Animal Felt Masks (woodland)

 

With being a bit under the weather the other week I decided to do some special craft with the children. I have these fantastic ideas for during our "usual" school days but in the end it never seems to happen so this was the opportunity to have some fun and sew!!
I had seen THESE masks on-line and loved them so with the picture and THIS and THIS template we got to work designing and tweaking our very own animal masks!!
Each of the children picked out what animal they wanted. Hannah - Raccoon, Sophia - Skunk, Ezekiel - Fox and Esther chose the owl. I even got to pick my favourite the Deer!! YAY!

 

It took a couple of days to have them all complete but in the end they were all VERY happy with their special craft!
On the first night of them being finished Hannah asked me to wear mine while I was washing up! Of course she eagerly joined in too and we chatted while being Mrs Deer and Miss Raccoon! Even now WEEKS later the girls put them on and roll play!

I'm sooo pleased I made the time to make them, there are already plans for some other animal masks. Hannah would LOVE a Cheetah, I'd like to make a bunny for Sapphire and well, who knows what other fun faces we can come up with!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Ant food experiment (part two)

To see what else the ants liked to eat we put out another range of delish food to watch these amazing little insects at work once again! This time it was some mince from spag bol sauce, a canned piece of pear and lastly some soggy cereal.

 

 Zeke said we should put the lids on the steps this time, right here he said near the post at our deck. We could see some ants crawling (or do the march??) up and down, 

 

before 10 minutes were up the forager ant found the mince! The children guessed that the pear would go first this time but it turns out they prefer meat!

 

 

 Within an hour some more ants joined in on the yumminess 

 

and then 3 hours later it looked like this.....

Zeke did notice again that a bird must of got some cause he saw some mince on the footpath..... ummm and the cereal was totally GONE!!

I think we will do it again with some more variety of food choices, just not sure what to go with?!?!? Ummm  I'm sure we will think of something!
Smiles The Torrents'

Ant food experiment {part one}

We've all been quite sick for what seems to be ALL WINTER! However in this last week the children and I have felt low again and so the "normal" book routine has been out the window and we've done more of the FUN learning like craft, art and experiments!
With our theme on animals this term I saw a great experiment for ants! You simply put out different types of food scraps and see what is the favourite for the ants. Easy!

For our first attempt we put out Strawberry, Toasty sandwitch, strawberry jam and lastly honey. We wrote down our guesses and waited........

and waited......

and then saw that the ants not only liked the Jam but also the dried up Yogurt that was stuck in the lid that I used! (opps!!)

Here we saw an ant carrying off some bread

and then we noticed that the toasty was totally gone..... we were thinking a bird helped themselves!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Arctic Animals colouring in pages

We are focusing on animals this term. For the younger girls we are mostly looking at Arctic animals in the North and South pole. I found this great colouring page HERE of the animals for Sophia and Esther to colour and then they made a Habitat to stick them on. (I'll show that in another post!)

I find it sooo wonderful that they get the books/pictures they need to find out the exact right colours, to make their art look as real to life as they can!

Did you note the Princess outfit (again!!) Such a beautiful stage of a little girl!

Smiles The Torrents'

Hanging crystals - an "ice" experiment

With our focus on Winter and Arctic animals at the moment I thought it would be cool to TRY and do a science themed activity each Wednesday!
So to kick start that I turned to our children friendly Usborne science book to the Hanging Crystals page.

We got everything out,

the girls had great fun in mixing the bicarb with the water

We followed the instructions to the letter!!!

And then did some spelling..... and then some waiting!!!

It said that we needed to wait a week to see any results but after a few days it was already starting to happen!!

This is after 3days

 

 

 It's been super fun to watch them grow and see the jars and the water change sooo much in these last 7days!

after 5 days

I'm already thinking of what would be the next great science activity..... perhaps something to do with grasslands or the desert (to cover other animal habitats......) Ummmmm I'll be sure to let you know!
Smiles The Torrents'

Paper Snowflakes

 

 With the recent snow fall again this Winter I got the children involved in making some fun, very easy paper snowflakes! They usually happily cut ones all year through in a big square piece of paper but this time I wanted to show them how to make a round one!

 

 

 

 

 First you cut out your "random" pattern, 

then start to unfold

now for the surprise and finished snowflake!

HERE is where I found the best info. SO with the laptop, scissors, pencils and paper we were all off making wonderfully, different, beautiful paper snow flakes!

Then with the scraps we made little ones......

We've put them up on the windows for our Winter decorations this year! I love how they all look, it's been really nice to enjoy these amazing creations around the home this season.
Smiles The Torrents'

Princess for a day.... or every day!

Our beautiful little Esther has had a ball in the last week dressing up EVERY DAY!!! Some days there were many princess changes!! Then the latest thing was when she pulled the cage and sticky thing from the Mouse Trap game she became a Musketeer!!! It has been sooo wonderful to see her play and imagine and dress in such wonderful fancy clothes!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smiles The Torrents'