kitchen science - volcano's

we made an erupting volcano! bicarbonate of soda, vinegar, washing-up liquid and red food colouring.

The volcano is a small plastic mould that I found in a charity shop but there are so many tutorials out there on making ones of plaster (I bought some plaster moulding rolls from Hobby Craft for £1 each with the intention of making one)

This worked really well - given it's a small thing. Also, R extended the activity on his own - he got some plastic dinosaurs and they "all died beside the volcano and became fossils" 

a bit of fun on a Sunday afternoon that took-up around half an hour. one for the childminding list of to do's! 

"mark making to writing"

I attended a course yesterday evening, "Mark Making to Writing" - it was brilliant!

a lot was crammed into the 2 hours (the trainer had written it as a whole day course and WBC got her to present it in 2 hours!) - I came away with this long list of "stuff to do".

I'm not too bad at coming up with activities that "extend whilst being fun" (blah, blah, blah) but have so many more ideas now for helping my EYFS/Reception kiddies 

One thing the trainer did say, and it's something I bang on about so skip this if you've heard me bleat about this before :-) is that the Northern European countries (i.e. Denmark - highest academic rates anywhere in the world) do not expect children to read until Y2, when they are 7, and, boom!, they can read within 2 weeks. Yet, this country's successive governments' continue to lower the age of testing and increase expectation standards. idiots. anyway it is what it is and we are where we are...

We know that gross and fine motor skills are a precursor to being able to write and that, consistently, boys are more likely to be "reluctant writer"'s than girls - the key is to make writing available indoors and out, not make it about writing, using "dotty letters" is OK but that is not writing, it's handwriting! (why did I not realise this before now!!!)  story books, story sacks, powder paint in the rain - I have a huge list.

and so, this morning, we were threading loopy cereal onto pipe cleaners (I believe these are now referred to as "chenille sticks", whatever!), we then hanged them from a tree in the garden for the birds

My job today is to take photos of any birds I see eating the treats. How we extend this activity? well, possibly limitless - draw pictures of the birds, making a score sheet, make other treats, do different birds prefer different food?...

and, before, anyone makes a comment on the Fruit Shoot bottle - they are allowed 1 per week and they choose the day they have it but they must finish a cup of water before they can have it-those are the rules. I did research on the sugar content of bottled drinks, aimed at children, and Fruit Shoot won.

as cute as ...

a (cross-stitched) button :-)

but, interfacing needs to be applied to the aida before covering the button (I used a 22mm self-cover button)

and now I just need something to attach them to!