Sunday, September 30, 2012

Fruity Activity

One activity I have been wishing to do with K and L was to play with fruit. They love all kind of fruit so I decided to give them some fresh fruit and use it in a creative way. Watermelon, melon, peaches, banana, lemon, grapes and also some dried cranberries and currants were used. The children had the fruit and some cutting utensils including children's knives, shape and letter cutters and kebab sticks. Here are some pics of the activity.

Ready for action

Fruit and utensils used

Keira doing a fruit rainbow

Lee doing a fruit rainbow



Mr Teddy

Tasting time

Fruit house

Mr Scary 
Olympic Circles - food colouring was used for blue


Olymics Symbol

Mr Fruitshine

A birthday thought for uncle 




Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Shells

After spending lots of days at the beach collecting shells it was finally time to do an activity with them. K and L sorted them according to type of shell and then each container was used to sort in size. A great activity to remind us of the lovely time spent at the beach this Summer.

Searching for shells

Sorting shells

Monday, September 17, 2012

September Virtual Book Club - Lois Ehlert

When September's author Lois Ehlert was announced for the Virtual Book Club at Toddler Approved I searched for her books on-line and was so pleased that most of her books have to do with nature.We watched this interesting clip on you tube about Lois Ehlert which made us more familiar with her work. Our family loves anything that has to do with nature and we try to introduce it in different ways to K and L. It happened that this Summer we had planted some herbs in some pots on our roof garden  to see the process of their growth from seed to edible food. It was K who planted the seeds and cared for them during the hot summer days. So after reading several books by Lois Ehlert we focused on Growing Vegetable Soup as it was so related to what we were actually doing.
Growing Vegetable Soup (Voyager Books)

This book focuses about vegetable gardening, the planting, weeding, harvesting, washing, chopping and cooking. Since we were in the peak of our hot summer days instead of soup we used our home grown basil to make into pesto.The photos show the process we used to make our home made pesto

Home grown organic herbs ... marjoram,rosemary, thyme, mint, sage  and basil
Collecting leaves 

... more leaves

Ingredients ready for preparing pesto

All set to start process

.. mince the basil

.. all ingredients blended

.. homemade pesto

..pasta with home made pesto

.... ready to eat!!!





Researching about Lois Ehlert we learnt that she has a very creative book creation proess. She begins with a "dummy book"made from pencil drawings. Then assesses to determing the subject matter of the new book. Once she has a topic, she will do background research to learn more. Then she will begin her artwork, which involves cutting out each piece individually and then gluing them on the pages of her book.


For some craft we used her technique of colourful cut-paper-style illustrations to create wonderful pictures related to the book. K and L used various craft material to create their pictures.



L testing textures to create a picture


K decided to do a picture of the pesto pasta
Penne with Pesto craft version

Collage of the Basil plant 


Basil plant

List of materials used for craft 

K enjoys writing and she also wished to write the recipe for the pesto. So I wrote words for her and she chose what to include in the recipe.






We are so interested in Louis Ehlert books and would love to know more of her books trough  the blog hop  featuring  her differtent books.  If  you are interested follow this blog hop too.


Monday, September 3, 2012

We are Worldwide Culture Swappers

We love our beautiful little island in the Mediterranean ....Malta and when we found this site on line we were very interested to participate and let others know all about it.
Culture Swapper
When you sign up for the Worldwide Culture Swap you will be put in a group with 5 families from around the world.  The objective of the swap is to share information with each family about the country in which you live (or that you will be representing) so that they can get a feel for the culture of that country. This is achieved by sending a package (usually addressed to the child or children) with bits and pieces that you have chosen to give a good overview of what it is like to live there. 
We were very excited in preparing our package. This is what our package included and a brief description is given about each item.




Here is a photo and some information on each object we put in our pack.

*    A traditional Recipe – Figolla
*    A figolla cutter

Brief information about the origins of the recipe for the traditional sweet
 Figolla with step by step instructions and a Figolla cutter.


*    A traditional children’s game – Iz-Zunzana ( plus link to more traditional games)
*    A soft ball to play the traditional children’s game

Translation of song for game and instructions how to play it.  Plus soft ball to play the game.


*    Twistees ( a locally produced popular snack)

Twistees


*    Galletti ( a locally produced water cracker ideally to eat with cheese)

Galletti


*    Exploring Malta Activity book
A 44 page book full of fun information about the geography and history of Malta and Gozo. It’s bursting with activities such as mazes, colouring-ins, cut-out figures; crossword puzzles; join the dots; spot the difference and even a build your own balcony and galley!





*    A Maltese cross  Filigree pendant (silver 925 with certificate)plus information







*    Luzzu (traditional fishing boat) magnet

Luzzu magnet


*    Lanyard 





*    Bag




*    Lapel pin of the Maltese cross

Maltese Cross


*    Postcard booklet of Malta





*    Map of the Maltese islands





*    Information leaflets (sponsored by Malta Tourism Authority)

Brochures from Malta Tourism Authority


*    Flowers of Malta postcard  (plus link)  for more information on flora and fauna of Malta





*    Stationary – pen, pencil and bookmark





We also included an introductory letter with some photos of the family in various places in Malta.

K was very excited in the preparation of the package and I can say she is now even more excited to receive the four packages from our swappers which are from Scotland, Australia, Virginia USA and California USA.









And here are the pics of K and L opening their parcels

Scotland pack





USA - Virginia pack




USA - California pack



Australia pack