelmas next week) and 'Sometimes I like to Curl up in a Ball' by Vicki Churchill. Two lovely stories with a bit of an Autumn theme.

Although Little 'A' is now only 15 months he loves to sit and look at some longer books aimed at older children. He listens to the rhymes in the stories and points to the pictures of things he recognises often with a sound and an accompanying baby sign!

Shame I didn't get any pictures but next up we played with a sheet of bubble wrap. Little 'A' already has a good pinching grip but I thought we could work on improving his strength, and what can be more fun than bubble wrap! We started with some pinching and one fingered pushing, Little 'A' has worked out he can pop the bubbles by scratching with his nail too. He then went and got a building block and started hitting the bubbles with that but soon found it didn't really work, so he stood on them, lay down on them and then started grabbing the sheet in a grasp and squeezing a handful at a time. All wonderful fine motor practice and just plain good fun, I got some huge smiles with each 'pop'!!

Next we grabbed some paint!

Over the last couple of weeks Little 'A' has started displaying some ability to use tools for a purpose, connecting his movement to the parks they leave, so we'll be building on this over the coming months.

We painted some toilet rolls...

...and took some hand and arm prints. These have been left to dry and will need to be finished next week now...can you guess what they will be yet??

After all that excitement Little 'A' went off for another sleep, he's been quite tired the last couple of days, there was just enough time for a bit of diner before Little 'A' went home for the weekend.

So that was our first fun week of Autumn!

A Lovely Monday!

Baby 'A' and I had a lovely morning together, we popped out to our local library to get some new books!

He really loves the 'That's not my....' series and always goes straight to where the texture is, even if he's never seen the book before!
We went home with four new books to look at and I'm sure they will be coming out a lot this week!

The librarian also gave baby 'A' a bookstart bear club pack, so each time we go to the library he gets a stamp in is passport, and every six visits he will receive a certificate. He really does love looking at books so I think we will make good use of this!

Then little 'C' arrived after lunch and we headed off for an afternoon of fun with http://wormseye-view.blogspot.com/.

She had a lovely St Patrick's Day treasure basket to explore, baby 'A' spent lots of time looking at all the different things.

Little 'C' joined in exploring the sensory box and found this lovely hair band and rainbow!

Next up was some lovely colourful hand prints....

....which magically turned into.....

LEPRECHAUNS!!!!

I do try not to do too many 'adult focused' activities, especially with very young ones. It's so easy to get caught up in having something to send home for parents. The focus really should be on the process not the product, but sometimes these things are just too cute not to do!! I've got another product focused idea to do this week but it is mother's day so I think I'll get away with it!!

The weather then started to warm up a bit so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in the garden

Having a look at new surroundings

Learning how to get around a new environment safely

Playing with Pippa's fantastic outdoor music wall!!

And meeting Pippa's lovely chickens Matilda and Gertrude.....oh mind your fingers!!

Such a lovely start to the week and great to get the kids in the garden! I can't wait for summer to arrive!

Peace Day

September 21st saw countries all around the world celebrate International Peace Day. http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org/ "The Universal Peace Federation is a global network of individuals and organizations dedicated to building a world of peace, with a special focus on interfaith dialogue, peace education, and service"

As I just had a couple of little ones on this day we took part through a bit of art and creativity!

Started off by drawing out some Dove outlines

Which the children then tried out my new 'less-mess' paint pens to make lots of pretty patterns!

They came out really nicely! I then cut them out, cut a slice where the wings would be and put some concertina paper through.

With a bit of selotape to secure the 'wings' punch a hole through and they can be hung up to decorate!