Nectarine Blossom

Whilst we still have another month of Winter and I have certainly felt the cold this year, our little nectarine tree is already welcoming Spring.



I love to see the first blossoms of the season in our own backyard. :)

-Polly

D is for Ducks

E's latest letter focus was the letter D. She did a Dd 'dot' painting that I'd drawn up for her and made a collage of things beginning with D. We made a dice using a wooden cube and a permanent marker. We did some dancing. And we did this duck craft:

To make your own ducks, you will need:

• 2 cardboard tubes (empty toilet paper rolls)
• yellow crepe paper
• glue (we used a simple homemade paste)
• orange card
• white card
• pencil
• black marker
• clear sticky tape

Here's how to do it:

• Cut one of the tubes in half so that you'll have one tall duck and 2 shorter ones.
• Smother the outside of each tube in glue.
• Paste on some yellow crepe paper.
• Cut some smaller pieces of crepe paper and glue a few to each duck for tail feathers.
• Let the paste dry.
• On the orange card, draw 3 pairs of feet and 3 duck bills.
• Cut them out and draw some nostrils with the black marker.
• Tape feet and bills onto your ducks.
• On the white card, draw 3 pairs of eyes (using black marker).
• Cut them out and glue them onto your ducks.
• On the white card, draw 3 pairs of wings.
• Cut them out and tape them onto your ducks.

All done!

E enjoyed this craft. She loves gluing things and she loves ducks. She even got to practice cutting with scissors. She later drew a pond for her ducks to play in.

-Polly

Learning Latin

Another book that we bought recently is "Getting Started with Latin," by William E. Linney. No-one in our family has ever studied Latin before, so we plan to work through the book at a snail's pace. That way even 2-year-old E can keep up. Here's an activity that we did after learning the Latin word for 'sailor':

We made basic origami sailboats and little cardboard sailors to sit in them. Here's the folding instructions:

 



We have also watched this [three pigs] cute video a few times. It's fun to watch even if you aren't learning Latin.

vale!

-Polly

Mushrooms



It's been a week between posts because my photos are on one computer and my software is on another and I'm having trouble getting the two to talk to each other. So, sorry if the photos in this post don't show up. They're pretty big and very much unedited.

 

Anyway, onto the actual post:

Mushrooms!

Something I love about this time of year (Autumn and Winter) is spotting all the different mushrooms that pop up everywhere. Here's some that I found in our backyard recently:

I mentioned in another post that we saw some interesting ones at the zoo not long ago. I didn't get any pictures of those. I have realised that I don't know a lot about fungi. Any information on the topic seems a little sparse, too. For Australia-specific information, anyway. We did get this book in the mail recently:

I've only read the introduction and a handful of entries yet, but I like it.

Have you spotted anything interesting in your garden lately?

-Polly

Baking

We have been enjoying a lot of sweet treats lately because I have been baking again. Now that we've been getting some cooler weather, it seems okay to have the oven on more often. Recently I made these orange and date muffins using one of my mum's recipes. I hadn't tried this particular recipe before. Mum always made yummy muffins. :)

One of my husband's favourites is this caramel mud cake from a packet mix. It has been requested 3 times already.

I have also made Gran's banana cake, lemon cupcakes, apple-blueberry crumble, date loaf and vegan lemon slice. I put some of them into the freezer to eat at another time.

They all make a great morning tea with a nice hot cuppa. It has been especially nice to enjoy them together while my husband has been on holidays from work. I have been adding a few slices of lemon zest, along with the tea leaves, to the teapot for a little extra flavour some days. The coffee machine, too, has earned it's keep.

E is learning how to bake along side me. Her favourite part is licking the spoon!

-Polly

Tennis

Lately we have been utilising our local public tennis court.

We all have our own tennis racquets and like to go there with our neighbours. The men get a real workout, while the baby and I tend to sit and watch. E's 6-year-old friend is getting quite skilled at the game. E has a good go at it and always has fun.

I think it's her new favourite sport.

-Polly

R is for Robots

E came home from her latest trip to Scitech carrying a box. Inside was a build-your-own spider robot kit that her dad had bought for her. It was labelled for 10yrs+, but it's what she really wanted. E and her dad built it that same day. She's actually getting pretty good at following instructions and identifying parts.

Now she has fun watching it scuttle around the house.

Obviously E is a big fan of robots, so it was a logical choice for some letter R activities.

Here's a picture we did together some time ago (I did the drawing and E did the painting):

And more recently we did this 'Rory the robot' picture:

Again, I drew the robot and this time E decorated it with pieces of aluminium foil. This is part of a series we're doing to help remember letter sounds and identify letters in a sentence.

-Polly