Sensory Bottles

Phew it was hot today!!! it was so hot I had to stay inside during all of Joshua's nap, so I decided to make him some sensory bottles. I bought a few bottles of water today - I needed them! and emptied and washed them and then added a variety of things from my craft stash and my kitchen. I was quite pleased with the result as here they are : (not a great photo!!)

from left to right:
1. Water, oil and coloured sand (effects similar to a lava lamp)
2. density stack - from top to bottom Honey, golden syrup, washing up liquid, water, baby oil, vodka (you cant really see it here but the layers are very obvious
3. water with beads, glitter, coloured marbles, a feather, bits of pipe cleaner etc
4. Marbles and shampoo (this one is very cool!!)

Joshua had a lot of fun shaking them and turning them upside down!! I was very pleased that I made them!!! I know this has nothing to do with Autumn but we had fun anyway!!!

lots of love
Ellie x

Autumn

As the leaves are just starting to fall off the trees I thought that this week it would be a good place to start with the topic Autumn! Yesterday morning we went for a nature walk in our local woods to see what we could find to add to the 'Autumn tray' (a tray bought from Ikea that gets used for all sorts of things in our house, mostly as a sand pit!). Off we went armed with Daddy and a bucket. At first Joshua didn't quite get the idea of collecting things as he found it more fun to empty the bucket every time it had something in it, so we got Daddy to carry it and Joshua to help put things in it!
We managed to collect quite a few different bits and pieces and to stop it looking so bare I added some macaroni and some pumkin and sunflower seeds.

Here is our Autumn tray:

This activity needed a lot of supervision but Joshua loved picking up all the different things and shaking them, and throwing them! He learnt two new words. 'Conker' and 'Acorn' and he had fun trying to tip the tray upside down! I'm sure he got something out of it though!
I used some scavenger hunt pictures that I got off pinterest but I cant show them here as i cant remember which blog I got them from but you can find similar at: http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2011/07/nature-scavenger-hunt.html
Obviously because Joshua is quite young the things we had on our hunt were slightly different. We had:
1. Conker
2. Acorn
3. Squirell
4. Bird
5. Butterfly
6. Feather
7. Tree
8. Leaf
and anything else we collected was a bonus!
I intend to make my own cards for this and laminate them so when I have done so I will post them on here.
We came home and looked through a book called 'In the Park, Baby's First Words'.  It's by Parragon Books but I think its out of print as I couldn't find it on www.amazon.co.uk .
We also counted how many conkers we had and how many Acorns.

I will write a 'lesson' plan for 'Autumn' once the topic has finished and hopefully this can be used again and again and adapted for older children.
That's it for now, happy scavenging!!

Lots of love
Ellie x

The plan!

The plan is to try to follow as closely as I can activities that meet the 6 early learning goals taught at preschools and reception in England. It is a while since I have taught this age group but when I was last there the goals were:

1. Creative development (listening to and making music, junk modelling, painting, drawing etc)
2. Physical development (running, jumping, catching, throwing, climbing, rolling, mark making etc)
3. Mathmatical development (counting, colours, shapes, building, pouring, puzzles etc)
4. Knowledge and understanding of the world (discovering, collecting, watching, pretend play etc)
5. Communication, language and literacy ( word recognition and use, stories, action rhymes etc)
6. Personal and social (making choices, mixing with other children, daily activities, sharing etc)

I have added an extra one of my own which is sensory devleopment which I think is relevant for my sons age group. (Visual, sounds, touch, taste and smell)

In order to make it more interesting I have devised a system to do a series of topics over the course of a year to coincide with the seasons and certain festivals etc.

The topics I intend to explore are:  (and wont necessarily happen in order!!)
1. myself
2. my family
3. my home
4. our senses
5. eat up
6. what will you wear today?
7. How do we get there?
8. What job do you do?
9. our pets
10. farm animals
11. Zoo animals
12. creepy crawlies
13.number
14. time
15. measurements (shape, height, weight, volume)
16. the seasons
17. the weather
18. happy birthday joshua
19. Christmas
20. Easter
21. Halloween
22. Bonfire night
23. Spring
24. Summer
25. Autumn
26. Winter
27. What can we grow?
28. The seaside
I may add to this list at some point!

Each week will be accompanied by a book related to the topic and a letter of the alphabet. I may take two weeks for each topic but will see how it goes first! (obviously as there are only 52 weeks in the year this can't happen for every topic!) I am also in the middle of a big house move so I may not get properly started until after we are settled!!
Here I go off on my journey!!!!! Have fun reading!

Lots of love
Ellie xxxx

Welcome

I am a stay at home mum to Joshua who is 22 month old. Before entering into the world of parenting I was a teacher. I intend to stay at home with my son until he goes to school and want him to have as much fun at home as he can. I want him to learn and be inspired and be free to experiment with his creativity. I want to be able to repeat this experience with a baby brother or sister for Joshua so I decided instead of keeping lots of pieces of paper filed I would write an online diary here! Feel free to copy any of my ideas (as lots of them aren't original anyway) and entertain your own kids with them. I have been inspired by many bloggers over the last few months and have collected a hell of a lot of ideas!!! (I will of course mention you if  I use your ideas.) I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I am going to.

Lots of love
Ellie x