Age 6-8 - Always Learning

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Following on from our animal theme we have been reading the charming book, Play With Me written by Marie Hall Ets. It features a little girl who ventures outside to play with the wild animals only to discover that at first they are too frightened to go near her. The text and pictures are charming in this book and is one of my daughter's favourites.

Homeschool Share provided us with some book related suggestions, the favourite one of my daughter being the Guess Who Animal game.

We stumbled upon a fun birdcage craft and my partner and daughter even built a birdhouse and feeder from a $5 craft pack we discovered in a supermarket.

For the younger children we found a dot painting frog as well as an alphabet dot to dot.

For those that like fingerpainting here were a couple of animal fingerpainting ideas which gave us some inspiration.

For turtle lovers, here is a fun turtle craft as well as an easy turtle to colour.

And let's not forget the paper chain snake.

A book like this provides lots of opportunities for animal spotting, although as it is winter at the moment, our animal spotting is diminished slighly with only some squirrels and a few birds - however better than nothing.

Springtime is a great time of year to visit this story however any time of the year is great to read inspirational stories to your children.

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

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Sand Art Brownies

December 17th 2009 18:00

If you are looking for a great homemade gift to give out on behalf of yourself or your children, consider Sand Art Brownies. They are a practical gift which don't necessarily cost a lot and they make fun gifts.

You will require one wide mouth quart jar with lid.

Add the follow ingredients in this order.

3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts

This should pack nicely into the jar.

Include a decorative tag with the instructions for making the brownies with the following text:

Combine contents of jar with:

1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs

Pour into a greased 9x9pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 27-32 minutes. Enjoy.

These taste delicious but don't just take it from me. My recommendation is to make a jar or two to give away and make another batch for yourself to consume at home.

To finish up you can add a circular piece of material to the top of the jar to make it appear more festive.

(Note: Photo was borrowed from The Best Homemade Gift Ideas website as my batteries decided to die on me just as I went to take my photo).

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Cooking, Craft

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The Gift of Giving

December 16th 2009 17:51

For many children, Christmas all too often focuses on the gift of receiving rather than the gift of giving.

As my daughter is starting to understand more what Christmas is about, I set her a couple of easy tasks. The first was to make some Christmas cards for some of the children in her class. We purchased some blank cards and envelopes and some Christmas themed stickers. She combined the stickers with her artwork and my handwriting and between the two of us we had some Christmas cards which she felt very proud of.

Secondly I purchased some paint and paintbrushes and we decided to paint two projects for her father. The first was a painting of herself as a princess painted directly onto a canvas and the second was a plain wooden box which she is going to decorate for him.

Receiving gifts, don't get me wrong, is great but often giving gifts, particularly when they are done by your child's heart, is worth far more.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Craft

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A Pair of Snowmen

December 14th 2009 09:41

This delightful pair of snowmen are adorable and will have you in the festive spirit in no time at all. They are made from a pair of mittens and while it is a great craft for the older children, it can be suitable for the younger child with more parental supervision.

Visit All Free Crafts for the full instructions on how to make your snowmen - namely Mr and Mrs Mitten.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Craft

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Coraline

November 20th 2009 01:26

My daughter loves the animated movie Coraline so loudly announced that it is Coraline week in our house giving me about five minutes notice to organise some activities for us to do.

Thankfully Coraline.com came to our aid and we were able to button eye images of both myself and my daughter as well as create online button flowers. There was also a fun print image in which the circus mice could also spell out my daughter's name.

We sat down to watch Coraline the movie for about the tenth time and if she was a little older I am sure she would enjoy the original novel from which the film was adapted from.

We also discovered a website which featured numerous Coraline pictures to colour and set out on a counting exercise to find out exactly how many windows and doors we had in our house.

Luckily I had some buttons set aside for just such a crafting exercise and we drew some dolls and created our very own button eyed dolls and button gardens.

It is amazing what you can come up with in five minutes if you put your mind to it!

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Books, Craft, DVDs, Reading

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Easy Cranberry Squares

November 12th 2009 18:54

Taken from the fun story, Cranberry Autumn, my daughter and I decided to bake this easy Cranberry Square recipe this afternoon as follows:

Cranberry Squares

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Cooking, Reading

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I'm Thankful For My Craft

November 4th 2009 14:26

If you are looking for an easy Thanksgiving craft then look no further. All you need is a little bit of preparation time to find some typical Thanksgiving images such as pumpkins, squash, turkey, leaves and carrots.

Once you have your images, you need to remove the inside of a paper plate so you are left with the rim to stick the images to

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

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Cranberry Thanksgiving

October 2nd 2009 18:39

Cranberry Thanksgiving written by Wende and Harry Devlin in 1971 is one of those time honoured books that lends itself to family traditions - in the case of Cranberry Thanksgiving it is Cranberry Bread.

Cranberry Thanksgiving is the story of a young girl named Maggie who lives with her Grandmother near a cranberry bog in New England. The book includes some interesting characters and colourful illustrations and the story takes some interesting twists and turns, demonstrating that looks can be deceiving. It even includes Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Bread recipe for you to bake at home

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Books, Computer Based, Cooking

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Halloween Lesson Plans

October 1st 2009 13:50

October already and that means only one thing for children (particularly in North America) - Halloween. This is a fun time for children to let their imagination run wild and it is great to incorporate monsters, goblins, ghouls and witches into the curriculum to inspire their creativity and imagination.

For history buffs it is interesting to go over the facts behind the tradition and if you are unfamiliar with the history then drop over to TIme For Kids to give you the lowdown

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

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Don't Discount Second Hand Stores

September 18th 2009 17:35

Investigating a new area to live, I started checking out all the stores - second hand stores included and noticed what bargains they had to offer particularly in the way of kids educational computer games and books. We managed to make some great savings and many of the books and cds were priced at $2 or less!

The Little Bear Preschool Thinking Adventure normally sells for between $10 and $15 and we picked it up for $1. A definite bargain

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Books, Computer Based, Reading

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Tag Reading System

August 11th 2009 18:26

Having spent a great deal of the past month travelling and settling in to new surroundings, I have found the Leapfrog Tag Reading System an ideal travel companion for my daughter.

She is able to take it with her in the car or on the airplane and read stories and do activities at her leisure. The ever growing range of titles means that she is not bored and it is especially helpful when I am not there to read the books to her

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

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Certificates and Awards

June 11th 2009 06:03

Giving children acknowledgement and praise for their hard work and achievement is all part and parcel of their learning process. If you are not skilled in graphics or even know where to start in creating an award then School Express can come to your aid.

They have an easy seven step award making process which even I cannot get wrong. The awards offered cover such topics as Achievement Awards, Acting Awards, Character Awards, Reading Awards and Sports and Fitness Awards just to name a few. The site will ask you to select the graphic and border as well as the specific text and name of your child

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11

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Garden Week

June 5th 2009 04:20

Spring is here in the form of Garden Week this week inspired by her Little Golden Book entitled Dorothy's Garden. Dorothy is the dinosaur from Wiggles and while she has outgrown the television program, she still enjoys catching clips of them and dancing along from time to time. My guess is this is where the Wiggles website will come in handy.

Handprint flowers seem to be the common theme on children's craft websites. We are also going to try our hand at pressing and drying flowers as well as doing leaf rubbings
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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Computer Based, Craft

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Speakaboos

June 2nd 2009 02:38

The Speakaboo website served a great purpose this week as it gave us an online version of The Ugly Duckling to read and view as well as a follow on activity, but the site itself holds an interesting premise.

Coming soon, as the site announces, is a record your own story section which will allow kids and parents to record their own voices reading (or singing!) their favorite story, song, or nursery rhyme. Anything that aids in the improvement and creation of kids wanting to read or listen to stories is a great idea.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Books, Computer Based, Reading

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