pirates

Orchard Toys: Yo Ho Ho (Review & Giveaway)

October 4, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 116 Comments

Pirates seem to be a little bit of a fascination for The Boy at the moment, and so I was pleased to receive this pirate memory game from Orchard Toys to try out with him.

Orchard Toys: Yo Ho Ho

Yo Ho Ho is a very simple and traditional memory game, along the lines of 'pairs', with players turning over two face-down cards at a time to try and match a 'pair'. Designed for 2-4 players and for children aged 4-8 years, but I'd say that children younger than four could play it easily, and likewise older children. The added twist to the game which can be included for older players is that if a pirate flag is turned over, then that player can do a dastardly deed and pilfer the cards from another player's treasure pile.

At present we haven't added this rule into the game, but we do have great fun playing it as a simple pairs game. There are actually four cards of each design, which helps increase the chances of younger children finding a pair. The illustrations are trademark Orchard Toys; bright and colourful, fun characterisations of familiar figures.

Orchard Toys: Yo Ho Ho

The educational guide states that Yo Ho Ho has been designed to:

encourage observation, memory and language skills
develop personal and social skills
link with Early Learning Goals and National Curriculum Key Stage 1

In addition to the above, I'd say it is also great for:

oracy – it encourages discussion, and can even lead to storytelling if they are used in the same way that story stones are;
drama – role play either with small world toys or with costumes and re-enacting the scene;
geography – looking at pirate maps as an extension activity.

Yo Ho Ho is available to buy from Orchard Toys directly for £7.50. A fantastic, traditional and quick game for all ages.

However, the very lovely folk there are offering a copy of this game to one reader of TheBoyandMe. Simply fill in the Rafflecopter form below to be in with a chance of winning.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

Days 230-236 of Project 365

August 24, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 25 Comments

230-236 of 365

230. Plopping (Following on from my brother's goodbye before he emigrates to Australia, I phoned my eldest brother to ask if he'd like to do something. We went to Southerndown beach further long the coast, which is one of my favourite beaches in Wales. The Boy and his Fiery Cousin plunged straight into the enormous rockpool splashing about, followed by a brief picnic and a quick departure from the beach as the tide was rapidly coming in; thank goodness for the RNLI warning klaxon. We then explored the ruined castle on the cliffs before plopping some stones into the tumultuous waves. One sibling may be moving to the other side of the world, but I still have two here to appreciate.)

231. The End Is In Sight (We went to Longleat for a Jungle Dogs event, and although we didn't venture into the safari, we did decided to have a go at the hedge maze. Big mistake. It's supposed to take 45 minutes, but after 55 minutes ~~we were losing the will to live~~ I was beginning to feel tetchy and claustrophobic, when fortunately The Boy found the 'This Way Out' sign. We finally crossed the final bridge to freedom!)

232. Small World (Tuesday was a quiet day after the frantic weekend travelling around the country, involving lots of outdoor play with The Boy's Playmobil pirates and the tuff spot. I love the reflection in this photo.)

233. Full (I decided to finally try out my hand at taking a photograph of the full moon using my tripod and the long – 55-250mm – lens that my husband bought me for my birthday. I'm quite pleased with the clarity of it, what do you think?)

234. Grip (We had a go at decorating a t-shirt for a review and I had to hold the fabric down and stretch it out to make it possible for The Boy to draw on. I like this photo for a few reasons; his pencil grip is cute, and I love the way he's holding my hand, his hand looks so small against mine.)

235. Manual (That photo there of The Boy balancing on a blue pole? I took than on manual settings. Fully manual. Not TV or AV or P. But M. For manual. Me.)

236. Drill (We've been doing a craft activity today which involves The Boy using a hand drill for the first time. I was stretched upwards with my camera pointing down to take an overhead view, and hadn't realised that he was so curious about it coming through the underneath, he'd ducked down. I like his inquisitive nature.)

—

How To Make Pirate Party Bags

July 1, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 9 Comments

When The Boy had his pirate party recently, I decided that plastic 'loot' bags weren't going to cut it for authenticity so I bought some hessian fabric from eBay and made my own loot bags.

Pirate Party Bags

The hessian was neatly woven along one side already, which is the side I used for the opening. Each bag measured 15cmx25cm, requiring a rectangle of hessian measuring 33cmx27cm which was folded over and stitched along the one side and base using a sewing machine. I tied the bag using natural garden twine.

I'm a stickler for party bags at children's parties and hate most of the cheap tat that comes in them; I'd rather spent 25p more a bag for some relevant and quality items than give something which is pointless. Cheap sweets and plastic toys are a waste of the host's money, and are usually forgotten within half an hour of the party.

With clever shopping and a bit of time, quality and relevant contents for a party bag can be found in supermarkets, pound shops and craft stores. eBay is also brilliant for party bag contents!

Pirate party bags - loot

Inside each bag there was:

a treasure chest (decorated by the children during the party as one of the activities) – Baker Ross
a pirate pencil – Wilkinson's sale section
a working compass – Asda
a party blower (pirate themed) – Wilkinson's
a maze (pirate themed) – Wilkinson's
pirate stickers – Asda
chocolate coins – saved from Christmas when they're a lot cheaper!
bubbles (pirate themed) – Wilkinson's

The hessian bags worked out exactly the same price as a standard bag. The fabric was £2.49 a metre and I made ten bags out of half of the fabric which meant they cost 12p each. The items listed above were between 10p-25p each. The treasure chests were the single most expensive item at 99p each, but they were also one of the activities that the children did during the party so have a dual purpose with cost. The total cost of each bag (without the chest) was £1.12.

Days 174-180 of Project 365

June 29, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 24 Comments

174-180 of 365

174. Spiderman (We were fortunate enough to have a day sightseeing in London following the Britmums conference, and managed a trip on the London Eye for The Boy to locate the places he'd seen with Mr. TBaM the day before. Afterwards we were able to finally visit the Jubilee Gardens at its base, which we'd seen being built last year.)

175. Digging for Treasure (A simple day playing in the house and garden after an exhausting weekend. Nothing is better at the moment than digging for treasure. Especially with Toy Story sunglasses and a genuine pirate hat.)

176. Speedy (An absolutely beautiful evening meant that we were able to nip down to the local nature reserve, feed the swans and practice bike-riding amongst the bullrushes and bamboo.)

177. Playmobil World (More pirates, I know. What can I say? He's loving the hat at the moment. However, I returned home from work today to discover nearly every single piece of Playmobil he owns all spread out in the dining room, and 'pirate caves' created in the Ikea shelving. I love that his imagination is starting to kick in.)

178. Pavement artist (A simple activity which I often forget about; chalk drawing and writing on the patio, focusing on over-writing letters.)

179. On Target (We created a reward chart for The Boy this week, focusing not on behavioural issues, but on time and personal management. Having been for his Reception induction last week I'm very aware that he needs to speed up the rate at which he eats his meals – apart from anything else, the hour is driving us mad – as he won't have time in his lunch break to be chivied along. We've set him the target of eating within thirty minutes, and he's managed it at every mealtime! Other targets are getting dressed by himself – preparing for PE lessons – and tidying up. As a reward he was able to go to soft play with daddy while I was at the Summer Fayre this morning.)

180. Me and My Shadow (After the Summer Fayre, where I painted eleventy billion pink butterflies, we went for a long walk across Cardiff Bay Barrage to the pirate park, and scooted back. The sun was amazing and I love this shadow.)

—

Days 160-166 of Project 365

June 15, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 30 Comments

160-166 of 365

160. Ground Force! (Little did The Boy know that the groundwork that he and daddy were doing on Sunday was for the area that his climbing frame – his birthday present – is destined for. We've done some relocation work of some fairly permanent features to accommodate the frame, this area used to be a patio which housed his Little Tikes house.)

161. Retro (The four eyebrows and tongue of concentration make a reappearance in this photo. I'd bought him one of those snake twisty things (that could make telephones and balls and stuff) that were all the rage in the 80s and he was absolutely fascinated with it.)

162. Shadow (Today was one of those deceptive days where it seemed mild and cloudy, yet when the wind blew the clouds away, the heat was extradordinary. We had to do a lot of shopping for his birthday party and as he'd been such a good boy we went up to the clifftop park. It's very peaceful up there looking over the Bristol Channel, and the skies cleared to reveal a scorching heat and the most amazing late-afternoon shadows.)

163. Surprise! (The Boy's birthday! Unfortunately I had to work, as did Mr. TBaM. This is a new one for us on The Boy's birthday as I'm usually off work, Mr. TBaM takes the day off and we have a family treat day out somewhere, but not this year and it made me sad. However, I raised home from work and we led The Boy into the garden with his eyes covered by his woolly hat. This photo was taken the very moment that he whipped it off to reveal his birthday present; a climbing frame.)

164. Adventurer (The climbing frame is going to play a huge part in our play I suspect! His confidence has grown in just one day from slowly stumbling from one rung to another of the jungle run, to walking over and barely holding on!)

165. Monkey Boy (I wondered when he'd discover the monkey bar aspect to the jungle run, it seems it was to be today. He's swinging from a single bar, he can't move himself onto the next rung yet, but he is enjoying hooking his legs over the frame – to take the weight – and moving his hands along to the next rung. He's certainly building his technique though.)

166. Blow (Today was the big day, The Boy's Pirate Party. Up to goodness knows what time last night baking a cake, decorating it at 7.30 this morning, running around like a blue-arsed fly all morning, and it all paid off as the party went brilliantly. It did rain for the first hour, but stopped and brightened during lunch. They were able to get outside and play – on the climbing frame – once the birthday cake had happened.)

—

How To Make Pirate Bunting

June 10, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 12 Comments

How to make pirate bunting

We're fortunate enough to have a perfectly south-facing garden and a son born in the Summer. This tends to mean that we are able to utilise the garden for his parties and bedeck the trees and bushes with bunting and balloons.

(That's the theory anyway, but on his second birthday there was a near monsoon outside in south Wales, and his third was in a church hall because it had rained for the fortnight before and I wasn't taking any chances.)

However, one of the things that I adore in the Summer months is seeing brightly coloured bunting draped through trees, and although we have 50 metres of home-made Very Hungry Caterpillar bunting from his first birthday, I felt that we needed some new flags for his fourth birthday; a pirate-themed party.

I did some research and found a huge selection of red, white and black fabrics suitable for pirate bunting from a variety of online shops and Ikea.

How To Make Pirate Bunting

More specifically the fabrics I bought were:

red and white polka dots
red and black stripes
pirates skull and crossbones
blue nautical flags
plain red
red and white stripes, black and white stripes both from Ikea

Using this Pirate Bunting template, I traced out the triangles of fabric and cut them out using pinking shears (prevents the edges from fraying and saves time on stitching them too). For each 5 metre length of ribbon, I had nine different fabrics and used three of each. I laid them out in a pattern which meant there was a good contrast of red, white and black, along with alternating patterns and stripes.

Pirate Bunting flags

Next job was to pin them on to the ribbon. I used 5 metre lengths to make it more manageable with sewing and untaggling, and had a 15cm strip of ribbon free at either end for tying onto the tree or fence post. I left a 1cm gap in between the triangles and pinned three complete repetitions along the 5 metre length. After pinning the triangles into place, I used the sewing machine with red thread to stitch them into place.

How To Make Pirate Bunting

In total I made thirty metres of fabric to string around the garden for his pirate party, very jolly!

How To Make Pirate Bunting

Why I Love Pinterest (Pin It Forward)

May 30, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 7 Comments

I'm a visual learner (technically a visual-kinaesthetic learner), which basically means that I learn and remember things better once I see them, especially if it involves pictures. As a result, the 'bookmarks' function on most browsers doesn't do it for me as I forget that I've put something there.

That's why I love Pinterest.

Pinterest is a web-based facility which allows users to create virtual 'boards' with items or ideas on it that they like (grouped into categories if they are that organised). For example I am busy browsing the web at the moment for ideas for The Boy's pirate birthday party, I've got a 'pin it' button on my browser and I click that when I see something I like. It saves on the 'Pirate' board I have and allows me to browse the ideas quickly, and then (because it saves the original site's URL in the picture) I can revisit it easily for more details. Far easier to use than 'Bookmarks'!

The other great thing about Pinterest is that other people can 'repin' your ideas onto their own boards, and as a blogger who often writes about craft or play ideas, then it's a great way to share my ideas around the 'Pin-o-sphere'.

Finally, I really enjoy the collaborative boards that can be created on Pinterest. I'm a member of several craft boards, but also run a few boards myself which help promote fun food for children, family days out or outdoor play. My favourite board at the moment is my 'Natural Childhood' board which has over twenty bloggers sharing ideas and prompts for outdoor play.

This month sees the Pinterest campaign 'Pin It Forward' kick off, involving 300 bloggers from a cross-section of interests. The campaign is designed to be the official launch of Pinterest in the UK, although I've been using it for around eighteen months now and have fifty-six boards as a result. As a part of the campaign, I have the honour of introducing another 'Pinner' to my readers, and it really is a pleasure to introduce Christine from Thinly Spread, and her Family Gardening collaborative board.

Thinly Spread was one of the first blogs that I started reading back in 2010, and Chris is a little bit of a blog-crush of mine, especially with her idyllic life with her Ransome-esque family in Somerset. Nip over and check out her wonderful boards full of country goodness for that wonderful feel-good inner glow.

Nip over to Pinterest now, and see what all the fuss is about!

Monday 1st October 2012 – 'Cap'n Wonky' (275/366)

October 2, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 3 Comments

Pirate Craft Under A Yellow Moon Sky

September 11, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 4 Comments

It's fairly obvious to anyone who reads this blog regularly that I like doing craft activities with The Boy. And obviously Yellow Moon got that impression as well because they've sent us a box of art and craft supplies to get busy with over the Summer holidays. We've been chocka-block embracing our inner pirates in a wealth of shiver-me-timbers activities and had great fun in the process.

The Boy and I have made a number of things with these resources, and I have posted about them separately, but there were a few smaller activities that I wanted to share and show the resources we used to make them.

Pirate Collage

Foam stickers (£2.99 for 120) and coloured card (£2.99 for 50).

Pirate Finger Puppets

We coloured in these nifty pre-cut finger puppets (£2.99 for 24) with metallic pens and coloured felt pens.

We were sent other items which we used to make a pirate island, a treasure hunt and a spyglass. It's provided us with a Summer of fun and games, exploring history and adventure. It's also given me huge idea for The Boy's birthday party next Summer!

We were provided with these items for the purpose of this post. Our ideas and opinions are honest and our own.

How To Have A Pirate Treasure Hunt

September 10, 2012 by TheBoyAndMe 7 Comments

That Peppa Pig has got a lot to answer for you know! Thanks to her and her friends on Pirate Island, we've had to hold a treasure hunt, although I have managed to stop short of making a metal detector to find treasure in the garden. (Maybe we could pretend there's treasure in the defunct vegetable patch which might convince Mr. TBaM to dig it over?)

If you want to have a treasure hunt, you'll need:

pirate craft