Days 209-215 of Project 365

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209-215 of 365

3rd August 2013 (Saturday) for web

209. This Is New (We went to Oxwich Bay with my brother and his family for the day. The Boy's aunty is an outdoor adventure instructor working in a variety of fields and she has been trained in 'beach school' education, so was keen to share her knowledge. We had an amazing day finding anemones, urchins, cockles, and crabs!)

210. Perspective (Off to Parc Play, one of our favourite places to go and far better than soft play! Wooden forts, zip wires, slides, sand pits, pirate ships; all outdoors or under cover. We were meeting up with a friend and her little boy who is a year older than The Boy. We haven't seen them in some time and it was interesting to see how The Boy, who was left behind physically last year, was capable of doing things that his friend couldn't. Well he could by the time we'd finished with him!)

211. Friendship (We visited Yeo Valley HQ in the Mendips today with a bunch of other bloggers to see how they are working with the Woodland Trust. It was great to meet up with Jenny and Burton again, and The Boy and he got straight up to mischief with a tempting pipe.)

212. Workspace (We've borrowed a tuff-spot and stand from the nursery at work for the Summer, definitely The Boy's new work space!)

213. David Bellamy (On Tuesday we did a leaf hunt at Yeo Valley and The Boy has been fascinated with finding different leaves ever since; he spotted the silver birch in our garden and ran to get the sheet to identify it.)

214. Focus (Today my special treat to myself arrived: a fixed focus 50mm lens for my dSLR. I have been quite sceptical about it, not really understanding what the difference would be between my 18-55mm and this. Now I get it! The depth of field is far more pronounced with this lens, as you can see from the photo above which was taken in our local nature reserve. We nipped down there to feed the swans and have lunch with my mum. I actually love this lens, and I adore this photo; it's going up on the wall.)

215. Heaven (And we're finally here! I wanted to leave home at 9am to travel down to Coombe Mill but a late night and sleepy heads this morning meant we left late. It took 3.5hrs to do the 2hrs down to Trago Mills, where we had good fun on the rides, steam train and shopping, and then a further 1.5 hours to get here. It then took thirty minutes to wait for our fish and chips before we could actually arrive at Coombe Mill. But oh my, it's all worth it!)

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Beachcombing Treasure Tile (100 Days Of Play)

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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 

The Weekly Kids Co-Op

Hotham Park, Bognor Regis (Country Kids)

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On the road leading to the Butlin's Resort in Bognor Regis, there is a high Victorian wall with a rather attractive looking zipwire poking out from behind it. Teasing us while we waited in the traffic to get into Butlin's, my husband did a quick Google and discovered it to be called Hotham Park.

Mid-week we decided to take a little break from the constant fun on site and nip down to check out the zipwire. We soon discovered that the zipwire is not the only thing in the adventure play areas (two for different ages and abilities), there's also a beautiful walkway through the woodland, a miniature boating lake for remote-controlled boats, crazy golf and from April to October there's a miniature steam railway.

There's also the tamest squirrels I've ever seen. I spotted them from a distance and opened up a packet of Hula Hoops to tempt them, within five seconds one was ensconsed on the picnic bench nibbling away.

Hotham Park, Bognor Regis

Hotham Park is definitely worth a visit when staying in the Butlin's neighbouring; it's literally across the road from the Wave Hotel and a little haven in the centre of the town.

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Learning for Life

Days 20-26 of Project 365 (Country Kids)

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20-26 of 365

20. 'Birdman' (Yes we had a snowball fight but who wants another picture of that? We spent time on Sunday putting out food for the pair of blackbirds and Mistlethrush which we have in the garden. The fatballs had frozen so needed crushing, and we had half a loaf of bread to distribute. The Boy then spent ten minutes calling them, before going inside to wait at the window for them.)

21. 'Heart-pressing' (The Boy is obsessed with Instagram. 50% of the likes you'll see from the little green bug are actually done by him, he particularly likes seeing pictures of other children playing and I have to tell him who they are. Daily I have to look for photos of Jenny, Burton and Jenson; think we need another playdate. If your photo on Instagram is of a child and I've liked it, it'll be him. If it's got a comment or of food, it'll be me liking it!)

22. 'Artist At Work' (We spend a long time making the most amazing snow picture today; 95% of it was done by him – the 5% done by me was the gluing because he's a lazy tyke! He then wanted to take a photograph of it because he was so proud of it.)

23. 'Meet The Family' (I was incredibly disappointed today to discover that, despite two inches of snow falling on compacted snow and ice, school was not closed. I made my way in to my job, but was out of there by 3.45. At 4pm we were making snowmen in the garden! I'm on the left, Mr. TBaM is in the middle and The Boy is on the right.)

24: 'Now, Which One?' (This giant Kerplunk we had for review a few months ago, is still one of the most played games in the house! Problem is that now he's cottoned on that he needs the least amount of balls to win, and is very competitive!)

25: 'Eat Your Heart Out, Gordon!' (Uninspiring photograph, but it's a milestone snap. The Boy made his own tea tonight: pizza pocket. He cut the pitta bread in half, sliced up the chicken and grated the cheese himself, before stuffing them in the pitta pocket. And yes that's a sharp Kitchen Devil vegetable knife. Give a child the correct tools to use – under supervision – from the start otherwise they just need to be retaught. He'd be more likely to cut himself with a blunt knife as the knife would slip!)

26: 'Birdies, NO!' (Today has been a non-day. I hate days like this; slow to start and before you know it, the weather has turned and the light's almost gone. They affect my mood greatly, pyjama days on a weekend do not help the happy family way of life for us! All too late in the day we went to feed the swans at the local country park, they must have been starving because as soon as we walked towards them and they spotted the bag of bread, they were out the water and coming! To me, it was something like a horror movie, The Boy took it in his stride, and Mr. TBaM stood there telling them off for pecking his bottom! Nutter! The Boy then made us go for a walk in the pitch-black around the lakes, luckily we had our torches!)

My favourite photo this week is Day 20: 'Birdman'

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Thursday 16th August 2012 – 'Honeysuckle' (229/366)

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This is the honeysuckle that my mum bought me when I moved into my first house ten years ago. When we moved two years later, I dug it up and moved it with us the 125 miles back to Cardiff where it has gone bananas ever since. I love this time of year when it is still covered in flowers and buds, but the older blooms have turned into the berries.

Going To The Island

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Recently I wrote a post that was our own version of the National Trust's list of Fifty Things To Do Before You're 11¾, adapting it, as The Boy's birthday was imminent, to Five Things To Do Before You're Three!

About a month ago, we decided it was a glorious day and the tide was out (the Bristol Channel has the second highest tidal range in the world after Nova Scotia) so it would be an ideal time to attempt a walk over to a nearby 'island'. I use the inverted commas around it because at low tide it is connected to the mainland by a causeway covered in rockpools, at high tide it's an island. There's nothing on this island apart from a wrecked boat, a swamp and some rather spectacular views of the Bristol Channel and England, it's also only about two hundred yards wide and four hundred yards long, if that. However, an island it is and it was on our list.

The tide was very low when we set off under the midday sun (and wind), giving us at least three hours before it started turning back in again. Plenty of time for us to have our picnic lunch on the beach, explore the rockpools and get to the island and back again. I wasn't convinced The Boy would manage it in all honesty, but it's amazing how little ones can just keep on going if you take it at their pace.

It was an eye-opener for not only The Boy; all the aspects of living on the coast that I assumed everyone knew about, always amaze my husband as he grew up in the heart of England. We discovered mermaid's purses, the difference between wet and dry seaweed, barnacles (Like Captain Barnacle Mummy!), there was a small crab in one rockpool, and salt crystals in a dried-up pool.

And when we got to the island, I realised that I've lived here all my life and never been all the way there before! And the view is spectacular.

[slickr-flickr tag='GoingToTheIsland']

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