The Rainforest, with links

A while back I was trying to tie in dd's desire to do more science, with ds2's ongoing geography learning. I came up with rainforest (and soils - see previous post) as suitable topics that I could engage them both in. Dd has more of an interest in animals than anything else. Below is her rainforest layers poster: 

The rainforest layers printable (top left of the top picture) was the nicest and simplest one I could find. It can be seen here.

I printed out Rainforest food chain items which we laminated and velcro'd onto our felt board. I think I got more satisfaction from laminating than the kids did from the 5 minutes they spent arranging the food web, but that's kinda how it goes sometimes :)

[For info: This is the link to the food chain printable, which I found via this resource here. The latter has other Rainforest printables, worksheets etc. that might be of use if you happen to be doing Rainforesty things.]



In addition to all the rainforest stuff, ds2 did a mini-poster on The Nile and the Aswaan Dam, which was a spin off from the geography book he is using. He will be starting IGCSE geography in September, so I'm trying desperately to do the more projecty stuff now before we get to the hoop jumping.

Ellen McHenry Brain hats and St George's Day dragon puppets

Tomorrow I'll be running a session at our local home ed group on The Brain, so today we ran through a prototype 'brain hat', just to make sure everything will go as planned.

You can print the free brain hat templates here at Ellen McHenry's Basement website 

Meanwhile, I was trying to get around to doing something - *anything* -  for St George's Day. 

We're not great at doing anything for special days or festivals. I always have good intentions, but the date comes and goes and even though I know lots of great resources for all these excuses to do a themed something, somehow we never get around to it. 

Finally, today we had a brief stint on St George. Of course, being an independent-minded child, dd did it *her* way. She flatly refused to colour in the wonderful picture from Activity Village here and barely skimmed a read through the Scholastic St George's Day resources here . But she did get excited about making a dragon sock puppet here 

These were once my favourite pair of stripey socks, many years ago, and I can't think of a better way to reuse them :)

These are so cool...

I simply must make some of these

http://www.filthwizardry.com/2013/03/recycling-containers-with-crochet.html

when I have a moment to cram something else into our busy lives some spare time.

Dd is currently very much into crochet.

Trouble is the time when she is really really into crochet is usually around 5.30pm when I am trying to make dinner. This is a time when 'Can you just start me off on the bear's arm?' can only be responded to by a motherly grunt of resentment and similar huff puffing until poor child exits the kitchen.

We need more hours in the day. Or more days in the week. Or less of everything else.