Australian Animals Week - Preschool Homeschooling

Given where we live (semi rural area) Mini Miss has seen Kangaroo's since she was born on a daily basis. They are nothing new to her, but suddenly her interest was peaked by watching 2 young males having a fight in our backyard. 

The idea of Aussie Animals week was born.

We started off with something fun, an animal dice game. She rolls the dice, and whatever animal it landed on, she had to imitate...

The Solar System

If you follow my FACEBOOK page, then you would know that recently I have become very interested in homeschooling my muddled kids!

Miss Teen is already set up with Distance Education and is doing much better with her work in 2 weeks than she did all last year at school!

Mini Miss, watching Miss Teen do her work, wanted her own "school work", so I have reintroduced Activity Monday into our everyday lives. I am actively schooling her through craft, play, science experiments, tv shows, ipad apps and even YouTube videos. We also do worksheets when she insists on being just like her big sister! 

I am letting her lead the way to a degree, so when she started to show a big interest in the Solar System, I thought we should explore that interest further.

First we did some craft.

We made a name rocket, using THIS original idea. This was great building the rocket, spelling out her name, gluing (one of her favourite things to do) and decorating it.

Then we moved onto the Solar System. We watched some You Tube videos using these links from Natural born homeschoolers. 

Then we built our own solar system. We talked about all the planets, their position in the solar system. We talked about the sun and how its a ball of gas and super hot. Mini Miss was just soaking it all up and asking lots of questions.

Then finally we finished off with some free craft time using printables from Picklebums. As Mini Miss pasted her cut outs, she told a little story to me about the astronaut taking the aliens space ship and how they worked out how to share. Very cute!

So our first experience with focusing on homeschooling = success. 

Do you home school? 

Do you have solar system activities or videos that your kids love?

Feel free to share below!!

Rainbow Rice

This Muddled Mummy has been rather busy lately, and to say Mini Miss has been misbehaving as a result would be an understatement.

It's like, at times, like she has been possessed by a Poltergeist, a mischievous, very naughty, attention seeking monster! 

So, rather than spend all my time constantly berating her, putting her in time out, and generally making one miserable little girl and equally miserable mummy, we have reinstated the "Activity Monday". 

Activity Monday came about when I was working 3-4 days a week as a way to educate, entertain, extend and most importantly, spend time with Mini Miss. It was on a Monday, as that was my set day off! 

Now its just Activity day. The benefits of being a SAHM mean I can do more activities more often, as long as Mr Moo is behaving himself! I can REDIRECT her energy, her need for attention into something positive for both of us, rather than being constantly frustrated by her behaviour. This gives her the time and attention she wants in a positive way, and so far, so good, its reducing the negative behaviour!

Yep, its hard. It requires planning. It means letting some things go in the house until the days she is at daycare. That is hard for me. Its meant a reshuffle. 

But its so worth it!

So here is our first Activity....

Coloured Rice

Materials Needed:

• Long grain rice (we used a 1kg bag)
• Food dye
• Hand sanitiser
• Ziplock plastic bags
• A container to put it in
• Kitchen utensils to pour, measure, mix etc

The How To:

1. Separate the rice into the bags. We had 7 bags and I used scales to make them fairly even. No need to be that sad and precise, thats just me lol!

2. Add food colouring to each bag, I used about 20-25 drops of each colour to get a nice vibrant colour, add a big dolop (yes, that is a measurement!) of hand sanitiser and seal the bag. The hand sanitiser helps spread the colour and seal it into the rice grains.

3. The first fun part for Mini Miss was mixing the colour in the bag so that it coated each grain of rice!

4. The boring part....letting it dry. Its best left overnight, bags open, out of reach of impatient curious hands! The rice will be stuck together when dry in the morning, but a quick squish in the bag will loosen it again. 

5. To prepare what the play experience, I set up the rice in a flat container. Believe it or not, the tray is a kitty litter tray from a cheap shop, clearly NOT used lol! The end result was our RAINBOW RICE! 

Mini Miss couldn't wait to get into it. I set around the tray kitchen items such as scoops, funnels, measuring cups, spoons, various sized containers, even a silicone muffin tray for "baking". 

Keen she dived straight in....

It was fun. It was messy. It lasts. You can store it in an airtight container and use it again, and again and again! 

She measured and poured. When we were colouring the rice we talked about mixing colours. So lots of learning as well as lots of fun!

I got my inspiration for this, and for most of our activities, off Pinterest.

You can check out some of my kids activity boards HERE and HERE and even HERE.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities - Part 1

So Mini Miss needs to be challenged and constantly wants to learn, be taught and understand. I try to do this through a mix of guided learning, and more importantly, play, art and craft. 

I decided we would look at the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. 

If you haven't read this book, then go out and buy it! Now! Go!! Especially if you have kids! Its an endless source of educational points, and kids just LOVE it! The illustrations are colourful, the story simple but entertaining, and Mini Miss LOVES the ending! 

I read it to Mini Miss, who immediately insist that we read it again, and then she wanted to "read" it to me. Being able to retell a story is a great skill, and she did a fantastic job using the pictures as guides for her story!

Then we got stuck into a couple of craft activities! 

Egg Carton Caterpillar

Materials Needed:

Egg Carton

Red and Green Paint

Pipe cleaners

Googly Eyes

Mini Miss loved this activity. As I said, I don't often do a guided activity, but I also find value in following step by step instructions to make something. We started by painting our caterpillar just like the Hungry Caterpillar in the book.

Then, when the paint dried we stuck on his Googly Eyes, and I put small holes in his head and his body using a skewer, and Mini Miss added antennae and legs.

So simple, yet a lot of fun for miss almost 3!!

Then sticking with the slightly messy theme, we made some

Painted Butterflies

Materials Needed:

Coloured construction paper

Paints in the colour of your choice

Pre cut butterflies (I did these beforehand as Mini Miss is not yet ready for scissors)

This was as fun as it was messy! Mini Miss LOVES paint! The hardest part was convincing her to just put the paint on 1 half of the butterfly! I got her to put some blobs of paint on the butterfly, then fold it in half. We used 2 or 3 different colours each time, so we could look at how colours mix to create new colours. These butterflies also help us talk about mirrors and how things can be the same on both sides.

 

These were 2 simple and fun activities, and a great way to start looking at this book. As she is SO obsessed with the story, and insists on reading at least 3 times a day, I figure we will continue with some more activities based around the story tomorrow. Some more advanced, possibly challenging activities. Will post these next week! 

Letter A Day

So Mini Miss is almost 3 years old.

She knows her shapes, her colours, how to count to 20, how to count to 100 by 10's, she knows the alphabet, she can recognise and sort of write her name....this isn't me boasting, she is just a sponge, and ALWAYS wants to be learning something! 

It's like she is ready for school!!!

Except, of course, she's not even close.

So where to from here? Normally with this age groups we are looking at learning all the things above! So we are moving forward a bit. We are looking closely at each letter, we are reading books and doing craft based on them. Basically, we are doing early reading learning....which is scary!! 

For those who are interested, I have joined a couple of great websites that focus on homeschooling. They have amazing resources and are a wealth of knowledge! 

Free home school deals
The Kinder Corner
Teach With Me

For more pages, check out my Education & Activity Monday boards on Pinterest!

So first up is the Letter A. Seemed like a pretty obvious place to start, but nonetheless, she knows this letter well, so introducing her to some more in depth learning, discussion and crafts was easier done with a letter she already knows well (at least, I thought so. To be honest, I have no idea what I am doing here, I'm just making it up as I go!).

So I printed off some craft worksheets, simple easy ones for us to ease into this new phase of learning. I encouraged Mini Miss to fill the letters, both upper case and lower case with pom poms. We talked about the 2 different types of A, she traced them with her finger, and it is really good for her fine motor skills, something she has a lot of work to do on!

When she was done, I wrote her name in the corner and Mini Miss wanted to copy it, so I gave her a pencil and was very surprised at the results!

She needed help with the M, but the rest was all her! 

Then since she was very focused and interested in doing "more A crafta mummy" we continued, colouring in an Apple tree and tracing more letters. Then, finally, using her favourite paddle pop sticks, we made some letter A's and glued them onto paper.

Mini Miss loves this one on one time. She knows Mondays are "her" day, where we do lots of activities together. I put aside housework, chores and errands and spend time with her. We read, we do craft, we play with toys. Its our very own special day. The fact that I am helping her learn at the same time is just a bonus!! 

*Please note, I am not paid, nor affiliated with any of the websites I have shared. I just share them as I find them valuable resources*

Activity Monday - Christmas Craft

Today we started doing Christmas Craft. Mini Miss is already very excited about Christmas. She is no longer scared of Santa, but keen to see him, get a lolly & have a cuddle (yes, the stranger danger thing bothers me). She understands that there will be a tree and presents and celebrations. 

She also understands that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus birthday. 

So while I was setting up today's activity, she had a great time colouring in a picture of Jospeh, Mary and Baby Jesus. While doing this she informed me that "I love baby Jesus". Makes my heart swell with love. 

Normally I don't buy ready made craft activities. I find they are too directive and can stifle creativity. Also, if a child has a "perfect" example, even just a picture, of what is expected to be achieved but they cannot achieve it, it sets them up to fail. My children will learn about failures, I'm not going to set them up for it.

But this activity was different. And seriously, CHEAP!!! So I thought as an easy, no fuss, first Christmas craft activity it would be great. 

$3 from Officeworks, was this set of 6 Christmas figures that you make out of plaster of Paris & then paint them. Everything is supplied in the package, dried plaster, moulds, paints and a paint brush.

(NOTE: it did say to use with children over 5yrs & no Mini Miss is not 5, but with ample adult supervision she was fine).

I set about reading the instructions while Mini Miss coloured. Immediately I noticed there were no measurements. "Add plaster to water and stir until a thick pourable paste is made". No idea how much water to use, I had to guess. I also wasn't going to risk using too much, so I put the plaster in first then slowly added water while stirring the whole time. It took somewhere between 1/2-3/4 cup of water to reach a consistency I was happy with. Mini Miss did some of the stirring while I poured water. Stirring is one of her favourite things to do in the kitchen! 

Once mixed, we poured it into our moulds. 

Explaining to a 2.5yr that she has to now wait for a couple hours while they dried was not going to go well, so I had more activities planned, boring housework, but she loves to help! 

After 2 hours they popped out easily & didn't look too bad!

Now the fun, painting. Mini Miss needed some encouragement to paint them, it wasn't until later I realised she thought they were food as we had "cooked" them in the kitchen! No wonder she didn't want to paint them, I'm constantly telling her not to eat the paint! Eventually she got into it though! 

We were also lucky to have a fair bit of plaster left over, so I put it to good use.

No idea yet what we will use it for, but it's cute! And underneath I will name & date it.

The trick to using pre made activities is to  let go. Let your child just use their imagination, let them paint what they want, how they want. This is the hardest thing for me. I see that picture perfect example and want to achieve that, but I'm now focusing more on what Mini Miss gets out of it, rather than the final product. 

For example, from this activity, here are some of the skills she gets out of it; 

• Hand eye coordination, 
• Colour identification, 
• Colouring mixing, 
• Talk about Christmas and an ever growing vocabulary. 
• Learning the value of patience was a good one today too! 

So the final product? Not "perfect", but she is happy and so am I! 

Now I am off to explore Pinterest and find some more Christmas activities! 

Activity Monday - Paint

Today I decided on some messy play. Something simple but so much fun! 

We made our own paint!!

It's a very simple recipe

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup of water
• Food colouring of your choice. 

I gathered the ingredients we would need with Mini Miss. She loves being involved in EVERYTHING at the moment, so I pulled it out of the cupboard, she put it on the bench. Then she went straight to the Tupperware cupboard to get our "special mixing bowl". It's just a silver bowl, but I always use it for mixing craft stuff in, so she just KNEW!! 

As Mini Miss is now 2.5, I decided she should do the making, with supervision of course! 

I find it VERY hard to ignore the mess, but this activity isn't about me, it's about her and I don't want to fill her head with my weirdness, so I reign it in as much as possible! Also, she is like her Mum, messy in the kitchen! (I drive myself crazy with cleaning up as I go when I cook. I am a major mess in the kitchen, but apparently my creations always turn out ok, so I guess it's a good thing!) 

I talked her through each step, explaining things like she needed to fill the cup right to the top, what she needed next etc. this is a VERY basic recipe, so it wasn't hard, and pouring, scooping, measuring and stiring are perfect skills for her to be learning. 

In fact, all I really did was add the food colouring and finished off the stiring to get out most of the lumps. 

So basically, you put all the ingredients in a bowl, add a few drops of colour and stir. I added extra water to this recipe as I was putting it in sauce bottles and I needed it a little runnier to make it easier to use. The consistency to aim for I think is runny pancake batter. (Everyone knows what a good pancake batter looks like!!).

I then poured it carefully into seperate sauce containers. We ended up with 4 colours. 

Of course, Mini Miss insisted in being involved in the clean up, and seriously, what Mum is going to say no to that?!! (And if you would, then I say don't! Encourage their involvement in all steps, including clean up! Believe me, all too soon they are teens who dont do anything with being dragged by the collar! Yes, it takes longer, sometimes it creates more mess, but it's teaching them to clean up after themselves.) So I gave her a sponge and let her wipe down the bench while I did a quick wash up.

REMEMBER!! 

This is a messy activity! They will spill flour, splash water, miss the cup, and if your toddler is like mine, eat some of the ingredients as you go! (Her face when she tasted it was priceless! Like she just sucked on a lemon! But she kept eating it!). 

The good thing with making things like paint at home is you know what's in them, and despite the taste, it won't make your little one sick. 

So yes, in hindsight, I SHOULD HAVE put a towel on the chair she was standing on! Good tip that! If they are standing on a fabric chair, COVER IT!! 

Another good tip if you are letting your toddler do this is have separate "craft" flour/salt/other ingredients. They put their hands in the containers and packets, they lick their fingers and dive back on in! So, keep the food ingredients separate from your craft ingredients!! 

After lunch we headed outside where I had set up a special painting activity, painting with her new paints on black card. We nearly ALWAYS paint in white paper, so I thought she would enjoy this difference. She sure did! Lots of talk followed as she painted about the night sky and "outta space". Lots of describing what she was creating with her new paints, it was great! 

And her final products? 

The first one was "night time" and the second one was "space". 

Today's activity was great, it was messy, sensory and gave us lots of opportunity for talking about lots of different things (textures, colours, measuring, space, night time....).

Best of all? 

It was FUN!

Activity Monday Part 2 - Straws!!!

I love how one activity often leads to another one. When I let Mini Miss's imagination run wild, and follow her lead, we often end up where I would never have expected! Other times its my own imagination that runs off and leads us down the yellow brick road of craft adventures.

Bubbles Monday was no exception. Once we were done with our bubble painting we were left with lots more straws, and lots of bubble paintings.

So I decided rather than put these paintings away with all the other paintings that are gathering dust, in a box, at the top of our wardrobe, we would use them to make something else. 

So, off to Pinterest I went while they dried!!

And I found 2 great ideas that were perfect (that is quick and easy and didn't require any more planning or prep!)

First was at the Growing a Jeweled Rose website. This is a FANTASTIC site with sooooo many activities you don't ever really need to go anywhere else!! (but I still do!). 

Paper Rockets! 

Mini Miss loves rockets and space and planes and adventures. These were so easy to make and so much fun to play with. 

They are so simple to make. Cut an A4 piece of paper into strips. Obviously we used the bubble painting paper, but you could also get the kids to decorate some pieces of paper etc.

Roll the paper around a large pencil and either glue or tape shut.

Then to seal the top end, simply fold over and sticky tape shut.

See a full list of instructions HERE at Curious Kangaroos, where the original idea came from!

Then, inspired by a single image I found on Pinterest, I decided to make 

Straw Flowers.

Disclaimer: our flowers are NOTHING like those above! You know those "I found it on Pinterest and nailed it" memes? Yeah, we could be one! BUT, we had fun!

First I cut out some flower shapes from our paintings, found some colourful cupcake cases, and cut out some flower centres. And then I let Mini Miss put them together!

Then I found an (empty!) toilet roll and let her loose with the paint to make our vase!

And the final product? 

These activities kept us busy ALL day! Mini Miss was happy as she is at that "give me all your attention all the time, RIGHT NOW" phase and she was kept busy! I was happy too because as well as spending quality time with my Mini Miss, where I was focused on her, I can see all the skills she is learning, the fine motor development, the cognitive connections....or maybe that's the retired child care worker in me.......

Wonder what the plan for next Monday is? (no really! Any suggestions?! Its tough stuff coming up with interesting fun and engaging activities for a very busy active and easily distracted toddler!!)