Natural learning

We enjoyed a couple of two-stage art projects at the weekend, which is a first for us as Harry has normally not been interested in completing things over different days. The octopus idea is courtesy of Mister Maker and we did the painting one day and the cutting and sticking the next. Harry correctly informed me that I needed to cut two more tentacles as he only had six and he sorted the big eyes and small eyes ready to stick on

Harry had also mixed some orange paint and used it to paint white card which he said was a burning fire. This started an impromptu family rendition of the 'London's Burning' song (which I vaguely remembered from my school days). We discussed the Great Fire of London and why people used to be so scared of fire when they lived in wooden houses. Stuart showed Harry some major London structures including The Shard and Tower Bridge on the computer and then we cut out some black foam to represent buildings on his painting

We were all worn out after getting cold at our home ed Washington Wetland Centre meeting today so Harry and I set about colouring some Mike the Knight pictures (a cbeebies programme in case anyone is not stuck with that channel for their pre-schoolers). Whilst colouring Mr Blacksmith, we discussed what a blacksmith does and read a section of Richard Scarry's 'What do people do all day?" which contains a blacksmith. We also coloured some Vikings and this led to a discussion of their dragon boats and we read our Usborne "See Inside Ships" book.

So from some lovely relaxed family art time, we have covered what I guess would count as several areas of the school curriculum. I love the fact that Harry doesn't switch off as he is usually doing something he is interested in - natural learning at its best!