Shadow Shot Sunday - May 27th, 2012

Curtain shadows on the washing machine

and plant shadows on the wall 

Shadow Shot Sunday - May 13th, 2012

Not a lot of shadows around this morning. Those that do appear don't stay for long. I did manage to capture these - 

To see others' contributions to Shadow Shot Sunday, visit www.shadowshotsunday2.blogspot.com.au 

A to Z challenge 2012: Z is for Zoo

The final post in the April A to Z blogging challenge. I've really enjoyed it this year and my theme of "sharing books with children" has turned out to be a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

Z is for Zoo. 

"What kind of pet would you like from the zoo? An elephant, a lion, a snake, or something smaller? Lift the flaps and see what has been sent - it's bound to be a surprise!" 

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell is the first lift-the-flap book I have included in this April challenge. Lift-the-flap books are great for encouraging children to look after books. On the first sharing, children love to try and guess what animals are hiding behind the flaps. For repeated readings, they enjoy calling out the animals before they are revealed. A great test of memory! One way I have really enjoyed sharing books such as this one is to help with taking turns. With a small group, children need to wait patiently for their turn, which can be a challenge at times! 

I found a great, simple activity based on this book. Children can make their own lift-the-flap surprise postcard. Instructions here. Or if you have more time, why not make a lift-the-flap book of your own. Children can draw their own pictures or for outlines based on the book go here.  

Shadow Shot Sunday - April 29th, 2012

Waiting, waiting, waiting for shadows today. 

While hanging out the washing this morning I was thinking that Shadow Shot Sunday was going to be easy today. There were so many great shadows. I went inside to grab the camera. By the time I got back they were all gone. After quite a wait the sun reappeared and I was pleased to capture these two. 

Other people's contributions to Shadow Shot Sunday can be found at  www.shadowshotsunday2.blogspot.com. Definitely worth a visit!  

A to Z challenge 2012: Y is for Yertle

It's getting close to the end of the challenge! I've really enjoyed it this year and my theme of "sharing books with children" has turned out to be a lot of fun and a great learning experience. I have been reflecting on my favourite children's books, how I have enjoyed sharing books in the past and how I will continue to share books in the future. I have  learnt a lot along the way, remembered many of my favourite books and explored new ideas for sharing books. I have enjoyed all of the comments and sharing an enjoyment of picture books. I have 'met' lots of great bloggers and visited many interesting blogs. I'm really glad I decided to participate in the challenge again this year. 

Y is for Yertle. 

Yet another Dr. Suess book as the feature of one of my A to Z post. I'm starting to think that next year I may just concentrate on Dr. Suess books and characters. Yertle was one of my favourite characters as a child and I enjoyed sharing this story with my eldest daughter when she was little. In this book, Yertle the Turtle and other stories by Dr. Suess, the story of Yertle who lets power go to his head until he is toppled by Mack, a plain little turtle who has had enough can be enjoyed along with the stories of Gertrude McFuzz and The Big Brag. 

A to Z challenge 2012: X is in Axel

It's getting close to the end of the challenge! I've really enjoyed it this year and my theme of "sharing books with children" has turned out to be a lot of fun and a great learning experience. I have been reflecting on my favourite children's books, how I have enjoyed sharing books in the past and how I will continue to share books in the future. I have  learnt a lot along the way, remembered many of my favourite books and explored new ideas for sharing books. I have enjoyed all of the comments and sharing an enjoyment of picture books. I have 'met' lots of great bloggers and visited many interesting blogs. I'm really glad I decided to participate in the challenge again this year. 

X is in Axel. 

A little bit of cheating for the x post. There is a book I love which I haven't included yet in the A to Z challenge. Truth be known, there are many books I love which haven't been included. The one I am writing about in this post though is illustrated by Axel Scheffler. 

The book is Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson. This one will get them giggling. Monkey has lost his mum and butterfly helps him to find her. The text rhymes making it a lot of fun to read aloud. Each clue monkey gives about his mum leads butterfly to different animals. 

"She coils round trees? Then she's very near. Quick, little monkey! She's over here." And then butterfly leads monkey to snake to which monkey replies "No, no, no! That's a snake. Mum doesn't slither about and hiss. She doesn't slither about and hiss. She doesn't curl round a nest of eggs. And anyway, my mum's got more legs." 

Finally, monkey tells butterfly his mum looks like him (which butterfly hadn't considered - her babies don't look like her!) and after a slight twist they find monkey's mum and there is a happy reunion. 

A very cute story by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. This one was first published in 2000. 

A to Z challenge 2012: W is for Wonky

It's getting close to the end of the challenge! I've really enjoyed it this year and my theme of "sharing books with children" has turned out to be a lot of fun and a great learning experience. I have been reflecting on my favourite children's books, how I have enjoyed sharing books in the past and how I will continue to share books in the future. I have  learnt a lot along the way, remembered many of my favourite books and explored new ideas for sharing books. I have enjoyed all of the comments and sharing an enjoyment of picture books. I have 'met' lots of great bloggers and visited many interesting blogs. I'm really glad I decided to participate in the challenge again this year. 

W is for Wonky.

This is a newer book than many I have featured this month. The Wonky Donkey was first published in 2009. It is written by Craig Smith and illustrated by Katz Cowley. Be warned that this one is very difficult to read aloud. Luckily it comes with a CD with the words as a song. I have played this while showing the pages of the book. Children who usually found it quite difficult to sit still were absolutely captivated. 

The funny illustrations by Katz Cowley are a great accompaniment to the words and sound effects on the CD. Overall - a very amusing, fun read! 

Some of the words: 

"I was walking down the road

and I saw a donkey,

Hee Haw!

He only had three legs, 

one eye, 

he liked to listen to country music, 

he was quite tall and slim, 

he smelt really, really bad,

that morning he'd got up early 

and hadn't had any coffee, 

he was always getting up to mischief ...

but he was quite good looking!" 

...and it gets worse. Goodbye lettuce.

Yesterday I posted some photos from the garden. Things got worse for the lettuce overnight. 

I am finding gardening to be such an interesting exercise. I have been gardening for a couple of years now, following many years of declaring myself "NOT a gardener". In those couple of years the one thing that has grown well (until now!) has been lettuce. Even when other plants were getting eaten the lettuce was okay. Not anymore! Seems something has certainly developed a taste for it! 


Now that I am gardening more I am really appreciating the success I had a couple of years ago when I first started. It was certainly motivational and I'm not sure I would have persisted if those early gardening adventures were getting eaten as the current ones are. So it's a good thing I had that early success. I will keep persisting now. Gardening has already brought me a lot of reward. 

A to Z challenge 2012: V is for Very

My theme for this year is "sharing books with children". This involves lots of reflecting on my favourite children's books, how I have enjoyed sharing books in the past and how I will continue to share books in the future. I have been learning a lot along the way, remembering lots of my favourite books and exploring new ideas for sharing books. I hope these posts will be interactive ones. Feel free to share your comments and ideas!

V is for Very. 

I have a few favourite children's books with very in the title. As part of the A to Z challenge I have already written about two books by Nick Bland - The Very Cranky Bear and The Very Itchy Bear. Another favourite of mine is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It was one of my favourites when I had just learnt to read. 

Did you know that this book started off being about a worm and was titled A week with Willi Worm? Who better to read and talk about this book than the author himself. You can watch a great short video of Eric Carle reading his book here and talking about The Very Hungry Caterpillar here. As I mentioned in a previous post about another of Eric Carle's book, the Official Eric Carle website is well worth exploring! 

My personal favourite activity based on this book is a simple early graphing activity. Either print out simple pictures of fruit or draw their own on small pieces of paper and then as a group make a simple graph using the pictures. Lots of counting practice and discussions about what type of fruit was eaten the most/least. I have also done this over a week, making a graph for each day and adding a simple story based on the text of the book - e.g. "On Monday we ate through six apples, four bananas, three oranges, two kiwi fruit and one serve of grapes." Of course this fabulous book can form the basis for many other activities - craft, healthy eating, counting etc. A quick google search will reveal a multitude of possibilities! Another great activity is using sequencing cards. You can find some for this book here. 

Oh no! Overnight visitors to the garden.

Oh no! If I want those Kale chips in a few weeks I am going to have to plant some more Kale. 

No signs of them now but some overnight visitors seem to have feasted on Joi Choi and some lettuce as well.