Rainbow - Nature Walk Week 12

On our morning school walk there was a shower and the children walked up with their umbrellas. they looked really cute although James is not keen on having his photo taken!

My Wonderful Children in the Rain

As we walked along we then saw a rainbow!

Rainbow on our Morning School Walk

I asked James when there was a rainbow in the Bible and he was able to say Noah. I asked him what it meant and he said it was that God has promised never to flood the earth again. A wonderful little moment to remind James of the Word.

FB 29 - Day 6

Hannah is still really enjoying painting. She discovered a Thomas activity in the cupboard which uses water to reveal a picture. She gets them all out and paints each one of them until they are completed. So today we started with water painting with me doing a couple - it is quite calming, especially when listening to Beethoven!

Hannah then watched the Leap Frog Letter Factory. I do like this DVD - it really seems to make letter learning fun and both Hannah and James seemed to have learned a lot of their letters with it. Then it was "real" painting time. The manual then suggested to paint a brown bear - Hannah was not interested although she did encourage me to do it! She then went painting happy - hands, elbows, mixing etc. She was delighted to discover that red and white mixed to make her favourite colour pink! I asked her what her painting was and she did not really answer - it was simply painting. I then was given certain colours to paint with and ended up painting a green bear - it made me think of the Artist who painted a blue horse.

Hannah watched the Three Tenors while waiting for lunch. She said they were not singing and I being in the kitchen said they do but one at a time. It was not until a few minutes when I went back later that I realised it had frozen! She loves this little Utube video. It is a Christmas one and the Three tenors and being a little silly! She then helped with lunch. She likes getting things out and choosing what she wants. She chose some strawberries and said we needed to wash them. I gave her the sieve and asked her  to put them in - she spontaneously starting counting - not one to one but as though she knew what she was doing. A great way to practice counting. She also did the same with the toy eggs and a pink egg box I found!

We went on a spider web hunt on our nature walk and found one which we touched and talked about how sticky it was and how gentle we have to be when we touched it. There were no flies so we will have to come back another day. I tried to take a photo but it was a bit tricky!

There was a spider web here, so fine it is not possible to see, a photo by emmajroy on Flickr.

We are gradually learning the Spanish numbers as we watch Utube every day - I think I am beginning to learn the accent. As I learn them I think I will use the UTube less and start to use manipulatives.

I do not have Little Bear yet but it has been ordered - I have ordered it with a CD so we can listen to it in the car. I am So excited. Instead we read The Artist who painted the Blue Horse, Baby Talk, If you a Mouse a Cookie and Pointed Hatted Princesses. When Hannah reads this she puts her fingers on the words and reads from memory. She must be watching James and I as we practice reading!

Reading Delight

Hannah was watching television this morning. She then ran to me in the kitchen and said "Can I read books?" She had seen her favourite book - the Treasury Book with Give a Mouse a Cookie and George and wanted to read that above TV. What a precious moment - of course I stopped what I was doing and snuggled on the sofa with my beautiful little daughter.

Windy?

On the way to school Hannah asked to take off her coat. Earlier on the walk it had been really windy with quite a wind chill factor so I said "No it's windy". Hannah then looked around and said "But Mummy there is not wind, the trees are not moving."I cannot beat her logic as the wind had died down and we were in a sheltered spot!

Nature Walk Week 12

We seem to be doing the same route each nature walk at the moment which is lovely as we get to see changes each week as Spring is on it's way. I think next week I may though take her the "Quiet Way Home" - more of that next week :-)

I decided to take my camera this week and although I only took a few pictures - it was a bit of a distraction so I will only take it on occasions. Once I am behing the camera I am not able to see Hannah and being so close to the road - makes it a little stressful (no pavements). I also feel a little like I am looking for the next picture rather than observing and listening.

Our walk took us past a grass verge - Hannah said "Oh look grass" and then wanted to walk on it and feel it underfoot. I am SO forgetful that this is all new to her. This led to a drainpipe and Hannah told me she could hear a drip drip. I pointed out some bubbles and I sang Insy Winsy Spider. As we approached the waterfall there is a large slate of rock that James likes to climb. Hannah went over and attempted to climb and then said "Oh it's slippy!". We walked a little further and Hannah picked a stick in preparation for the waterfall. She knows what to do now! She is so much better at following the stick now and seeing if it floats or gets stuck. As we walked down the gill we looked back at the waterfall and Hannah said "there is a big one and a little one (there is also a little waterfall)"

Hannah standing in front of the Waterfall

What a cutie! Hannah then wanted to go to the Double Chestnut area. So off we went. Hannah wanted to go along the wall. It was SO slippy - although I was holding her she nearly fell a few times! I asked her why she thought it was so slippy and she said because it had been raining. When we got there we played Hide and Seek and then sat down and read Bringing Down the Moon by Jonathon Emmett - it was s special to read a book outdoors. I would love to do more of this.

We walked further down the hill and met Lola the dog and Barry the owner. He is very kind and allows Hannah to give the dog biscuits when she shakes a paw! I think the children have adopted the dog as their surrogate pet! We stopped by the low wall area and Hannah threw in a large stick. We had as look at the waterfall upstream which was beautiful and then walked home.

Looking upstream towards the waterfall, Lindale

Little moments of Learning

Today has been a day of little moments of learning and Mummy realising what my children know! Today hannah started playing with the nature basket and picked up a snail shell. James asked if you could hear the sea in the shell. I explained this was a snail shell and told him I could not hear the sea in it. He then starts rummaging in the basket and founds a sea shell and said "Mummy I can hear the sea - it's like when you have a power nap (when I nap and sleep I have white noise :-))! The play then moves onto other things including cuddling under blankets. Hannah turns to me and says "Where is the smooth stone?" She had found one stone on the floor from the nature basket but it felt rough to her and so was looking for the smooth one - I did not even realise she knew the difference.

In Bible time we have started reading from the Toddler Bible. I was not sure how to approach Bible time and the Lord placed it on my heart to start SIMPLE. So we snuggled on the sofa and read about Creation. I asked the children some questions to check comprehension. When I putted to a page with clouds and the ocean on I asked Hannah what God made that day (pointing to the picture) - she beautifully said "the clouds and the ocean!" She had been listening depsite her wriggling. It was then time to pray - James then asked to do the See and Know Prayer Song - we used to do this when he was little so it was really sweet to hear him requesting it.

We have borrowed a book called The Blue Horse by Eric Carle. It is a wonderful book showing that anybody can be an artist. A polar bear does not have to be white when painting. Hannah though loves things to be just right and giggled all the way through - she loved the pink rabbit and was so sweet and adamant when we got to the polar bear page and said "the polar bear is meant to be white" with lots of giggles.  We love this book and it would make a great go-along book for I am an Artist.

When we walked to school - where SO much learning happens, the sun was high in the sky and created beautiful shadows. Every so often the shadows disappeared  - the children asked where they had gone. I explained the sun needed to be behind us and sometimes it was hidden by buildings and trees. It was fun to find our shadows and for them to "hide" again. A little while later James said 'my shadow has gone', in response Hannah said "the is not there so the shadow has gone" and she looked behind her. The shadows provide such fun - we move our bodies in different ways and trying to step on each others shadows.

On the way back home we went through a little footpath that is overgrown and we played "We are going on a bear hunt and Hannah loved saying "swishy swashy". I love it when books come to life in the outdoors! Such sweet memories are created.

Hannah has a graze on her elbow at the moment and when she looks at it - she says my x-ray is sore. I think she means because she can see blood she can see inside her body. I know I should have but I didn't want to correct her!

FB Month 29 - Day 5

We continue to sing the ABC song lots - Hannah especially loves to sing this to her heart's content. I decided that as Hannah now sings this beautifully we would do something different - so as we walked up to school this morning I said that when I said a particular letter I would chase them! This meant that they had to listen really carefully. James got this straight away. He then asked to have a go and being the little boy who loves to be chased he said A. I think we will play this again. I also put on the Jolly Phonics Utube which sings a tune to all the phonics sounds - she loved this. I need to try and remember the tunes!

Hannah listened to the Three Tenors today on Utube while I did the washing up. I t was SO funny because I started tuning into what she was doing and she was singing along in a kind of opera voice! I must try and get a video of this is she does it again.

We have meant to be learning to count to 5 in Spanish but I have neglected this - I think I do not trust my pronunciation! I managed to find a Utube that showed how to same the numbers in a child way so i will think we wil use this in future until I and Hannah have learned them. Today's tune was Jimmy Crack Corn and it has really made me laugh how much she has sung this - she LOVES it. I am not sure of the words but I don't think she gets them - I think she just loves the tune :-)

Untitled, a photo by emmajroy on Flickr.

For colouring time the guide said to draw a Q and P - once again Hannah was not interested but she did like to colour  over it with a highlighter. I loved the way Hannah naturally then led the table time. She decided she wanted to use the glue - so I cut up the pieces and she then stuck them on. She would say "I need a white or I need a pink" and then do glue circles. To check that they were stuck she would lift the paper! After this I drew some faces on the white ones and we chatted about the the different faces and what they looked like - sad, happy, angry etc. Hannah had a go at cutting herself but still finds this difficult. In our reading we had read Harold and Purple Crayon (twice at Hannah's request). I had some purple coloring pens ready for her to draw a picture but she chose not to.

While we were doing this we listened to the Blues. Hannah then decided she wanted to be a ballerina and dance. Thankfully I was able to record this because it was the sweetest and funniest thing ever!

In the evening I put out some bowls of different foods - crisps, sweets, tomatoes and an orange. We then had a chat about what was healthy and what was not healthy. Daddy then pretended to be My Unhealthy and Mummy pretended to be Mrs Healthy and Hannah had to choose who to give each bowl to. This was too hard but it was fun seeing Daddy pretending to be unhealthy with sore teeth, a fat tummy and feeling sad and tired.

Daddy being Mr Unhealthy!, a photo by emmajroy on Flickr.