FIAR Make Way for Ducklings - day 2

The weather was good today so we headed to the Wetlands Centre at Washington to check out the ducks! The ducks, however, didn't get a look in as there was a chap on site from Wetheriggs Animal Rescue and Conservation Centre with a barn full of exotic animals!!!! Sylvie and Bea had a fantastic time holding the Bearded Dragon,the tortoise, the terantula, the huge hissing cockroaches, the Royal python, (Lizzy!!!) and another lizard, (can't remember her name!). What a brilliant morning and not a duck in sight! I think we'll certainly be visiting Wetheriggs Animal centre when we go to the Lakes at the end of May. We'll be picking up the Ducklings again tomorrow when we crack on with some maths and science!!!

FIAR Make Way for Ducklings

As it's spring and new life is appearing everywhere I thought we'd row Make Way for Ducklings. We saw lots of ducklings at the Wetlands Centre on Tuesday which was a great introduction to this book. I'll write under the photos later - I'm off to buy Blu Tack and elastic bands right now, (I know, the excitement of the purchase is just killing me!!!). I don't think the photos have appeared in the order I wanted them to, but nevermind, I'm sure they give you the general idea!!!

MATHS. We grouped snails, ladybirds and peanuts together under pictures of the 8 ducklings to figure out how much food Mr and Mrs Mallard had to find for their babies. This was great. Sylvie really got into it and seemed to enjoy the visual aspect of the project. I added some plus signs so that she could see she'd done a huge big sum! Sylvie was really proud of what she'd done which was nice to see. We faffed around doing some sums using pictures of the mini beasts eaten by the ducklings and some plus and equals signs. It took a while for Sylvie to grasp what was going on - she seems to guess the answers instead of looking at what's in front of her which drives me crackas and leads to, suprise suprise, the wrong answers!!! She does this with most things - paticularly when she's reading, however, she's just starting so it's hardly a big deal it just frustrates me a bit. Annabelle loved the tiddlywinks and Sylvie couldn't really work with them because the little one was stealing them all the time. I felt a bit sorry for Bea. She wanted to join in but she just didn't grasp what we were doing at all. In the end she went outside to play and found a dead pigeon under the garden bench. Er, yes.... that's another story, (bloomin' cat!).

The resources we used for the days activities.

Bea looking for America on the globe. After doing this we looked for America in our atlas then we tried to find Boston. Everyone can join in with this and they seem to love looking at maps. There's so much to discover! I've not photographed us drawing a map from our house to the shops! It's a dead easy route so it didn't take long and wasn't too taxing. We used the North, South, East, West legend and also had a good talk about left and right, (Sylvie grasps this, Bea's clueless!). I now know that given the opportunity, Sylvie will be able to find her way to the shops!!!!

Before taking this photo we used tiddlywinks to figure out how many weeks it takes for a duck egg to hatch. We decided that it takes 30 days then we discussed how many days there are in a week... Sylvie counted out four sets of 7 days, (Monday through Sunday) with two left over then wrote how many days and how many weeks it takes for a duck egg to hatch in her little folded book. I think Bea was off colouring in at this point.

We had a selection of duck eggs and hen eggs in the kitchen which was a great opportunity to compare the two! How do they look? How do they feel? The girls decided that the duck egg was much bigger then the hen egg with a bigger yolk, (more for the developing chick to feed on) and that the egg white was runnier in the hen's egg than in the duck's egg. Annabelle had a right old splodge in the hens egg - urgh!

The girls cut up a waterlife magazing to make a collage... Bea loved the flamingos....

Then we found this fab picture of the inside of a duck egg!!!

We ended our row by labelling a Mallard duck. All good! After this our friend Emma came over so we headed to the garden centre for a play then we came home and did a little bit of the Moffat's Girls, 'Ready to Read' which Sylvie really enjoyed. Bea was happily playing with her toys at this point. The girls had an early tea then went out in the street to play for a bit before having a bath then bed. I think we all enjoyed today. It was quite stressful at first because Sylvie wasn't engaging at all, Bea was trying to do everything but sturggling and Annabelle was climbinb all over the table, standing on everything and basically being a bit of a pain but I stuck with it and things eventually settled down. We covered quite a lot of ground but it didn't take that long and it wasn't that intense. Today, if the rain holds off, we're going to head to the Wetlands Centre for an hour to check out the chicks! This will be a kind of field trip.

Still here

We're still here, plodding along, caught up in the chaos that is everyday life therefore I generally run out of time and energy before blogging! The big girls are in the bath and the little girl is on the top bunk! She's been nappy free for two days and two nights and so far we've not had any accidents. I'm going to have to be on the ball today or goodness knows what will turn brown! We've not done anything specific over the last couple of weeks, we've just done a bit of 'this and that'. Sylvie hasn't looked at a letter since the last time I blogged. She's kind of on strike. If I suggest doing any reading she says 'NO' and literally runs away from me. Mark took her swimming yesterday, (they were in there for three hours) so I'm going to use that as a bribe to encourage her to join in with some academic stuff. Believe me, it's nothing high brow! Maybe a couple of sight words, some adding up, you know, the very basic bits and bobs that are actually relevant to everyday life!! I picked up a couple of Orchard games yesterday so hopefully she'll enjoy those. Some pictures of what we've been up to.....

Take Two

I made another dress for Bea which has come out smashing and took no time at all. The first attempt looks great on Annie!

Bea's dress is made from brown cotton that my mum bought. There's quite a bit of it! These are the only photos I managed to take of her before we headed out to La Tasca for tea. Two for one! Superb.

Sew So Day

We've been in the house most of the day (and the garden as the sun is shinging again woo hoooo) and as I was a bit bored this afternoon I decided to make Bea a top. The children were playing, having a good time so I brought some fabric downstairs and improvised a peasant top. There are some fundamental flaws... I've used too much fabric in the body so it 'sticks out' a bit much and it's not long enough. Other than that, it's OK. I can lengthen it by adding a border once I've got some matching fabric and I've made a ribbon belt to 'suck it in a bit' so that it doesn't look like poor Bea's about to take off. Here are the picks... See how it sticks out a bit at the back like a ducks bum? I know I can sort that bit out with added length. I enjoyed making it but I think next time I might just buy a pattern instead of making it up as I go along!!!

Dying Eggs and Making Easter Cards

The weather was pretty dreadful yesterday so we stayed in and had fun with eggs! First of all, we tried dying some eggs using beetroot, but this didn't really work for us. The shells changed colour a little bit but not enough. I think maybe we didn't do it right? We boiled the eggs in with the beetroot and added some vinegar. Oh well, the girls enjoyed eating them!!!

I've got loads of food colouring gels in the house because I like to make a 'rainbow cake' as a birthday tradition. We made good use of the gels today by sinking eggs into them! The colours came out great - I'm really impressed.

After having an eggtastic morning we headed to soft play for a bit, which was manic, as I should have anticipated considering it's the Easter hols and it was snowing outside! Sylvie actually asked to leave after an hour or so which is totally unlike her! We have been making Easter cards this morning, but now the shopping's here so off to unpack!

What?

I've just read yesterday's post and I think my enthusiasm may out weigh the possible!

Five in a Row - Planning

I'm feeling quite inspired by the FIAR curriculum and I think the girls are enjoying dipping in and out so I've decided to do a bit of planning. I like lists, I like plans. I rarely look at my lists and hardly ever stick to my plans but it eases my soul to know they are there! I've decided to row books seasonally to keep in tune with what's going on in nature and with the craft activities that we love so much from our Floris books. I think some of the books work quite well together so we'll row them either at the same time or in quick succession. Here's my list SPRING Peter Rabbit The Carrot Seed Miss Rumphius The Very Hungry Caterpillar, (printables to be used ongoing to help Bea with numbers and letters). Madeline The Glorious Flight Story of Ferdinand, (there's a good go-along for this on Currclick that's only about $2). Make Way for Ducklings. SUMMER Down Down the Mountain Harold and the Purple Crayon The Clown of God We're Going on a Bear Hunt, (BFIAR) Grandfather's Journey AUTUMN Lentil Night of the Moonjellies Storm in the Night Time When I was Young in the Mountains Little Red Lighthouse How to Make and Applie Pie and See the World, (I don't know if I can wait until Autumn!) WINTER Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel Katy and the Big Snow Owl Babies, (BFIAR) Owl Moon Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ... and I might have other books to row by then but so far, this is our collection. There are books here from BFIAR and volumes one and two but I don't mind mixing and matching a bit! On top of this we have other stuff to keep us going... Science Through Literature, Level 1 Story of the World, Vol 1, Ancient Times, (we've not done any of this yet, I'm not that inspired by it and feel like I need to find the love before I can be enthusiastic about it. I love the resources it's just the content that I find a bit boring... I know, I'm so uncultured!!!). We're using the 'Ready to Read' printables from the Moffatt Girls to help with reading which we all really like. I miss out the more simplistic bits as I think Sylvie's past that now but we still enjoy the different units. Sylvie's picking up a couple of sight words every now and again and she's getting on really well with Peter and Jane so I'm fine with that. Bea's showing a real interst in letters so we're going to start doing some really basic stuff with her soon. Singapore Maths and Miquon Maths, (the Orange Book) ............. and that's it, apart from being aware of nature and the changing seasons and doing plenty of crafts to tie in with what's going on in the big wide world. This might sound like a lot, perhaps overkill, but we only do a little bit of each thing and sometimes not every day! Today we're focussin on Easter. I'm not sure how to approach Easter. It's a religious festival and I think the girls should be aware of that but I don't know how deep to take it just yet. We'll see. They're happy to colour in Easter Eggs at the minute so perhaps they don't need to know more yet. A spell checker on here would be grand!