Snugglepot and Cuddlepie craft for kids

 

 Sophia's little gumnut baby

With our recent move it has meant that we are now part of a homeschooling group again! Just gotta say how much I am enjoying it and our dear children are as well!! It's such a blessing to be part of a greater community and learning and laughing and crying together!
I hosted the first group activity with a Snugglepot and Cuddlepie theme! I've been reading the books to Esther and Sapphire each morning and with the stunning yellow and pink gum out in flower is was a prime time to get creative!!!

 

 To kick start I showed some of the many books written by May Gibbs (author of the Snugglepot and Cuddlepie series) and then I read Snugglepot and Cuddlepie on board the Snag which is an old book from the Young Australia Series (see here) It includes banksia men, Mrs Snake and of course their dear friend Mr Lizard. The lovely Hannah Cooper had been given a Blue Tongue lizard skin which was shown to the children and my Hannah then showed the snake skin to help tie in the whole story too!! It was wonderful to have these amazing items of nature to show!!

Next was craft time and painting inspired from May Gibbs illustrations! I made this look-a-like Ragged Blossom as the inspiration and the children ran like wildflower to create their own, wonderful, amazing, fabulous gum babies!!!!

 

 

By the end we even had a Banksia Man made by Mable and each little gum baby wasn't so scared of her at all!!

 

 

 

 

 

 YAY for Homeschooling fun together in Poatina!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Wonderful World Wednesday - Spitfire sawfly (caterpillar)

 

While walking a few months ago Sophia and I found THIS!!! I was quite intrigued by it as it was one of the larger caterpillars that we have found. Then as we picked it off the footpath with a stick it started oozing this yucky green slimy stuff!! That was pretty gross but still interesting!!

 

It wasn't till I got home and we did the usual Google search that I found out EXACTLY what it was!!! A horrible Spitfire Sawfly!!! SHUDDER, it makes my skin crawl just thinking about it, believe me I'm not looking too closely to the pictures right now... I HATE these things!!!!
WHY?? do you ask??
Well when I was young we had a small gum tree in our back yard, right at the top of the path. It provided great shade for us as children and we would often sit under it in the Summer! I remember that every Summer there were these YUCKY black caterpillars crawling all over each other in a HUGE ball and (as it would happen) a couple of them fell........

 

 

 

NOW to make a REAL GOOD story I could say that it fell on ME but to be honest I don't really remember that. I just remember that they are gross, disgusting and totally not something I would normally stop and study to closely (due to memories!!!)

SO there you have it, check them out if you're not totally YUCKED by them - The Spitfire Sawfly!
Smiles The Torrents'

Valentine's Day Craft - getting back into the new school year!

 

Hello there!! WOW what a new year! Happy Valentine's Day to you all celebrating LOVE and relationships and closeness. We had a lovely day yesterday, making it a family affair with me cooking every one's FAV meal - Roast Chicken with Apple Crumble. YUM!! Then my hubbie and I watched a romantic comedy movie and called it a night! Leading up to Valentine's Day the children and I put together a cute door wreath! I found the idea HERE and with the girls help it was made in just an hour-ish.

 (This photo was taken by Sapphire! She was VERY excited!

 Note my fun, bright necklace, handmade by Sapphire earlier in the day during Maths!

Also note that my son looks like he is in "PHONE" land..... mmmmm)

Sophia got busy covering our "X" in washi tape (Zeke cut out the hug and kiss for us) and Esther, Sapphire and I covered the "O" in crumbled up cardstock that we had spilt to make it thinner! (we couldn't get any tissue paper at our local shop and time was ticking to get it done!! Always a good idea to make do with what you have!!)

We stuck the letters to some ribbon and hung it up!

 

 

 LOVE IT!!!

So with hugs and kisses being sent from our front door (soooo excited that I actually have a front door I can hang stuff off!) we shared the love. Looking forward to sharing more with you all soon, until then
Smiles The Torrents'

Day sleeps

We are in the middle of moving RIGHT NOW and it's all going really great!! YAY! So with so much going on I wanted to share with you one of my favourite parts of the day.
Each day sleep that Sapphire has (which isn't every day now..... sad face!!) She has a fluffy companion - Cobweb!!! What a wonderful cat he is!!!!

 

 

It makes me smile ever so much to peak on these two and see them like this! So I thought I'd show you all and make you smile too!!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Wonderful World Wednesday - Striped Ladybird

While eating our lunch the other day the girls spotted this Ladybug! Of all the insects around Sapphire is NOT scared of ladybugs! Ants..NO WAY, don't get near me, spiders, even the humble slater and worm she will not touch!!
So with a friendly ladybug to look out Esther and Sapphire were very happy.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

We have found out it is a Striped Ladybird (Micraspis frenata) and it eats grasses and weeds and lays its eggs there too. Check out THIS information if you'd like to find out more!
How Wonderful Wednesdays are!
Smiles The Torrents'

Penguin cupcakes {Arctic and Antartica Unit study}

As you know I LOVE a theme so when you have such a great unit study like the Arctic and Antartic you have LOADS to play with! So for a Tea Party Thursday treat we made some yummo Penguin Cupcakes we saw HERE.

 

Sophia is the queen of creating in the kitchen so with some icing, Oreo's, apricots and silver balls our rookery of penguins were ready to eat!!

 

 

How cute do they look?? They tasted super great too!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Penguin Height chart {Arctic and Antartica Unit sudy}

During our last unit study on all things cold I came across a cool idea to make life size penguins so the children could "measure" up against them! We looked at some books for a guide and found THIS picture too and got to work drawing some life like penguins! Sophia and Esther helped me paint them and this was the final result!!

 

 Emperor, King, Gentoo, Chipstrap, African and Fairy

Sapphire loved seeing how "BIG" she was compared to the penguins, Esther found out that she is about the same size as a King Penguin and Hannah, Sophia and Zeke are all taller than an Emperor, though they wouldn't like to actually be standing in a group of them cause they really are pretty big!!

Hannah set to work making up some labels for each one including weight, height and lifespan.
It was a great exercise for our Antarctica study!!
Smiles The Torrents'