THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

Almost anyone knows that caterpillars turn into butterfly, many children are aware of this thanks to Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"...but how many of us has actually seen a caterpillar turning into a butterfly? I haven't!
Now, I had this idea in my mind since I saw a children's book that explained how to make a caterpillars' house and how to care for them to see them turning into butterflies. I thought it would be very interesting if we could do that.
It took a while before we found a caterpillar: we went hunting in parks and fields, but no sign of caterpillars. I read somewhere that caterpillars like parsley, and I thought to give it a go because I was becoming quite eager to find one. If all failed, I was thinking to buy them from Insectlore, which are expensive but come with their house and food plus a cilindrical shape net where to put them when they are crysalids and then keep the butterflies for a few days.
then one morning, by chance I found one on a leaf of a bush in front of the bulding door...then I lifted my eyes and there were other 2 hairy ones...another one was a very tiny green hearless one! I rushed inside, took a plastic box, called my daughter to come and see! We collected them and a good bunch of leaves and took them inside. Then I made a home for them.
A few days leater I found two eating my flowers! Now we have 6 caterpillars!

HOW TO MAKE THE HOUSE

- a big plastic box or a old fish tank
- a small conteiner to put the leaves and some water to keep them fresh
- the leaves from the plant you found the caterpillars on (it is most probably their food plant)
- some soil
- 2-3 sticks
- a muslin or a paper tissue pierced to make air passing through




Do not touch the caterpillars with your bare hands, some can give a rush! Always use the leaf they are on to move them, or touch them with a leaf on their back and they will move forward.
make sure that the container with the water for the leaves isn't too big, cover all the spaces with some cotton wool or tissue paper to avoid any caterpillar falling into the water.
Some caterpillars make a pupa on a branch (that will be your stick) others under ground (that is your soil)
put the soil in the box, then the container with the leaves + caterpillars and then the sticks. Cover it with a muslin or a paper tissue.
Make sure you do not expose the caterpillar to the hot sun. they like the shade.








You will see lots of droppings and some pieces of skins on the leaves or on the soil. that's because every time they grow they also outgrow their skins and need to replace it!
Replace the leaves when the caterpillars have eaten most of them, or they wither.

Have a good time observing them!

planting mania

After the success of the daffodils, me and M. decided to have a little flowers corner in the communal green area, which kept on expanding and so far we have put down 4 variety of flowers and around 30-35 bulbs! The experience of growing flowers made us so excited that we moved to sowing vegetables and herbs: tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach and basil.
Every morning M. goes to have a look to all these pots and she calls me so enthusiastically to come and see a new leave, or something new from the ground. She is also in charge of watering all of them.
She is doing so much learning about the environment she is part of. It is good thing children learn a bit about gardening and growing plants, because this gives them a sense of pride and responsability,more over it instills in them respect for the environment and all living things. She also learns about the life cycle of flowers and plants, where vegetable comes from, what they need to grow and all other related things.
I would like to now plant some strawberries because she will be able to eat the fruit of her work!



Relating to sowing and planting is the little project started this late autumn by planting the daffodils bulbs. we follow their growth throughtout the winter, from small leaves coming out from the ground, to blossoms and then beautiful flowers. For all these transformation I took a picture, to build the life cycle of a flower in photos. the last one was of the daffodils withering.
Now we have the all life cycle and M. can look at it and remembering all the growing the daffodils went through, she can also try and order all the phases from bulb to withering.

CUTTING WITH PURPOSE

M. is now a confident scissors user...no doubt.
Her level can now be raised with a new challenge: cut out things!
I tried to make her cut on a straight line that I had previously marked on a piece of paper, but was certainly boring for her, and probably didn't make sense.
I thought it would be more fun cutting out something she likes and then make her glue it somewhere.
It was a big success. I made her cut around characters or pretty things you find in toys boxes or card board (cardboard is simpler to cut than paper because it doesn't bend everywhere while you try to cut it!).



At the beginning she was cutting a way far from the actual thing.

but now she got much better, and really can get close enough.

biscuits please

For two days M. have been having fun making biscuits with home made play dough (which she made herself).


You can do this by adding some flour, salt and water (enought to make a dough that doesn't stick to the hands), then you can add some ingredients for texture (peanuts, cake decoration, ice-cream toppers)
She also had pretend tea parties with the play dough biscuits and water as tea, all on plates and cups of course!

EGGY HAIR

This is a nice gardening activity to make even without garden. It takes really little space e doesn't need lots of materials.
What you will get at the end will be cress...but it will look like hair on a face painted on a egg shell.

Materials:

- egg shell
- cress seeds
- cotton wool
- eggs cartoon

1. draw or paint a simple face on each of the broken egg shells
2. dips ball of cotton in a bowl of water so that they are completely soaked




3. fill the egg shell with the wet cotton wool and put it back in his cartoon
sprinkle cress seeds over the cotton wool




4. put some dirt on top of the seeds
5. put the eggs on a window sill and wait for a few days
6. remember to keep the cotton wool wet

MONTESSORI MATHS

SPINDLE BOXES


It has been a while M. is getting to know her numbers. Many children at her age should know how to count to ten, but who really knows what 1 or 5 means. As usual I found it silly to just teach notions without the child's knowing the meaning of it.
I found it useful to teach M. her numbers via a home made Montessori material for number and quantity recognition called spindle box. The spindles clarify the idea that the symbols represent a certain quantity of separate objects, it also introduce the concept of zero and its symbol and reinforce the natural sequence of the numerals. This activity is also self-corrective: if the counting has been incorrect, at the end there will be either an insufficient number of spindles or some left over.

This is the original spindle box




This is my spindle box





I bought separate plastic baskets (probably they are meant to contain forks and spoons...) from 99p shop.
I drew a number in each of them. They must be put next to each other in order before commencing the activity.
For the spindle I bought same colour pencils from the 99p shop


How to use it:
Point out the compartments and the numerals the child knows. Point to them all, one at a time, and have the child give the number’s names.
Tell the child that these numbers will tell us how many spindles to put in the box.
Point to the number 1. Have the child read it and then say, “We will put 1 spindle in this box.”
Place one spindle in the compartment.
Repeat for 2, counting the spindles as you place them, “One, two.” Continue this up to 4.



Have the child place the correct spindles in the remaining compartments.
Once all of the spindles have been placed, look at compartment 0 and notice that there is nothing in it.
Say, “This is zero. Zero means nothing. That is why there is nothing in this spot.
Have the child take out the two spindles from container 2. Have him do this one by one and count as he does so.
Have the child tie a rubber band around the two spindles and replace them in the 2 slot.
Repeat for the other spindles.
Then take out the 1 spindle and place it gently back into the basket.
Take out the other spindles group by group, and after taking off the rubber bands, place them one by one (counting as the child does this) back into the basket.
Ask the child why there was no spindle in the 0 container.



SANDPAPER NUMBERS

Almost everyone would have heard of sandpaper numbers and letters. They are commonly used in Montessori nurseries, but I have became more wide spread nowadays.
If you will ever want to buy a set be prepared because they are very pricey, this is not quite right, since the materials costs are quite reasonable.
Home made ones while be cheap to make and will be just the same. The numbers are cut out of fine sandpaper and glued onto wooden tablets.

To make my sandpaper numbers tablets I bought cheap MDF picture frames to hung on the wall, the ones without frame. (the cost came to around 3 pounds for 10 tablets)
Bought 4 sandpaper sheet (cost 1pound)
You can print numbers templates to cut out the sandpaper, I just drew the numbers on it and cut them out
I then glued the numbers onto the tablets
I bought a nice box to put them in

The child is asked to trace the numbers with his two fingers passing on the sandpaper (the sandpaper guides the child’s fingertips). This activity is useful to teach the child the symbols for the numbers he knows, and to provide him with the keys to the world of written numbers.
Indirectly is a preparation for the writing of numerals.


Do not teach all the numbers at once, start with a group of 3 numbers:
Take out 1, trace three times and say its name: “one”
Give to the child to repeat.
Place the board at the top of the table.
Repeat for numbers 2 and 3.
Do a Three Period Lesson with numbers 1, 2, and 3.
Repeat for numbers 4, 5, and 6.
Then repeat for numbers 7, 8, and 9.
Depending on the child, this may be taught over a few days

DAYS OUT

As part of our world project I took M. to visit the British Museum for the Africa and South America sections, and to the Victoria and Albert Museum for the Asian section.
It seems a bit hazardous taking children to big museum, full of staff that they can't touch,there are no toys, and do not know what it is for. But for M. is different. I was observing her in front of the museums windows boxes, observing Japanese kimonos and samurai armors, African musical instrument and Native American clothes, and she didn't look at all out of place in that big hall full of adults. M. was very interested in what she was seeing, she asked many questions and I could see that she was digging in her memory and fishing out all the information I gave her about how people around the world dress, and live. The things she was observing behind that glass had meaning for her and she highly enjoyed the experience.








GARDENING

We tryed again to plat some bulbs. Last winter we didn't succeed much, only one flower bloomed in our pot kept indoors, so this time I wanted to try to plant daffodils outside in the common green area.
This time was a real bloom!
now all our daffodils are in bloom and I want to make cards with their photos to keep as a life cycle experience. M. helped me through all the phases of planting and kept on going and observing every little change during the flowers' cycle.