February Recap

Another month has flown by and we have done so much again, I didn't realise just how much until I started looking through the photos and deciding what to include here...

We have been so many places this month that I could barely fit them all into one image! We started the month off with Forest Tots as always, where we made bird feeders and made toast on the fire, which Bear tried with jam and loved. We finally made it to Home Ed Lego Club at Doncaster Library where Bear built an areoplane and The Cub investigated ALL the books. There were multiple birthdays to celebrate, including Bear's and his Pops', which included a trip to the pub for lunch, a birthday adventure to Pontefract Park, and a party. Valentine's Day saw the Love Nature event in Clifton Park where Bear hugged a tree for a whopping 13 minutes... because, why not?! We had our first trip of the year to the local skate park where Bear practiced his scooter skills and The Cub had a go on his trike. We visited the Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield and attended their Sensory Play session, went to Boston Park Farm for lambing week at Little Farmers and on a Home Ed organised trip to Wigfield Farm where we went for a tour around the farm and leanred all about the different animals and why they're there. Bear surprised the lady doing the tour by picking the highland cow out of the herd... he does love a good highland cow! We attended the Teddy Bear's Hospital at the Children's Hospital in Sheffield and we finished off the month by heading to Squirrel Wood to check out the new Home Ed Forest Friends playgroup where we got mega muddy and had a fab time with friends... all in all, a pretty busy month!

As for learning, I did a quick check of what Bear did and didn't know as far as his numbers and letters went, just before he turned 4 at the beginning of the month, and was pleasantly surprised with how much was sinking in :)

We have finally gotten a grip with the number 5! Despite being able to count to 10, Bear only recognised the numbers 1-4 and the number 5 was regulalry a 9 - we have repeatedly looked at the number 5 this month, in lots of different activities, by pointing them out when out of the house, and about a week ago, I am confident enough to say that Bear now recognises the number by sight. So, we will be adding the number 6 to the mix this month and see how we go.

As for his alphabet, he knew more than half of them by sight, both as capital and lowercase, though not the same set as he recognises many capitals from the beginnning of names. He can also match up the upper and lower cases for near enough every letter of the alphabet. We will be continuing what we're doing with the alphabet, using different resources to keep his interest. My make of the month was the I-Spy bottle with the letters in for him to search for and match up to the sheet stuck on. It was something that I saw on Instagram, though I didn't save the post so I can't link it. I recreated it with split lentils as that's what I had in the cupboard, and Bear has loved rolling it to reveal the letters inside. He's a huge fan of the wipe clean book, so I have dig out some others, again so that he doesn't get bored using the same thing all the time. 

Our other focus this month has been feelings and emotions off the back of Children's Mental Health Week at the start of the month. I carried the theme on throughout February and you can read all about what we got up to in the post I wrote a few days ago. We finally got around to doing our winter journal page, partly because I was waiting for snow so that I could photograph our tree with snow in to go alongside the beautiful bare branched photo I'd already taken of it. Plus, when the full moon came around, we used our Adventure Gang box to check out what the February moon is called, and then made clay moons and some space pictures. The subsciption box is definitely one that I would recommend and I am excited for the spring box that should be arriving any day now.

We haven't read many new books this month, but that isn't to say that we haven't read... Both boys love their books and we read daily. Out February focus book was Wolf and Bear by Kate Rolfe, a beautiful book both in words and illustrations. We used this alongside the emotions and feelings topic as it leant itself perfectly. I will be writing a seperate post for this as soon as we have written our book review over the next couple of days.

And, last but not least, our outside times were fantastic this month, despite me being conviced that I wasn't trying hard enough to get us out and about more. We added another 42 hours during February, bringing our total for the 1000 hours outside challenge to 76 hours outside so far in 2024. We have been outside every day, in all weather types, and I have both my parents, and Simon to thank for keeping that streak up, despite the rainy days that have plagued us.

What has your February looked like? I am always on the lookout for new ideas for places to visit, so drop me some comments for places that we should be checking out!

Momma Bear x