Thursday 29 March 2012

Outdoor fun

We've been outdoors most of the week this week making the most of the unseasonably warm weather.

It seems so weird that within a fortnight we've gone from big coats to shorts! No doubt it will soon be over and we'll be back to shivering!

This week we've visited Saltburn, Seaburn, Roker Park and Chester-le-Street Riverside Park.

Parenting is so much simpler in summer!

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Planting potatoes

Sunny days

I wish we lived somewhere where it is hot all year round

3D shapes

Made some homemade with the boys this week and then set the Chops a challenge to save some aliens from a meteorite by making cubes and cuboids to build a wall, pyramids as sharp objects to break the meteorite and spheres as bullets. That'll be 3d shapes introduced then!

We all had a great time playing with the dough. Roly spent a long time sticking his fingers in it and squashing it.

Monday 26 March 2012

Three little pigs - 2012 version

Chops playing 3 little pigs with 'big bad wolf' daddy.

'I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!'

'No you won't dad because I'll bash you on the head with a hammer!'

Sunday 25 March 2012

Happiness is...

a lovely spring walk with my littlest bud singing in my ear.
I don't get enough time to spend just with him so really appreciate it when I do.

Friday 23 March 2012

Chops Progress Report and Plans

I've been looking back over my previous plans for Chops and it's amazing how far he has come in such a short time.

Out of interest I've had a flick through the EYFS guide that I have to see what they'd expect him to be able to do and in all honesty, he would laugh if I gave him stuff at that level to do. There are a few things that we are yet to cover - symmetry, 3d shapes and other peoples cultures - but symmetry I already had planned as part of a butterfly/spring theme next week.

In terms of literacy, he got a pack of magnets today which were the 45 high frequency words which children are expected to know by the end of reception (summer 2013 for him). He knew 41 of them already and gave the others a good try. There are also a lot of words in the Y1/2 packs which he knows too.

We got him a clock last week for the playroom which includes the number of minutes past plus quarters and half aswell as the usual 1-12 so he's been trying to decipher that this week. He can reliably tell the hour and half hour now and is getting to grips with quarter past and to. We played the Hickory Dickory Dock board game today to make the most of his interest. He's fascinated by what Daddy was telling him about the clocks changing, more sunny evenings and a later bedtime - for one day at least!

I really love being able to work at his level without worrying about anyone else. I love challenging him too and seeing the sense of pride when he realises what he's capable of.

I just can't imagine doing this kind of observation/reviewing/planning for a whole group of children in school. Hats off to my teacher friends - how you find time to actually teach when doing all of this I just do not know! Relieved my records are purely personal and for the boys to look back on.

Over the next few days I'm continuing with the Spring theme. I have ideas in my head for the life cycle of a butterfly. Plus we collected a lot of twigs at the park last week for making a nest so we need to find time for that.

He's enjoying spot the difference/maze type puzzles at the moment so I'm going to hunt out some more of those.

Then just the usual games, reading, random pages of workbooks and answering the gazillion questions he comes up with every day. I really love seeing the progress both boys are making and am very excited about seeing where their interests and talents take us next.

Gears! Gears! Gears!

I'd had my eye on the starter set of this for ages so when I saw it reduced to half price last week I couldn't resist. We've all enjoyed trying it out in different shapes and towers. It's very satisfying seeing how these things work when they all fit together

Shapes

My boys are growing up so quick. The Roly one now recognises square, star, circle and triangle and can do his shape puzzle no problem.

Thursday 22 March 2012

Happy sunny days

Today was good.

It included:

Pancakes (as every happy day surely should)
Building a brio train track (possibly my best effort yet)
A picnic at the park with friends
An afternoon with different friends in a different park
A bouncy castle (and Roly only fell off once)
Lots of running around, climbing, sand and sunshine
The car wash (never fails to make Chops smile)
A massive plate of vegan pasta bolagnaise (yum)
Chocolate cake (also vegan, also yum)
Building the Gears Gears Gears set
Discussing the life and growth of flowers and trees (and how they're the same/different to people)

No wonder Roly is flat out snoring now!!

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Brotherly Love

I am loving seeing the relationship between the boys developing. The first thing they do in the morning is see if the other one is awake! Roly copies everything Chops does. Chops looks out for Roly and makes sure he gets what he wants. They have their moments as all siblings do when they are fighting for attention or over a toy and they love a bit of play fighting but on the whole, they are both loving and gentle to each-other.

I'm pleased that Chops isn't off to school in September as I think Roly would be lost without him!

Batcaves odd or even

The Chops has a range of 'work books' for literacy and numeracy which I've picked up when they were on offer in various places. We probably do 2-3 pages a week on average between them all.

Yesterday the page he picked was about odd and even numbers. We had a chat about them, found them on his number square, he did the activity and then we played a batman/riddler game where there were cars that needed rescuing into 2 batcaves and you could only find the riddler if you knew if the number of cars was odd or even. It was simpler than it sounds! Anything superhero related goes down well at the moment and the theory seems to have sunk in.

Will probably try to repeat the activity with a star wars or soldiers theme later in the week.

Friday 16 March 2012

Roly Roly

Not quite 20 months old and the Roly one randomly started doing forward rolls today.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Spring is springing!

It's been lovely to see so many signs of spring when we've been out and about over the past few days! So much so that I thought it was time to start our Spring display door and take down the winter stuff.

The boys have both made some lovely sticky glittery mothers' day cards for me.

We've spotted lots of buds on trees, nesting birds at the Wildfowl Park and thought about other 'new life'.

This afternoon the Chops made a display of the life cycle of the frog by cutting and sticking the pictures onto a tin foil pond. His scissor skills have improved vastly over the past few weeks. It was really noticeable how much more confident he is now with craft activities. I left it up to him to spot the differences between the stages (legs, tail, live on land) which he did easily and he also worked out the order without a problem. I'm planning to take the boys to the Botanic Gardens in the next few days to see the frogspawn there.

In other news this week, Chops has been reading a lot. Not so much of the ORT but 'proper' books (with help) and a lot of reading signs and packets and adverts when we're out and about. We played a 'stepping stones' game where I wrote a lot of words down and laid them across the 'river'. He then had to read them to get across to the other side away from the Roly monster! It was a very quick, fun way to do some reading practice!

Speaking of the Roly one, he's making more sounds and generally being highly amusing. His face when he does something mischievous is fantastic. Can't wait to see what he's like as he gets older. He scaled the pirate ship at the park this week. I'm sure his older brother was 3 before he even attempted it but Roly was half way up before I could catch up with him!

Saturday 10 March 2012

Creoso i Gymru

We had a lovely day today at St Fagans Museum of Welsh Life. It is an outdoor museum in beautiful surroundings and was a great way to spend a sunny Spring day.

There were typical homes from the Iron Age 2500 years ago right up to the last century. The Chops really enjoyed looking inside the old farm buildings and Roly was very impressed with the animals. There were sheep in labour, brand new lambs, piglets, calves, hens and ducks. It was very interesting to see the old farm machinery and water mill.

The ice cream and play area also got a big thumbs up from both boys!

Chops' favourite part of the day was making his own clay pot with a potters' wheel. We're taking it home to paint and use to keep our pens!

He wants to visit St Fagans every time we come to Wales and considering we still did not see everything I would have to agree.