Egg Heads

Jacob (and Esme!) were given some wheat from his Kinder teacher as an Easter present. Jacob has been asking to plant it since we got it so today we planted it in some old egg shells. We used some batik eggs that didn't survive after being handled by Esme and a couple of Silkie eggs that had already been blown. We drew some faces on the plain eggs - Jacob chose a happy face and Esme chose a sad face.

We put some cotton wool into the egg shells and then sprayed the cotton wool to make it moist.

In goes the cotton wool.

Esme, concentrating intently on getting the water into her egg shells!

We then placed lots of wheat on top of the cotton wool and gave them a good spray of water.

Putting the wheat into the egg shells.

Lots of fun for the kids to do and very easy! We're all looking forward to watching the wheat grow and seeing our egg heads.

This post is part of the Teach/Learn Carnival, April’s theme is Easter. If you would like to join in submit your own post here, or check back at just before Easter for the links to lots of great posts.

Batik Eggs

I had my first attempt at making batik eggs at Steiner Playgroup the other day. Batik Eggs are made by dripping melted wax onto an egg and then dyeing them. I have to admit that my attempt at playgroup yielded much better results than the ones above (possibly because we used a good quality dye and candles!) but I think the ones we did at home still turned out alright in the end. We used blown eggs for this activity so we can keep the eggs. The eggs we made at home were make using generic food dye, a normal old candle (which was possibly a bit thick) and some white Silkie eggs (white eggs work better with the dye).

Here's how to make them:

STEP 1: Prepare the dye

To make the dye I mixed 3/4 cup warm water, 1 tbsp of vinegar and 1/4 teaspoon food dye. I made four different colours: yellow, red, green and blue. The colours are achieved by dipping the egg in a succession of different coloured dyes.

STEP 2: Drip melted wax onto the egg

Put a few drips of wax onto your egg. You can choose whether to drip dots of wax on the egg or just let it run wherever. The two eggs on the left in the first picture are made by dripping wax onto the egg (although not very successful attempts given my candle was a bit too thick!) while the other two were made by letting the wax run wherever. Remember that you will be putting more wax on to make different coloured patches as you go along so you don't need too much wax for the first layer.

STEP 3: Dip the egg into the dye

After the first layer of wax is on dip the egg into the dye. You will need to leave it in there for awhile and move it around slowly to allow the dye to penetrate. I usually start with yellow and then move to darker colours as I go on (this is the bit where you end up with interesting coloured fingers as you can see!)

STEP 4: Repeat the process

Once you have done the first layer repeat with more wax drips leaving the previous wax on. Dip the egg into the next dye colour (I chose red). Repeat the process with the wax and dye until you have used all the colours or you are happy with the colour (the more colours you dye the more coloured patches you will get).

STEP 5: Remove the wax

Once you are happy with how the egg looks you can remove the wax. This can be done by gently picking the wax off (be careful though as it can scratch the dye and leave marks). For bits that are hard to get off you can hold over the candle flame until melted and gently rub into the egg (this leaves a nice polished coating on the egg too)

This is a fun activity to do but it does take a lot of time. It took me a couple of hours to do these four eggs. Jacob and Esme were very interested in watching it to start with but it didn't take them long to get bored! Kids will also require close supervision when you are doing this activity.

This post is part of the Teach/Learn Carnival, April’s theme is Easter. If you would like to join in submit your own post here, or check back at just before Easter for the links to lots of great posts.

Learning about volcanoes

Welcome to the October Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

The Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival hosted by Science@home is for anyone, because we are all teachers and learners all the time. This month our theme is "Studies of Society and the Environment" which covers all the humanities, from history to finance, geography, politics and of course the environment. Check out the links at the bottom to find some other great posts on SOSE.

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For the past couple of weeks we've been learning all about volcanoes. Our interest in this started because of some rocks that Jacob found on a recent trip to a friend's farm. We brought them home to show Daddy and he told us they were volcanic rock. Jacob found this very interesting so we thought it'd be good to do some activities around volcanoes.

The rocks that sparked Jacob's interest in learning about volcanoes

We went to the local library and borrowed some books about volcanoes. The local library is really such a great resource for information. Jacob spent the next week looking at the books we borrowed and talking about how volcanoes work. It's interesting the conversations you have with young kids. Jacob told us that he wanted to see a volcano up close but we had to explain that it was really, really hot and you can't get close to a volcano that's erupting!

The books we borrowed from the library

We decided to make our very own volcano with papermache. We made a frame out of wire and then built the layers up to make a mountain. We left a hole in the middle for a bottle (more on that in a moment!) The last time we did papermache, Jacob really enjoyed it. This time, however, he did about two strips and then got distracted by something else. So lucky Mummy was left to finish it all!! After it had all dried we painted it.

Jacob, doing some papermache before he got distracted, leaving Mummy to do all the work!

A rare moment of brother and sister happily doing an activity together!

The finished product!

So, can you guess what's coming yet? The bottle in the middle of the volcano is for our science experiment! We put bicarb in the bottle and then added vinegar, coloured with red food dye, and a little detergent to make our very own volcano eruption! Lots and lots of fun and a great way to simulate an actual volcano for the kids (not that volcanoes are caused by bicarb and vinegar reactions but y'know ;))

The vinegar gets poured in

Erupting volcano!

Jacob and Esme both loved watching the volcano 'erupt'

Touching the foam was really kind of funny!

We had a couple of fun weeks learning about volcanoes. I wonder what we'll discover next?

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Visit Science@home to find out more about the Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

Please take the time to visit the other participants and check out their posts on "Studies of Society and the Environment."

• The Planning Queen has pulled together some of the many great sources that you can use to keep kids up to date with world news.


• SMMART Ideas is writing about how your 2 year old isn't too young to learn the names and locations of the state she lives in and those around her...or even countries of the world!


• For Adventures with Kids, photos can provide a great starting point for telling or discovering history, from family history to world history. Find out some questions to ask about the photos to get you started and where you can find historical images.


• Narelle at A Bunch of Keys has been having lots of fun learning all about volcanoes and how they work.


• Monique at Your Cheeky Monkey knows that kids are fascinated with igloos - how they are built and why they don't melt. We investigate why!


• Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now has a fun treat to celebrate the end of a geography unit on land and water forms.


• At Homeage, almost every day they get another piece of the world delivered to their door, helping them learn about where and how other people live.


• Deb's girls at Science@home have been building their family tree and talking about all their relationships.

Thanks for visiting our carnival, have fun reading all the posts.

A simple sorting activity

Welcome to the September Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

The Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival hosted by Science@home is for anyone, because we are all teachers and learners all the time. This month our theme is "Maths", which isn't just about counting! Our bloggers have written about games, materials, memory, shapes, graphs and more. Check out the links at the bottom to find some other great posts on Maths.

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The mere word 'maths' has been known to send me running for the hills. I am definitely not a maths person even though I have written about making maths resources before! I never was very good at maths at school and I think this has contributed to a life long fear of it! So when I first heard that the theme this month was maths I got a bit worried. What on earth was I going to blog about? So I got to thinking about it all and the fact that maths can incorporate many different things. I have two young children anyway so obviously it couldn't be an activity that was particularly complicated!

I thought about what we had at home to use and finally decided on a sorting activity. I had some beads put away in our craft box which were different colours and sizes - these were perfect for Jacob. An egg carton served as a sorting container. We put all the beads into a bowl first and Jacob got to work sorting them into their different sections. This activity was great as it wasn't just a sorting activity. We were able to name the different colours and talk about the different sizes as we did the activity.



I did a slightly modified version for Esme. I knew she'd want to participate because she wants to do everything her big brother does at the moment. I used a variety of different items that I found in my scrapbook supplies (which are currently gathering dust anyway!) She had fun moving them in and out of her bowl. I can't say she was particularly good at sorting them into the right sections but hey, who am I to judge?!


The great thing about this activity is you can use pretty much whatever you have on hand. It would also be really good with dried beans as well. I'm thinking chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, etc.

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Visit Science@home to find out more about the Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

Please take the time to visit the other participants and check out their posts on "Maths."

• Marita at Stuff With Thing writes about meal time maths with the help of our dinner table centrepiece and other food related maths fun :)


• AmandaB at HomeAge talks about numbers, shapes and sizes, who knew that nested building blocks could be so much more fun than just building them up and knocking them down!


• For Cass at Schooling Choices the car is one of her favorite learning tools. She thinks you could teach a child almost everything they needed to know about Math without ever leaving the car.


• Deb at Science@home let her kids raid the chocolate to measure and compare with scales and graphs.


• Backyard Safari is a right-brained person who spent a lifetime struggling with math, but comes to see the light through the wonder of nature.


• SMMART Ideas is another food learner, estimating with beans, noodles and cereal...and getting a little number writing practice in there too!


• For Monique at Your Cheeky Monkey, learning to tell the time is an important part of learning for a child, and it incorporates areas of Maths such as number recognition, counting, sequences and general numeracy.


• Narelle at A Bunch of Keys has a simple sorting activity that can be done with young children using things found around the home.


• Colin at Super Parents is writing about the discipline of maths, memory, and recall at 7 years old.


• Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now loves all the Montessori math materials. But there’s one material she says is absolutely brilliant.


• Miss Carly from Early Childhood Resources has a range of different mathematics activities that you can play with your children of all age groups!


• Ash from Mm is for Me has been having some number fun for little learners!


• The Planning Queen at Planning With Kids has games to teach number recognition to preschoolers - so they don't know you're doing it!


• Julie at Works For Me Homemaking says it might surprise you to know that maths is heavily reliant on language. Here is a brief discussion of some of the "language" of maths and why children struggling with language development may find maths difficult.

Thanks for visiting our carnival, we hope you find some interesting new blogs.

Attracting birds to the garden

Welcome to the August Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

The Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival hosted by Science@home is for anyone, because we are all teachers and learners all the time. This month our theme is "Science", because this is National Science Week. Science includes all sorts of practical activities and exploration and we have lots of different ideas in this carnival. Check out the links at the bottom to find some other great posts on science.

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We live in the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria so we naturally get a lot of wildlife coming to our property. We see lots of beautiful birds around but I wanted to do some activities with the kids that would attract these birds just a little closer.

The first thing we did was make some bird feeders. These are really so simple to make and the kids had some much fun making them! It was also a great sensory activity as the kids were able to get their hands into the mix to feel the different textures and help to press it into the molds. There was also a fair bit of tasting involved - luckily before we had put the seed in ;)






Bird feeders

Ingredients

1/2 cup polenta
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup bird seed

Method

1. In a bowl combine polenta, peanut butter, sugar and flour. Stir in water
2. Microwave on high for 3-5 minutes or until mixture is very thick
3. Stir in bird seed. Cool.
4. Press into a mold (we used small metal ramikins, lined with gladwrap). Add string if desired.
5. Put in the fridge to cool and harden.

We also made some pine cone feeders. These are pretty simple too! Put some string around the bottom to hang them and then fill the pine cone with peanut butter. I was a bit worried that we wouldn't be able to find any pine cones for doing this activity but luckily I happened to come across some when we were out one day recently. The things I get excited about lol!



Daddy and Jacob also made a birdhouse that we could hang in the the tree for the birds to nest in. Using these instructions it was quite easy to make and Jacob loved being able to help Daddy with some sawing, gluing and drilling.





Unfortunately it's been a bit wet the past couple of days so we haven't had a chance yet to hang all these things up for the birds. I promise I will update this post as soon as we have it all set up. Hopefully we will see lots of beautiful birds coming to visit soon!!

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Visit Science@home to find out more about the Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

Please take the time to visit the other participants and check out their posts on "Science."

• CatWay at Adventures With Kids is Magnifying It by playing with magnifying glasses and microscopes to help your child explore the world of the very small.


• Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now was never very scientifically minded. One year, though, we participated in a homeschool co-op science fair. Two months later we moved and didn’t have the opportunity to participate in a science fair again. But that experience was a great learning opportunity – and, yes, it actually was fun!


• Monique from Your Cheeky Monkey is commencing on the road of learning about the Human Body (both inside and out). Find out a few of the things we are doing to learn about our amazing bodies!


• SMMART Ideas shows how you can enjoy making these sticky spiderwebs with your child, learn how spiders actually make their webs and other arachna-facts!


• Amanda B at HomeAge says that science is not her forte, but for young children the world is one big science lesson. How do we answer all their questions so that these answers are meanings rather than facts?


• Narelle from A Bunch of Keys has some simple kid friendly activities to do to help attract birds into the garden.


• Deb from Science@home's daughter has decided to be an alienpologist, and she's reflecting on all the different ways kids are exposed to ideas and fun activities.


• Staci at Teaching Money to Kids has a simple sorting activity that kids can do anywhere to get them to observe and compare.


• Ash from Mm is for Me have been running their own family Science Week with lots of fun activities.

Thanks for visiting our carnival, we hope you find some interesting new blogs.

Making literacy resources for young children

Welcome to the July Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

The Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival hosted by Science@home is for anyone, because we are all teachers and learners all the time. This month our theme is "English", including Speaking, Listening, Reading and Viewing. I think our bloggers have covered all of these and there are lots of resources and game ideas, plus a giveaway. Please read through to the end to find links to the other participating blogs.

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In a previous life I was a special education teacher, teaching students with physical and multiple disabilities. The kids I taught were non verbal and had limited hand skills so we had to be a bit inventive about the way we taught literacy. I was fortunate enough to learn from some wonderful teachers who taught me what I know today. A lot of what I do with my kids stems from what I learnt working as a special education teacher. My most used equipment when making resources has been a laminator, bookbinder and velcro. There are so many things you can make with these things! Here are some of the literacy resources I have made that are relatively easy to make at home.

I make books for the kids that feature simple rhymes. Rhymes such as Five in a bed, Five grey elephants, Five little ducks, Five cheeky monkeys and Five speckled frogs (these are great numeracy resources as well!) You can see, in the pictures below, how both the bears and the numbers have velcro on them so that the kids can move them around the page as well. It's lots of fun to tell the story together and make the bears fall out of bed. We also make finger puppets to go with these books as well and the kids really enjoy putting these on their fingers and playing with them too.




We also have a collection of books with puppets. The kids get a lot out of reading the books and having the puppets act out the story. Luckily, I have a MIL who is a very talented knitted so she makes us a lot of resources ;) The Goldilocks puppets below were made by her. Other books with puppets we have include: The three little pigs, The little red hen and Tiddalick.


Whenever we go somewhere as a family, whether it be on holidays or just a fun excursion somewhere, I make a powerpoint book. You can use the photos from where you've been and write a story to go along with them. I usually print it out, laminate it and bind it. The kids love that they feature in the story and read it over and over again. You can see an example of one of our books here

I have also made a felt board for the kids. Actually it's really just a piece of felt stuck on a blackboard with pictures that have been laminated and have velcro on the back - very easy to make!) I have pictures (cars, trees, people, animals, etc) that Jacob likes to move into different places and tell stories about. A great way to encourage early literacy!


I also have cards for days of the week, weather and feelings. The cards have both the word on them and a compic (I used compics with the kids I used to teach so already had these pictures but it would be simple enough to find some pictures on the internet). The cards on the left say Today is..., The weather is...., and I feel...so the kids can choose what they would like to say. Of course, Jacob still needs a bit of help to choose what he wants but he recognises quite a lot of these words by the pictures which I think is great! This activity can be expanded as the kids get older too.

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Visit Science@home to find out more about the Teach/Learn Blogging Carnival.

Please take the time to visit the other participants and check out their posts on "English."

• Monique at Your Cheeky Monkey has written about why her family thinks storytelling is so important, some storytelling ideas, and a few of their favorite books.
• Julie at Works For Me Homemaking is encouraging sound play with preschoolers and not just for fun. It is an important tool to develop sound awareness skills and enhance early literacy development.
• Staci from Teaching Money to Kids reminds us that sometimes language and interaction need to be explicitly taught and practiced, and has some ways to teach the language of sharing.
• Leechbabe from Stuff with Thing asks what happens when your child interprets everything said to them in a very literal way? How do you aid their understanding of the funny things people say?
• Squiggle Mum was reminded recently that you don't have to be a literacy specialist to know how to read aloud to a young child. After all, it ain't rocket science...
• Lisa at SMMART Ideas has a LETTER MATCHING activity to help you practice spelling words, or even foreign language vocabulary.
• Deb from Science@home has a giveaway to help you go on an expedition on your bookshelf.
• Colin Wee at Super Parents is teaching his kids to argue by learning how to create a reasoned argument for English creative writing and the OREO Acronym.
• The Planning Queen from Planning With Kids had her own bookclub when she and her son read the same book. It was a great experience to have a book discussion with her son where she hadn't been reading the story "to him".
  
• Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori agrees with Maria Montessori that young children have a natural love of learning. Thanks to matching Montessori sandpaper letters with small objects, her son decided as a toddler that learning to read was just a fun game.
• Amanda at HomeAge posts that we all know The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but Eric Carle has so much more to offer to young readers, particularly those interested in the natural world. With bright, beautiful artworks and simple, repetitive stories these books are a wonderful way to entice the young "reader".
• Miss Carly from Early Childhood Resources has steps and advice in creating a literacy rich environment for children of all ages.
• Christie at Childhood 101 points out that the process of sharing stories through oral storytelling is an age old tradition amongst families, but does it have a place in our busy modern day family life?
• Sarah at Bringing up Baby Bilingual describes her public library's Writing Buddies program where high school student volunteers lead groups of at-risk fourth and fifth graders through a series of outer-space-themed writing activities. Writing prompts and resources included in the post!
• CatWay at Adventures With Kids asks What is phonics all about? Is this something I should know more about to help my child learn to read and write?
• Narelle from A Bunch of Keys has some simple suggestions for making your own literacy resources for children at home. Includes ideas for books with simple rhymes, books with puppets, books about family trips and making felt boards.
• Zoe at Playing By the Book has gone fishing for words in illustrated dictionaries to support her early reader.

Thanks for visiting our carnival, we hope you enjoy some of these posts and have found some interesting blogs.