Tara's tuckerbox

We have had a few play dates over the last few weeks and thought id share with you what we made to share with our friends....

Kale Chips

These are super quick to make. Tear bite sized bits of fresh kale off the bunch, leaving the stalk behind. Spread on an oven tray with a dash of oil and salt and bake till just about browning(10 mins). As another variety we make with soy sauce instead of oil/salt. Doesn't sound yummy but if you have a child who refuses to eat greens, this is worth a try.Promise they are yummy!

This lion is a rice cake topped with peanut butter, banana eyes and mouth. Mandarin nose and mane. Date eyes.

 Healthy but fun!

 

Lolly teacups are always a hit at a little girls play date! Ice cream cones cut down with a bread knife. Using a glue (icing sugar and water) connect to a round biscuit. Use a jelly ring cut in half and stick to side of cone and fill with lollies!

Matchsticks Vs Play dough

Our play dough tray was upgraded this week with an addition of a bowl of coloured matchsticks. The play dough makes for a great foundation to poke the matchsticks into. For older toddlers try plasticine, as the firmer it is the harder the muscles in the child's hands will need to work.

Condensed milk painting

Condensed milk painting has been one of Tara's favourite activities lately -and i think i know why!
What other paint would taste so sweet???
Simple add a drop of food colouring into some condensed milk and you have a glossy new type of paint.
Its a pleasure to use, very thick in consistency so the paint stays in place perfectly. We have paintings that are months old now and are still shiny and no sign of mould or stickiness.
When finished allow to dry for 24 hours to make sure the stickiness has hardened. Do not leave outside on a bench as we did once, as the ants also seem to like the sweet taste :0

Elastic transferring

These squishy elastic bands make for perfect transferring objects for toddlers. This activity tray was put out for Mason with the elastics scattered all over the tray and a pair of tongs on top. A basket sat on the left side as he is showing right handed preference at the moment but swapping the basket side would be idea for a challenge.
I used the tongs to pick up a single elastic and squeeze to keep it held the released it over the basket and then offered the tongs to Mason. Great for fine motor skills!

Tara's Tucker Box

Tara's Tucker Box

Here are a few lunches i have packed for my little prep girl to remind her of how much i love her even when we are not together....

This beauty was for the letter R week, Tara requested Rapunzel so i used her sandwich and added a boiled egg with Nori sheet eyes and mouth and cooked spaghetti for hair held by a silicone wrap band. She is laying on a bed of cranberries

This was a morning tea of fresh strawberries with leaf toothpicks. Egg chick-A boiled egg halved with a carrot beak and sesame seed eyes. Veggie chips and a sprinkles heart slice of bread

This was an under the sea day at prep so we made a crab from a mini crossiant,cabanossi nippers,apple skin mouth and cheese stick eyes placed on toothpicks. An oyster from two biscuits filled with icing with a yougart ball "pearl" inside. Its eyes are icing pens. A boiled egg fish shaped. Two honey fish sandwiches with sultana eyes and some rice snacks as gravel.  

This morning tea was made with 3 piklets-one cut in half with marshmellow heads and paws. Hearts and eyes were made with cupcake topper decorations.

A puzzle sandwhich made with a variety of fillings so you never know what your biting into! Cute teddy stamper in the middle

"o" day at Prep. Hotdog octopus with toothpick hair bow on a bed of lettuce.

Raviolli pasta and sauce.

Guitar painting

Guitar Painting

Our activity trays are just plastic serving trays from a dollar store but add some elastic bands around them that are painted with coloured paint and a peice of paper underneath and get strumming away with your guitar. The paint will splatter and flick your music onto your paper that becomes a lovely peice of artwork. If you dont have a serving tray, try an oven tray or even a cardboard box.

Playdough tray

Playdough Tray

Another activity tray i have on Mason's Montessori shelves is a playdough tray.
We have a stack of playdough around the house with shapes gallore but for toddlers, i feel they really benefit from a less is more approach.
A tray with one small pot of playdough, three cutter shapes and a rolling pin is plenty to keep a toddler interested.
Even with a tray so simple, it is important to show how to use playdough to a toddler. Eating playdough may be a natural reaction to children who are just given it without explaination.
Break down the process, get playdough out of pot, roll with pin,press shape into dough, put shape down then remove excess dough.  

Dinosaur transferring

Dinosaur Transferring

These dinosaurs sure get a work out in our home!
Bathtime play, volcanic islands, slime, playdough, all activities we usually add a dinosaur or two too!
I set up an activity tray on Mason's Montessori shelves with pile of dinosaurs and a basket with some tweezers inside.
I showed him with as few words as possible how to squeeze the tweezers to pick up one dinosaur then release his grip when he was over the basket.
It is amazing how quickly he caught on and now this is the first activity he goes to in the morning and will happily set it up and pack them away alone-Montessori works!

Cloud dough

This recipe is known as cloud dough by child care professionals but last Christmas we bought a stack of "Moon dough" and i can say it is the same consistancy as that product at a fraction of the cost of buying it!It also works with the other moon dough products.

7 cups of plain flour and 1 cup of baby oil evenly mixed-simple! As baby oil is actually toxic if ingested i would recommend using a cooking oil like olive/sunflower/canola with infants. The baby oil does give it a lovely relaxing scent though! 

Sandpit toys are great for including with cloud dough, enjoy!!!

Primary colour slime adventures

I love when an you make an activity that can then lead on to other activities especially when it can involve two different stages of development.

We made a batch of slime the same as our Halloween recipe here http://homelearningfrombirth.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/halloween-spooky-slime-sensory-tub.html

but this time used a variety of colours to introduce Mason to primary colours.

 Another day we used the slime on a dinosaur tray and did some stomping

Lastly Tara used the slime in a slime basket that we hung off our garage roof and let fall onto a tray to watch the colours mix.

Slime is a fantastic sensory activity and feels great to play with after being cooled in the fridge. Squishy and calming for any age (including mine,shhh!)

Seed sorting

Seed sorting is another great Montessori activity that helps with fine motor skills and colour matching. These are some beans i found at the supermarket that a cheap and edible. I was certain he would see them as food and try to eat them so i would never

left them out unsupervised but when i introduced the activity and showed him the purpose he didn't even try them.

I have had many mums say to me "he just throws things" or "she just uses her toys to hit her siblings". Most of the time i feel the children are just not aware of the purpose of the toy. Get down and play with them. Use the dolls to make voices and role play, build a Lego house or start a car race with to cars then excuse yourself to do some chores and the child will know the purpose and imitate your playing.

Seed sorting is a calming activity that requires focus. It is important to let your child choose the activity from the shelves for this reason. The activity will go much smoother your child is in the right frame of mind for the activity.

Ice cube Mud bricks

We have had so much rain here in Sydney so as soon as the sun came out for a day we came out to play! The constant rain does have its advantages-we had tonnes of mud around our garden. Using ice cube trays we filled them up with mud and placed them in the sun to dry for 24 hours. The next day we had a load of rocks ready to play with. Using Mason's diggers and trucks we built walls,knocked them down and drove them around.

Coloured vinegar Vs Bi-carb soda

Tara is taking a liking to anything science and always asking to make the dinosaur volcano's that we made some time ago. http://homelearningfrombirth.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/volcano-dino-land.html

The following activity is a little less messy and great for a rainy day.

Pour a layer of bi-carb soda onto a tray. Fill up a glass or (a few if you want more variety) of vinegar and drop in your favourite food colouring. Use a dropper to transfer the coloured vinegar onto the bi-carb tray and watch the science take place! 

Pom Pom transferring

Mason is now 18 months and i had noticed that when he played independently he was purposefully playing. Taking a toy and placing it into a doll house or getting a car and placing it on his car mat. I knew it was time to start Montessori activities to practice order and focus.

I put a number of trays of activities onto our child sized Montessori shelves. When he woke from his rest he was immediately curious! He went up to them and started touching.I said to him "oh you would like to try this one?"I simply took his hands and put them on the edge of the tray and placed mine over his and said "two hands" and together we carried the tray to the desk and placed in down. I then said "Let's pull out the chair" and placed his hands on the chair with mine over the top helping and he sat down to begin.

A nice starter activity is a bath grip toy turned upside down and a box of pom poms. 

Firstly i showed him how to pick up one pom pom at a time and place it on the suction circle until they are all full then take them off and place them back into the box. Stand up and use two hands to take the tray back and put it back where he found it.

For such a simple activity there is so much to learn. Every detail has a purpose, for example if i was to pick up a tray i would so with one hand so if Mason saw me do that he would assume he should do the same but he would need two hands evenly spaced to be able to manage carrying a tray.

Placing the box of pom poms on the left hand side starts the process of left to right action which is useful for reading and writing skills so whenever your placing an activity down or laying out pictures try to remember left to right placement.

"Yes, You can!...." series

Home learning from birth isn't just for my children. I am learning from THEM every single day. I have to say when i first started this blog, Tara was a toddler who enjoyed matching, sorting, craft and role playing. I followed her lead and we spend hours each day exploring prepared activities that i spend hours researching and creating but when Mason came along he invited me into this whole world of unfamiliar yet enjoyable learning.

Mason is the boy who needs to be outside, touching, moving and learning through different pathways than his sister. While I'm not as "at home" with Masons style of learning I'm looking forward to investigating all it has to bring for him and i.

So all this explaining brings me to my plan for this month....No researching sight words, matching animals to words or looking at countries but simply changing my way of looking at education.

Giving children extra opportunities to learn from their environment.

This means just expanding your comfort zone a little for the sake of learning. It doesn't have to be a huge leap of faith, by no means am i saying let your children do whatever they ask even if its not safe but just think of what works for your family.You may not like your kids to touch worms, to dance in the rain, or to sleep with their shoes on but i guess we need to ask ourselves why? Are we too busy, too worried about what others think or are we passing on our own fears of things?

Next time your child asks..."Can i..."

Try replying with a "Yes, you can!....." and you both might enjoy the learning experience-I am!

Let me know how you go, you know your child best but sometimes they may surprise you by what they can do!

  Day 1-

"Yes, You can!......make mud pies in the mud"

Day 2-

"Yes, you can!....use your custard as hair gel!"

Day 3-

"Yes, you can!....play in the sandpit with the chickens!"

Day 4-

"Yes, we can!....stop the car so you can play in the leaves!"

Day 5-

"Yes, you can!....bring the frog you just found inside for

 a quick cuddle!"

Day 6-

"Yes, you can!....climb to the top of the slide while i watch from a distance because i see the satisfaction you get when you master something alone"

Day 7-

"Yes, you can!....draw your hopscotch inside because it's too windy outside"

Day 8-

"Yes, you can!....do some gardening in your pyjamas"

Day 9-

"Yes, you can!....swing in the rain"

Day 9-

"Yes, you can!....butter your own toast"

Day 10-

Day 11-

"Yes, you can!....make wormy a cosy bed"

Day 12-

"Yes, you can!....separate the eggs for me"

Day 13-

"Yes, you can!....practice your long jump inside"

Day 14-

"Yes, you can!....pick our strawberries and taste"

Day 15-

"Yes, you can!....give your guinea pig a bath"

Day 16-

"Yes, you can!....help take the bins out"

Day 17-

"Yes, you can!....have morning tea in the aviary"

Day 18-

"Yes, you can!....follow your sister up the wall"

Day 19-

"Yes, you can!....use chalk on the trampoline"

Day 20-

"Yes, you can!....explore water in the washing basket"

Day 21-

"Yes, you can!....help me mop the floor"

Day 22-

"Yes, you can!....wear your tights as a scarf"

Day 23-

"Yes, you can!....read books to the chicken"

Day 24-

"Yes, you can!....use scissors"

Day 25-

"Yes, you can!....play with coloured rice"

Day 26-

"Yes, you can!....have fun with the hose"

Day 27-

"Yes, you can!....peel your own fruit"

Day 28-

"Yes, you can!....build a lego house for your quail"

Day 29-

"Yes, you can!....help cook dinner on the stove"

Day 30-

"Yes, you can!....brush daddy's teeth"

Day 31-

"Yes, you can!....catch the lizard"