{Learning Topics} The Weather

So far so good! We're managing to keep up with our topics, have fun, and learn, which is kinda the point of having a "themed" summer holiday.

Our first theme was The Weather.  I thought this would be a good one to start with as I had a few crafty projects in mind, a few learning projects and lets be honest, its and easy topic of conversation!

Our first thing to do was put together our Weather Chart.  L, being the littlest, could easily get involved with this one as all she had to do was look out the window and say what the weather was like!  She then picked the correct symbol to stick onto the chart each morning. M had the more tricky bit of finding out the temperature from the thermometer on my phone, filling in the temperature and colouring in the thermometer.  

Sometimes our weather chart had three different symbols on it and truly reflected the British weather!  

We had some weather words to learn and I wanted M to go a bit more in depth with it seeing as she knows sun, rain, snow etc, so I printed off some of the different types of clouds for her to learn which she enjoyed cos lets face it, when you're seven you think there's pretty much only one type of cloud!

M had some comprehension to do which is new to her in school but I was keen to keep it up in the holidays.  I didnt want to make it too complicated for her (or for me to set up) so I printed out the Doctor Foster poem.  L coloured it in and M read it out loud, then had some questions to answer about the poem.

Time for our crafty project!  Now Im not big on mess so I let the girls choose what they would like to do...make a cloud from cotton wool or hand print suns using paint.  They chose the suns of course!

See?  Mess!  They loved it though and the result was two lovely bright suns to brighten up our Learning Wall!

All that, combined with lots of pool play and walks to the park, took us up to Thursday then Friday was pack up and ship out for a week at Nannie's house, but think we achieved a very good first week of the holidays!

We start a new theme tomorrow and I've decided our theme will be Under The Sea.  Mainly because the weather is set to be rubbish so we can do a lot of indoor projects and also, Im dying to visit the aquarium again!  You can take a peek at a couple of things we're going to be doing over on my Pinterest board.

Summer Holiday Planning

Ok, so not a lot of tidying has been going on around these parts....mainly due to the amazing weather we've been having!!

Here in the UK, any kind of extended spell of dry sunny weather is cause for celebration.  So we've been having a lot of fun outdoors, spending time in the pool, playing in the garden and generally anything we could normally do indoors, we've wanted to do outdoors!

Im pleased to say I've got into a routine of keeping on top of the kitchen.  Getting up half an hour before everyone else works wonders as I manage to clean up all the dishes, put a load in the washer and out to dry, get all the lunches done and breakfast prepared before anyone else surfaces.

However, my organising has not gone out of the window completely!  I am in full on "Summer Holiday Planning" mode.  Which may or may not involve new schedules, themes and LOTS of fun activities to do over the six weeks holidays (which start here in the UK this Friday).

With two very active girlies, who are prone to fights and squabbles, its important for all our sanity that we have some sort of structure to our day.  So, I have planned out the six weeks with a theme each week.  Each theme will include craft activities, books to read, writing and reading practice for my oldest and colouring and counting practice for my youngest.

You can visit my pinterest boards here and see some of the fun activities we'll be up to.

I've also found some awesome printables from some of my favourite blogs to help me plan our days.

Daily Summer Schedule by IHeart Organizing

This one will be our daily schedule, how I would like our days to run (roughly) hour by hour.  It avoids me doing chores for hours and the kids watching rubbish tv for longer than they need to.  It sets our lunch at a certain time (unless we are having way too much fun!) and will help the day run a little smoother.

Weekly Summer Holiday Planner by Netmums

I plan to incorporate a day trip at least once a week, incorporating where I can our theme for that week.  So one week we're doing "Under The Sea and On The Beach" so naturally I want to visit the beach, weather permitting, and also an aquarium as the girls love looking at fish!  This will help plan which days we do what so we're not getting up in the morning thinking "what will be do today".

I will be back with more about our themes for the holidays and other bits I have been planning!