beach | TheBoyandMe

Beach Craft: How To Make A Shell Shaker

July 29, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 22 Comments

We spend a lot of time on the beach at all times of the year, but especially during the warmer months of the year. And just like all children, The Boy likes to collect shells.

Lots of shells.

And it comes to a point when we have to start finding things to do with them.

So this weekend, we collected up shells with holes in them and we made a musical instrument with them!

How To Make A Shell Shaker

You'll need:

a 'Y' shaped stick
a variety of shells with holes in them (do try and collect different types so that you can discuss the names of them)
string
something to cut with

Tie one end of the string to one of the 'Y' twigs. Wrap it around several times to make it stronger and also to hide the end of the string. Make a simple knot to fix it into place.
Thread the shells onto the string, alternating the different types and the way that they are facing.
Pull the string taut and wrap it around the other end of the 'Y', making a small knot to hold it in place. Wrap it around several times, tying it off tightly.
Shake, shake, shake!

How To Make A Beach Shell Shaker

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Country Kids

Days 195-201 of Project 365

July 20, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 24 Comments

195-201 of 365

195. Edible (On the way down to Burton's birthday party, we stopped off at Tyntesfield National Trust site to wander around. Unfortunately it was the hottest day of the year and so we did little more than sit under a tree and have a very edible picnic.)

196. Outside The Window (Such a boring photo to everyone else… this window has been broken for a month, and during this hot weather it has been a nightmare as it is perfectly positioned to catch and direct an amazing breeze through the downstairs rooms. We couldn't find our guarantee so bit the bullet and phoned up the double glazing company, expecting to need a new window: £15 for a new handle was all the damage! And outside the window is my son's play-haven.)

197. Bottle (We met up with friends of ours at our local nature reserve. Despite having lived in Cardiff for twenty years until university, she'd never actually been there and so we were happy to show them how to feed the swans, where the squirrels can be found, the best trees for climbing and the wonderful play park. My friend adored it, and both of the children loved it when I produced some clay from my bag ready for a very special craft activity! I was amazed to see The Boy climb all the way up this tree, completely unaided; he's got a lot of bottle nowadays when it comes to tree climbing!)

198. Inspirational (A fairly contrived photo of the prompt, but this boy of mine is inspirational to me to try my hardest to provide stimulating play opportunities and be the best mummy I can.)

199. Number (I know it's Summer and therefore we should be used to the fact that it should be hot, but I've never seen it this hot in The Boy's bedroom at night; a ridiculous number. No rain in weeks, and it's so sticky and muggy that we do actually need a thunderstorm.)

200. Building (Last day of term! When I finally arrived home from work, we settled down with coloured pencils, building his 'to-do' list for the Summer.)

201. Hot (As it was the town's annual carnival, we went down to see what was going on down the beach. The answer was not very much indeed, apart from a downhill derby, so we ended up 'plopping' pebbles into the sea to cool us down as we were hot and bothered. After we treated ourselves to pizza, chips, onion rings, doughnuts and candy floss, and needed winching back up the hill!)

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Blue Skies Fun

July 9, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 13 Comments

In recent weeks we've started using a reward chart with The Boy, not for behaviour but to help promote independence and getting ready for school. So far the targets we've used have focused on getting dressed, eating meals within thirty minutes and tidying up, which are key things he'll need to do in the classroom and to make his lunchtime easier. If he gets all of the stickers on his chart then he achieves his reward which is something he chooses at the beginning of the week. By and large we've managed to get away with going to somewhere that we would normally go to anyway, bless him he's not cottoned onto this yet!

Last weekend he chose to go to Puxton's Park near Weston-Super-Mare, an all-weather adventure place he and I have been to a few times with Mummy Mishaps but never as a family. It was somewhere I wanted to go to over the Summer holidays anyway, so again was an easy choice. I was quite looking forward to the trip and showing it off to Mr. TBaM, I should have known that would be a sign of it being a bit rubbish really! It was their birthday weekend which meant cheap entry = bonus as it only cost us £12 to get in; it was their birthday weekend which meant cheap entry = downer because everyone else in the locality was there! Let's just say that I'm not a fan of men going topless or women wearing bikinis in anywhere other than the beach, a pool or their garden, and as a result the plethora of excess skin on display really spoilt the trip for me. Various play equipment was broken (cargo nets and ladders on the fort, and the bouncing pillow), the few animals out were fed up and hot with no shade, and combined with the fact that Puxton's seems to have virtually no shade in any form ensured I felt pretty dejected about our family fun time! Of course, The Boy had some fun with the zip wire and the sand play, but I suspect even he was a bit disappointed with the trip.

We left early and headed to our old faithful; Barry Island.

Country Kids Blue Skies Fun 1

Sunday promised to be an even hotter day than Saturday, and I'd initially planned for a quiet day at home. However, still dejected from the previous day, I decided that we'd head to Southerndown, one of my favourite beaches, via strawberry picking at a PYO fruit farm. On the National Trust list of 50 Things To Do Before You're 11 &¾ is 'eat an apple straight from a tree' and while picking strawberries is not exactly the same thing, I figure it's more about actually eating fruit straight from the plant and realising it doesn't come in plastic packaging from a shelf in the supermarket. Therefore I'm ticking that one off!

Following our adventures in the strawberry field (where The Boy really needs to learn that he shouldn't switch sides during fruit picking as daddy is rubbish!) we headed down to Southerndown, along with half of south Wales. I suspect the other half were at Barry Island! Southerndown is a stunning beach with rockpools and a huge swathe of sand that can (and did) accommodate thousands at low tide, but is completely covered at high tide. Luckily we arrived just on the right side of low tide and spent a really pleasurable few hours in a magnificent location where all that can be heard is families and friends having fun.

Country Kids Blue Skies Fun 2

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Days 181-187 of Project 365

July 6, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 30 Comments

181-187 of 365

181. Mr. Bloom (We'd discovered some cheap sunflowers in Aldi (99p each) and as our sunflower seedlings were destroyed accidentally by daddy a week ago, we bought these to replace what should have been. The Boy has taken over watering them until I get the time to plant them!)

182. Happiness Is… (This is the start of me using the FatMumSlim PhotoADay Instagram prompts for my 365 photos. I took a cracking profile photo of The Boy which you can see on my Instagram feed, but I chose this photo as these two, and my garden in the Summer, are what makes me happy.)

183. Shoes (A very busy day with gymnastics, feeding the swans at the nature reserve, shopping and then we popped into Parc Play in Cardiff for 45 minutes run around. We'd bought a season pass on Sunday; £40 until November and at £5 a visit otherwise, I decided we'd definitely come more than eight times over the Summer.)

184. Cold (A really rubbish day in work where I did nothing more than babysit classes all day. A rosé spritzer was definitely needed!)

185. Red, White or Blue (We'd seen Mister Maker doing this activity the other day, and decided to have a go. Really good fun and minimal mess.)

186. Love (I love all of the things in this picture (and some that aren't!): my son, pizza and chips from the local takeaway, Pimm's, my husband (especially for getting the pizza) and a setting sun over my green haven.)

187. Fave Smell (Contrived? No! My favourite smell is the beach in Summer: scorching hot sand, crashing waves, ketchup-laden chips, salty air.)

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A Change Is Coming

June 25, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 43 Comments

When did my little boy become old enough to start school?

Because it appears that in September, he will be doing just that.

And I'm not ready.

I'd like to pretend that he's not ready but that would be a lie. He is ready. He's ready to have the further stimulation which a trained Reception teacher can offer (I'm juniors trained). He's ready to mix with other children more regularly and make friends. He's ready to learn more formally (not that much more though, thank you Foundation Phase). He's ready to learn the discipline which can only be gained in a classroom.

He's ready.

Don't get me wrong though, he's still very emotionally young and I do think he will struggle with the full days and being away from us for so many hours. However, as the school only has one opportunity in the year for entry, we have little choice but for him to start in September or wait a year.

This is why we accompanied him into his new school a week ago for his induction into Reception. It's the only time that he's been there, and will be the only opportunity before he starts full-time education for the next fourteen years (just writing that is making me cry, he's so little still!). I do have a problem with the lack of link-building, but again can do nothing about it.

We walked down the road, around the corner and into the school. We were greeted, given name stickers (mine said 'Mum', I felt like scribbling 'my' on the end of it), and shown to the Reception class. This is where I discovered that it is a lot larger than the one block that I knew of from when I had a nursery-nursing placement there; in fact they had another building at the back of this with a covered courtyard in between. They had a gardening area, bikes and trikes to ride along the painted road layout on the ground, a small timber trail, climbing frames and a fenced off area. There was so much to explore.

Reception induction

The Boy was completely enthralled with it all, "Mummy! They have glitter and glue! Shall we do some craft? Oh look mummy there's Shopping List! Mummy shall we play some music?" I have no doubt that he will enjoy playing with the other thirty six children, cared for by the two teachers and two LSAs; all seemed caring and 'on the ball'.

We walked home afterwards holding hands with The Boy, him chatting about the activities and his uniform, declaring that he no longer wishes to go to nursery. I exchanged a look with my husband over our son's head, a look that said 'where has our baby gone?'. A look that shared nostalgia for the precious last four years of discovery where we have governed his routine, his learning, his play. A look that realised the days of freedom and nonconformity to a timetable were coming to an end.

A look that demanded one course of action…

Barry Island - Country Kids

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Days 153-159 of Project 365

June 8, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 28 Comments

153-159 of 365

153. Peek-a-boo! (This is my favourite photo of the week. We went to Abbotsbury Swannery on the way home from holiday and The Boy was fascinated by the cygnets, some of which had hatched the day before. I could have included a photo of a cute and fluffy cygnet, instead it's this one of The Boy climbing in a tunnel of trees which I adore.)

154. Alien (I set up an invitation to play for him with playdough, feathers, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, matchsticks and lolly sticks and he created this fab alien.)

155. Spiderman! (We dropped my niece's present over for her birthday and The Boy was desperate to play in their 170 foot garden which has this fabulous spider's web climbing net.)

156. Mr. Bloom (Today we planted our seeds for the Britmums challenge: Kids Grow Wild with MoneySupermarket. The Boy hasn't quite got the concept of watering in moderation.)

157. Waterbaby? (I wish he was a waterbaby; his constant ear infections from November to March every year mean that he rarely goes swimming apart from in the Summer. This past Winter he had glue ear in both ears, with 5% reduction in hearing in his right ear and slightly more in his left. We were told by the doctor not to allow water into his ears and so he hasn't been since last September. Today we decided to give it a go, bought him some new armbands and a noodle-thing, and he absolutely loved it. He even managed to use both to try out backstroke legs, and was so confident in the water he went down the infants slide backwards. Think we'll be going weekly from now on.)

158. Fortress (After work, we decided to pop to Barry Island for some sandcastle building and I ended up building The Boy a small defense wall with a pit to sit in. I think we may have put the defenses on the wrong side though looking at the stormy skies behind?)

159. Squint (We popped over to Nana and Grandad's this afternoon, in between shopping and The Boy has great fun with his cousin and the playdough. Not exciting, just every day life!.)

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Days 146-152 of Project 365

June 1, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 28 Comments

Project 365

146. Manipulation (We took The Boy over to Techniquest in Cardiff Bay as we'd recently bought a yearly pass, there's so much to explore there and he loves it. Transferring the cargo from the quayside to the ship proved quite tricky, but he managed it!)

147. Pondlife (It was Nana's birthday today and so we took her over to Dyffryn Gardens as she hasn't been there in a decade or two. I surprised her by meeting my sister there with my niece and nephew, and the three children had great fun racing around the grounds, much to mum's delight. The ponds have wonderful examples of pond-skaters, water boatmen and newts there so we got to cross off another of our 50 Things!)

148. Splosh! (A tiresome day today with many things which needed doing before packing to come away on holiday, a tired little boy and a crotchety mummy. By the time Mr. TBaM came in, I handed The Boy over to him for half an hour's splashing fun/peace and quiet.)

149. Fountains (On the way down to Bridport on holiday, we called into Montacute House, a National Trust place in Dorset. Beautiful venue and stately grounds were in abundance, unfortunately there wasn't a huge amount there for children, despite the advertised adventure playground. It gave us a chance to stretch our legs though.)

150. Engine Driver (We returned to Pecorama, a place we'd first been two years ago, to explore the gardens, play areas and most importantly the miniature steam railway. The Boy was very intrigued with how it all worked.)

151. Snappy Dresser! (A morning walk down to West Bay beach at 10am and a straw hat was already a necessity with the blazing sunlight, long may it continue. Maybe The Boy is actually surveying the cliffs at Broadchurch?)

152. From Where We Stand (Or should that be sit? A rare photo of the three of us, even if it is only my feet. No trip to Dorset is complete without a few hours on the imported sandy beach at Lyme Regis! We built sandcastles and ate fish and chips on the beach, followed by an ice-cream on the promenade. The perfect end to our holiday.)

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Beachcombing Treasure Tile (100 Days Of Play)

May 21, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 36 Comments

One of activities on the old '50 Things To Do Before You're 11&¾' list was 'hunt for treasure on a beach'. That may no longer be valid for the 2013 list, but it is still an excellent activity to do with children and even more so for us as we live in a coastal town. It also seemed the ideal play activity to do with The Boy for the exciting blog hop I'm taking part in (organised by Sun Scholars & Life at the Zoo) called '100 Days of Play'. The idea of the blog hop is to feature 100 different play based activities from bloggers all over the world; one a day, every day, for a 100 days.

Beachcombing Treasure Tile

We like popping down to the beach, and go every Thursday once I get home from school. On our predominantly pebble beach there is always a plethora of treasure to be scavenged; eagle eyes are definitely needed to 'comb' the grey pebbles for the different and occasional glints of seaglass or shells. This time I decided to make a relief tile of the treasure that we found, by using airdry clay and pushing the discoveries into the tile to hold them firmly in place.

I used a takeaway (tupperware) container to hold the airdry clay, this was also useful to clip the lid into place to prevent damage while transporting it home. I also made two holes near the top to tie the string through once it had dried.

We spent a good amount of time looking for fossils in the stones (not many in our area), interesting rocks with patterns in the composition, shells (both barnacle and snail type shells), and seaglass. There's a fair amount of seaglass around our way from the times when Britain was not so caring of the environment. Eroded by time, waves and rocks; the seaglass has an opaque appearance with all rough edges worn away. Occasionally you can find a piece with lettering or numbers on it, as The Boy did, and we came up with a great story of it belonging to a pirate.

Beach Treasure Tile

This is the type of activity that doesn't have to be limited to a beach, it would be just as good in a woodland for example. The only issue there is that over time the items found in a woodland will rot, but for the short term it would work just as well. It could even work for a box of magic buttons or trinkets collected over time and from different generations.

It's also an excellent resource for storytelling, as mentioned above; the reasons and back-stories to the different treasures could be fascinating and an excellent form of oracy development.

100 Days Of Play Blog Hop

Sharing simple ideas on how to connect with your children through play!

New ideas shared each day from 1st April – 20th July 2013.

100 Days of Play is brought to you by these wonderful bloggers:

SunScholars . Frogs, Snails & Puppy Dog Tails . Playful Learners . Train Up a Child . Fantastic Fun & Learning . Scribble, Doodle & Draw . Learn. Create. Love. . Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas . Nothing if Not Intentional . My Little 3 & Me . Buggy & Buddy . Sun Hats & Wellie Boots . Twodaloo . True Aim . The Educators' Spin On It . Blog Me Mom . Life At The Zoo . Putti's World . Kitchen Counter Chronicles . Triple T Mum . Busy Kids Happy Mom . Crystal's Tiny Treasures . Rainy Day Mum . Momma's Fun World . My Little Bookcase . Craftulate . One Perfect Day . MumCentral . Artchoo! . Creative World Of Varya . Simple. Home. Blessings. . JDaniel4's Mom . NurtureStore . Me & Marie Learning . Child Central Station . Mamas Like Me . Mama Miss . Making Boys Men . Powerful Mothering . Craft to Art . 3 Dinosaurs . Domestic Goddesque . Lessons Learnt Journal . Royal Baloo . Smiling Like Sunshine . Adventures at Home with Mum . B-Inspired Mama . PragmaticMom . Eazy Peazy Mealz . Gluesticks . TheBoy&Me . Learning is Messy . My Nearest & Dearest . Growing Book by Book . How to Run a Home Daycare . Here Come the Girls . Think Magnet . Dandelions Picked . 123 Homeschool 4 Me . Our Ordinary Life . Parenting with Professor Poppins . 2 Little Hooligans . Fun-a-Day! . The Non-Martha Mamma . Angelique Felix . My Very Educated Mother . Creative Playhouse . Go Explore Nature . Zing Zing Tree . Sense of Wonder . Childhood 101 . Crayon Freckles . KZ & Me . Serenity You . This Mumma's Life . Leapfrog & Ladybugs . Blue Bear Wood . Growing Together . KC EDventures . Mommy Lessons 101 . Nature & Play . Like Mama Like Daughter . Mums Make Lists . From Wine to Whine . Messy Kids . Babble Dabble Do . Sugar Aunts . Teaching @ Home . Preschool Powol Packets . Clothed in Love . Curiosity Creates . The Magnolia Barn . Strong Start . Stay-at-Home Mom Survival Guide . Learn with Play at Home . Mummy… Mummy… MUM! . Science Sparks . Toddler Approved . Thrive 360 Living . Rockabye Butterfly . Mud Hut Mama . Coffee Cups & Crayons . Playing with Words 365 . My Lil Love Bugs . Creative Connections for Kids . LalyMom . Love, Play, Learn . Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers . The Pleasantest Thing . Teach Beside Me

Days 132-138 of Project 365

May 18, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 24 Comments

132-138 of 265

132. Stick it! (After such a beautifully sunny day on Saturday, Sunday saw the doldrums return to the skies over south Wales. The Boy managed a few hours garden play in the morning, then in the afternoon we did some Post-it note art.)

133. End of the day! (A very trying day today. As my car was still poorly with a mahoosive oil leak, I wasn't able to drive to the other side of Cardiff as I wanted to, so we went with my mum. It was a hot and bothersome day, and ultimately boring for The Boy. Mid-afternoon I had a row with the garage who hadn't even started my car, and my dad had to go and help them find the problem. Daddy's girl? Me? Never! The afternoon ended up with a ridiculously elongated dinner time (of well over an hour) and a late bedtime, and a row! Essentially this was all because he was overtired and bored, and it wasn't the best day in my parenting 'career'.)

134. Wet (The garage phoned me at 4.20 to tell me my car was ready and they shut at 5pm. It takes 30 minutes to walk across town to there, it was pouring with rain and The Boy had only just woken up from a nap. Time to test the excellence of the Kiddy raincover. He stayed dry, my Regatta raincoat and jeans were saturated. I made it in time and recovered my car, minus £230 in my bank account.)

135. Sly Fox! (This is a game he's learnt in nursery, a little like Grandma's footsteps or What's The Time, Mr. Wolf.)

136. Sculpture! (I finish work at around 4pm on Thursdays so we've developed a habit of nipping down the beach with my mum for an ice-cream. Today we did a treasure hunt as well for an activity I'm blogging on the 21st May for the '100 Days of Play' activity link-up I'm taking part in.)

137. Rebel! (Just out of shot is a sign saying 'No cycling'. Well I'm sorry but he's 3 and not about to mow someone down so I ignored it. We love this park in Cardiff and took my mum with us, who hasn't been in years, possibly decades. A few drops of rain fell and the park emptied, which I found very sad. We're hardcore and stayed on to see the black clouds off.)

138. Ding Dong ("Mummy, why don't bluebells ding?" The Boy's paternal grandparents came down for a visit today to take us out for lunch, so we took them to Dyffryn Gardens to walk off the pizza and garlic bread after. They were as enchanted as we are with it, and The Boy got to examine some bluebells up close.)

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Days 62-68 of Project 365

March 9, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 56 Comments

62-68 of 365

62. Shoot! (These are the seeds we planted a week ago in our gardening play table. They've really shot up, which means that I now have to find somewhere to move them to so they can acclimatise to the outside temperature. However, look to the back, the middle seed label was written by The Boy.)

63. The Sands of Time (We went for a long walk and cycle along Cardiff Bay Barrage today and played in the pirate play park there. We were the only people in the park for quite some time, which meant that The Boy had free rein over the sandy, sunken, pirate ship.)

64. Lick! (The first ice-cream of the year down the beach! The Boy had an eye-test today and he was meant to have eyedrops to test for a stigmatism, however because he held so still and was compliant during the test, he didn't need the drops which I was very relieved about. As a result it meant we were able to nip down to the beach and enjoy an ice-cream on the pier with nana.)

65. Bed Fellows (The Boy looked so peaceful when I went to check on him at midnight, so calm and serene. Oliver Monkey is never far away, and the week wouldn't be complete without a sleeping photo!)

66. Bubbles at Bathtime! (We had an extra long bathtime tonight where we had the bubble machine out, a pot of bubbles and the underwater light – all to remember a special little girl who loved bubbles.)

67. Catch The Pigeon! (Remember the Wacky Races song? Our weekly cycle ride along the pier was just like a scene from that today. The pier was deserted aside from a few elderly couples having their 'daily constitutional' and one or two brave pigeons. I say brave because once The Boy saw them he was determined to scare them away, something that made the grannies and grandads chuckle at!)

68.Splat! (We've been to Nymans for a National Trust event today as we are helping to promote the 50 Things To Do Before You're 11 and ¾ campaign. More to follow on this, and I've had to add this photo in at the last minute so please forgive any editing errors in this post!)

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