First footprints are the best!

This morning we waited for the sun to warm up a little bit before our pre-schoolies togged up for a wintry walk around the neighbourhood. It was beautiful, fairly warm, with the sound of people digging their paths clear & snow melting & dripping from rooves.

Plenty of snowball ammunition, which Sota aimed exclusively at Jim :) When we got to the river, we found a new target - the frozen river itself. Icebergs to break off as we bombed it with big dollops from above. The Troll kept his head in. With Wellies on we gingerly slipped down to the riverbank and made the first footprints in the pristine snow; always the best! It was a bit deep - spare socks and a drying rack when we got back...but who cares when you're having this much fun!?

Along our way we saw bitterns, a heron, and lots of little tweetie-pies looking for food. One big kite was looking at them hungrily too!

We left a mini snowman on the bridge. He might last longer than our footprints? If it snows again tonight, we might not find him though!

See the whole set here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=34774&id=125002814212039&saved#!/album.php?aid=34774&id=125002814212039

Preposition Expedition - looking for trolls

As we all know from our nursery rhymes, trolls live under bridges. OUP's Three Billy Goats DVD is a hot favourite with our pre-schoolies and they remembered the songs very enthusiastically a long time ago. So whenever we go for a walk, we can break into song about

• There's grass, there's graa, there's green green grass, over the river, over the river...
• There's a nasty troll lives under the bridge, he eats frogs and mice, and he's not very nice...

(There are more songs - it's a cool video!)
This morning was a beautiful early autumn, blue sky affair. Just right for a troll hunt - we took a map so we knew where we were going, just in case.

Where did we go? We went down stairs and across a road; down steps and across the riverbank. We walked into the river, but Jim carried the little ones through the water.

We sat on the top of the steps and waited for Naomi, then we tip-toed under the bridge. We did not find a troll, which was OK...but we did find a very smelly looking bed. Maybe he wasn't far away?!

We met a dog called Momo and Eleanor took his picture, before we walked over the bridge to look at the fish in the river, and a duck paddling. Finally, we crossed the road again, looking carefully left and right, up the stairs and back to Luna.



That was a long little walk, and a headful of prepositions! We powered up with snacks then set to the map - it needed decorating with things that we saw on our safari. We drew fish, flowers and ourselves in crayon, and painted with watery poster paints on shoji paper. The end result should be worth a few quid, we think!

Diggers & wheelbarrows

Originally uploaded by ijiwaru jimbo

Today was such a lovely sunny morning we couldn't stay indoors forever. We'd sung the "How's the weather?" song and got a resounding "It's SUNNY today!" response. We 'did' our letter /Mm/ words and could see the mountains clearly from our big windows, with their snowy peaks against the blue sky.

Shoes and coats on for a wander down the riverside, where some workmen were spending our taxpayers money, slowly. The girls were really interested to see the men choosing the right sized rocks for the holes they had, and then knocking them into position & cementing them there. They had a dirty old truck, a clean yellow digger, and an old blue wheelbarrow to help them.

We sang songs from the Billy Goats DVD as we walked - "There's green green grass, over the river" we had to change to 'brown'; we looked for a nasty Troll under the bridge but couldn't see him; and we sang about the 3 Billy Goats living on the mountain yonder!

On the way back, we found a ladybird, which bit Naomi. We counted its black spots before it flew away. We also looked at the buds on the trees - spring is coming, so we'll have to come back and check on their progress in becoming leaves soon.

Back at school we finished some colouring - today we read a Potato Pals book about "In the morning" and our daily routines. We also had a big I Spy with /Mm/, /Ss/ & /Rr/ words...and so much more. The walk was the highlight though, as you can see. We haven't been out for ages and now the weather is getting a bit nicer, maybe we can explore some more soon!