Fun and Fabulous Four Seasons Activities

I'm really interested to know, how do you go about teaching the four seasons? Does it come under your Maths curriculum when you are learning about days, weeks, months and time? Or does it come under Science when you're examining the weather, Earth and space? Or maybe it's a little bit of both. Do you do it all in one unit? Or spread it out over the year so your Summer lesson plans take place in the Summer time? I don't think there is a right or wrong approach, I am just genuinely interested! Please let me know via the comments below or over on Instagram.

Anyway, regardless of when and how you teach it, here are some fantastic resources for Junior Primary level you might want to try!

When setting up your classroom at the start of the year, months of the year visuals and birthday charts are always a must have! I love how the seasons are reflected within the months of the year labels, each of which is subtly different to the last, adding a point of interest and discussion. Children can also use these as a stand alone activity where they need to place them in order or group the seasons. The poster below would make a great addition to a class calendar display as well!

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Rain Cloud in a Jar Experiment {Science Week}

Hi everyone!
I'm back again this week with another Science Week post. Our theme in Year 2 is "Water Wise" for this term and so the perfect Science Week experiment for us was the rain cloud in a jar. I've done this with Miss M before, but it's great for all ages. The shaving cream represents the cloud, the food colouring is the rain - and when the cloud gets heavy, the rain falls down. It really is mesmerising.

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Being Water Wise {Junior Primary Science Ideas}

Let's talk about Science today!
I love teaching Science. It's one of the most 'hands on' subjects. Children get to observe the world around them and figure out how things work. They get to predict, hypothesise, experiment, discuss, record and reflect. This term in Year Two we are focussing on the theme WATER!

Disclosure: I'm a Brand Ambassador for Teach Starter. This is a sponsored post. 

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EPIC Water Play Ideas for Summer in Adelaide!

It's heating up here in Adelaide and the official start of Summer is just days away, so I've put together an EPIC list of water play ideas thanks to some of my kid blogger friends from all across the globe! There are some really great activities here that I hadn't thought of before and can't wait to try them out.

Kids Craft Room wrote this fantastic post about the benefits of water play; it's a sensory experience, it's clean, it will keep them cool while playing outside on a hot day, it allows them to experiment and explore simple scientific concepts as you'll see in some of the other posts.

(Click the image to go to the full post - all images + links were used with permission from the blogger). 

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Why I Think EVERY Classroom Needs This Rainbow

If you asked me to choose my ONE FAVOURITE toy for kids - it would be the Grimm's wooden rainbow stacker. I just adore them for so many reasons (possibly all stemming from my childhood obsession with rainbows).

Another way to order the arcs from biggest to smallest

Did you know Grimm's is a German based company, and one question I'm always asked is "Where can you get them here in Australia??". Well you need look no further that one of my fave Instagrammer Brianna's (Notes from a Home Educator) new shop The Creative Toy Shop (*affiliate link). Brianna is a professional nanny + special ed teacher who is (like me) passionate about play based learning and she has so so SO many brilliant ideas on her Instagram page (here's some ways the boys she educates use their rainbow).

Image credit - Notes from a Home Educator

As you all (probably) know I'm still on maternity leave, so today on the blog I get to pretend that I'm back in a classroom and share all the brilliant ways I could use this rainbow stacker with my class, and why I think EVERY junior primary classroom (preschool, kindy, early years classroom, homeschool playroom) should have one. There are many possibilities for learning in various curriculum areas.

*Kindly gifted for the purpose of this review. 

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Activity Ideas for the Four Seasons {Wrap Up Post}

Over the past two years or so I've written a few 'seasons' posts, and for a while I've wanted to compile them all in the one place for your ultimate Four Seasons activity collection. Make sure you pin this one!

Summer

This was my very first guest post over at Childhood 101 and ever since I have written for Christie every month! We did ice play, kinetic sand, sunshine craft, and sponge water bombs. Water play is a MUST in summer time!

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Flowers, Flowers Everywhere! {30 Art & Craft Ideas}

As I sit and write this, it is a glorious 25 degrees in Adelaide! Whoop whoop!

So to celebrate the start of Spring I've got an awesome collection of flower arts and crafts from some fantastic kid bloggers. I've organised them (roughly) into ages, but of course your little one will probably need a bit of assistance and guidance.

All images used with permission. Thank you contributors! 
I've got the love heart eyes for these collages!

Toddlers

 

There's lots of paint stamping, handprints, footprints and egg cartons in this collection. Miss M and I are keen to give the egg carton flowers a go! Will be sure to share when we do :)

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10+ Cool Activities to Keep Busy this Winter

Ok confession time. This blog post has been sitting in my drafts folder for a whole YEAR! I had this idea that I'd do two wintery themed blog posts - one about Fun Activities to do Indoors which actually got published (but could do with an update mind you), and this one. So it's time to actually get - it - done!

I love seasonal themed learning, it's a great way for children to explore their changing world through their play. A four seasons round up post is also currently in the drafts folder!

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Snowflakes 

An oldie but a goodie! Miss M is obsessed with folding and cutting at the moment and she's finally learnt how to use scissors, so naturally she loved these. She took care of the folding, and I just held it for her while she cuts. Great for decorating windows!

Want more? Glue popsticks together to create a snowlake like this one at Childhood 101.

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Hello Spring {Live Love Bean}

Well Spring is well and truly here - we have had some gorgeous weather here in Adelaide and the start of Spring was the perfect time to plant our Magic Beans sent to us by Live Love Bean. The special thing about these beans is the words imprinted on them, which turn into the cutest little sprouts. I chose 'Believe / Achieve' because I thought it was a lovely message. Perfect for school age children to believe in themselves and strive to achieve their goals. (By the way you can custom order the words - even company names!)

My little Miss M enjoyed planting the seeds with me, carefully transferring soil into the little pots, planting the seeds and lovingly watering them. We decided to experiment and put three inside the house on our kitchen window sill (which gets plenty of morning light) and three outside with our other pot plants to see which would sprout first (the window sill ones won!). We also wondered what might happen if more than one seed was planted in a pot - the result, was that one seed sprouted well before any others.

As per the instructions, you can expect to see a small sprout after 7-10 days, but it took probably 3 weeks to get this result you see in the photographs. So we had to be patient and keep on watering them!

The perfect book to accompany this rich learning experience is The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle (read my Eric Carle author study here). We learn about all of the things that the tiny seed needs to grow and thrive, and it's a perfect way to introduce the four seasons.

Thank you Live Love Bean for sending us your magic beans to try! :)

Lauren

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5 Fun Activities to do Indoors This Winter

Brrr it's chilly these days! It's right smack bang in the middle of winter, play cafe's are busy, it's too cold and rainy to play at the park - which doesn't leave many alternatives. So I tried to come up with some winter warming activities to keep Miss M busy at home.

Indoor Cubby

Firstly, we made this cute and cosy indoor cubby. I'm sure we've all done this growing up (my mum used to make ours over the old fashioned clothes horse!). She loved playing with her 'friends' in here (that's what she calls her teddies and dollies). Fairy lights made it extra special and cosy!

Indoor Obstacle Course

Little bodies have a lot of energy and when they can't run around outside or climb on play equipment, you may feel like they're bouncing off the walls inside the house. An indoor obstacle course is a great way to give them an outlet for their energy in a safe way. All I did was put some painters masking tape along our hallway and encouraged Miss M to jump, balance and follow the shapes. You could also add hula hoops or cushions and have something special like a tent (or treasure) at the end.

Dance Party

Another way to use up some of that energy and get those bodies to warm up is turn on the music and have a dance party in the lounge room! Here are some music games I love to do with 3-6 year olds

• Musical statues or bobs
• Musical colour search (when the music stops find something the colour...)
• Musical groups (a great whole class dancing game - when the music stops make a group of... this many children)
• Musical pairs (when the music stops find a partner and follow instructions eg elbow to elbow, knee to knee, back to back etc)

Cooking Activities

Kids love being involved in the kitchen, so crank the oven on and warm up with some tasty treats this winter! Christie at Childhood 101 has a fantastic bank of recipes designed to get young children involved and help in the kitchen (such as cookies, muffins, cheese puffs and snail scrolls!). The age of your child will obviously affect how much helping they can do (Miss M at 2 years old can tip pre-measured ingredients into the bowl and tries to have a go at mixing). School aged children could almost cook the whole meal themselves (under supervision of course).

Winter Craft

Stay tuned for my next post of 10 Winter Craft Activities to keep your little ones entertained inside on those cold wintery days.

Stay warm Aussies! So jealous of other parts of the world enjoying warmer weather than us.

Lauren x

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