May 2009 - Always Learning

Always Learning

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This may sound like some poor joke but it is the book to which my daughter has chosen to base all of her crafts and activities this week. Again being a popular story like The Three Liltte Pigs, there is no shortage for either crafts or activities we can do together.

We have various Ugly Duckling and Swan pictures to cut out and glue together, although my favourite is this 3D duck. We are unable to source the plastic eggs although are going to amend it slightly by using small paper cups which should do the trick just nicely!

Paper plate crafts are so easy to create, especially for the little ones, so we are going to do this fun duck paper plate craft with handprint tail. For variety on a similar theme, Dannielle's Place also features a similar paper plate craft.

These cotton ball ducks are just adorable and the ducks in a pond craft from Crayola includes both painting and gluing.

We are going to try our hand at origami - the swan for beginners - is a great place to start and the black and white sock craft is a great way to show the transition from ugly duckling to beautiful swan.

There are a myriad of duck pictures to colour in and the Scholastic site features a printout whereby the children can create their own animal tale.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Books, Computer Based, Craft, Reading

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Playdough

May 29th 2009 02:52

Kids love creating and as my daughter has been making blue tac dolls over the last week or so, it reminds me that I should get my act together and make some playdough.

Here is an easy recipe:

1 cup salt
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Food Colouring
Water

Mix dry ingredients and add the oil. Add the food colouring to water.

Slowly add water until the desired consistency is reached.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Cooking, Craft

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Sesame Street Online

May 26th 2009 02:25

The Sesame Street website has some great games and clips for young children. We have visited the site in the past to play online games although it was only during my search for clown related clips that I realised we could actually access small clips aired on the television programme itself.

One of my favourite clown related clips was the one where a clown demonstrated how he removes his makeup (as pictured). The clip itself fascinated me as a young child and my daughter found it equally as interesting, requesting to watch the clip a number of times. Also of interest was a clip about a circus clown family which brought a realism to clowns that we otherwise would not have achieved just by reading and talking about it.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Computer Based

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Send In The Clowns

May 24th 2009 02:59

Admittedly I am not a fan of clowns, preferring to see them at children's parties rather than adorned all over my wall. So the inclusion of Clown Week into our schedule took me a little by surprise to say the least.

Loonette and Molly from the Canadian Series, The Big Comfy Couch, are a particular favourite in our house so at least I had a starting point on which to base our activities. And in particular I love the concept of a 10-second tidy which we are going to incorporate with a clown based cleaning chart.

Craft wise - cardboard megaphones, bow ties and clown hats will be a feature and face painting and juggling will no doubt be a daily occurrence this week.

Focussing on expressions and feelings this week, this blank faced clown drawing is a great place to start as well as the easy paint activity of just drawing simple faces onto paper plates.

First School again came to our aid with numerous clown pictures, simple clown crafts and a number of easy clown related jigsaw puzzles. And we found a number of sites which provided us with counting, addition and pattern activities to build on our number skills.

The Dr Seuss story, If I Ran The Circus, will be introduced this week and the online children's library comes to our aid with The CIrcus Procession and The First Circus. For the younger readers, Cbeebies features an easy story for children entitled Where's My Hat? and a song entitled The Funniest Clown.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Books, Computer Based, Craft, DVDs, Maths, Reading

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Chinese Dragon Craft

May 22nd 2009 00:10

My daughter was so impressed with our dragon handprint craft earlier this week that she has requested that we make a second dragon craft for Chinese week.

So we are going to attempt to make this colourful dancing dragon. We purchased a fax paper roll in order to make our chinese fan and the roll will also be useful for the dragon's fan-like body.

I also introduced the story of Mulan to my daughter this week and for those not familiar, it is a retelling of an old Chinese folktale about the story of a young maiden who learns that her sick father is to be called up into the army in order to fight the invading Huns. Knowing that he would never survive the war due to his health, she decides to disguise herself and join in his place. And much to the delight of my daughter, it also features a dragon named Mushu who decides to help her in the perilous times ahead.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Craft, DVDs

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This Week's Theme: China

May 17th 2009 09:34

My daughter has a fascination for all things Chinese. Firstly because we live there and secondly, because facets of the colourful culture appeal to her curious nature. Therefore it is no surprise that she selected China to base our activities upon this week.

Lanterns are already a popular craft activity in our house as is the children's television show Kai-Lan, and both will of course be featuring in our weekly activities. Nick Jnr has come to our aid in particular combining both lanterns and Kai-Lan in this fun online paper lantern activity as well as a number of other online games for children to play

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Craft, DVDs

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BBC Stories

May 14th 2009 00:50

CBeebies, the children's BBC website, has a great range of stories to watch and read along with and will easily inspire your children.

Currently my daughter's favourite, she enjoys listening to the stories and selecting her own depending on her mood. The stories are excerpts from the children's programs featured on the BBC channel such as The Tweenies, The Story Makers and Charlie and Lola

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Books, Computer Based, Reading

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The Three Little Pigs

May 12th 2009 04:39

From one classic fairytale to another, this week's activities surround the ever popular children's tale, The Three Little Pigs.

Being such a popular story, it seems that there is no shortage for inspiration on the web covering all kinds of activities, colouring pages and ideas to complement the story

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Books, Computer Based, Craft, Reading

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Jack And The Beanstalk

May 3rd 2009 10:22

My daughter was very excited that today marked the first day of Giant Week aka Jack And The Beanstalk Week. Having changed her mind at the last minute from her original choice of The Ugly Duckling, she had me do some last minute website searching in order to come up with some creative ideas.

Thankfully the BBC had an online adapted story about Jack and The Beanstalk which she enjoyed watching which led us into a discussion about Real or Make Believe. Tina's fun little online game came to our aid just to refamiliarise her with our discussion

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Books, Computer Based, Craft, Reading

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