Skip to main content

Theme Week: Water

As we were hurtling towards the summer holidays, I started panic-planning.  What was I going to do with Toby at home all day every day?  And would I ever get anything done that I wanted to do?  With the horrifying prospect of six weeks of "I'm bored" before me, I decided it was time to resurrect my toddler theme weeks.  I can hardly call my long-legged almost-four-year-old a toddler any more though, can I?

This time round, I've gone elemental, with Water, Earth, Air and Fire, plus Plants just for good measure.  Water filled a week and a half, because Toby's preschool finished on a Tuesday, and there are almost endless things you can do with water when it's warm and sunny.

Activities
1. Defrost the freezer!  
Well, that was my job.  Can you believe I spent my last few hours of preschool freedom defrosting a freezer?  And as I scraped the chunks of ice off, I thought: Toby would love this.  I hoped it might amuse him for ten minutes; he was out there for over an hour!  Once the ice melted, he filled the bowl with water and carried on.

Theo liked it too


2. Water Music.  
 Not Handel, unfortunately.  A selection of jam jars to fill with water and hit with a spoon provided some entertainment.  And listening skills, and pouring practice, and volume measurement, and all good stuff.

Equipment: jars, spoon, jug of water. (Ignore the fruit)

Making different notes

Topping up the water level
 3. Ice painting.
I think Toby was a little confused that we were actually painting the ice, rather than painting with the ice.  This was an idea borrowed from Ellie's blog.  She went all natural with her colourings; I just used food colours (hey, I'm a baker).  Nice and simple: We made some highly-coloured water and froze it.  Next day we used the ice cubes to make pretty patterns on an old muslin.




 Outings
1. Feeding the ducks at a local park


2. Meeting some friends for a walk and a play at Foremark Reservoir

3. Admiring the fish at the garden centre in the village


Food
I have to admit to having no photos of my attempts at themed food.  We had fish tacos one day - chunks of fish and vegetables in a tortilla - but we were too busy eating them to take a photo.  We also made blue jelly, to resemble a pond, from gelatine, blue food colour and one of those clear flavoured water drinks.  Then I put some supposedly fish-shaped fruit snacks in, but they were tiny and just looked like weird blobs.  It tasted OK but I deleted the photos.  Just imagine some kind of great artistic jelly fish pond, in a glass bowl with red and green and yellow fish sweets, and maybe even a lily pad on top.

And that won't be what it looked like at all.
Labels:

Comments

Sally Eyre said…
Check this link out - I don't know what theme it would go with though: http://www.funathomewithkids.com/2014/07/make-slime-with-laundry-detergent.html
8 August 2014 at 03:27
Martha said…
That looks like a fun link! I've got tons of PVA glue at the moment so will have to track down the detergent and give it a go.
14 August 2014 at 12:46
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greece is the word! Part 1: Athens

The last few times we have been on holiday, my family has asked, "Mum, are you going to blog about this one?" It's felt like an overwhelming task. For a start, we now have FOUR phones with photos on, rather than one digital camera. Also, I regularly write quite long blog posts about three-hour walks. How on earth will I summarise a full week's holiday? But this time, I thought I should try. It's one of the most enjoyable holidays we've had in a while, and I've definitely done too many Peak District posts recently. Everyone needs a change of scenery. So here we go, jetting off to Athens. Day 1 We landed at Athens airport in a looming thunderstorm, but the worst of the rain held off until we'd made it safely to our apartment. Graham had earmarked a nice little restaurant called Lolos for dinner - eating shell-on prawns in tomato sauce was a deliciously messy experience - and we went to bed early after our 3am start. Day 2 Next day we climbed Philopappos ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Greece is the word! Part 2: Epidaurus

For the first part of our Greek holiday, see here . Day 4 - continued After much waiting around, we acquired a hire car and set off for the second part of our holiday. I am so glad that Graham can get into a strange car in a foreign country and drive away with no problems. I would be a nervous wreck. Even Graham was a little spooked by the Athens traffic - very narrow lanes crowded with cars and buses, and mopeds zipping in and out of every available gap. I had left Google Maps set to "avoid tolls", which meant that we stayed off the fancy new highway and took the old road towards Corinth instead. There was practically no traffic, so although it was slower, it felt very relaxed. We passed hills, hotels and oil refineries. Along the way, we stopped at a supermarket for supplies and drank Green Cola at the beach over the road. Crossing the Corinth Canal at Isthmia, we started heading south through the mountains of the Peloponnese. The sky had been growing darker and darker, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Derwent Valley: Belper and Duffield

I'm getting into familiar territory with this walk. Duffield is one of the closest places that I can easily drive to and climb a hill, so I've done lots of walking around here. It's surprising how many new places I still see, though. Temperature: warm. Likelihood of being attacked by hordes of nettles: low. I decide to wear shorts. It's a good choice. The paths are well-trodden, and the sun is bright, though there's a pleasant breeze. There's plenty of free parking by Duffield church, so I drive there and walk across a field to the main road. Veering left up King Street, there is lots to see: the Methodist church, a butchers, and a penny-farthing gate. At the cemetery, I turn right and pick up a path towards the golf course. I'm heading towards the Chevin Hills here, which are the absolute lower reaches of the Pennine range. The ancient trackway along the ridge of the hills is another favourite walk. But today I'm just going straight down the other side ...
Post a Comment
Read more