Microraptors and other stuff

We're a dino house, at the moment.  Have been for some time now.  When Niamh gets "into" something, she really gets into it.

First, there was the balloon phase, in which our entire house was covered in balloons for much of the time.

Next came the ball phase.  Ditto, with some balloons thrown in for good measure.

Then ducks.  (This photo was of her standing with her "goose" stick.  Which we had to leave in NSW.  Causing much angst.)

Then penguins.

And now, of course, dinosaurs.  (Or as they are sometimes known here, "bloody dinosaurs."  Especially when stepped on in the dark.  Not that I don't fully support her expensive, loud and at times incredibly painful and annoying obsession...)

Masses of plastic dinosaur figurines are one thing.  But today, we decided to make one of Niamh's favourite dinosaurs, the microraptor.  This spiffy little dinosaur was a bit of an evolutionary experiment - a four-winged, feathered dinosaur who could glide from tree to tree.  It was a bit of an on-the-hop activity, hence the questionable quality of the final result.  Materials to hand consisted of 3 toilet rolls, some aluminium foil, some feathers and some popsicle sticks.  So - not much.  Not enough, in hindsight.  But we did have fun anyway.  Mine looked a bit like a robot and a chicken had somehow managed to produce a robot rainbow chicken child with locked-in syndrome...but that's a whole other story.

Colouring in the body with permanent markers (toilet roll wrapped in aluminium foil)

Final product (feathers on popsicle sticks for the wings and legs).  This one was Niamh's.

And mine.  Go on.  Laugh.  I dare you.  I choked half to death on feathers to make this thing.  I suffered.

Mama, make me an incisivosaurus.

Yeah, sorry, Niamh.  Mama just isn't very good at making dinosaurs.  But I can make you into a princess:

Well.  Almost.



Oh, and in case you're wondering if we sit around all day, making crafty things and drilling ourselves on dinosaur facts, I must ruin the illusion.  I spent at least twenty minutes today throwing cusions at Niamh's butt, which was pointed in my direction, trying to make one stick on top.  Okay, so apparently she was a Bruhathkayosaurus and I was supposed to be a Gorgosaurus, but aside from the semantics, it was basically a mother pegging cushions at a child for 20 minutes.  Yep.  That's just how classy we are.

Shocking, I Know...

Here I am, blogging for the second day in a row like some sort of blogging superwoman...  Sadly, I think this might actually be a record for me.  Which tells you a lot about the sort of things I usually get up to in life.  Living life on the razor's daring edge - that's me.

Anyway, since once again I have nothing meaningful to say, I will bombard you with pictures.

Firstly, today's activity.  Window stars...or rather, window star, because today's activity didn't actually take place until around 4pm, after the 3 hours spent earlier in the day at an indoor play centre...oh, and then there was that batch of blue play dough I made, which probably counts as an activity in that it required stirring and swearing.

But I digress.  The window star (singular)

Did Niamh have a hand in its creation, you ask?  No.  She did not.  Apparently, the 10 billionth re-run of an episode of Hana's Helpline that we have recorded was far more important.  Actually, this gave me time to figure out how to make the bloody thing, because paper-folding and me have one of those kind of hate-scrunch-swear-obliterate type relationships, so now I can help her make her own one tomorrow.  If the tv isn't more important...  Anyway, if you'd like to make one (or an entire universe) of these lovely little hangings, the tutorial can be found HERE.

Sadly, my solitary star pales in lame comparison to THIS incredible creation, which is on the cards for the Tassie house as soon as we move in.  But given the "house on the market" status of our current house, I thought it better not to get too over-excited in the sticking-paper-onto-the-window department just yet.  Though I am excited.  And I do have glue and tissue paper.  Just sayin...

Anyway, while rifling through all the dino island photos I snapped yesterday, I couldn't help but notice a few funny pics (well, I found them funny.  But then my sense of humour is both warped and easily entertained).

Firstly, this caught my eye.

I call it "Pteranodon's Bad Day," because, well, he's flying through lava.  He looks fairly surprised about it, too.  But not nearly as surprised as Deinonychus (orange guy, shocked expression) in the background.  I swear he's saying, "Whoa!"  Or maybe, "Holy crap!  That guy's flying through lava, man!  Check it!"  While in the foreground, we have Ceratosaurus, who has managed to pull off a simultaneous impression of Godzilla while also looking like he is on the receiving end of a sucker punch from the volcano.  Nice work, Cerato!

And just to prove how hot it was, flying through the volcano, I knocked up this little heat-map:

 Deinonychus still looks pretty surprised.

I call this one, "Hi Mum!"  Deinonychus, once again, in the background.  I think he's the kind of dino who would be in the background of those live news stories, giving the camera the dino peace sign...(easy for T-Rex, because he only has 2 fingers on each hand)

And as if to prove his status as serial photo gate-crasher, he's bloody done it again...

And one more from today...check it out...volcano, dead centre, doing a fabbo Joan of Arc impersonation.  Serves him bloody right, too.

You know, I think there's the potential for a "where's Deino" type game in all this.  Kind of like Murphy, the rubber chicken, who travelled around Scotland with me (don't ask), and who sneakily managed to appear in many a happy snap.

Play Dough

I love play dough.  Niamh - poor, neglected waif that she is, has been begging me to make her some for over a week now.  However, play dough + mess + house on the market = point where mama puts her foot down and acts like some sort of tyrannical nay-saying overlord of fun killing oppression.  (Have you ever tried to dig play dough out of floorboards?  It's crap.  That's all I'm saying.)

After a busy weekend of open house, however, today I decided to lift the ban.  Partly, because I was also bored from the distinct lack of fun around here, and partly because well, what the hell.  But mostly because I was wracked by mummy guilt every time my foot-dragging, down-trodden oppressario scuffed her way past me, flashing me looks to see what effect her obvious and abject misery were having on my heartlessness.  (None.  Cough.)  Also, well, I was inspired.  I have discovered Filth Wizardry.

Whoa.  Talk about uber-mum!  It's the kind of blog you read and then instantly wish you were a child in that house.  Or a mum with that kind of awesomeness.  In fact, I heartily recommend you stop reading my pointless blog immediately and link over there at once.  I am not worthy.

Anyway, (why are you still here?!) while perusing page after page of awesomeness on the weekend (hours spent sans offspring and dogs left me with WAY too much time on my hands), THIS particular post caught my attention.  Dinosaurs?  Play dough?  That sounds like something a certain dinosaur-obsessed child I know could enjoy!

Here is our effort, in photos.

The underlying structure (made from two boxes, some balled up paper and aluminium foil).

Layering on the play dough

Cellophane for erupting volcano, lake and waterfall (Niamh's stingy mother drew the line at adding a real water feature...play dough ingredients were in too short supply to risk ruining a batch with a real water feature!)

Adding a few pipecleaner trees and some dinosaurs (it was around this point that I was regretting my decision to put ALL my craft supplies in storage until we move...)

Life on dino island is a little crowded.  Like Ibiza in summer.  But with an erupting volcano and neighbours who eat each other.

Final version, Mark I, with rosemary and mint trees.  Oh, and some of the dinosaurs are wearing "coats" which is apparently why they have pipecleaners balanced on them.  (Think I might need to work on offspring's application of effort, though obviously not her imagination, cos really...coats??)  And don't even mention poor Pteranodon, who frankly is having a really bad day after flying slightly too low to check out the volcano just prior to its Vesuvius impersonation...  Don't feel too bad for him, though.  He had a swim in the water, which apparently washed the lava right off him...  Some of the other dinosaurs weren't so lucky, and got "dissolved" by the lava.  (Once again, Ibiza springs to mind, only it's a different kind of fire-water that does the dissolving there...)

The brilliant thing about layering the play dough over the top of an underlying structure is that when you're done playing, you can just peel it all off and put it in ziplock bags to build all over again next time (which we've done, twice).  And then you can wrap yourself in cellophane and dance like the sun:

This performance inspired the creation of a sun mask, which is still a work in progress since we ran out of sticky tape halfway through.  And also I just realised that my elastic, which would have affixed said mask to sun child's head, is now packed.  In storage.  Dagnabbit.

Hatching A Dinosaur Egg

It appears penguins have taken...well...a bit of a backseat, since our visit to the Dinosaur puppet show the other day (which incidentally was amazingly good!).

Part of this is due to the painstakingly drawn-out excitement of hatching our very own dinosaur egg.

Please enjoy the following pictorial examination of the process:

Emerging the egg in water

(Note that the instructions then said to wait 12-24 hours for it to fully hatch.  With a 2 year old constantly hanging over it, asking "Is it hatching yet???")

The first crack appears (approximately 28 hours later)

It was at this point that the egg received the first of what can only be termed "invasive birth intervention" by the aforementioned 2 year old impatient dinosaur obstetrician:

Shortly thereafter:

One baby Muttaburrasaurus, a uniquely Australian dinosaur - although since Australia was nowhere near where it is today at the time when this lovely little vegetarian roamed the earth, perhaps our claim to him is a bit on the idealistic side.  Either way, he is a bit cute, and I'm happy he's ours.

Here was Muttaburrasaurus today, playing in some snow with his other dinosaur friends Stegosaurus, Velociraptor (don't ask), Spinosaurus and Baby Triceratops:

Note also at this point that the instructions required baby Muttaburra to stay submerged in his water bath for SEVEN DAYS to reach his full size. 

Niamh enjoyed the process so much - and the puppet show - that her daddy is taking her back tomorrow to see it all over again.  She has already announced her intentions to return with a blue egg this time...oh, and a green one...and the other egg the colour of which she has forgotten...

I love her new interest in dinosaurs.  And what a lovely unschooling week we've had, learning all about them!

If you'd like to learn more about Muttaburrasaurus, you can find out all about it HERE .

July is Penguin Month!

In the spirit of keeping my child entertained, I have put a whole heap of new things on her shelves this month.  Most of them are Montessori-inspired - largely because she keeps telling me to make her "jobs like I used to do," and also because she likes to have a choice of things to do.  I do still very much enjoy the Montessori-style activities, especially when I can see how much Niamh loves to do them.  I suspect our learning style will end up a bit ecclectic, at least in the early years.

Anyway, here's what we have to play with:

Sticker number matching.  She loves these foam number stickers (and we also have letters and animals), and rather than just allowing her to plaster the house (which she was doing), I came up with this little number matching game.  It's not about number recognition (though she does ask and recognise the numbers) but more about making the correct match with the stickers provided.

And here's her trying it out (Mess?  What mess?):

 A spooning activity:

 A tonging and colour separation activity:

Very Montessori - introduction to decimal system golden beads:

Glass bead pattern and shape matching (this one is a big hit - especially when we made penguin shapes out of them!)

We also have play dough, stacking boxes, lego, wooden food and cutlery sets, wooden blocks and a whole heap of other things.  We also tried cutting an orange and squeezing our own juice today using a hand-juicer.  She barely ended up with a mouthful, but she had fun, so I'm sure it'll be something she'll ask to do again (in fact, she already has...but 3 oranges is probably enough for one day!).

Oh!  I nearly forgot about Penguin Month.  Each month, we are going to look at a specific topic (we even have a little box...I will take a photo and post it later).  This month is...surprise surprise...penguin month!  We have already made a world map showing where penguins live (I'll post a photo later), made penguin play dough shapes, and of course, there is this month's sensory tub:

In this tub are:

- White, black and yellow pompoms (looks a bit like a penguin colony on snow)
- 8 penguin buttons
- 3 ice blue and 1 glittery "snow flakes" (pompoms)
- penguin food (fish, squid and krill made out of clear plastic and silver pen)
- ice cubes and water droplets (glass beads)
- sticker spelling game - she needs to find, match and make the words "egg," "chick," and "penguin"
   using the foam stickers in the tub
- photos of a penguin egg, chick and adult penguin


Here's what it looks like all crammed in:

Doing the penguin sticker spelling:

We are heading off to the museum tomorrow to see a dinosaur puppet show, which I am hoping she will enjoy (even though it's not penguins).

What's Been Happening?

What has been happening?  Not much.  Well, lots and lots of not much, which - if you know what I mean - may be translated as "heaps of stuff, none of which I can specifically recall, or that seems especially relevant."

So I'll update in pictures, cos they're pretty and have, you know, colours n stuff.

Niamh has specifically been asking for "jobs" to do, lately (as in Montessori activities), so I have been obliging by coming up with a whole heap.  It's amazing how timely her request is, since she would have been starting school, if we'd kept her enrolled at the local Montessori.  I am still very much on the "unschooling" pathway, but I figure if she's asking for Montessori-type things to do, then I am merely making good on her requests.

A sticker matching activity (pardon the mess on the floor - created when she up-ended a jar of animal stickers while doing the activity I made for her).  She has to match the numbers written on each card, using her foam number stickers.

A close-up of the activity components,  The cards and the little pink bowl of stickers all pack away in the wooden box:

Niamh has been asking about the days of the week etc lately, so we made a calendar:

A traditional Montessori job - the hanging bead stair (except in our house, Niamh teaches the duck toys how to do it...)

Some free time at the park in between rain, rain, rain:

Making numbers up to 19:

Going to Penguin Island on a boat:

And so much more.

Can't believe my little baby is going to be 3 in just a few short weeks.

Process, Not Perfection

One of the things I really love about most natural learning methods, and in particular the Montessori method, is the focus on process, rather than perfection.  Too often we expect kids to just "get it" first try - to master a task to perfection without really coming to understand the whole of it...and that, at least to my way of thinking, is the opposite of how learning should work.  A lot of it stems from impatience - on our part, and on theirs.  This is a world driven by instant results, and children pick up on that very early in their development, like the little social sponges they are.

Natural learning methods, like Montessori, Unschooling and Waldorf are like a peaceful breath of sweet, mountain air.  The child sees the world stretching out before their feet and can explore it at their leisure.  They can touch it, taste it, smell it...manipulate it into something that makes sense to them.  No one is telling them to be perfect, to get it right, to be the best...to finish it now.  They are truly liberated, and in so being may move forward purposefully and with curiosity that is self-driven and self-rewarding.  They want to learn.  They want to understand...not because someone is forcing them to pass a test at the end of it, but because learning has become such an intrinsic part of their living that it is impossible to separate from their being.  How can you argue with that?

Children don't always want us to butt in.  They don't always want their mistakes highlighted.  Do you?  I know I don't!  Children don't always want our help.  This has been one of the toughest things for me to handle, because I am...basically...a control freak.  I admit it, freely.  I like things to work.  I like them to be right.  I feel...anxious when I see things going wrong. When I see Niamh not getting things right.  Oh no!  She can't count to thirty?  How will she ever cope with life?!!!  Ahem.  Well, you know what I mean, anyway...

And so it was with utter joy that I watched my beautiful daughter exploring the new activity I made her (inspired by THIS post at Tot School).

Pretty self-explanatory as to how it is meant to work:

I started her off with just 3 to explore, mainly due to space limitations on the table - she couldn't physically reach more than three!

Going pretty well:

And then...the final result...

Yep.  Okay, so it's not 100% wrong.  She did get all the pieces of the pear.  But you know what?  It doesn't matter one bit to me that it's not "right".  The activity wasn't about getting it right, first try.  It was about exploring.  It was about learning that she can twist the pieces different ways.  It was about learning order and disorder.  It was about learning that sometimes, you just get things wrong...and you know what?  That's great!  Because recognising that something isn't right...is exactly right!

Later, she tried a little 25 piece octopus jigsw puzzle.

And how did she go?

Ta-dah!  She was SO pleased with herself, and yelled, "Look, Mama!  I did it!  I did it!  They all fit!"

And that, my friends, is process.  To her, she didn't see the finished picture of the octopus as the goal.  The goal was getting the little pieces to fit together.  And they did.  Exactly the way she wanted them to.

She had so much fun with that puzzle.  She went back to it probably 10 times during the day to play with it.  And each time, she was eager to learn more, and came away happy with her achievements.

And a little later, another go with the fruit puzzle:

She knows it better than I do.  Process doesn't make perfection - it is the perfection we all are seeking.

And perfection tastes pretty good, too.