Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
If there's one childhood activity which is guaranteed to appeal to the inner child in all of us, it is blowing bubbles!
Sock-snake bubbles are one of the many different ways of playing with bubbles which gives a really fun result. And they use resources which are easily found around the house.
68. Free! (It was a beautiful day in south Wales with temperatures reaching 15°C. So we headed down to the barrage with Mr. TBaM's bike and the tag-along. The Boy absolutely loves cycling with daddy, and he is honestly screaming in glee in this photograph.)
69. Warning (I should have realised when he didn't want to play in the garden that something wasn't quite right with him. A headache all day in school and plenty of sobbing after school meant a rough night and buying a new bottle of calpol.)
70. Ill (The Boy was off school today with a trip to the doctor on the cards; third bout of ear infections this Winter, with tonsillitis added in for 'good' measure. I've not seen him so ill for a long time.)
71. Swish (We managed to do some craft after school using one of the silk painting kitsfollow that we'd bought from Baked By Me. A bargain at £2.00 from £8.99!)
72. 40.5 (Dreadful day and night. Horrendous. I was called out of school early because my mum was so worried about The Boy's temperature, and then that night he spiked at 40.5°C with a fever. It took a full two hours, both nurofen and calpol, a cold flannel, no duvet in the cover, and a fan on full pelt, to get his temperature under 39°C, and for him to manage to attempt sleep. At 2.30am he ended up in our room with me holding him all night for him to be able to sleep.)
73. On The Mend (The Boy was definitely beginning to feel better after the dreadfulness of the night before, we even managed to attempt some craft in the afternoon which resulted in a cheeky look for his lordship.)
74. Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do! (The first daisy of the year picked for mummy, I came home from the park that a school-friend's birthday party was held in with a pocket full of them. So pleased to see my little man out and about with a little colour in his cheeks.)
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300. Glee (Pure joy as The Boy flings Autumn leaves into the air at the National Trust site of Tyntesfield.)
301. Town Planner (The start of our half-term craft and play project.)
302. It's High Up Here! (Standing aloft a bale of hay at Yeo Valley with Burton and Jenson from Mummy Mishaps.)
303. Landscape Architect (Continuing our craft and play project where The Boy initiated his first ever written word without any prompting; bottom left he wrote a label on the cardboard.)
304. Pumpkin Driller (Little boys who are four aren't old enough to carve a pumpkin, so we drilled holes in it instead.)
305. Five Dec-car (He wanted to make a five decker car. Because he's four and he can.)
306. Hold On (We were in Reading for the Matilda Mae Welly Walk in Beale Park, and went off exploring with Laura from Tired Mummy of Two and her family. This is The Boy and Elizabeth squealing with laughter while Tired Daddy of Two pushed them.)
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265. Country Kids (We revisited Cefn Onn Park with my brother and his family. My niece and sister-in-law had never been there before and were amazed by it. The children have such great fun together, as soon as we arrived they headed up a tree, closely followed by walking up the stream. They get on so well together, it's really heart-warming to see the next generation together.)
266. Conkers (This week I've been making the effort to set up a play opportunity for The Boy after school, he enjoyed last week's invitation to play so much, and it gave us that quality time together.)
267. Tiddlywinks (On Saturday The Boy begged me to buy some tiddlywinks, we trawled the toy shops to no avail and so I had to order them from Amazon. He was over the moon when they arrived today and he could play them.)
268. Squidgy (He absolutely loved sorting out these pom-poms using the tray and large tweezers. Better still was squeaking them in his ear!)
269. Up (Another invitation to play for The Boy, I was taking an overhead shot and meant to get it of the table but accidentally snapped my son instead. Rather glad I did now!)
270. Swing (The only photo this week taken on my phone, more importantly the only one not taken on manual! We had to battle spiders' webs to get to the garden, I hate this time of year for that!)
271. Bare (We went into Cardiff today to buy some Autumn/Winter boots for The Boy, and called into the Cardiff Country Fayre afterwards. I'd debated trying to get some press tickets earlier in the week for it, but decided in the end that I didn't have time for a blog-post so we paid. I'm rather pleased we came to that conclusion as I'd struggle with a post on an event which isn't really our type of thing. The Boy enjoyed climbing on the tractors and seeing the animals, but we ended up spending 45 minutes looking for conkers instead!)
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Ever since The Boy started school, I've missed many parts of our daily routine especially the spontaneous play sessions. Once home from school, he tends to collapse on the sofa with a snack and drink, watching television for a little while, and I realised quite quickly that it would be very easy for it to suddenly be tea time and not have had any time together doing anything.
As a result I have started setting up a play invitation for him to explore, nothing challenging or requiring any detailed levels of concentration, more activities that allow sensory exploration. I think he finds them quite therapeutic, exploring different textures, drawing patterns and allowing his mind to wander as he plays.
All of these items are resources that we had lying around the house (or garden). The partitioned plate is one of three that I bought for The Boy's birthday party food last year from Asda. The large tweezers are from Amazon and the coloured counters for tiddlywinks from eBay.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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:
This is the bottom of my garden…
…and I am deeply unhappy with it.
In theory it's a great area; a decent sized patio, a fabulous triangular pergola (I'm still in awe of my husband for working out how to build this, and then doing so), a beautiful cherry blossom tree, sheltered from the wind which blows up the 'tunnel' created by living in a long street of parallel houses. All of these things should mean it's a perfect area and it's certainly what I had in mind when I designed it.
However, as you can see it's a dumping ground. The Boy is far too big to play with those toys and we have nowhere else to put them. And because I'd like to grant him the joy of a sibling at some point, I refuse to get rid of them. Therefore they stay cluttering up the bottom patio and being no good to anyone. Furthermore, it doesn't get any sun and as a result it's not the idyllic space I'd hoped for. And that cherry tree has pushed up the paving slabs around it.
So you can see that it's just a space which is. And it's a waste.
I am planning on changing the garden around (yet again) in light of the fact that The Boy now has no climbing equipment in it. Well he does, but I'm not entirely sure that climbing up the side of the slide is the correct use for it. Nor is that what a swing is for. And so I've been investigating climbing frames which might be suitable for him and not take up too much space in the garden, although the only problem is that they unfortunately do take up a lot of space because an allowance has to be given for 'fall space'.
If only you knew how many times I've stood in the garden trying to work out how to fit it all in without changing too much of the structure.
Mr. TBaM and I have come to the conclusion that the best place would be along the side of the garden (as he still needs lawn space to run around and play ball games in), which means that we need to relocate his Little Tikes house from the beautifully laid, year old patio in the same spot. It's going to go down to the bottom of the garden on half of the patio above, the other half of the patio has already been taken up to provide the tree with more space for its roots, and to relocate the compost bin.
I'm also looking to set up two more things down in newly reclaimed area of garden; a mud pie kitchen and a willow den (somehow incorporating the trunk of the cherry tree).
Mr. TBaM has no idea that I want to build a willow den at the bottom of the garden, but I think it's a fun thing to have and I can just imagine The Boy sitting and reading his books in it in the future.
And did I mention that he's having a party in the garden for his fourth birthday in a month. And of course I want it finished by then.
Wouldn't you?
The Boy loves painting and I try often to vary the equipment I give him so that he is able to experience the way that paint works and how it can be manipulated. We've used the traditional brushes, delved into printing with sponges and making our own tile prints, and about a month ago I decided to see what he thought of using his little Hot Wheels cars to make patterns.
To prepare for some free painting play, I:
We had great fun investigating the different tyre tracks on each vehicle, testing to see which was the most effective coloured paint for getting distinct tyre prints onto the paper, and even bordered into some science when we realised that the heavier vehicle were more effective at leaving tyre patterns. The Boy loved looking to see how the wet paints were crossing over and mixing to create new shades of green, etc. In total we spent about an hour zooming the cars back and for; the artwork is still taped to my kitchen wall because I love the colours in it so much.
I'd already thought about the fact that I didn't want to be spending ages scouring his car afterwards, and had enlisted the help of some basic cleaning sponges and his Step2 water table to create a car wash for him. One of the simplest activities that he likes to do is go to the car wash and see the coloured foam squirt all over the car before various brushes, rollers and sponge strips clean the car.
I decided to recreate this using:
The Step2 water table we have has two different levels with a slope connecting them. I filled the top level with shaving foam and a few drops of food colouring to create the foam of a car wash. Near to the entrance of the slope to the lower level I Blu-tacked some round plastic scourers, and at the top of the sponge I placed some sponge scourers; both designed to rub the dirt off. At the bottom of the slope I hung the sponge wipe 'curtain'. The lower level of the table was filled with water to rinse the cars off.
I placed a few of his Playmobil figures at strategic points with small sponges in their hands and invited him to clean his paint-laden cars off.
The Boy happily played with his car wash for well over another hour, in fact he got his cars covered in paint repeatedly so he could wash them all off again. Water play is always such fun but sometimes he gets bored when it lacks focus. He also won't go anywhere near messy play if I present it to him as a dedicated messy play activity. However, the format of the car wash enabled him to experience both messy play and then wash the shaving foam off in the water if it became too much for him to bear.
