Carnivores, Omnivores & Herbivores

I introduced the terms "carnivore", "herbivore" and "omnivore" to the girls just through casual discussion over a few days. For example, when we we came across a rabbit in a book we talked about how it only ate things like grass, hay and carrots - it didn't eat meat so it was a herbivore. When we read a book about sharks, it explained how great white sharks have sharp teeth to help them catch their prey - they only eat meat so they were carnivores. One of the girls asked what we were, since we eat both meat and fruit/vegetables... So I told them we were omnivores.

Silly ways to help them remember:

Carnivores: only eat meat/animals. When you say "carrrrrnivore" you need to growl like a tiger, showing your sharp teeth!

Herbivores: only eat plants. We grow herbs at the allotments and put them in our cooking; herbs are plants!

Omnivores: eat both meat and plants. They OM NOM NOM everything!

Before we could work on sorting animals by what they eat, first I wanted to clarify for them what exactly constituted as meat or plants, so I made the above worksheet.

The first side is a sorting activity thinking about whether the pictures shown are meat or plants. The girls cut the pictures out themselves and then arranged them where they thought they should go. I checked them before they glued them down.

Meat: chicken, mouse, fly, cow, worm, fish

Plants: grass, nuts, vegetables, fruit, trees/leaves, flowers

I thought it was important to include insects in the meat section and things like nuts in the plants section - things the girls wouldn't automatically associate with being either meat or plants! As they stuck the pictures down we talked about the kinds of animals who might eat those things.

At the bottom of the page are the three keywords, arranged in a way that shows the carnivores eat only from the meat section, the herbivores only from the plants section and the omnivores in the middle overlapping both sections. We talked about this before moving on to the second worksheet. (My husband thought the layout was a little confusing: I think when I repeat this for my youngest I might edit it so the titles "Meat" and "Plants" are bigger and in the centre of the box, with the pictures stuck around the outside like a spider diagram?)

The second worksheet is a simple complete-the-sentence activity, using the phrases at the bottom of the page to reinforce what we discussed.

You can download the worksheets here.

Prophet Ibraheem (AS) - 03 - Breaking the Idols

We continued reading about Prophet Ibraheem (AS) in the Migo & Ali book (pages 28-29) and discussed it as we went along. We stopped at the part just before the people decide to throw Prophet Ibraheem (AS) into the fire.

I drew an axe onto a piece of plain paper, one for each girl. I told them the handle was made from wood and the head from either stone or metal, so what colours do they think we needed? They decided brown for the handle and grey for the head. We ripped up some brown paper into small pieces then I asked them if they could think of a good material for the head... After some prompting they came up with kitchen foil because it was shiny like metal. 😀 Then we ripped some tin foil into small pieces too.

I demonstrated how they could "colour in" the axe using our ripped pieces of paper and foil and told them this kind of art is called a collage. They used PVA glue (a little watered down) and brushes to stick everything on and to paint a thin layer of glue over the top. They were a bit worried about putting white glue on top but I told them it would dry clear and shiny. 😂

When everything was dry I cut the axes out and they did a bit of role play, pretending to chop things down with their axes! Then we stuck them onto A4 card and they wrote a short summary of that part of the story.

For this exercise I told them to spell the words as best as they could, rather than me dictating correct spellings. I quite like this one's spelling of "idol". 😂

Which Animal is the Odd One Out?

To get the girls thinking more about the features of different animals, I created a spot-the-difference worksheet for them to work through. The first row of 3 features all mammals, the second birds, then fish, reptiles, amphibians and lastly a mixture of classifications.

They needed a little prompting at first to look carefully at things such as colour, shape, if they had fur or feathers, how many legs, where they lived, etc. - what do two have the same while the other one is different? But they soon got the hang of it.

I liked how they both came up with different animals or different reasons if they chose the same animal. My first choices were different from theirs too! So there's a lot of flexibility in this activity. 😊

You can download the worksheet here.

Introduction to 3D Shapes

Spheres, cylinders, cubes, cuboids, pyramids and triangular prisms!

I figured these are the main common 3D shapes (AKA solids) the girls should be aware of at their age so were a good starting point in understanding the concept. I chose these shapes because they can be grouped in two ways:

1) By the 2D shape they're based on, i.e. cylinder + sphere (circle), cuboid + cube (square), triangular prism + pyramid (triangle)

2) By whether they're a prism or not, i.e. cylinder (circular prism) + cuboid (rectangular prism) + triangular prism, sphere + cube + pyramid

I gathered together some example of each solid from around the house, trying to get a variety of sizes and types if I could. I put them all together on the floor and called the girls to have a look at them. After they had some time to pick them up and examine them, talking about the similarities and differences between them, I held up one shape, named it and described its features, then asked the twins if they could find any other examples of the same solid in the pile in front of them. I took a photo of each group they made. Then I repeated this process until we had covered all 6 3D shapes.

Sphere: it's perfectly round like a ball; Cube: it has square faces on every side and every side is the same size; Pyramid: it has triangular faces on every side and every side is the same size; Cylinder: it has a circle the same size on each end joined together by straight lines; Cuboid: it has a same-sized square or rectangle on each end joined together by straight lines; Triangular Prism: it has a same-sized triangle at each end joined together by straight lines.

Once we'd gone through them all, we played some quick games where I would call out a the name of a solid and they had to find one in the pile. Then another game where I would hide one behind my back, describe it and they had to guess what it was.

When they seemed confident with this, I asked them to work together to sort the objects into 3 groups. I was hinting they needed to look at the 2D shape it was similar to and MashaAllah they managed to get the correct 3 groups between them. 😁😁 When they were done, I took photos of the groups they made.

I then demonstrated how they could sort the solids into only 2 groups, based on whether they were prisms or not. I explained that a prism is a solid that has the same 2D shape on each end and these identical faces are joined together with straight lines. (They know the word "identical" because they know they're NOT identical twins because they're not exactly the same 😂). I asked them if a triangular prism is called that because the faces are triangles, what do they think another name for a cylinder could be? I was impressed they figured out it could be a circular prism! And so a cuboid could be a square prism or rectangular prism. 👍

That evening, I created the above worksheet for them to fill in the next day as a recap activity, using the photos I took earlier.

You can download our Word file here to use as a template; feel free to replace the photos with your own!

The 5 Common Classifications of Animals

Following the NC, we started a new Science topic on Animals. They're already familiar with a variety of animals from around the world, so I thought I'd begin by jumping straight in at classifying them.

We started by looking at the above sheet on the left: I found a variety of animals from each classification and sorted them into the right groups. These are all animals the girls are already familiar with to make things easier:

Mammals:
Bear, rabbit, monkey, lion, kangaroo, dog, cow

Birds:
Duck, ostrich, chicken, magpie

Reptiles:
Chameleon, snake (cobra), turtle

Fish:
Salmon, goldfish, tropical fish

Amphibians:
Toad, tree frog, salamander

I wanted to include a variety to showcase the different features found in each group as well as what makes them similar, while saving some other familiar animals for a separate worksheet!

After looking at the pictures and naming each one, I then showed them the sheet on the right with all the questions on it - these questions are designed to get them to look at the animals closer and in a more critical manner. We went through each group in turn, introducing the name of the group and then answering the questions verbally to come up with a possible criteria for why all those animals belong in that particular group.

Then I gave them each a blank worksheet with the 5 groups on it and some pre-cut pictures of 16 animals. Working together, they talked about where they thought each animal should go and why - using the posters from before to help.

I saved the picture of the humans for the bottom of the pile, which served as a nice surprise! 😂 Once they were happy with where each animal went and there was enough space to fit them all in the box, they glued the pictures down.

Mammals:
Humans, fox, elephant, horse, cat

Birds:
Parrot, penguin, sparrow

Reptiles:
Snake (python), tortoise, crocodile, gecko

Fish:
Koi, shark

Amphibians:
Frog, newt

We followed this activity up with a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet: read the description and then decided which group name needs to go where. We did this after a break as the first activity took a good while!

The next week we used the topic as an excuse to visit Thinktank and make the most of our membership! We wandered around the wildlife exhibit with the above worksheet and placed the animals we saw into the correct box. This probably took around 20min, then they spent the rest of the day playing in the rest of the museum. 😁👍

Of course, you can replace Thinktank with any other venue of your choice! I wanted to save a trip to the zoo for the end of the topic though (and sunnier weather... lol)

You can download all the worksheets here.

Naming Deciduous and Evergreen Trees

To finish off our topic on trees, I made a worksheet for them to sort 10 different trees into either deciduous or evergeen and then identify each tree by name by looking in a book.

We used the RSPB First Book of Trees (we found ours in our local charity shop for 49p!) as a reference point, which linked in with our work on non-fiction texts and using "fact books" to find information.

After cutting everything out, they began by sorting the pictures into deciduous or evergreen by focusing on the leaves - looking at their colour and shape. After they glued the pictures into the correct boxes, they took it in turns to look through the book for each name and try and match it to a picture. I deliberately chose photos which resembled the ones in the book to make it easier. 😛 So they read the relevant page out loud, looked at the images and compared what was there to what was on their sheet. Then they glued the label next to the correct picture.

They found the trees in the book either by using the Contents page or just by flicking through the pages - which led to a discussion into the benefits of having a Contents page!

You can download the worksheet here.

Since doing this work, it's been interesting to see the girls point out familiar trees by name when we're out and about, or ask to check if they've guessed correctly: "Is this a holly???" 😁😁

Number Bonds to 10 (Part 2)

Following on from their mini maths investigation into which two numbers can add together to make 10, I made up a few simple games to further practise these bonds using a pack of standard playing cards.

For all of these, the first step is to take out the 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Jokers. Ace always represents 1. When I say "the matching card", what I mean is the one with the number which added together would make 10, e.g. A matches with 9, 2 with 8, 3 with 7, etc. etc.


1) A variation of "Snap!" [2 players (& dealer)]

I was the dealer and had all the clubs, A - 9. The girls had one red suit each, i.e. diamonds A - 9 and hearts A - 9. They had their cards face up in front of them on the table, put in numerical order to make it simpler (they could have held them in their hands, but as we were using a standard pack of full sized cards they were a little tricky for them to manipulate so I decided this way would be easier). I had my cards shuffled into a random order. The choice in suits was to differentiate between the dealer's cards and the players' cards.

The game was simple: I would place a card down in the middle; the first person to put the matching card on top and shout "Snap!" would win the card. Whoever had the most black cards at the end was the winner.

If you're only playing with one child this is easily adapted into a game the parent can play in as the second player by having the black cards shuffled and face down in the centre. Each player can then take turns to flip one card over into the middle.


2) Beat the Clock [1 player]

You only need two suits for this, one black and one red. I chose clubs and hearts. 😊 You also need a stopwatch.

Place the black cards face up on the table. We started with them in numerical order to make it easier.

Shuffle the red cards and hold them face down in one hand.

Start the clock! Flip one card in your hand over at a time and place it on top of the matching card on the table. The aim is to do this as fast as possible, then make a record of your time at the end.

The first time we did this, the girls both averaged 2 and a half minutes! They took their time flipping the card over and thinking about how many more were needed to make 10, sometimes checking on their fingers before placing it down... They didn't really have a concept of time, but I let them be slow as I wanted them to see themselves improve the next time. 😜 After they each had a go I modelled how to do it as fast as possible, whilst still pausing to say out loud what I was doing: "First card, 4; 4 plus 6 is 10; 4 goes on top of the 6. 2; 2 plus 8 is 10; 2 goes here," etc.) I wrote all our times on our whiteboard and said we'd try this again tomorrow to see if we could improve. And they did! We've been playing this game daily for a few days now and they're now averaging 40 seconds to complete it (my best so far is 10 seconds, so you have some idea of expectations!).

We play by having the twin who isn't using the cards to be in charge of the stopwatch. This has also definitely helped their understanding of time and how long 1 second actually is!

You can make the game a little more challenging by having the cards on the table in a random order, or in a square kind of shape rather than a line, so the kids can practise their skim reading skills at the same time. Depending on your child, they might notice that when the cards on the table are in numerical order then the cards they place on top are simply in backwards numerical order - so this helps stop them "cheating" by using this fact (although if they notice this fact themselves, well done to them as this can be a teaching point in itself!).


3) Flashcards [1+ players & dealer]

This is similar to the first game, but removes a little of the competitive element if you want to. 😛

Each player has one suit each. The players have their cards face up in front of them (in their hands or on the table) and in numerical order to make them easier to find (they don't need to be in order, of course, but this could be a good discussion point as to why they might want them that way and an introduction to strategic thinking!). The dealer has their cards shuffled into a random order.

The dealer holds up a card, one at a time, and the players need to find the matching card and hold it up. They can shout out the answer once they have the card, or they can stay quiet so it's not as clear who was faster! You can also choose to have the faster one take the dealer's card and compare who has the most at the end, or just congratulate them for getting the right answer and continue playing. It's up to you and what mood your kids are in at the time!

You could even play this with the dealer just holding up random cards and the kids shouting out the matching number as fast as they can, but I like the fine motor skills practise and skim reading practise the kids get from having their own suit of cards to physically find the answer with. Similarly, you could get the same effect from the dealer using something physical, e.g. 10 cubes in an opaque bag, instead of cards. The dealer takes out a random number of cubes and shows them to the children (dealer can count them out or leave the children to count them together/quietly to themselves for practise); the children have to work out how many cubes are left in the bag and hold up the card with the right number.


4) A variation of "Old Maid" [3 players+]

Put a card of your choice back into the pack to represent the Old Maid, e.g. one of the Queens or a Joker. Shuffle the cards and deal them equally to each player (I joined in with this game so we had three people playing - wouldn't really have been fun otherwise!).

First, each player looks at their cards privately and discards any pairs of matching cards. The goal is to get rid of all your cards and not be left with the Old Maid at the end. Alternatively, you could play this without the Old Maid (i.e. Queen/Joker) and just see which player is the first to get rid of all their cards, as this makes the game shorter (the winner doesn't feel left out!) and you don't really have a loser (which avoids temper tantrums amongst some kids!).

Once the matching pairs have been discarded, each player holds their remaining cards in their hands facing them so the other players can't see what they have (ideally you would fan them out in one hand, but this was a little tricky for my 4 year olds so I just let them hold them however).

You then take it in turns to go round the circle and take one card from the person next to you. If you get a matching pair, you discard it. Keep going until a) someone discards all their cards and is the winner or b) someone is left with the Old Maid at the end and is the loser. We play the 2nd version using the Joker - whoever is left with the Joker at the end needs to tell a joke/do something funny to try and make the others laugh. 😂


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That's all for now! If I think of or find any more games, I'll update this post with the summary. 😊

The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

I thought it'd be a nice short-term project for the twins to rewrite a well-loved book which follows a simple pattern, as part of their work on fiction texts and their structures. My 2 year old was obsessed with The Hungry Caterpillar at the time (along with this animated rendition on YouTube!) so we decided to go with that. 😁

We began by re-reading the book together and identifying the key features, e.g. beginning, middle, ending, setting, characters. Then we came up with a simple plan outline together by looking at each page in turn:

On coloured A4 just because. 😊 Then they needed to fill in the gaps in the plan individually, making sure the foods on Mon-Fri were all either fruits or vegetables, as per the book, and the foods on Saturday a mixture of anything. They did this independently, including practising spelling using phonics knowledge, and then I went through their work and showed the correct spellings (along with plenty of praise for trying!)

I made the booklet simply by folding 3 sheets of plain A4 paper in half and stapling them together in the centre. I also got out a pack of "special" gel pens, which they could only use for this project and not their other everyday work/play, which added a little extra excitement and motivation. 😂

We then completed the book over the next couple of weeks or so, so it didn't feel so daunting or like a chore at all.

For the front cover, they copied the title from the book, wrote their own name as the author at the bottom and drew a picture of the caterpillar in the centre:

For the first page, I cut out a couple of leaf shapes each and another small rectangle of plain paper to act as a flap. You'll notice they needed to rewrite the story in their own words; they weren't allowed to just copy the book! On the first leaf they drew an egg - this was then stuck on the rectangle flap and they drew the sun in the corner. On the second leaf, which went underneath, they drew the caterpillar in place of the egg and the moon in the corner:

We then went on the laptop (part of their ICT studies lol) and used Google Images to search for clipart of the foods in their plans for the days Mon-Fri. I showed them how to copy pictures from the internet and paste them into a Word file. In my own time, I then rearranged, duplicated and printed the pictures for them: these fit onto 2 A4 sheets each.

They coloured their foods in, cut them out, then I helped them use a hole punch to put holes in the centre of each one - just like the food in the original book!

They then glued their pictures down, one page for each day, and spent a couple of days writing the captions for each day:

We repeated this process for the foods on Saturday, first going on the laptop together then colouring, cutting, hole punching, gluing and writing (over a couple of days):

I split the page for Sunday in half:

I drew the outline of a cocoon on the page (at their request - maybe your kids would like to draw their own!) for them to colour in and glue some sequins onto:

Finally, we used a separate piece of plain A4 to do some symmetry art using paint for the butterfly. Again, I drew the outline and they coloured it in. We discussed what symmetrical meant and then they glued sequins on in a symmetrical manner too. When it was dry, I glued this to the back of their booklet to make the last page.

Because we keep all our work in an A4 ringbinder, I then glued their booklet onto a piece of coloured A4 card so it could be holepunched and kept with the rest of their work.