Miyomoto Musashi
Isn’t this so true! This helped me early this morning when I set off on my own with the dog for an hour walk around the local bush track and then again this morning when explaining ‘carrying the 1’ with Miss Ant over our morning Maths moment (I would call it a lesson, but it was hardly what I think qualifies as a lesson!).
One of the things we are working on this term is fine motor skills, and we all find copy work and handwriting practice a true bore-fest so we are incorporating our ‘handy work’ into our craft! We still do handwriting, every morning Miss Ant writes out her 20 spelling words for the week and looks up 3 words in her dictionary and writes them out. She also has ‘free (learning) time’ in the afternoon and often she chooses creative writing. Anyway, this week Miss Ant is making a felt butterfly (we were inspired by seeing other HE kids projects). Different coloured felt, and a few different shapes cut out to decorate the wings, needle and thread and away we go! This is the chosen blog topic this week, so I won’t talk about it too much - I will save that for her!
Vincent is also joining in :) A piece of card with holes punched out and a piece of wool and he’s away lacing up a storm! He has even moved on to weaving, and thoroughly enjoys it!
Anyway, all the materials for our crafty stuff I managed to find at home, isn’t it amazing how easy it can be to get creative and stimulate interest with just household stuff! This is quite a revelation for me, as I often think I lack in creative flow and imagination and feel that I have to rely on store bought packs to find inspiration. This goes back to the ‘too hard’ knee jerk reaction attitude I seem to have developed over time ……. Hence why the new affirmation ‘EVERYTHING is hard at first’….kind of along the lines of Nike’s ‘Just do it’ ;-)
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| And Yes we still occasionally use ready-to-make craft! Here's Miss Ant with her Sand Art |
Last week we did an experiment that one of my friends posted up on Facebook – boiling water over red cabbage makes a purple dye…then add drops of lemon juice….all found at home (actually the red cabbage had lived a rather long life in the bottom of my fridge…so I was pleased to do something semi practical with it!). It provided about an hour worth of question and answer time. We covered all sorts from nature, science, colours, the water cycle and many more. And this is only 1 moment out of many that we have daily. The 6 yr old asked questions and got answers at her level, and the 3 yr old listened….then asked questions for his level of understanding and interest.
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| This cheeky little critter on my fruit plate stimulated a big conversation! |
So, I suppose the ongoing underlying theme here is that not only are my children learning from every day moments/opportunities – but so am I…….and I am not entirely sure who is learning the most!
Fun!
ReplyDeleteWe have the red cabbage still in the fridge from the holidays as we were going to do the same experiment! All to do with food colourings too. It's a bit of a worry that this non-organic cabbage has been in my fridge for 4 weeks and still looks edible - well, becoming less appealing wondering what is on it to keep it that way!
It looks like you're doing wonderfully :)
Yes! Mine was in there that long too and it worried me a LOT! Hence why even though it looked ok.....I didn't want to eat it :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Belinda, baby steps still though, and I suspect we will be doing that for a little while!