Deer and Fawns

What better way to start 2019 than on a positive note with a beautiful craft. Letting children create their own affirmation cards allows them to explore what inspires them individually.  The fawns love unicorns so I found a unicorn set of journal cards which we have used as the foundation for their blended set of affirmation cards.  What you’ll need Journal cards (you can find these at most craft stores) Kraft stock card Decorations - pressed flowers, stock paper, washi tape. Mod podge Scissors, pencil and paint brush Making the cards The first thing you’ll need to do is trace a journal card on the craft stock card and cut them out so you have your blank cards ready to get creating!  Explore topics with your children to help them discover which affirmations they’d like to use. For example, Lacey told me that she wanted to choose love because she wants cuddles forever and then she wanted one that involved the sun because it’s warm. So we talked about why she chose those to...

This year I decided to show my daughters how to make a Christmas ornament that I used to love making as a child. What started off as sharing some nostalgia, bloomed into something more precious than I had anticipated as Lacey added her own idea to it that just made it even better. These are also great for a seasonal activity! When I made these as a child, the sunflower seeds would be layered right to the center. As we made our third layer of petals, Lacey said to me “We need pollen mummy, don’t forget flowers have pollen.” and so the chia seed centers were added thanks to my little wildflower and the result is so beautiful!  To make these flower ornaments you will need: -Cardboard (great opportunity to recycle packaging) -Something to trace your circles -Pen/pencil and scissors -Glue (we use craft glue for these but other glues may work) -sunflower seeds -chia seeds -string  Trace your circles on the cardboard, 2 per ornament. Then cut them all out. Blank side up, put a ring o...

Gratitude is a powerful tool that helps bring a sense of appreciation for what we have in a world that conspires to make people feel like they never have enough. It’s an important lesson for us all and a focal point in discovering inner peace and leading a happy life.  There’s many ways we can express gratitude and we have tried a few different methods. This one is an idea that came to me some months ago and over the last two days I’ve worked on it with happy results.  When I was a child I was taught a game called ‘boxes’, I believe it may have a different name to others also. I’ve recently heard it called “Paddocks”.  It’s a grid game usually on paper where each player would have a different colour marker and draw a line each until someone could complete a box, then they would write their initial within the box to score 1 point and have another go until no boxes could be completed and then it would be the next persons turn. This would continue until there were no more bo...

Regularly we will go on family labyrinth walks because (gratefully) there is a beautiful stone labyrinth in a nearby town that we often visit. They are so fascinating and universal through history and mythology across the globe. They have been found on amulets from ancient Egypt, Mycenaean seals, Etruscan vases, Native American paintings and on coins from Crete just to name a few.   Starting off activities for the letter L, I thought this was a great opportunity to create our own finger labyrinth for at home as they are such a beautiful spiritual tool and we are all about mindfulness. The fawns watched a couple videos on the history of labyrinths, how people build modern labyrinths and learnt a bit about what they mean to different cultures and religion. We had a look at the different forms in which labyrinths can take and chose to go with the classic labyrinth.  Using a smaller version with fewer circuits they placed rocks and crystals along the lines I had marked for them gi...

I am thrilled to share this project with you! We’ve been working on this over the last week. As part of our letter C lessons for Lacey’s preschooling and A’s enjoyment in her prepschooling, we chose coconut. 🥥 I love teaching my children about sustainable living so our lesson was, how to sustainably use a coconut - making the most of it.   In this post I will share with you how to make the following -A coconut bowl -Coconut milk -Coconut flour  -Coconut oil -Edit- We have since started filing the coconut fibres off the outside of the shell before draining and cutting it open which makes things a lot easier. - On a coconut there are three dark spots, push on these to find the softest one. This is the one you want to pierce open to drain the water out. We just used a clean nail and hammer. Lacey helped hammer it open and then she shook the coconut water out.  Once the water is out you can score a line around the coconut where you’d like to saw it open.  We did two coc...

I absolutely love crystals and so do my kids which works out well because I’ve been collecting them since I was very young so any chance I get to incorporate them into a lesson makes us all happy!  Lacey has started her preschool home education this year and as such we are doing letter discovery with her although where possible I try to combine a lesson to include fun that both Lacey and Audrey can join in together. For the letter C we have have a major project which I will post as soon as it’s finished. Sometimes, as our children as quite young, a major project will span across days or weeks and that okay because we take our time and enjoy it. Our other big fun project for C of course had to be crystals! 💎 What a wonderful reason to set up an invitation to investigate crystals.  So many different colours, textures, patterns..beautiful! I chose a craft to pair with this activity that can be used in their pretend play.  🧚‍♀️Crystal wands! 🧚‍♀️ We went for a family walk ...

There is something completely magical about the way the world is viewed through a child’s mind and heart.  My kids have always automatically had a respect and fondness for any flowers they see, ‘weeds’ or not. This is so heart warming to me as I remember being told from different people growing up when certain plants were weeds and pests that don’t belong in gardens or yards. I grew with this in mind and instead had to learn against this, to appreciate even these weeds as I got to know them.  Their importance and place in the world, helping pollinators for example.  Every plant is fascinating and beautiful in its own right and one of the things I love about nature journaling and studying the world around us as a key focus in our home education journey, is that we connect on a deeper level to our Earth. We see it for more than face value. The more we experience nature, we feel a closeness which is valuable and I feel this is SO important to be nurtured within Children’s he...

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 bac...