I'm going to start my first project with my 6 year old DD about lambs. Any advice appreciated.

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, my daughter has been HE since christmas and so far we've just been de-schooling. We have some therapy we have to do every day as she has SEN's but appart from that, she just does everything a pre school child would do. Jigsaws, play dough, cooking, drawing etc. We also take her out somewhere most days.
She used to love writing when she was in reception, but her experience in year 1 has put her off anything she see's as educational. It's so sad that this has happened but I'm trying to think of ways to re-kindle her love of learning. She seems quite interested in lambs at the moment. My SIL's parents have a farm which she visited recently and held and fed some lambs. When I mentioned a project on lambs she did seem quite keen. I'm just not sure where to start.
I tend to take over a bit, and want her to feel that it's her project.
If any of you have done projects like this with little ones, I'd love some tips and advice. I really would like this to go well and for her to enjoy it and be proud of the outcome. Then if I say "lets do another one" she'll be more inclined to say yes.

Ask her if she would like to do something about lambs. Maybe she likes drawing so that could be a starting place, or maybe she likes googling ( that's what mine would do) - look up lambs in the internet - see what different types there are. Find out about sheep in general - why we have them, what are they used for, how long they live etc. Go back to the farm and spend a while with the farmers learning what they do.

If you can get a bit of writing into that somewhere then great - but try and let her come up with the idea of it.

Introduce a sheep and lamb, where do they live and what do they eat. Find and cut out pictures of different ages. Think about the farm and what other animals live there and their offspring. Make pictures/models. Does she like to watch Timmy and Shaun the Sheep ?

How about brainstorming words to describe them - physically and how they behave and move. Maybe turn that into a piece of writing or poem togetehr with an opportunity to talk about hop/hopping etc and maybe some rhyming words.

Count the mummy sheep, then their lambs (talk about pairs and triplets, so count in 2's/3's ) . How many heads and legs ?

Me, I'd just go and see the lambs again, and chat about them all the time you are there. If she wants to pursue it further in a way that looks like education from the outside, then that's up to her.

(Whenever we have a craze in this household, I go with the craze rather than with trying to do educational stuff that looks a bit connected to that craze. If one of my children is crazy about feeding lambs, we go to the local petting farm every bloody day on a regular basis. The conversations that happen around the craze are the educational bit. Sure, I can put out books about farm animals, or I can draw the outline of a sheep in case anyone wants to paint it or colour it in or stick some lambs wool on it, but I wouldn't go further than that myself

How about teaching her to knit? If too difficult try some weaving or get a knitting nancy. Make some lamb burgers and cook them.

Wool sounds a good idea - how about making a pompom sheep, sticking on googly eyes and pipecleaner legs

There are many projects you could find from sheep.

The feeding, care, how quickly lambs grow.
Drawing
Painting
Making felt from wool
Different types of wool

Cooking with ewe cheese

There are many more but I am still quite sleepy.

I could send you photographs of my sheep and lambs - the lambs were born this week. She could see how they feed, play, feed and sleep.

Thanks everyone! I can't wait to get started with that now. She always used to love projects and usually gets excited about showing everyone what she's done.

GentleHotterCrossBuns- That would be great! She'd love that.

She finds it very difficult to listen and take in information at the moment, so she really likes things to look at that remind her of what she's done or learned.

I don't HE but my DC have always been keen on a good project.

TBF the planning stage is always more impressive than the final outcome. This can be disconcerting to we goal driven adults, but I remind myself that much has been learned in the proccess.

At that age ours would involve trips to the library to source every single bloody several appropriate books. Trips to the stationery shop for large scrap books, glue sticks, paints etc.
We might surf the net for info...or find farming programs on the telly.
A trip to take many photos of the object of the project would certainly be involved.

Oh it could take over our life...

Hi MLL - Have a look on "activity village" - its my favourite website for finding all sorts of fun and free stuff for my kids to do

Is lambing live still on as well? There might be some things on iplayer. I know TV not the best thing but everyone else has suggested so many things already.