Coloured rice

This was a quirky alternative to sand for the sandbox. They loved messing up the rainbow!

You use uncooked rice, food colouring and vinegar to set it. Then let it dry out on baking trays.

My new 'therapy' w.c.!

I had been collecting sayings I like on Pinterest for ages and had no idea what to do with them. At the same time I was trying to think what to do to make the downstairs w.c. more interesting. I was hoping to go eccentric and then it struck me I could put them on the wall. I drew frames around the print outs with a permanent marker.

I love the result. It serves as a place to escape and read some phrases to 'restock' me for my next few hours with the mayhem that is looking after three young boys. I also hope it serves to 'indoctrinate' the children with positive messages. And I also love finding out which phrases have stuck in guests minds. It doubles up as a good excuse for however long they have spent in the loo!

Colour mixing and mess-free mark making in freezer bags

This is another common idea from pinterest (see Teach, Play, Love- my boys here) adapted to what I had available.

I used large ziplock freezer bags and paint (a lot use coloured hair gel but I don't have any hair gel!). I wanted C to learn to how colours mix to make other colours so I used 2 colours in each bag, and sellotaped the top shut, after expelling any excess air.

C got a lot more from this activity than I expected him to. First of all was the fun of 'squishing', and the fun of 'spreading out' the paint to fill the bag. He used his hand and cars for that.

Then he 'drew' in the paint with an empty pen shell on the table and then we stuck it on a sunny window pain and had a long session mark making with the empty pen, his fingers and even the sellotape roll.  The resulting 'rainbow' looks so lovely on a sunny Spring day!

It was a great success and I recommend it to anyone.

 
 

Bicarb and Coloured Vinegar - Artistic and Scientific!

This was an exercise in trying to improve Max's fine motor skills and strength by using pipettes and syringes to transfer coloured white vinegar into a tray of bicarbonate of soda to make little fizzing mountains of coloured fun!

Opening ceremony feast & flag bunting

This was another of our Olympic themed Mummy school activities. We printed lots of flag colouring pages off the internet and coloured them in. It is so impressive how well they absorbed this information and can now recognise at least 25 flags from around the world!

We joined them together with some trusty duct tape and hung this around the (now very sparse due to packing everything up for moving) living room.

This served as a lovely backdrop for the opening ceremony.

The boys got to stay up late and we had a feast with at least one dish from each of the 5 continents represented by the rings;

Prawn toast & bhajis & thai spring rolls for Asia

Chips and Tex mex dips for the Americas

Moroccan cous cous salad  & biltong for Africa

Cocktail sausages and cheese for Europe

Key Lime Pie for Australasia

Mummy school - Olympic biscuits

This weeks topic isn't very original but still worthwhile and very exciting. It is the Olympics.

We have been busy counting down & preparing for our opening ceremony feast, doing worksheets galore, playing some of the many games on the official Wenlock and Mandeville website and learning all about the countries participating , the history of the games and what games are included.

I will post a few of our favourite activities and this was certainly one. Not exactly in keeping with the ethos of health as they are cookies but they are made with wholemeal flour and malt to attempt to make them healthier than the average biscuit.

We used Nigellas cut out biscuit recipe but substituted wholemeal flour and added some instant horlicks powder for flavour rather than vanilla.

I then used my lovely new colour pastes to make the colours of the rings. Did you know the colours are chosen because every flag in the games contains at least one of these colours? 

We decorated them with our friends, learning that the 5 rings represent the 5 continents (although North & South America is counted as one which is a bit of a cheat!)

Summer Mummy School

So successful has Mummy School gone down in our house and so enthusiastic the boys are for me to put the  Bear down for his sleep, that the other day, Ollie came downstairs dressed like this.....

Saying "I'm ready for Mummy school, Mrs Mummy!"

I thought I would post inks to a few of the sites that I have found helpful in providing free worksheets on all manner of topics.
Here is a few of my favourites;
ISLcollective
www.printactivities.com
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk
http://www.magickeys.com/books/
http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/
http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/worksheets/
http://www.mes-english.com
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/

Dinosaur watermelon carving at Summer Mummy School

This week we have been learning all about fruit at 'Mummy school'

Because we are moving from Scotland to England over the summer holidays, the boys are going to end up being off school for 10 whole LOOOOONNNNNGGG weeks!

So, to help them remember everything they learnt to do so well this year, (and to stop me going quite so insane!), we have decided to go to 'Mummy's school' for an hour a day, while the smallest boy is having his morning nap. Each week we will choose a topic.

This week was fruit. This is what we have done;

Thought of every fruit we can think of.

Made a banana smoothie

Been shopping for a fruit we have never tried before, weighing it on the scales and buying it with coins.

Surveyed family and friends for their favourite fruit and drawn a bar graph

Coloured in pictures of fruit found on the net

Drawn our own pictures

Completed various fruit related literacy and maths worksheets (free online downloads)

Read a free online book about fruit that was really cute

Carved a watermelon into a dinosaur shape (after last years success with a shark - see here)

Gone to the library and got out books about fruit

We are going pick you own fruit picking at the weekend and we plan to make some fruit leather with the pickings.

Made a fruit salad.

Illustrated the seasons with the seasonal cycle of an apple tree

Next week will be the very original.... Olympics. Today we kicked it off by watching the torch procession come passed Nanny's house on the Skype video chat! It froze at the exact moment it came passed!

Nursery Teacher Gift Idea

Teacher gifts are always tricky, and when it's nursery it's even trickier because there are lots of them!

 My friend is a primary school teacher and when asked what her preferred end of year gift was she said "Wine is always the winner, you can't go wrong because even when it isn't very nice you can always cook with it!"

So I give wine to the primary school teachers, but it felt a bit wrong to walk into nursery with 3 bottles of red! So I started thinking along the sweet treat line, but thought that they probably get overwhelmed with sweet treats all in one go, and had a eureka moment of making them some cookie dough that they can put in their freezer and slice and bake as the urge comes to them.

I used my best chewy cookie dough recipe (find it here) and made three flavours, cinnamon oaty raisin, peanut butter choc chip and mint choc chip.

I hadn't made the mint choc chip ones before so I had to use trial and error a bit. I made the basic choc chip (though you could use mint flavoured chocolate) and then added a bit of peppermint essence (about 2tsp) and a bit of my new paste colourings to make the perfect vivid green!!!

On a side note, I am so excited that I finally got around to getting professional paste food colourings for baking. They have changed my life - well, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration, or maybe not - my life is truly that sad!) They are such amazing value for money as you use just a tiny spec and get more colour than you get from a whole bottle of the stuff you get from supermarkets. I got mine here. I only bought yellow, red and blue as you can mix to make any colour yourself.

I dressed them up with a little poem we wrote to make it more personal and some baking/storage instructions. We did get some funny looks as we walked in with them on the last day, and some mothers asked me why I had made a green sausage but the teachers were absolutely delighted with them. I'm not sure who picked which but I think I can guess based on their three personality types!

Elephant Hawkmoths continued

You may remember back in August Uncle Tony gave the boys some Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillars. These pupated and have been merrily sleeping in a Quality Street tin in the back garden all winter. The sun is now starting to come out so we thought we had better prepare a home for them to emerge as moths into when they are ready. This should be in the next couple of months. 

This is what we have cobbled together for them.

It involved 1metre of netting fabric (the type you use for underskirts) sewn around a ring I use for drying flowers. I might sew another wire ring half way down to make sure the wind won't blow the net shut on them.

Hopefully they will emerge, mate and lay eggs so we can then release them and nurture some more caterpillars and the boys can experience the great circle of life!

Roman centurion/ Eco Warrior

It was Eco week at school this week and the boys could dress up in something they had made from re-utilised and re-cycled bits and bobs.

Ollie has an obsession with picking up hubcaps at the moment so this seemed a good way to get them out the

Drawing frames

We made these ages ago, but a friend commented on how much she liked them the other day and that she was going to copy the idea, so it made me think it might be good to post about them to pass the idea on to others.

We made three (one each) and the picture of their choice goes in until they choose another one. It helps them make decisions about which of their work they are most proud of. 

It also keeps down the volume of pictures I need to keep. The ones they choose for the frames are the ones I then scan into the computer to save for prosperity (I have included a drawing section in their annual photo books - see here). I do love kids' drawings. It's not even that they are my kids' ones. There is something so wonderful and free about them. I love seeing how they see the world and the stories they make up within them are fabulous.

We made them with cardboard. Simply cutting out a frame shape and then layering up with twiddly bits to make it look a bit more like an ornate frame.

Then, on the back I stuck thin strips of card about 1-2cms wide, onto 3 of the 4 sides of the window, then stuck a full card rectangle on to this. This leaves a slot for the paper to fit into on one side There is a piece on the back and a slot to put the picture into. It is stuck to the wall with bluetack and so can be either way up. We painted them and then went crazy with the glitter to make them extra special. 

Addition: I saw this idea the other day on Pinterest. It is a company that turns children's drawings into soft toys. I love it. Maybe one day?

Bedtime Quiz or 'You've got to pick a pocket or two'

For a good year now, we have added Quiz-time to our bedtime routine. After bath, pyjamas, milk, reading stories, brushing teeth, tucking in, talking about our day we added 6 questions each before lights out!

The idea was to help Ollie with his mental arithmetic but it expanded out to all sorts of things; Adding, subtracting, counting backwards, forwards from higher number, tens and units, counting in multiples, reading a clock, days of the week, months, seasons, the words for specific baby animals, male and female animals, adding money, giving change, letters. Basically anything and everything just to keep variety and stop me going insane!
When Daddy is home in time for bedtime, the boys get very excited about Daddy doing their quiz. Unfortunately Daddy struggles to think of questions. So that got me thinking about making a hanging that will help us think up questions.
Daddy came home tonight and said "Oh look, Mummy has been at the felt again!" and I had!!!

I made a hanging with 9 pockets for pictures/things I had written on a word document, printed and then laminated (on my birthday laminator!). The pockets are animals, money, sums, time, words (flash cards & letters), numbers (so can do sums with bigger numbers), times tables, shapes and other.

It seems to work well. It certainly helps my brain when it stubbles around trying to think of new things at the end of the day!

The good thing about it is it can evolve as they get older and have different things to master.

Letter from the Queen!!

Well, how exciting was it this morning, when the Postman knocked on our door and doffed his cap as he delivered a letter addressed to Ollie, Max & Charlie Andrew, that was embossed with the EIIR symbol and post marked Buckingham Palace!

It was very hard waiting for the boys to come back from school/nursery to open it. I have never been so tempted to steam a letter open. It was so thick!

It was a lovely letter inside. It was really specific to what they had sent. It came with some really good leaflets about how the Queen spends her day, one about her pets and one about Buckingham Palace. In the one about her day it said the Queen views a good proportion of the items that have been sent into her before asking the office to reply. I like to think she really did see the gift and card we sent and maybe even that someone has actually hung them in the garden!

It caused such excitement in our household! The boys took the letter into school and ended up showing every class and every member of staff! 

Mum hunted out the letter I got back in 1986 and sent it up to us so the boys could see that too and they could be kept together, ready for the next generation to add to it!

Trying to figure out money and coins

Both the boys are struggling a bit with the concept of more coins not equaling more money! So I drew this to try and explain the fact that 1 coin can be worth as much as one hundred coins depending on what the coin is. I think it helped a little, but think it will be a long road!

Practicing Presents

Today Max played practicing wrapping presents by wrapping his toys in newspaper, and then, when he got home from school, Ollie played trying to guess what is inside the present before unwrapping it!

St Andrews Day off school

The boys had today off due to the strikes, so we made a bit of a big deal of St Andrew's Day. We looked up who he was on the internet, drew pictures, made Saltires and then made shortbread and dropped it round to all our neighbours to celebrate.

Library book recepticle

So many people have seen us with this and said what a good idea it was that I thought I would share it with the ether... It's an old washing powder box (the really big 90 washes size) covered in coloured paper used for carrying and storing the kids library books.
It's a lot stronger than carrier bags, even jute/canvas ones. Plus it stays upright so works better to keep library books together once they are home and being read in the bedroom.

The tooth fairy visits our house for the very first time!

Yesterday Ollie's first tooth fell out at school. He managed to catch it and bring it home. We were all very excited at the prospect of a visit from the tooth fairy! So excited, I made a little bag to put our tooth fairy offerings in!

The tooth fairy came and found the tooth. We were all very excited in the morning to find that not only had she left two £2 coins!!! she had also written a lovely letter congratulating Ollie and reminding him to keep brushing his teeth to keep them nice and clean.

Stickman, I'm Stickman, that's me!

Max found a stick that looked quite a bit like the shape of the stick from his favourite book, Stick Man by Julia Donaldson (the same lady that wrote The Gruffulo)

So we stuck some leaves on with PVA glue and some eyes and drew on a mouth with silver pen and he took it into Nursery for the other children to play with enjoy him too!