Willowbank

Today we had a Correspondence School outing to Willowbank. The teachers are based in Wellington so they try to come down once a year to meet up with everyone.
Kerry and her youngest three traveled through to town with us. It was Kerry who first told me about Correspondence School.

Can you spot the eel?
Touching the eel. Rachel and Layla both touched it with their fingers too.

The only picture I got of Kayla and one of the twins. They stay quite close to Willowbank and as they have just started home schooling this year I thought it would be nice for them to join us. Layla also wanted to get to see Rachel again - so it was a good opportunity for the two of them.

And those feathers are supposed to look like that.

The highlight for me were these tame wallabies.

What an amazing experience. Ingrid (our friend who stays close by) knew the little bags of food that you buy when you come in are very handy at this point. So thankfully the boys were very willing to share the treats and our girls got to feed them too.

As we walked past the lemur's cage they were given their food. Great for Ruth to see them picking through their fruit for their favourite pieces.
Hannah loved the old tractor (of course) and so the two of them had a nice "ride" together.

Tiny little chicks under lights to keep them warm.

I have never seen such small horses. A perfect size for little ones to pat.

These Kea were so friendly and loved the bread that Ingrid had brought to give them. We could tell she had been here before because she had her food ready and she knew were we should stand and wait. We waited for a few minutes wondering if there were in fact any birds in the walk through enclosure. And then sure enough they started to come towards us. We counted 5 that came for a snack.

Such lovely birds and they had such different characters too. A few of them screeched so loudly and then the one just sat quietly and did the following little "meow" (almost).

Ruth was very brave in giving this big pig some treats. Just look at that mouth!

The piglets were very friendly. And very cute.

We had a lovely day and only when I loaded the photos onto the computer did I realize that I had not taken a photo with Ruth and the Correspondence School teacher. What a pity. It was great for Ruth to meet her in person though.

Lets Play School

Ruth wanted a break from Letterland and with her asking for a different computer game I remembered that our Barnie dvds have computer games on them. So she was excited to play "Let's Play School" today.


This first game is the hardest one - it's connect the dots (by number). I made her the card with numbers 1 - 10 so that she could see which one comes next. They also say the number as she clicks on it - so perhaps this will eventually help her to recognize numbers too. Once the picture has been completed it gets automatically coloured in and moves. So it's great fun for her.

She had been playing this memory game with us but I think playing it on the computer will help her get the idea of it better. And they start really simply too which is nice.

Making patterns. She has made coloured patterns with toys with me before but it was harder only having the pattern shown once. She quickly got the hang of it though.

And children always enjoy colouring in. Even if it's on a computer. :-)

Practice counting. As she picks the crayons up Baby Bop counts and the number appears on the box. So reinforcing the written number and counting.

Book fun

Ruth helping Mum with "My cat likes to hide in boxes."

Build and boogie

It did not take Ruth long this morning to get back to her new games. I got some nice zip lock bags for all the different things (in front of the bag next to her) which helps keep all the pieces together of each game (and helps to show Hannah to play with one thing at a time and then pack up). Ruth asked me to time her this morning with building the parrot and I was amazed that she did it in just over 1 min (75seconds). It's fun to watch her working out different ways of building it - not sticking to the same order for the pieces.

One of the things I did not mention yesterday was the music cd we got too. Ruth has now learnt how to get the cd playing again as she listens to it over and over. She is already singing along to all the songs and dancing and doing actions where she can.
So creative with these shapes. Well done Ruth. This is her worm or snake.

Correspondence School Started

Ruth was so excited when she saw that a bag had arrived in the post today from the Correspondence School. I was so pleased to see we don't even have to pay for the return postage when we are done with the bag.
Within in no time she was busy with the puzzle. She has not had much experience with ones like these - so it took her a little while to work it out the first time. We had to direct her a little on the first one by saying things like "try put the beak in, now put the eye" ect.

As soon as I got all the little dots cut out she was placing them on the butterfly. She got a bit frustrated with the ball puzzle as the frame kept moving. I held that still for her and she quickly worked out how to get all the others in. With the colours all together too - you can see how on the left she has split the reds. We told her that was fine (her big sister had pointed it out and said it was wrong). But we explained that there was not right and wrong with this puzzle. It was for experimenting and trying different things. It's great that these games are now ours and she can often come back to them and try different things.
Hannah and Ruth checking out the books that came with the pack too.

Then the family had a game with the butterfly. Throwing the dice and then putting that coloured spot onto the butterfly. Hannah does not know the names for black or white but was also able to match them up nicely. It's not a struggle for Ruth at all, but she is more likely to make a mistake with the colour name. I think often it's because she does not look properly. Once she looks and things about it she always gets it right. :-)

It was great to see her understand the idea of just doing different things with these shapes.

While playing around she put them together like this and I told her they looked like cat's eyes.

And hour later she was playing with them again and this time decided to match up the colours.

She has already had so much fun with all the new games (and she only started at 4pm).

A day from long ago

Playing on the dinosaur slide before everyone arrived. I was getting my camera on and so asked her to wait - you can see she was already on her way down and had to use her legs to keep her up. When Rachel told Nana about today Ruth made sure to mention the dinosaur. :-)
So our morning was spent at a History Museum. They have a little town done up and the girls had a great time.
Trust Ruth to find the musical instrument in the shop.

Ruth had a turn the butter churn.

After the shop and bakery they got to see what housework was like in the old days. She enjoyed scrubbing this desk. She has a look on her face as it to say "what's the problem - you just scrub".

She also wanted to do some washing.

A lovely old water pump in the street. Ruth had a go too (I just did not get a photo).

Every evening Ruth wants to do some "Maths" before bed. When she worked on these before she got stuck on this one. So we played a game (below) where I hid some of the animal shape. She could still easily guess what it was and so when she came back to the shapes she could do it really quickly.

She brought her chair over and felt like she was having "school".

The next one she did. I love the way she uses the same colour if she can.

Letterland

Ruth has really been enjoying her Letterland Computer game. First she has to find the letter (there are 5 different scenes that they take her to). They are given a clue with the same starting sound (like Golden Girl is by the goat). Then when they find the letterlander they get to play a game with them. One game is a maze where she has to collect all the letters that are the same. Only once she has collected them all will the gate open on the other side.

Another game is where she has to catch only the one letter in the basic. I was interested to note that the letters that have this game are b,d,p and q and those are the only letters that fall. So they are really focusing on these "problem" ones and making sure the children can see the difference. It's been amazing to see how quickly Ruth has learnt this and she can very quickly see if it is the correct letter or not.
Then there are rhymes. The last word of the rhyme is missing and she has to select the correct picture to finish the sentence.

One of her favorites is the puzzle. And the one she enjoys the least is the "spot the difference". There are 7 things different and she has to click on the right picture only (to either take something away or to add something). The game is really clever because it gets the children to look at detail - something they need when learning to differentiate between the letters. And it's a great game for children to play. Ruth had never done one before so she is learning really quickly.

Once she has found them all they need to be put in alphabetical order. So this is the one time she calls me to help. I then tell her what letter to put next by making the sound. So I will say "a" (not the name A like in the song but the sound) and then "b" "c" and she selects the card and puts it in order. Each time she plays the cards are put in different position at the top. So she is learning to recognize them and not just remember an order. It amazes me that within a couple of week she has learnt them all.
I had the letterland book and cd with Rachel but have really enjoyed having this game as well for Ruth. It has gotten her to learn the computer (which she is doing really well with) and it has helped her to learn the letters really quickly.

Ruth got these puzzles out today. She got the 24 piece done in less than 6 minutes again and I was so surprised to see her get the 12 piece done in less than 2 minutes. She thinks it's quite fun to get timed and keeps asking me to time her. :-)