This year Kairi is old enough to really kick start her learning about what other people celebrate. With the 4th of July rushing towards us, I was eager to get her started on this new topic. Luckily we have Twinkl up our sleeve so I popped over to the site and found a couple of activities along with a power point to do.
Firstly we sat down and went through the power point presentation. Some bits were aimed slightly too high for the girls, but never the less we still worked through them anyway. We talked about the declaration of independence, who signed it and what they wrote on it and what individual families do to celebrate.
Next we started with the crafts, with out glue and scissors at the ready, we got to cutting out all our stars. We measured our headbands to the correct size and then sellotaped them together. Kairi decided to choose red and green pipe cleaners and Naminé had given up because she didn't want to wait for the scissors (she had lost hers). I grabbed red and white pipe cleaners and used them as an opportunity to talk about the American flag and the colours on it.
Once our hats were assembled, we got straight onto the next task. We used Twinkl's cutting and sticking scene to help build on the girls skills. Naminé took part for a while, mostly discussing what was there and why. We talked a lot about fireworks and the girls related them to when we see the 'fireworks at Disney behind the princess castle'. Kairi did really well at creating her scene and I finished off Naminés.
For our last activity, we decided to make a celebratory meal. We used cotton wool and tissue paper to create different items of food which we then stuck to paper plates. Kairi really enjoyed having the freedom with the PVA glue and was constructing with purpose. Naminé was happy to chose the colours that she wanted and it was really nice to see her naming them so well.
We talked all about the different foods we were making, each coming up with different ideas. Kairi wanted to make a cupcake and an apple, while Naminé wanted to make a pink orange. At the end we added a plastic cup and created a 'juice' to put in it. We then shot a very quick 'Happy independence dayu' video to share with our American friends.
The activities went down really well and the plates were later used in the girls 'home' roll play. If you are looking for more Home Education posts, here are 13 Tuff Trays to check out.
