living and learning: Owls, selling and sewing.

At Fun Club today we had a visit from the Owl Man. He brought several different types of owls, talked to us about them and flew them.

The Owl Man with Charlie the Barn Owl

Everyone was really engaged and lots of the children had a chance to hold one, as did some of the adults since the European Eagle Owl was too big and heavy for the children!

M with Milligan the African Eagle Owl

After the talk, the owls were put on their perches and we had the chance to draw them and there were also a couple of related craft activities organised by some of the older children as part of an award they are doing. There was a collage activity aimed more at the little ones and a wire sculpture one.

M's picture of Ronnie the European Eagle Owl

M's picture of Gismo, the White Face Scops Owl

K's picture of Milligan

K's creation

M's end result

Both K & M really enjoyed making the wire owls and were really engaged the entire time and girls who'd organised it were really good at explaining the process and helping the younger children when necessary.

After lunch it was the Fun Club table top sale and we'd taken quite a lot of things with us, mostly books (plus a few toys and games) that K & M have grown out of or have decided they aren't going to read again (or at all in the case of the Horrible Histories, which I really liked but neither of my girls will touch with a barge pole). I also took some of my chocolates and truffles to sell and some workbooks, some we'd bought, some we'd been given, that had barely been touched, to give away in the hope that someone else might find them more interesting! We all did pretty well with the sale, making over £20, a cut of which we gave to charity. K & M also came home with a few new to them things, both from the sale and from the scrap store where we headed afterwards.

Once home, the girls immediately started making use of some material they'd picked up at the scrap store, making clothes for some of their toys. It mostly involved cutting and sewing buttons on, but also sewing pretty lace ribbon onto the bottom in some cases. K's making of a dress for her teddy Ginger has determined that, while previously an 'it', she is in fact a she.