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Counting ladybirds

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ladybird number game

Make a set of number ladybirds, add in some stickers and have some counting fun.

Taking a child’s passion and using it to practise a new skill works really well. I know a child who *loves* stickers – that simple process of peel and stick, peel and stick, gives them immense satisfaction! So I thought I’d use this in a different way to help us work on our counting too. Ladybirds with spots lend themselves to counting games really well, and sticker dots are inexpensive and easy to get hold of.

To start your ladybird counting, first make your ladybirds.

  1. Cut out some ladybird shapes from card.
  2. Write on them numbers one to ten.
  3. Let the children lose with the stickers – putting the right number of spots on each ladybird.

Here are some of the ideas we played:

  • Can you find the ladybird with a number one?
  • Can you add the right number of stickers to match the number?
  • Which ladybird has got the most stickers?
  • Can you line up the ladybirds from one to ten, or from ten to one.
  • This ladybird has two spots – can you find a ladybird with one spot more?
  • How old are you? Can you find a ladybird with the same number of spots?

Audit your outside space

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Summer is on the way! It might not exactly feel like it but before we know it the warmer weather will be here and the children will be spending more and more time playing outside. Is your garden ready for them? Maybe it’s time for an Outside Play Space Audit?

Great ideas to use to audit your outdoor space and make it a wonderful place to grow, play and relax.

How to audit your outdoor play space [Read more…]

Sunflower activities

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Growing sunflowers with children? Download our free Sunflower Activities ebook.

Welcome to the Sunflower Club End of Summer Party

sunflower crafts

Google tells me that the world’s tallest sunflower grew to over 7 metres tall. So ours aren’t going to break any records but they have reached a very respectable 2m 47 cm. (Did I hear you say ‘wow!’?) They have brought us so much pleasure over the summer and the girls have learned lots of things through growing them. The sunflower height chart we made also revealed that Little isn’t quite as little as she was when we planted our seeds as she has grown 2.5cm too. Although they have grown tall this year the flowers appeared early and have faded now and we’re wondering what to do with the seeds – so if you have any suggestions we would love to hear them.

If you have been growing sunflowers or doing any sunflower linked crafts or activities we would love you to link up with your posts. Please use the linky below to show us how your sunflowers have fared and to give us some craft and activity ideas to use next year.

Thanks for following along in our Sunflower Club – we hope you’ve had fun too.

(You could add a link in your post to here so your readers can come and share all the ideas in the link-up too.)

In our acrchive: all of our sunflower activites.

One potato, two potato

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One potato, two potato, three potato, four

Five potato, six potato, seven potato more

It’s easy to include some maths in your garden if you’ve been growing your own fruit and vegetables.

You could…

Count how many potatoes you have. Draw up a chart to record the harvest from your garden and add up the grand total of what you’ve grown.

Rank your produce by size from biggest to smallest.

Measure your spuds – ours went from 1cm up to 10cm.

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Growing vegetables with children

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Do you grow fruit and vegetables with your children?

Children benefit so much from seeing where food really comes from – and I find they’re much more likely to try new foods if they’ve helped to grow and prepare it. A cut and come again salad is a great way to start, no matter how small your garden. Sow the seeds in a pot of compost, have the children water them and wait for the seedlings to pop up. The good thing about a cut and come again salad is just that – the children can help themselves to a few leaves and the plant will kindly grow them some more. Sow  seeds every 3-4 weeks and you’ll have a summer full of salad. Add a cherry tomato plant and let the children tuck in. The girls loved going on a treasure hunt round the garden looking for things to put in their salad and found lettuce, radish, nasturtiums and herbs. They ate the lot!

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