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The Rainbow Fish craft idea

08/05/2011 by Cathy James Leave a Comment

I’m delighted to feature a guest post idea today from Suzanne of skybluesea, inspired by The Rainbow Fish story by Marcus Pfister.

Suzanne is a freelance textile artist and she’s recently been working with a Reception and Year One class to produce an amazing collaborative work based on The Rainbow Fish book. The process incorporated art, design, texture, colour and numeracy. Here’s Suzanne to tell you more.

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“A long way out in the deep blue sea there lived a fish. Not just an ordinary fish, but the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean. His scales were every shade of blue and green and purple, with sparkling silver scales among them.”
extract from ‘The Rainbow Fish’ by Marcus Pfister .

I have recently completed a project with a Reception and Year One class for Curious Minds. The brief was to include collaborative and individual working for the children, numeracy and the theme ‘water’. Mathematical language was used throughout : how many?, how many more?, Is that too much?, Do we need more or less?

The children experienced silk-painting, and drawing outlines of shapes with gutta. We then talked about ‘The Rainbow Fish’ and we decided to create a huge silk painting based on it. They also made small wire and tissue fishes, and they had to choose two colours of beads for threading – counting as they threaded them on.

Their fishes were then suspended from the ceiling with ribbons and displays of their silk painting, and lot of photographs of the children working. Questions like ‘How many points does a star fish have?’, ‘How many octopus can you see?’ also became part of the display.

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The children’s project also incorporated felt making, sewing and weaving. I love how they were able to try out lots of different techniques and make their own design choices as well as coming together to create a collaborative work of art the whole class took part in.

You can see the finished result and find a tutorial for the felt making collage over at skybluesea – pop over and be inspired to try the ideas out with your children.

happily shared with abcand123

Literacy ideas: shopping lists

05/05/2011 by Cathy James 5 Comments

A very simple but effective way to encourage your children’s writing when you’re going out shopping is to have the children write the list.

This shows them that writing has a purpose and involves them in serious, grown-up business. Don’t worry too much about spellings and neatness, the idea is to promote writing as something practical that they can do, not something where they make mistakes or get things wrong.

Have them add picture clues if they like, especially if they’re shopping with younger siblings who might like to join in too.

And then when you’re shopping, let them be in charge – giving them the added practise at reading their list. Letting them direct the purchases might even make for a happier trip to the supermarket with less pestering now they’re in charge.

happily shared with abcand123 tot school

Meringue recipe

04/05/2011 by Cathy James 20 Comments

This meringue recipe makes the perfect party dessert and as they’re so easy to make it’s a great recipe for the children to try out for themselves. It also calls for a little showmanship and daring, much to the kids’ delight.

I won’t make any attempt to pass them off as being a healthy option though as they are of course very sugary, but serving them with a pile of fresh fruit balances things out a little. This recipe makes mini meringues, which is a better child-sized portion. Not that I care about easing my conscience too much – they were for my birthday party after all!

Here’s how to make our Mini Meringue Recipe

To make 12 white and 12 pink mini meringues you will need 2 egg whites, 100g caster sugar and two drops of pink food colouring

Preheat your oven to 110C / 225 f / Gas 1/4 and then place your egg whites in a large bowl.

Let the children crack their own eggs – go on! If you have any stray pieces of egg shell it’s easiest to use another piece of shell to scoop them out as like seems to attract like. You only need the egg whites for this recipe. To separate them you can strain the egg through your fingers, keeping hold of the yolk. An easier way with children is to crack your egg on to a saucer or plate, then use an egg cup to enclose the yolk. Then you can pour off the rest of the egg white into your bowl.

Use a whisk to beat the eggs until they form thick, white peaks. This is great fun for the children as the eggs totally transform in colour and texture as you beat in the air- science in action. When the egg whites are stiff enough you can hold the bowl upturned over your (or their) head and the eggs will stay in the bowl – ta-daa! Then whisk in the sugar, adding it little by little.

Line a baking tray with a sheet of greaseproof paper and use teaspoons to place 12 blobs of the meringue mixture on to the tray. Add a couple of drops of food colouring to the remaining mixture and very gently stir the colour through. Use teaspoons again to make 12 blobs of pink meringue on the tray.

Bake for 40 minutes, then turn off the oven. Leave the meringues inside the oven for another 5 minutes if you like yours to have a delicious chewy centre, for another 20 if you prefer them to be crisp.

You can serve them as they are or sandwhich one white and one pink meringue together with some whipped cream. Serve with fresh berries and other chopped fruit. Just right for birthday or summer party.

You can find more recipes here.

happily shared with share your Sunday best and craft schooling Sunday

Playing dens

03/05/2011 by Cathy James 21 Comments

Up! from blocks to rockets

Download your copy of Up! here: 30+ hands-on projects that explore blocks, building, rockets, air planes, parachutes, pulleys and everything Up! Includes 100 printables

A strange new habitat has appeared in our playroom – what could it be?

Secret surveillance cameras reveal signs of life – glimpses of the wild creatures inside.

Special cameras attached to the animals allow us to penetrate deep into the burrow, where no adults may enter.

The footage reveals that, deep underground, these creatures like to play…

…and sleep in four poster beds.

B says ‘playing dens is our favourite thing ever’. I say a whole day’s worth of happy, imaginative play is well worth having a messy room to tidy.

International guerrilla sunflower gardening day

01/05/2011 by Cathy James 4 Comments

Regular readers will know NurtureStore is teaming up with Have a Lovely Time to host a Sunflower Challenge, helping to raise funds for Compton Hospice. You can find out about the challenge here and download a free ebook full of sunflower activities including art, science and maths ideas. If you enjoy the ebook maybe you’d consider supporting the charity and making a donation?

And if you have any spare seeds or seedlings why not join in with some guerrilla gardening? Today is international guerrilla sunflower gardening day, so take your sunflowers out on the streets and get planting in your neighbourhood!

Scout your neighbourhood for a dull and dreary spot of wasteland and brighten it up with some of your sunflowers for all your community to enjoy. We have planted eight of our little sunflower plants on an old train embankment which we pass on the way to school each day, so we’ll be able to keep an eye on their progress.

And to complete our celebration of sunflower day, we have the pleasure of being joined once more by Zoe from Playing by the Book, with another recommendation for a wonderful sunflower themed story book to enjoy with your children. (You can find Zoe’s first story book pick here.) Oh, and Zoe reminded me to give you an update on our progress: our tallest sunflower is at 29cm so far – anyone beat that?

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Measuring Angels by Lesley Ely and illustrated by Polly Dunbar is a book so rich in ideas and inspiration it’s hard to know where to start. It explores bullying and beauty in sensitive and thought provoking ways and is accompanied by gorgeous illustrations bursting with joy and colour. This is a book that will leave you happier, more optimistic about life, and itching to grow your own sunflowers (if you aren’t already doing so !)

A young girl at school is unhappy because she has fallen out with her friend. Hoping for reconciliation the class teacher gets the two girls to work together on the class sunflower growing competition; there are not enough seeds to go round the entire class and so the two girls reluctantly have to share.

At first things don’t bode well.

“When I put soil in the pot Sophie frowned. She snatches the seed and shoved it hard into the soil! I frowned but nobody noticed.”

At the suggestion of their teacher the girls try talking to their floundering seedling, and this along with the help of some fantastic sunflower guardian angels made from paper and glue by the class ensure the blossoming of not only their sunflower but also the rekindling of their friendship.

Seeing the sunflowers all in bloom the teacher realises that measuring for the tallest actually misses the point – beauty and friendship can’t and shouldn’t be measured.

This story is told with real a ring of authenticity; perhaps this is unsurprising given that the author is an experienced headteacher! The well crafted story is perfectly matched by beautifully observed children and mood-liftingly zingy illustrations created by the very talented Polly Dunbar. Even if our sunflowers don’t go on to win Nurture Store’s Sunflower Challenge ;-) , at least the competition has given me a chance to discover this wonderful book I can’t recommend enough.

happily shared with Link and Learn

Kitchen role play ideas

27/04/2011 by Cathy James 13 Comments

We’re enjoying the warm weather this week and the opportunity to play outside in the sunshine. As well as playing in their rock pool, the children have been cooking up sand pies and pebble cakes in their play kitchen. Do you have an outdoor cooking area for your kids?

As you can see, ours was improvised by the girls from a deckchair and items borrowed from our indoor home corner – a great reminder that you can encourage lots of creative play outdoors just by relocating resources from one area to another. Do you like the fire they made to heat their oven? Add in few pots and pans and they were ready to get cooking.

Play kitchens give children the opportunity to take on different roles, trying out the skills they see the adults in the family using. There’s lots of measuring and counting to be done and plenty to chat about as they prepare their meals. Providing sand, water or mud offers sensory play and science exploring, as the children combine wet and dry materials and observe how the textures change. Physical skills develop as they try out utensils and spoon and pour their ingredients. But even better than all of this, outdoor play kitchens are fun!

For more inspiring outdoor play kitchen ideas have a look at Worms Eye-View and let the children play. The Frugal Family Fun Blog has a diy travel kitchen, which you could take with you wherever you play – I’d like one made in a wipe-able oilcloth fabric which we could take with us to the beach. And Childhood 101 has a tutorial for transforming a cardboard box into a stove.

Do your children enjoy pretend cooking?