Fish Cutting Skills Activity

This cute activity is perfect for little fingers to practice their cutting skills.

Material : a fish color-in page, paper in different colors (with little circles drawn on it), glue stick and a scissors

The Butterballs spent ages cutting out the little circles. Ethan eventually wandered off leaving me to cutting out the rest of his 'fish-scales'

After a short break, the Butterballs colored in their fish using oil pastels,
 then the fun began.

The Butterballs love sticking stuff,

 so sticking on the circles to form fish scales,
 was the highlight of today's activity.

Ahhh well, they did end up practising their cutting skills.

Next time, I would love to set up a Rainbow Fish cutting skills activity. 

I'm sure it will look super cute!

Finding Nemo Family Movie Night

For this months Frugal Family Fun Activity, I set up a fun movie night. 

The Butterballs are crazy about all things ocean right now so 'Finding Nemo' was the best option.

Our dinner menu also had an Ocean theme and I had fun making cute, simple name cards for each dish.

On the menu:  * Octo-Dogs on a bed of shell pasta

                      * DIY Sub - Submarines

                      * Simply Sweet Crab for pudding

                      * East Australian Current Juice

The Octo-Dogs were simply Hotdogs cut to look like an octopus. 

The features were drawn with a toothpick dipped in ketchup. 

For the Subs, I laid out 2 french loaves along with a selection of yummy fillings:

Sauteed red, green and yellow peppers,

caramalised onions,

fried bacon bits,

grilled chicken strips,

 a pat of garlic-and-parsley butter,

and of course loads of cheese

My expert chefs donned their chef-hats and set to work with such seriousness,

 you would have thought that they were contestants on MasterChef !!

While the subs sat under the grill, we all played a game of Shark-Tag.

Dinner time!!

 The Butterballs loved the cute Octo-dogs 

and the Subs were delicious.

We drank East Australian Current Juice.

Dessert was more like a sweet, healthy snack.

The crab's body was made by cutting a slice of bread with a round cookie cutter and smothering it in strawberry jam. 

The eyes were smaller circles of bread 
with a chocolate-drop in the center to form the pupil.

The little smiley mouth was made using chocolate-drops as well.

The pincers and legs were simply slices of apple.

Yummy and healthy!!!

We all cuddled up on the sofa with loads of buttery popcorn 

and watched 'Finding Nemo'

The Butterballs loved their Nemo Themed night. 

Tamlyn is already planning a Barbie themed Family Night for tomorrow ;)))

Ushaka Marine World

We decided to visit our local aquarium in order to learn more about the many sea creatures found in the Butterballs favourite book (Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea)

Ushaka Marine World is one of the tourist attractions on our sunny coast and boasts an impressive array of sea creatures housed in an aquarium that's built to  resemble a sunken ship.

When walking through the aquarium, 
you feel as though you are at the bottom of the sea, 
peering into rooms that are now home to a host of different sea creatures.

The Butterballs spent ages staring into each tank...and they asked at least a million questions (Thank goodness for the information cards at the side of each tank!)

Tamlyn's favorite tanks are the Nemo tank, the seahorse tank 
and the cuttle fish tank.

 

Ethan loooves the shark pool and Turtle Lagoon.

The Butterballs happily spent an hour racing about from tank to tank, eager to meet the next sea creature!

Frugal Family Fun - Breakfast Picnic at Dawn

As the nights grow longer on the East Coast, we decided to make the most of our glorious Autumn weather by having a sunrise picnic!

On the menu:

* fruit platter, yoghurt, breakfast bars

* A portable Hot Chocolate Bar - 

a flask of Hot Chocolate and a tray of our family's favorite stir-ins ...

orange chocolate, peppermint chocolate and of course marshmallows!!!

* Breakfast Buns

Ingredients:

crispy roll

onions

peppers

bacon

cheese 

eggs

Cut a 'lid' onto roll and hollow out the center. Place rolls close together on a greased baking tray.

Fry onions, bacon and peppers together until browned. Fill bun with bacon, pepper mixture and top with grated cheese. Grill at 180 C until cheese has melted. Crack an egg into each bun and grill for a few more minutes until eggs are cooked to your liking. Top with 'lid', wrap in foil and pop into picnic basket.

Going to the beach in PJ's,

watching the sun rise over the ocean,

a picnic breakfast,

an early morning splash in the surf,

Awesome Memories!!!

The Butterballs were up at dawn today - wanting to do it all over again!!

Gardening with kids - Petunia Planting

I just couldn't resist buying the tray of brightly colored petunias that sat cheerfully on the shelf at Builders Express.

The Butterballs flower bed could use a bright addition so...

into the trolley it went.

Back home, the Butterballs quickly pulled out their gardening tool-box and within minutes, they were elbow deep in damp, potting soil.

Perfect opportunity to learn about the parts of a plant.

Tamlyn now calls the roots 'plant straws' because 

they 'suck up water from the ground' 

A good sensory play activity as well ...

texture and smell of the potting soil,

smell of the petunias (not very appealing!)...

They now insist on watering their new flowers several times a day 

cos 'they are sooo thirsty'

Hope the poor petunias survive the flood!

Washi Tape Easter Maze

This easy activity requires no prep - except of course, gathering supplies!

All you need:

Washi tape, craft foam Easter stickers and a large window/glass door.

Stick the washi tape onto your window to create a maze.

The maze can be as simple or complicated as you want.

I settled on a fairly simple one that Ethan would be able to do.

The Butterballs get to make their way through the maze using the bunny footprints as markers.

I used lots of different stickers not just to make it pretty 

but cos it adds variety...

The Butterballs get to 'find' different things each time...

an egg, a butterfly, a cute chick...

that way, it will take a while before they lose interest!!

I'm going to try replacing the chicks and bunnies with Easter egg stickers.
The Butterballs would have to plot the way to the red/green/blue egg...
that way they get to work on their color identification skills as well as problem-solving skills.
Super learning fun!

Butterfly learning - Proboscis Power

At Butterflies for Africa, 
the Butterballs got an up-close-and-personal view of how butterflies feed.

The feeding stations were laden with fruit slices and exotic flowers.

The butterflies were so intent on feeding, 

they were not disturbed by the curious fingers that picked them up for a closer look.

'The butterflies stick out their looong tongue to lick up the orange juice,' explained Tamlyn to an equally confused Ethan.

Time for a hands-on explanation...

After showing the Butterballs pictures of the butterflies mouth, 

I explained that it is called a proboscis.

We talked about the proboscis being like a straw which the Butterflies use to suck up nectar...or orange juice.

Practical 1:

Supplies : Paper flowers (thanks Linda), drinking straws, bottle caps and OJ

I secured the bottle caps onto the center of the flower using prestick, 

then added a bit more prestick to the table 

to prevent the flowers from moving about and spilling OJ all over. 

After filling the bottle caps with OJ, I handed the Butterballs their straws and left them to it...

They loved the practical demo and quickly slurped up the OJ noisily.

Next, I explained that the butterflies keep their proboscis curled up and only unfurl it when they feed.

Practical 2 :

Supplies : party blowers and paper flowers.

I showed the Butterballs how to unfurl the blowers.

'Its curled up like the butterfly proboscis,' exclaimed Tamlyn.

Now for the tricky part, the Butterballs needed to unfurl the blower and tap the center of each flower.

Not as easy as it sounds...

but loads of fun!

Butterfly Learning - Role Play Fun

The Butterballs have read The Hungry Caterpillar so many times
- they practical know the story by-heart.
They totally loved this weeks caterpillar activities!!
So we decided to do one last caterpillar activity -
 the Caterpillar Crawl.

Actually it was more of a wriggle than a crawl ;)
They loop-crawled across the floor,
then quickly squirmed and wriggled their way through the caterpillar tunnel.
What fun!!

Time to move on...

I showed the Butterballs this clip from you-tube
 which taught them all about how the caterpillar emerges from the chrysalis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt-5lS9hJFA

Fascinating!!

We decided on a quick role-play activity:
a Butterfly emerging from its chrysalis

Equipment: toilet paper

The Butterballs had turns wrapping each other into a toilet paper chrysalis.
Then they wriggled and giggled and stretched out their wings to tear through their chrysalis

Messy, crazy fun!!!