Making A to Z books

This is a great activity for any child, mainly because it is so adaptable. The boys have each picked a subject that they are interested in (dinosaurs and animals.) They can practice their literacy skills for writing a non fiction text, their drawing skills for illustrations, whilst learning about their favourite topic.

Growing their own food

Each of my children chose something they like to eat. We then brought some seeds and planted them. They will take the responsibility to look after their seeds and plants and hopefully will reep the rewards when they grow 😊From this activity we learnt:

• How to plant seeds
• What plants need to grow
• How seeds germinate
• Plant life cycles
• Responsibility
• Turkish translation for vegetables
• How to follow instructions

Natural art

This activity is great anywhere. You could try it at the beach, in the woods and in the garden at home.

Investigating dissolving

Today we used different things from the kitchen to investigate whether solids would dissolve in both hot and cold water.
We used

• Coffee
• Dishwasher tablets
• Salt
• Corn kernels
• Flour
• Lentils
• Gravy granules
• Bicarbonate of soda
• Washing powder

My son drew his own table to collect the results. We found out that hit water dissolves things much quicker due to the molecules moving around faster due to the heat.
Once we had finished the experiment we talked about which solutions were reversible and irreversible changes and how we could change them back using evaporation and filtration.

Chinese new year

This year we have made chinese dragon fortune tellers and learnt how to write the numbers 0-10 in chinese.

All resources from Twinkl.com

Trip to pay the electric bill

We really take every learning oppurtunity we can from every situation. Today we did some number recognition whilst waiting for our turn at to pay the bills.

Roll a sound

This game is great for both counting and phonics sounds. There are loads of different versions to print and play on Twinkl.com.

Phonics phase 2 -letter fans

I have made some letter fans using the website Twinkl.com and my laminater so that my 3 year old can start learning to read.

Firstly we went through each sound and the jolly phonics action to go with it, then I say a sound and she finds it on her fan. They also come in handy when you are teaching your child how to write the sounds.

She also has a tricky word fan for the words that cannot be sounded out and a number fan to practice recall of numbers to 20.

These fans are great for taking out and about so you can practice anywhere. I added some monsters just to make it more fun.

Cooking – life skills

Each week the boys are going to chose a dish that they would like to cook for the family dinner. They really enjoy cooking and it’s a great skill for when they get older and have to cook for themselves. Today Miles learnt how to make homemade pizzas from the dough to the tomato base and all the toppings.

30 day Mind and body challenge

After looking at loads and loads of different 30 day challenges (mainly on Pinterest), I decided that I needed to use a mixture of different ones to achieve my goals for my family.  I wanted a challenge that we could all do together and one that would exercise both our bodies and minds at the same time. (See below for our challenge grid.)

I decided to add a plank and squat challenge for exercise, yoga poses for flexibility, and a drawing challenge for our creativity. I have also taught the children to meditate for 5 minutes after our workout.  Since doing this challenge I have found that my children are much calmer and ready for anything we are doing that day.