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

First week back!

So many new beginnings!

I have moved house, into a lovely little village and very much enjoying country life once again. A house move has resulted in new children starting with me, including a few older ones after school, which is a change of pace!

Days are already going by so fast, I can't believe a whole week of work has passed already! You would think moving to the country would make life slow down but no! There is playbus and toddler group in the week, Bingo every fortnight, Zumba another night of the week (I do want to start getting out to that). We have had a power cut, for which the Mrs actually saw the powerline go up in flames as we were driving past. We've had the council cutting back fallen trees at 11pm. And we're now steaming ahead into another week exploring Chinese New Year.

I had so many things to share as this first week has been a busy one, unfortunately I have just discovered the majority of photos I have taken over the last week have been corrupted and so are worthless! Many cross words have been exchanged between my mobile and I. But lesson learnt; keep my camera with me, do not rely on my mobile!

None the less I thought I would share a few of the highlights from the week, and pictures where I have them!

 We went out on a very muddy walk! Up one of the lanes past the school, we went to find some sheep and horses, but mainly lots of mud and puddles.

 Little 'E' had a bit of trouble staying on her feet, so much slippery mud can make things tricky for little ones, but she did have fun splashing through the puddles anyway.

'W' is a bit bigger and was off ahead with the dogs, he was making big splashes in the puddles, to a point where we had to stop and empty his wellies!

I am discovering 'W' has the most amazing imagination. This week we have been shopping, been on a long train journey, run a restaurant, been firemen saving people from fires, pirates on a ship, we have been in a snow and ice covered land with crocodiles who might eat you, we have hidden in a snow cave, we have been good knights protecting our land from a dragon, we have been Witches, mummies and daddies, and I'm sure many others that I lost track of!!

This week we also enjoyed a sensory 'Winter' tray. This consisted of rice, wooden blocks, a few selected animals, some plastic snowflakes and various scoops and containers.

'E' became engrossed in collecting up the rice, she started out trying some of the scoops but resorted to just grabbing handfuls of rice. She filled containers, poured them into each other, emptied them out and then started all over again.
I have already noticed 'E' is a bit of a collector, a number of occasions this week I have seen her collecting up little bits of toys, finding a bag to put them in or just making a pile. A potential Schema uncovering itself?? This most definitely calls for some exploring in the coming weeks.

'W' was just as intrigued with the sensory tray, his ever present imagination creating a dialog for the Polar Bears and Reindeer. The Reindeer in particular was enjoying rice being poured over it's back. 'W' commented "he likes the feel of that".

With Burns Night on Friday we also spent some time this week exploring Scotland. We looked at the flag and a book on Scotland that talked about castles and the Loch Ness Monster. 'W' and I spoke for some time about why there were no knights in the castles, I explained that we don't really have knights any more, we just have Soldiers and Policemen now. He didn't really like that concept though!

We finished off the week by making some yummy shortbread together and paying a trip to the park to collect some logs to put in the garden.

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....

Happy Fourth of July!!

Little 'C' in my setting is American and I live in a village which houses lots of American Air Force families  so I thought it would be nice to have a big American day and I invited http://wormseye-view.blogspot.co.uk/ along too!!

We started off with a little basket of American bits to explore

'E' found an eagle which he then played with for the rest of the morning, asking what they eat and where they live. He also found a shark in the other animal basket and became engrossed in telling us all how the eagle would swoop down and grab the shark out of the sea and eat him for lunch!!

I've had this lovely Native American play set for a little while now, it's not quite 'Fourth of July' but I've been waiting to get it out so thought why not today!!

I decorated the living room with these hand and foot prints, we had used these last month as a Union Jack for the Jubilee

Quick snack of cut up bananas, strawberries and blueberries!!

Next, time for some drawing and painting!

 Baby 'A' has not quite grasped the idea of what drawing is about yet, he keeps wanting to suck the pens rather than having connected the pen with the marks it makes but we'll keep on practicing!!

 Good concentration here from little 'L'

'E' did such a good job at colouring in each of those little stars! He worked very hard on his picture.

Next we did some stamping with a couple of star cookie cutters

Little 'L' and 'R' did very well at sharing the paint and taking turns with the big and little stamps

We then turned these stamp pictures into lanterns but I didn't get a picture before they took them home

Lunch Time!!!

We had Hot Dogs, pretzels, cream cheese bagels and dried cranberries mmmmmm

We also had some cranberry juice to drink

Lovely face 'L' is pulling here!!

We got the Atlas out over lunch to show everyone what America looks like and where Texas is, as that is where little 'C' was born (and so was my big brother!!). We spoke about how Texas is bigger than the whole of England!

For pudding we had warm thick pancakes with maple syrup and more blueberries, these were a BIG hit!!

After lunch the children went off for another quick play before home time

'L' is going through a little phase where she screams if another child touches her and I think she had just been told off for it here but I wanted to put this photo in anyway because she looks cute in the garland! hehe

We had a few balloons around which are always popular!

A lovely day was had by all, I'm definitely going to do some more 'country days' in the future!!

Garden Improvements

Last week my partner was out walking the dog and noticed a load of branches had been chopped off a tree near our house, after checking with the people who lived near by we grabbed them to start off a garden project I've been thinking about for a few months now!

We started with a big pile of branches...

And chopped them down to the main branches....

.....and smaller twigs.

We then started leaning the long branches together and tieing them in.....

I'll bet you know what we're making now!!

Then take all those other littler twigs and start weaving them in!

This is how far we got until running out of branches! We've also cut out a little sitting area to the side so I'm now on the look out for some tree stumps for the seating area, and more twigs/willow etc to finish off the walls!

Hoping to have it all finished by next spring and possibly start growing something over it for a bit of camouflage!