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'

Polar Bear cupcakes (Arctic and Antartica unit study)

With a wonderful theme of SNOW and Ice and all that goes with that we had HEAPS of fun coming up with treats for Tea Party Thursday.
Here is one of those ideas..... The cute Polar Bear and Walrus cupcakes!!!!

 

 (inspiration HERE & HERE)

Sophia loves cooking with me on Thursdays, especially when she gets to be arty with our treats!

Hannah is a fan of chocolate cupcakes and Zeke vanilla so we made a perfect mix of both to keep everyone happy! Let me tell you they were totally delicious!! LOVED every bite!
Smiles The Torrents'

Arctic and Antarctica Unit study

 We have been doing HEAPS this term on SNOW! With such a wonderful theme I opened it up to studying and looking at the Arctic and Antarctica. So with the older ones doing projects and research on places with the most snow fall and the like I had a little set up for the younger girls to play with.

 

 

Sapphire has LOVED this!! She is learning what animals live where and all about the North and South Pole. Esther and Sapphire have had HEAPS of play time with the animals which I have enjoyed greatly, watching their imagination come to life!

The simple Arctic scene was made with a cardboard box, cut in the appropriate glacier shapes, then painted white! Easy!! (idea HERE for background and HERE for trees)
Smiles The Torrents'

Planning, planning, and some more planning for our Homeschooling year!

Over the last week and a bit all my "spare" time has been sitting in front of the computer searching and planning for this years homeschooling!! When the children are looking for me, they go straight to the office!! Then it's funny if I'm actually NOT THERE and the
"Where's Mum??" calls come...... just needed a quick ladies break!! hee hee

So what are we doing this year??? Well firstly I wanted to really try and plan the WHOLE year this time, I mean not just pretend to do it but really DO IT!!! My dear friend KIM is soooo super awesome in all her plans, it blows me away, everything is sooooo, well, WELL PLANNED!!! I want some of that, so some of that I'm trying to achieve!!!

I've looked for planners HERE and HERE
Then some new charts for the children HERE and HERE with lists of age appropriate jobs HERE
Inspiration as to how to ease into the new year HERE
Ideas on core subjects HERE

It feels good to be scribbling down LOADS of things and ideas and plans and crafts and seeing it all come together!! So before the week is out I should be pretty much there...... looking forward to that!
Smiles The Torrents'

Seahorse Craft for children {using a paper plate!}

 

One of the sea critters we have done in our Water/Swimming Unit study is the wonderful, amazingly created Seahorse! I found THIS great craft for the children and then let them loose in designing and decorating their own Seahorses!! Sophia was particularly creative with adding little dots to her seahorses back, then of course as all good little sisters are, Esther soon followed suit!

 

 

 

The very end result (though not pictured here) was a fabulous array of colour and art! Oh how I'm loving our Tuesday crafty afternoons!
Smiles The Torrents'

Star Wars Unit study and a fun Sun craft

For this term we are learning all about STAR WARS!!! The children are having a great time finding out about characters, different types of space craft and have even watched the first (well officially number 4) Star Wars movie. This is how our week unfolds.....
Monday: MUSIC - Look at John Williams and transpose/listen to his famous movie scores. (these include E.T, Jaws, Home Alone etc)
Tuesday: CHARACTER STUDY and STORY WRITING: Children chose a Star Wars character and write about them, including pictures. Write a story (continue to add to it) about your own space adventure.
Wednesday: SPACE study- I have THIS BOOK and we are going through the last section of it. Includes extra activities which is cool!!
Thursday: SPACE CRAFT/ART- learn about the different space craft we have like the Hobble telescope, International space station etc (watch a clip related to it which you can find heaps HERE!)
Look at famous art related to Stars, Moon, night time and do craft.
Friday: WAR/HISTORY - look at Wars from our time and add them to the time line


On Thursday with the craft I've found some great ideas which I've pinned HERE. We've started off by doing a Sun picture (which was something we covered in the Space study)
I got the girls to try and make the solar flares coming off the sun! We used a medicine syringe to "splat" the flares/gas on their suns! Very fun!!

 

 

 Now for Esther's turn to make her sun

 

 

 

 Adding the "rays" and now also the solar flares

What are you doing this term? Can you believe how fast the year is flying by??
Hope you're enjoying your school year!
Smiles The Torrents'