Virtual Book Club- Owl Babies

The book for this week's Virtual Book Club was Owl Babies by Marin Waddell.

I had the pleasure of reading this book to a group of preschoolers in the holidays when I was running a craft area in the mall, and we did a cute owl activity using black, yellow, brown and orange paper, cotton wool, stick on stars and googly eyes.



The branch was stuck across the black paper, and I helped to cut beaks and feet from the orange paper. Big blobs of cotton wool became the owls, and we added the eyes to each baby owl.

The finishing touch was adding the stars and moon to the night sky, and I had some happy parents and preschoolers!

This book is such a great one to share with children who have separation anxiety or simply love reading about animals. Our version is a small board book, great for little ones to look through by themselves.

For more owl activities, check out this post!

Eric Carle inspired Mosaic Spider

My four year old has really enjoyed The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle, so we thought we would make our own busy spiders! I love the mosaic-like look of the spider in hues of blues and greens, so we set about creating our own blue and green spider.

My son started out by sticking some green and blue scraps of cardstock to an 8x8" piece of white cardstock.



We kept layering the blues and greens until he was happy with the pattern.



I then took a side plate and traced around it, and cut out a circle from the mosaic pieces. I also glued down any loose pieces.



We added some googly eyes, and Adam chose the colours of popsicle sticks for the spider's legs.



Our finished mosaic spider is complete!



This was such a great activity for hand-eye coordination as well as an understanding of what a mosaic is. Of course, there was also the ever important practice with glue and scissors!

Dinosaur Week for preschoolers

Continuing on my weekly themes for my four year old, we recently spent a week looking at dinosaurs.

Adam loves art and craft activities, so we made our own triceratops. We started by painting a small egg carton piece with green sparkle paint.



We used a cupcake liner for the ruffle, googly eyes, and a popsicle stick cut into three pieces for the horns.



As you can see, green and dinosaurs are popular in this household!



We also excavated our own dinosaur from an egg (purchased here) and it took us a good hour to retrieve the dinosaur from within- a great way to keep the boys occupied although I had a go too!



We then washed the excavated dinosaur and talked about which species it could be.



Some dinosaur dot-to-dot printables were a fun activity for both boys to do after school.



I cut out some different shapes from green cardstock and we played dinosaur Tangrams.



My six year old really enjoyed this activity, and spent ages making different animals from the shapes. Yes, he has dinosaur pajamas too!



Our family movie night was The Good Dinosaur, and I had purchased a kid's magazine that luckily had this Dino-Flake activity included.



It also had a dinosaur Peppa Pig workbook, which came in very handy!



We read the Dinosaurumpus book together and played the Listen & Move game during a wet day.



Dinosaur week was a big success with both boys!

Space Themed Week for Preschoolers

I have been getting back into themed weeks for my 4 year old, and Space was one of the themes that came about as my 6 year old has been learning about planets at school.

We had a huge supply of Space themed books already on the bookshelf- including these gorgeous ones from the Elmo's Learning Adventure set we purchased a couple of years ago.



One of the first things we did was to make yellow Playdough to create stars for the counting mats- Adam insisted on using a large cookie cutter to make star shapes so we ended up stacking stars on top of one another.



We also decided to make our own galaxy in a jar. We got together a clean jar, some water, cotton balls, acrylic glitter paint and a paintbrush to create the galaxy.



We mixed some water with the acrylic paint to create a pourable consistency.



We then layered cotton balls in the jar and used one colour of paint at a time, mixed with the water, to soak in and create this galaxy.



Another simple cookie cutter activity also involving glitter paint was to stamp stars on a black background- Adam loved layering the stars and had to create three pages of them!



We talked about why we can only see stars at night and I showed Afam how a telescope works to view things in space. Adam wanted to make his own telescope so we stuck two toiler tolls together with washi tape and then decorated it with star stickers.



This was great for imaginative play, as Adam was walking around looking through his telescope and telling me what he could see.



Our snack was a planet of rice cake, banana and cheerios with peanut butter, surrounded by a cheese star and some smaller rice cracker and cherry tomato planets.



Adam also really loved this Lego game for building his own rocket ships. It was a great math lesson too!



Our Space week was a lot of fun and I cannot wait to share more preschooler themes with you in the coming months.

Our St Patrick's Day Roundup

Last week we were celebrating all things related to St Patrick's Day!

Our first activity was to put together a rainbow project from a Make It Now option on my Cricut. This was a brilliant option as it only required glue and cardstock- no paint or messy items on our new table!



The finished creations were very cute, complete with a pot of gold each.



We made some delicious Pot of Gold cupcakes, complete with rainbow icing and shamrock wrappers.



My six year old got a green lunch on St Patrick's Day, complete with another shamrock wrapper around his sandwich. He also had some yoghurt, pretzels, green jelly and some diced grapes and kiwifruit.



While my six year old was at shcool, Mr 3 set about making some St Patrick's Day playdough. We used a basic playdough recipe  and added gold glitter:

3 cups flour
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup salt
few drops green food colouring
water to mix



After school, it was time for some printables from Gift of Curiosity- this is a wonderful site for printable resources! The boys loved the mazes and colour matching games, and my six year old wanted more pages to complete!



Dinner was inspired by Irish fare, with baby carrots, mustard rissoles and colcannon. My whole family wolfed this down and my kids have now declared that they love mashed potato and cabbage mixed together.



Dessert was one of our cupcakes, and everyone loved finding the gold inside!



Lastly, while the boys were in the shower a little leprechaun came to visit and left a treasure hunt (printables by Love Grows Wild) with some treasure under their pillows.



The boys loved having some themed activities again, as I have been a bit slack lately due to all of my health issues. I remembered how much fun I had planning these activities, and I am excited to keep up with some more themed weeks with my boys.

Mini Golf- a fun lesson!

Have you ever taken your children for a round of mini golf? Not only is it great for their hand eye coordination, it also helps then with patience, strategy, numeracy and good sportsmanship.

We set off to an outdoor mini golf course, and once the boys had picked their clubs it was time for some instruction on how to hit the golf ball. Patience was needed for both the little and bigger boys!



There was a discussion on whether to hit the ball hard, softly to work your way up the course, and of course the tricky obstacles that were in the way didn't help! The boys learnt to work out where the ball needed to go in advance, and time their swings right.



We did need a few breaks while other groups were finishing up their turns, and the boys were very patient at waiting and checking out the course scenery. Is that Nessie in the background?



Both of my boys were very good at counting each hole as we made our way around the course, and they also had to keep track of how many times they had hit the ball. We talked about some of the golf lingo such as a hole-in-one, par, and putting, and so this was also a chance for the boys to expand their vocabulary.



At the end of the round we all had to tally up our final scores, and the boys had big smiles on their faces.

Mini Golf is such a fun way to learn whilst having fun; the boys did an amazing job keeping score and perfecting their aim. If you have young kids, I highly recommend it as a fun family activity, and if the weather is not cooperating you can always find an indoor course. Here is a list of mini golf courses in Christchurch.

Poppins Book Nook- Ponds, Lakes and Rivers

Welcome back to the last installment of the Poppins Book Nook for 2015-2016.

This month's theme is Ponds, Lakes and Rivers!



My boys love any books with ducks in them, such as One Duck Stuck and Little Quack.

Ducks are everywhere in our street, and we regularly have them as visitors in our driveway and at my dad's house nearby, where they always come to say hello!



We are lucky to have some lovely ponds and lakes in our suburb, and we took a visit to one of the bigger ones in the weekend to see the ducks in their natural home.

Feeding the ducks is always fun, and there are so many great spots to get right up close to the water.



We talked about why the ducks would like to live here, and about the other types of birds that live at the lake such as the swans and seagulls.



The ducks are always happy to see us!



At home, we each made a duck pop up card using some craft supplies we had around the house. We used glitter paint, washi tape, buttons and pipe cleaners.



The finished cards looked great!



We had a fun time feeding the ducks and visiting them in their natural environment. Click below to see how other members of Poppins Book Nook were inspired!

 Clip art by MelonHeadz.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - 3 Dinosaurs - ABC Creative Learning - As We Walk Along the Road - Brain Power Boy - Chestnut Grove Academy - Embracing Destiny - Every Bed of Roses - Farm Fresh Adventures - Growing in God's Grace - Kathys Cluttered Mind - My Bright Firefly - Peakle Pie - Preschool Powol Packets - Pray Species - SAHM I am - Stir The Wonder - Sunny Day Family - Sweet Silly Sara - Teach Beside Me - To the Moon and Back - Tots and Me - Tree Valley Academy - Witty Hoots

An InLinkz Link-up

10 Christmas activities for boys

Nothing beats the happy squeals of children in the lead up to Christmas, and a lot of the reasons I do a December Daily each year is to make Christmas a fun time for my kids.

Today I thought I would share some of the things I have done with my boys to make Christmas fun.

Going to the Santa Parade is always good for some fresh air- it has become more cultural over the past few years but you are still guaranteed to see Santa.



Speaking of Santa, you have to get a photo with him!



There is sure to be a Christmas Display in your area, which is always a fun day out as a family. Each year we go to Santa's Grotto run by a local church, and they have some amazing displays. It gets bigger each year and attracts a lot of people, so we tend to go in the mornings when it is quiet.



Have a Candy Cane Hunt- on a sunny day sneak out to the garden and hide some candy canes, then sit back and let your children and some friends or neighbours find them.



Make homemade Christmas cards for teachers, neighbours and friends. A lot of boys like to do craft if it has a purpose, and making homemade cards is a great way to say thank you.



Create your own icecream cone Christmas Trees for a special family dessert. Simply mix green food colouring with some coconut, then cover an icecream cone in icing sugar mixed with some water to create a paste. Sprinkle over the coconut, stick on some lollies and you are done!



Stage a Christmas photo shoot by letting your boys stand in front of wrapping paper taped to the wall.



Baking Christmas Cookies is great for science, mathematics skills and fine motor development. Plus, tasting the end result is always rewarding.



Making ornaments for the Christmas Tree is another great way for boys to get creative for a purpose. Here I made some green salt dough and pushed a marble in the dough, which the boys then filled in with glitter glue. I added a vivid 2015 and light strings, and will hang these on the tree.



Design Christmas potato stamps and have a go at making your own wrapping paper, perfect for grandparent gifts to be wrapped in.



I hope some of these activities inspire you to have fun with your boys this Christmas!