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Showing posts from October, 2017

STEAM Invitation: How does your garden grow?

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Spring inspires a lot of wonderful activities with the beautiful weather allowing more outdoor exploration, the flowers gifting us with beautiful fragrances and the wildlife parading their magnificence.  I've been planning some life cycle study for Audrey and came up with this project idea for a STEAM life cycle of a plant, that involves a wide variety of mixed media and allows multiple levels of invitation for the children to create each part of the overall invitation.  1. Flower creation - for this step, I set out some A4 pieces of paper cut in half for Audrey and Lacey with markers, watercolour paint, oil pastels, crayons, pencils and paper. They created one flower with each of these which we then cut out and laminated. (*EDIT* I no longer use a laminator and would not do that any more)  2. Seeds - Using some polymer clay, Audrey and Lacey created their own little seeds and sprouting seeds. I baked it in the oven for them and we let them cool aside for when we came back to the p

DIY Willow bird nest

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This DIY bird nest is great for Spring lessons, play or seasonal displays. The fawns do love birds and I thought a fantastic activity would be an invitation for them to create their very own nests with a range of provided materials. As I've been inspired by nature crafts lately involving willow and weaving, I thought I would create a nest for them that we can use whenever we learn about birds, spring etc. This is my first time crafting with willow and I'm pretty happy with it. 😊 For their invitation to build a nest it will serve as an example prop.  Getting started, of course you will need some willow branches. How many will depend on the size of the nest you wish to create. Start with a handful. You can keep some of the leaves attached if you wish, I kept a few of the smallest ones on here and through out my nest. Some may come off during the weaving process.  Now I started from the top of the nest and worked my way down and in to the bottom. I haven't yet tried the other