Learning with Leaves

In Australia we have just experienced a really warm Autumn (Fall) season. It is always one of my favourite times of the year because the leaves are always so spectacular and it can feel like they are changing colour right before your eyes. It also opens up doors for great learning opportunities. 

My adorable niece and I thought we would go exploring and find some leaves we thought were particularly beautiful. It was tough because there were so many we could choose from.

Learning involved
Exploring the environment can be a great way to teach children about the changing of seasons and provides children with an opportunity to make observations whilst opening them up to making discussions, which further helps with language development. 

Here is our collection of leaves. My niece notes the various colours, sizes and shapes!

GAMES using LEAVES

It would be easy to turn this into a sorting or classifying game for children. 

• 'How many brown leaves can you collect in 2 minutes' (counting)
• 'Order these leaves from smallest to largest' (ordering and measurement)'
• 'Which leaf would cover the largest/smallest area?' (area)

Here is an example (bottom left) of leaves being used to make a shape of a square. This teaches children to really consider the sides and points of a shape. 

Great questions to ask - 

How many leaves do you need to make a square? 

Is that the same number you'd need to make a triangle? 

How do you know that you have the correct order?

I think it's also important to give children freedom to take their learning where they want it to go. Here I simply supplied my niece with a black pen and allowed her to be creative. 

Just look at her wonderful and creative drawings!! I really love that she has considered the shape of the leaves, using it as a frame for her picture. Brilliant!!!! We extended this activity by using the leaves in imaginative play and writing a stories. 

Here she is tracing over the veins of the leaf. 
"Wow, I can't believe how many veins this leaf has!' said my niece. 

I love when children are surprised by their own discoveries. 

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I couldn't end this post without sharing with you a tree that I simply adore. 

It is down at my families holiday house and it warms my heart every time I look at it. It is absolutely massive and when you under it you can't help but feel almost protected. 

Do you have a special place? 

Thanks for reading this post. 

Kate x

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Write in Sand and Learn

LETS WRITE IN SAND!!!! 

Here is a great list of ways your child can have fun and learn by using sand at the beach. 

Developing skills in letter and number formation, building on thinking and creativity skills and sensory awareness is just some of the learning that can be achieved. 

There is just so much I love about children writing in sand. It's so wonderful that I find myself writing my own little 'Kate was here' message for passers by to read. The blank canvas of the sand is so tempting and best of all it requires no setting up! 

MATHS

Using sand to develop Mathematical skills is easy. 

You might like to instruct your child to do the following little activities. 

Number

1. Select a number and they continue on, checking as they go. 

2. Skip counting e.g. 10, 20, 30, 40 or 46, 49, 52

3. Writing as many number '4's and circling the one that they feel was written the best

4. Close their eyes and write a number

5. Write mathematical problems in the sand and solve them

6. Write numbers counting backwards and checking as they go

7. Select a number and they write as many problems as they can to answer that number

Shape

 8. Draw a shape and count the number of sides and corners

9. Draw a 'formal' and 'informal' shape and describe how they are similar and/or different

10. Draw shape patterns in the sand

Measurement

11. Write their name in the sand. How many hand-spans cover it?

12. How many steps from the entrance to the waters edge? Write that number 

I love that when a child makes a correction they are able to simply 

use their fingers to cover the error. 

LITERACY

Using sand to develop literacy skills is easy too! 

You might like to instruct your child to do the following little activities.

1. Write their name in the sand and any family members with you

2. Write and circle a single word before they think of as many rhyming words as they can

3. Write the letters of the alphabet

4. Close their eyes and write the name of their favourite colour

5. Write a story as big/small as they can!

6. Write spelling words

7. Pick an animal and write words to describe it

8. Write their name backwards in the sand

9. Have a go at writing the name of the beach using sound that they hear in the name

10. Write the days of the week or the months of the year

My little girl Possum (16 months) just loves the beach and we are fortunate enough to be able to visit a rather secluded one quite regularly. I love that it's a huge sensory learning experience for her. She loves pinching and squeezing wet sand.

Simple writing tools found at the beach. Gorgeous.

I hope your little one enjoys spending time at the beach and learning at the same time. 

Learning should be fun! 

Kate x

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DIY Woolly Monsters for Imaginative Play

Just have a look at these cute woolly monsters! 

I think they are just so adorable and a great little creature that would be fun for children to use during creative or imaginative play.  School aged children would be able to make many of these in one sitting, possibly a whole family of woolly monsters!  

Imaginative play is so important for a child's development. As a primary school teacher I would always be able to identify those children who were exposed and encouraged to play creatively and use their imaginations in ways that allowed them to go further than what was simply presented to them. 

Here is a great article if you wish to learn more about a child's need to pretend play. 

Before I show you how to make these, I should say that I wondered if I should call these 'monsters'. In the end I came to the conclusions that they could be a great way to take the fear out of the idea of 'monsters' if they were ever a problem for a child. :) 

Let's make some woolly monsters !!!!!

Need

• Wool (6ply or 4ply - preferably colour changing)
• cookie cutter or a fork
• scissors
• googly eyes
• sticky tape or hot glue gun

Begin by using your cookie cutter as a frame and start wrapping your wool. 

I preferred to have a light tension on the wool as I wrapped it. 

I loved watching the colours change as I continually wrapped the wool around the cookie frame. 

Once I had wrapped as much as I felt I could manage, I very carefully slid the wool off and tied a separate piece of wool around the middle of it all. 

Using some sharp scissors I carefully snipped the loops at one end. 

This is similar to how you'd make a pompom. 

The multicoloured wool makes the base of this monster look brilliant!

Using some sticky tape I added googly eyes. To be honest, these didn't stay on very long. 

I would be glueing them with a hot glue gun. 

Making a mini wooly monster

I used a fork and wrapped my wool around it many, many times. 

Ever so carefully I slipped a piece of wool between the prongs of the fork and

tied it tightly together. 

Repeat the same process as described above and your little one is ready 

for some fun and creative imaginative play with their wooly monsters. 

Possum loved playing with the larger woolly monster the most. She was particularly interested in the googly eyes I'd stuck on. After awhile she loved moving the monster about the room like it was jumping from couch to couch. Older children would be able to let their imaginations run wild with these. 

I hope your children have fun with this idea. 

x Kate

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Possum's food allergy

Possum’s food allergy

Allergic reactions occur when a person's immune system reacts to normally harmless substances. Soon after Possum turned into a big one year old we purposefully tested her with a teaspoon of some scrambled egg only to quickly discover she has a life-threatening allergy.

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To be honest, the day started out looking like any regular Saturday when my husband, Possum and I graced a café looking to relax with a late breakfast. Without any expectation there would be a problem, I suggested to my husband that it might be a good opportunity to give Possum a bit of scrambled egg since she’d not really experienced it yet. No big deal.

Giving her about half a teaspoon of scrambled egg she soon spat it out, which was something I’d not seen her do before. I remember joking to my husband that I’d hope this wasn’t to be a new behaviour that we’d be tackling to stop. Little did we know that her body was almost instantly rejecting the egg and it was causing her tongue to swell and hives start forming on her torso. These signs were unfortunately covered up by the jumpsuit she was wearing that day.

It wasn’t long before my motherly instinct recognized that something wasn’t right and Possum was acting completely out of character. She was incredibly irritable and was unable to settle. Boy, if only babies could talk!

Ruling out as many reasons for her behaviour as we could, a nappy change revealed the aggressive hives. The rest seems quite a blur as we were at the hospital before we could take in the situation. 

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Common allergy symptoms to look out for  –

•        Irritability
•        Itchy skin
•        Abdominal pain
•       Diarrhea
•      Swelling of the skin/tongue
•       Hives
•        Inability to breathe

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By the time we reached the hospital Possum's symptoms became worse. She was ‘puffy’ and absolutely beside herself, scratching at her skin until it was starting to bleed. It was a horrible sight to see. The hives had almost covered her whole body and combined to form masses across her little body.  Fortunately the hospital was quick to treat her with an antihistamine and everything started calming down after about 40 minutes, a very long 40 minutes. 

Here are some pictures of Possum two hours after she was given medication at the hospital. These pictures are a huge improvement on what she looked like when we arrived at the hospital. Understandably I wasn’t exactly in the frame of mind to take pictures when she was at her worst. 

So began the testing with allergy professionals, which determined Possum's allergic reaction to egg was severe enough to have her need an EpiPen, which is a shot of adrenalin should we struggle to breathe from any future reactions. The specialist explained that as each time she is exposed to egg then the symptoms are most likely to be worse so it's better to be on the safe side. 

Hopefully in time she will grow out of her egg allergy. Apparently 90% of children have outgrown it by the age of 10. The remaining 10% have it for life and so I'm feeling that the odds are good. 
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How to administer an EpiPen 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with EpiPens and how to administer them 

please view this really short video. You might not have a child with an allergy but you could come across one one day. 

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So we are now very aware of her allergy and any food types that contain egg. We religiously check ingredients and never assume something doesn't have egg, many times we have been quite surprised. 

Possum will need to have further testing over the next few years just to see if she is growing out of her allergy and beginning to tolerate small traces. Initially her allergy was a huge shock to us but we are now very informed and know how to handle a situation if she was to show signs of her allergy. 

If you would like more information there are some great websites. 

Food Allergy Awareness 
http://www.foodallergyaware.com.au/

ASCIA
www.allergy.org.au
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Thank you for taking the time to read this. 

Kate x

I would love to hear any comments or 

experiences you have had with allergies. 

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