Crafting

We went to a birthday party tonight and I made a little something for the 7-year-old birthday girl. I used a washed can that I had kept and covered it with EVA. The little notebook has EVA cover and it was bound at a copy shop (or whatever they're called in English...). Below there's a close up on the can. The idea came from here.

We created small notebooks with the kids at the orphanage a week ago. The kids made the covers with EVA and I had the notebooks bound for them. I think they came out really cute. Next time I'll put a cardboard or a plastic behind the notebooks though as they'll be more resistant.

Winter holidays

The kids have two weeks off from school and we're all enjoying the winter holidays. After this it's school until the end of November and then they'll have a lot longer summer break. It's been surprisingly calm at home. I've tried to have something planned for them should they need an activity. We've done most of the things I had planned to do with them. Other than that they've played a lot outside enjoying their new swing that daddy made for them recently.

I added some new rhymes to the bag. It was painted by Luana when she was just over two years old and in nursery in Finland. The cards represent rhymes and songs and the kids get to pick them one at a time. We hadn't used the bag for a while and it was great fun; we went through the entire bag at one go! :)

Some sticker activities are always a hit. I just cut different coloured stickers into squares and let them go for it.

The kids washed their bikes with great care and attention. Playing with water is always popular due to the heat.

Yesterday they rode their bikes to visit grandma. Lucas still needs a lot of practice especially when the streets aren't paved (which is the case very often over here). He's not too good with brakes either so I have to be close by all the time...

I'm about to finish my motorbike and car driving lessons (the test is next Wednesday, yikes!) and I've got lessons every morning until then. It's been a little hectic because of the lessons but thankfully our niece who lives with us has been extremely helpful taking care of the kids, cleaning up and preparing lunch.

Outdoor hour # 28

This week we took a closer look at dragonflies. We have plenty of these flying around but again it was so hot that we didn't do a nature walk. Dragonfly was the last in my collection of dead insects and now we'll move on to study trees. As we observed the dragonfly I told them about how they are born, what they eat etc. Even the kids' cousin joined us in our study today.

The kids were most impressed by the beautiful wings and the huge eyes.

The picture on the top is Luana's and the other two are Lucas'. I did draw their attention to the shape of the dragonfly's body but it still didn't really come out in the drawings. Bless them :)

Edit. I'm beginning to think this is a damselfly instead of a dragonfly. I bet they have different names in Finnish too but we simply used the one people mainly use when talking about dragonflies/damselflies...

Apostle Paul's life

Recently we studied apostle Paul's life with the kids. First we sat outside and I told them about Paul's encounter with Jesus and how he was blind for three days. I blindfolded the kids and gave them different objects to identify. I then led them blindfolded to the library where we sat and took a look at the map of Paul's jorneys (now already without the blindfolds!). We drew some imaginary maps of our own and then I told them about Paul and Silas in the prison. We made pictures of the two in the prison with the stone walls coming down (Lucas' picture below).

The next day we talked about Paul's journey to Rome and before bath time I asked the kids to build a Lego boat with some passengers in it. Once in the shower we played the storm and the shipwreck and the kids wanted to do it over and over and over again :)

The following day we learned about Paul's letters and read some verses from the Bible. We then wrote letters to Finland (which I still haven't mailed...).

It was nice to do a study on three consecutive days as the kids remembered well what we had talked about the day before and it was easy to pick the story up from where we had left it. I had planned to do all of these activities on one Saturday but the kids' attention span just wasn't enough so I decided it was best to leave some of the activities for the next days. We might do this with some other Bible characters later on.

Outdoor Hour #26

Ladybugs were a fun theme that the kids liked a lot. We saw lots of ladybugs in Finland last summer but haven't really seen any over here. We looked at different kinds of ladybugs on the internet and inspired by the images the kids produced the ladybugs above.

We also talked about their life cycle as well as aphids in general. The kids were amused by the relationship of aphids and ants.

The ladybugs below are about 20 cm in diameter and we stuck them on the wall by the blackboard in our library/study room.

Outdoor Hour #27

I'm sooo behind in posting things and I just realised I'm posting in the wrong order... Ladybugs were supposed to be first and bees after them. But here goes...

We studied bees quite recently although we had made big cardboard bees with pipecleaner legs (first picture) already earlier. It's so hot outside at this time of the year that we don't really want to venture outside until much later in the evening. Hence our nature studies haven't involved a nature walk for a while. Instead we look at pictures on the internet, craft and talk about different insects.

We drew this beehive and the kids decorated it with small bees.

It opens up so that you can see what's inside. The kids practiced some hexagons, coloured some (honey) and again decorated with some bees that we glued on.

We also baked a honey cake and have been enjoying honey in general :)

Cute pegs

I got the idea for these cute pegs from this creative blog. I prepared these four and we made lots more with the kids at the orphanage where I volunteer (I do crafting with the kids once a week). The material is EVA and I used a black permanent marker for drawing the eyes, mouths etc.

The kids at the orphanage loved these and asked for more. Next week we'll decorate pens and I'll come up with something else from the same material for them.