Pipecleaner Space Hat

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I have never understood the appeal of pipecleaners. They bend and make cool shapes, but for a pre-schooler I've always thought they were a little pointless and hard work.

And then I discovered (via Pinterest) a few activities which suggest that they can be used as a tool in threading and beading exercises.

I set out a tray of materials for The Boy as an invitation to explore and play.

We used:

  • metallic coloured pipe cleaners
  • buttons of various sizes
  • maxi Hama beads
  • a metal sieve
  • silver confetti strands

The pipecleaners are much easier to use for threading than a shoelace as they stay rigid and don't flop over while trying to fit the beads onto the end. This also makes them easier to shape when creating a design. One more bonus is that the metallic fibres covering the wire enable beads to stay in place and not slip down to the end.

We started by poking the wire end into the sieve and bending it over 'inside' to prevent it from being pulled out. Then The Boy was keen to have a mismatch of buttons and Hama beads on the pipecleaners, alternating and contrasting the design. Buttons that have multiple holes are really useful to thread two pipecleaners through. To ensure the buttons and beads didn't fall off, we tucked the loose end back into the sieve and bent the end over again.

Threading with pipecleaners

Threading is an excellent activity for pre-school children as it helps to develop fine motor skills, hand to eye co-ordination and the pincer grip; all of which are needed to develop pre-writing skills. Pipecleaners are a very useful tool for threading because of their rigidity.

And it's great fun too!

'Natural Childhood' With The National Trust (Country Kids)

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  1. USA
  2. Australia
  3. UK

Not winners of the Olympics. Nor are they the most wealthy in the world (although that might be true). The above ranking refers to the worst countries in the developed world for getting children outside and playing.

I'm a little shocked. More than a little shocked to be honest. I expected America to be pretty rubbish at encouraging outdoor play, but Australia? With all that open space and the wonderful environment? I am, ashamedly, not surprised to see that the UK is third though; the health and safety police combined with the fear factor of child abduction has fostered a generation of children who have an outdoor, roaming space which is 90% smaller than we did as children.

For the past sixteen months I've been a willing participant in the Country Kids weekly linky run over on the Coombe Mill blog. Country Kids is the brainchild of Fiona, who owns Coombe Mill (a family farm holiday location), and promotes outdoor play with your children. It doesn't have to be in the country (which is just as well as ours are at the beach) but it does have to be in the fresh air and encouraging a 'natural childhood'.

This 'Natural Childhood' I speak of is a movement to promote getting our children back into nature and helping them to rediscover the joys of outdoor play. On Saturday we were the guests of the National Trust at Nymans in Sussex, to find out about the 'Natural Childhood' campaign being led by many people including David Bond, Project Wild Thing, the National Trust, and many other agencies. All are united in their desire to see children climbing trees, getting mucky, and having old fashioned, outdoor fun.

Exactly what Country Kids stands for.

There'll be more about the campaign in another post, but for now I want to document a major change in my son.

This is The Boy who couldn't balance a year ago, who had minimal confidence in his physical ability, who wouldn't contemplate a cargo net or three step ladder. The concept of tree climbing? Never!

tree climbing

The middle photograph above shows The Boy arguing with Rob Cowen who was trying to tell him that he couldn't climb the pine tree as it had no lower branches. The Boy didn't believe him. He tried (and failed) but the point is that he tried determinately. Disgruntled, he went and climbed another tree.

And then, Rob showed us how to make a den. A den suitable for sleeping out in (if you are so inclined, I'm not) and one that was incredibly warm and dry.

den building

The Boy was in his element. That smile is not one which he puts on for the camera; it is pure joy.

Ticking off another items from their '50 Things To Do Before You're 11 & ¾', the bloggers' children then all sat around a campfire and toasted marshmallows. We had a minor incident when The Boy was daintily eating his in several bites and dropped it on the floor, but he soon made sure that didn't happen again by shoving his replacement in all in one!

We jumped up and down in muddy puddles, we raced up and down hills, we made friends. But above all else we had fun!

natural childhood

And if ever there was proof that the outdoors is good for a child, making him happy, raising his self-esteem, and giving him self-worth and confidence in his capabilities, surely this is it?

happy child

—

coombe mill

Country Kids: Three Boys, A Hoop & Copious Amounts Of Rain

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I detest this time of year; from the second week in January until the third week of February, the post-Christmas blues hit me and Spring seems such a very long time away. It was alleviated somewhat by our snow days, but this past fortnight has been foul. I needed a break and so we booked into a Premier Inn in Weston-Super-Mare and headed directly across the channel. (Or rather around it, due to a lack of ferry or barrage.)

As we were in the area, I checked with Jenny from Mummy Mishaps if she and her gorgeous family were free; they were and we spent the day with them in their gorgeous, palatial, new house. Both Jenny and I were hopeful we could go to the beach or one of the beautiful parks in the area, but the torrential rain put pay to that. We did however spend a fun half an hour in the garden with the boys and an old hula-hoop, and really tested the theory that there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!

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Giddy up, horsey!

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A friendly game of tug of war!

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Running through a rolling hoop!

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Jumping up and down in muddy puddles!

We had a brilliant time with Jenny and her lovely family, the boys played beautifully together and it was so great to see The Boy enjoying the company of his friends. I've also got a new vegetable recipe to try out with alongside my Jenny Craig meals, and need to try and convince Mr. TBaM that we don't really need an XBox Kinect (while I actually want one myself!).

—

coombe mill

Small World: Beach Play

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Whistling against the double-glazed doors, the wind howled around the garden searching for an outlet. It found its victim in the lone toy lying on the patio; the Step 2 water table, abandoned since the last warm day of Summer, rolling around the concrete slabs.

Irritating the hell out of me!

Which was the point that I summoned my husband to, "just do something with it, will you?!"

And then I glanced down at the Pinterest board that I had open displaying a plethora of play ideas. Many of them use exactly the same water table that was in danger of being outcast at that very moment. Mr. TBaM was informed to bring it in and clean it off and an idea started taking shape in my mind.

The Boy loves playing with his water table, and he loves playing at the beach. It's slightly Arctic at the moment and as much as I'm happy to chant the mantra, 'There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!', after a while it turns into a lie; it's really cold at Barry Island at this time of year!

The Boy and I (see I'm capable of the correct grammar when necessary) nipped to a pound shop earlier and picked up a bunch of fake flowers, glass pebbles, stone polished pebbles and Blu-Tack. While he was napping this afternoon, I got busy creating him his own indoor lagoon to play with.

imaginative play

I filled the top section of the water table with sand and the lower level with water, to which I added a few drops of blue food colouring. The glass pebbles in the base help to give the 'sea' more of a ripply effect and are more colourful. They're also lovely to play with in the water.

The fake flower heads were removed, as were a variety of the leaves, and I pushed the plastic stalk into a ball of Blu-Tack which adheres well to the tub and manages to withstand water splashed quite well. I covered up the base of the Blu-Tack with smaller leaves of small pebbles. The polished stones were laid around the edges of the sand to resemble rockpools, and I created a sunlounger haven in the area where the water-wheel normally stands. Finally I added his Playmobil figures in different poses.

He was over the moon when he came downstairs to play with it, and got stuck straight in making sandcastles and diving the figures into the sea.

imaginative play

This table has proven to be a great resource for the play and I've got a whole range of other ideas to try out with it. Small World play is brilliant for pre-schoolers as it allows them to make sense of the world in which they live by acting out known situations, and exploring others with safety and guidance from the supervising adult.

It helps to develop oracy, fine motor skills and the imagination. What better excuse for playing?

Playing With Ice

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On Friday afternoon I was feeling a little low and wishing that I could have gone to the thanksgiving service of a friend, when inspiration hit me. As a former science teacher and co-founder of Science Sparks, Kerry loved making it easier for children to understand science and so I felt what better way to honour that, than get to grips with a science 'experiment' with The Boy.

I'd seen this activity on Pinterest which, while intended for Christmas, gave a great bank of ideas for playing with kitchen and craft materials to see what happens. I prepared the activity while The Boy napped and then we were ready to have fun with some ice!

I used a takeaway container and filled it with water, food colouring, glitter, sand, and sequins and then placed it in the freezer. When it was set I removed it and placed it into a tray, giving The Boy a pot of table salt and rock salt, a spoon and a water spray bottle.

playing with ice 1

He had brilliant fun making holes in the ice block with the salt and the jet of water. After a while the salt dissolved into the water and ran down the side of the block causing channels to be melted in. The Boy spotted these and picked off the ice crystals. The look of wonder on his face when he held the ice crystals in his hand, and they then subsequently melted, was amazing; sheer amazement!

Following on from this we decided to make some coloured ice cubes using food colouring. I used ice cube bags for this as I wanted to try and get the food colouring to slowly merge with the water creating ice cubes of slightly different shades. I filled the ice cube bags with water first, then inserted a straw and poured the food colouring down the straw.

coloured ice cubes

Once these had frozen, I again gave The Boy the tray with the coloured ice cubes, table salt, rock salt and a water spray bottle. The effects were even more immediate because the ice cubes were smaller and therefore melted more quickly.

playing with ice

He was fascinated with the ice crystals that were formed by the salt water solution melting the ice, and kept pouring more and more salt onto one red ice cube to try and create a hole through the middle of it. We discussed what coloured water would appear once the ice melted, and we talked about where the salt had gone. We then discussed the colour of the water once all three different coloured ice cubes had melted and mixed together.

Science Sparks has got a fantastic selection of ice play activities which are great fun for this time of year.