Category Archives: Playing

Easter holidays

I have been erratic as usual in blogging what we have been up to, which often happens when we are too busy doing it to write about it.  I am really tired at the moment, and have been going to bed as soon as the children finally settle, but I have made myself stay up tonight in an attempt to catch up.  The holidays started with a relaxing and fun Easter weekend at Granny and Grandpa’s.  The children enjoyed lots of arts and crafts, cooking and playing, and I enjoyed having time to blog about it all – a one to one ratio is very civilised!  Since then life has been a little more hectic.  I had two days at home, mainly occupied with washing and packing before setting off annual trip to Butlins in Minehead for Spring Harvest.  It is a… well I’m not sure how to describe it… Christian holiday/ conference type thing.  I’m sure there’s a better way of putting it.  We are the group organisers for our church, and we enjoyed spending time with the other families in our group, as well as meeting new people.

Our Spring Harvest highlights this year:

  • soft play and Bob the Builder world – we spent a lot of time there, as always
  • the children settled in well to their group activities in the mornings, and had a lot of fun
  • I managed to attend four of the adult sessions this time – a significant improvement on my previous best, and a testimony to the fact that life is getting easier as the kids get older (though that did make me a bit sad – it was weird being at Spring Harvest without a little baby)
  • the Big Start in the big top – an all-age introduction to the day’s theme
  • the evening all-age worship – a very chilled out end to the day
  • having two extra children with us for 24 hours while their parents’ drove home (four hours each way) for their eldest son’s confirmation.  This was a lot of fun, and also a highlight because it felt like quite an achievement that it all went so smoothly, and it was nice to be able to help our friends out.  Six children? Easy!
  • some evening socialising with the other parents (thanks to Supergirl) and daily chats over coffee
  • swimming (for the children) and not swimming (definitely a highlight for me and thanks – again – to Supergirl.  I love swimming but not the kind that involves standing at the bottom of slides getting cold and hoping your children will emerge safely.)
  • setting foot on the beach (for about 15 minutes, in between all the other things the children wanted to do – there is never enough time to fit everything in!)
  • feeling proud of Owl who had a little more freedom to explore this time, in the Skyline where the book stall and exhibition stands were, and was very responsible about coming back when he said he would (usually only about 5 minutes at a time, but it was a good experience for him.)
  • twinning our toilets (I kid you not)
  • Tiddler’s birthday, which was the last full day.  All four children were extremely lucky to be chosen to dance onstage in the final Big Start in the morning (the link is to someone’s video from Week 1 and we were there in Week 2 but it gives you the idea!)  Later on, to celebrate Tiddler’s birthday we had lunch with three other families (19 of us in total) in one of the restaurants on site.  And for me another highlight of the day was catching up, briefly, with my lovely friend (Owl’s godmother) who came for the day and joined us at the all-age worship in the evening.

I always come back from Spring Harvest feeling tired but happy, and inspired about something new.  This time I got most excited by a conversation with others from our church about the idea of starting a “messy church” service, which we have been wanting to do for a while.  It was good to discover that the others liked the idea too!

Since then, we have had a quiet few days at home, trying to catch up with laundry and housework, but also having fun with the children and enjoying unstructured time before the term-time routines start up again.  They have played with their trains and cars, Lego and puzzles, and set up a shop selling toy food.  We have enjoyed time together drawing, colouring and working on sticker and activity books, and playing with playdough.  Monkey, Rabbit and Tiddler made food, and Owl made a red planet with a space police prison on it (apparently this is based on the Lego Clutch Powers movie!)

On our way to and from Spring Harvest we drove past Stonehenge, and the children drew some great pictures for our Prehistory project when we got home.

We have also started a new project based on a Friends and Heroes DVD which we bought at Spring Harvest, along with a curriculum pack for home educators.  And today we have been making the most of the sunshine with a whole afternoon of messy play in the garden, involving rice, split peas, flour, shaving foam and water.  I really need to blog that separately I think.  Tiddler hasn’t been very well for the last few days, but he seems to be getting better and he really enjoyed playing in the garden today.  I hope Spring is finally here!

One Tuff Spot, 11 children and a lot of rice…

We got the Tuff Spot out again for Home Education Group on Wednesday afternoon, and the children really enjoyed sharing it with their friends.  I told them we would be playing with rice, and helped them to choose some suitable toys to put in and around the Tuff Spot.  I then turned my back for a minute, and found that they had added rather a lot more, just as the other families were arriving!  Once we had removed some toys to make space for 11 children to play in and around the Tuff Spot (we really need two!) I added the rice.  With some help from Monkey and one of his friends, I had hidden 22 foil-wrapped chocolate eggs in a flexible tub containing 5 kilos of rice, and I invited the children to come and see what buried treasure they could find.  This had the effect of drawing them into the activity pretty quickly, and once they got stuck in they continued to play quite happily with the rice for the next couple of hours.

It was quite hard to fit 11 children around the Tuff Spot, so I encouraged some of them to play at the table as well.  I gave them some split peas and the remains of the flour from Monday’s messy play, and they added some Playmobil figures, our rock collection and some grass, twigs and blossom from the garden.  Monkey spent a long time constructing a mini camp scene with Playmobil figures in the split peas.  I think it is not quite finished – he is planning to make a tent to add to the scene.  Rabbit made a garden which is also not finished.  I think we will have to start again when we have more time together, to make it a more satisfying activity for her.

Next time we play with rice, I think I will introduce some equipment for weighing and measuring, to extend the play and learning.  I am also planning to experiment with dyeing rice for some more colourful fun.  Do you have any more ideas for playing with rice?  I’d love to hear them!  And watch this space for a Tuff Spot/ Messy Play linky hosted by Jennie at Edspire coming soon…

Playing with flour in the Tuff Spot

In common with quite a few other bloggers, I have been inspired by Jennie at Edspire to buy a Tuff Spot, or cement mixing tray, to add a new dimension to our messy play.  It arrived last weekend, and on Monday the children couldn’t wait to get started.  I asked them what they wanted to play with, and they suggested flour.  I had set aside an hour before bathtime for the activity, but they were so engrossed that I let them carry on for an hour and a half, and it would have kept them busy for much longer if we had had time.

These are some of our ideas for playing with flour.

  • play the flour cake game: make a flour cake (like a sandcastle), place a sweet on top (we used some raisins wrapped in foil instead), take turns to cut a slice off the cake until it collapses, the last person to slice the cake can use their mouth to pick the sweet out of the flour – in our house the last bit is optional and if they don’t want to do it they still get the sweet!
  • set up a village scene with wooden houses, using the flour as snow; drive cars down the road between the houses (Owl and Monkey took turns to do this, and both spent a long time getting the scene just right.)
  • add split peas, and mix to make a cake; Rabbit turned hers out onto a plate and stuck a feather in top; Tiddler found it was easier to turn it over and just use the bowl as a cake, decorating the top with his small Postman Pat van and some more flour!
  • drive cars, trains and Postman Pat’s vans (we have a big one and a small one) through the flour, and sprinkle flour and split peas on top.
  • spread out some of the flour and split pea mixture on a plate, make a hole in to plant a seed (another split pea), then add a feather to be the plant that grows up.
  • write words and draw pictures in it: I wrote some words for Rabbit that I knew she would recognise, and she enjoyed reading them to me.
  • pat down the flour and walk in it to make footprints.

Have a look at these lovely blogs for more Tuff Spot inspiration:

Moon sand dinosaur world

Painting with trains

Oats so simple sensory play

More Spring Art and Messy Play

I was already a little behind on blogging when my laptop finally broke beyond repair last week (it was around 7 years old.)  I have now borrowed a temporary replacement, so I can catch up a bit.  There are so many things that I would like to blog properly, but it is probably not going to happen.  So anyway, these are some of the things we did in the week beginning 11th March.  Having enjoyed experimenting with finger paint, we continued on our theme of writing and drawing with our fingers in a variety of materials.  At the beginning of the week we played with flour, and later in the week repeated the activity with cornflour mixed with water, which was very messy but great fun.

After the success of the daffodil pictures, I decided that we would do some more Spring drawings while we were on a roll.  Our garden has been full of beautiful crocuses for a while, and I brought some of them inside for the children to draw when we had Home Education group at our house.  I’m glad now that we got round to doing it before the snow returned.

We also had fun drawing the blossom tree in our front garden – a lovely springtime activity, though we did need to wrap up warm!  The children sat on a picnic blanket and observed the tree very carefully, taking their time over their drawings.  I think the passers-by were quite amused, by the looks we got, but the children took it very seriously and were proud of the results.  I haven’t taken photos of the drawings yet, so will have to add them later.  I was hoping to draw some more Spring flowers and create another display, but now that everything has been covered in snow again I think we will have to wait a while.

blossom tree 1

This week

This week I have been

playing with the children and trying not to rush onto the next thing too quickly

making a mess with fingerpaint, flour and cornflour

enjoying simple things like going to post a letter or to the shops with one child at a time

talking to friends and making time to catch up with them, spinning out the birthday celebrations for as long as possible

learning a lot at the Big Bang Science Fair (mainly that Owl knows more than I do about certain aspects of Science)

relaxing with my lovely husband on an overnight stay in a pub hotel, which really felt like getting away from it all, even though it is walking distance from our house!

feeling proud of Owl for singing beautifully in his choir concert, and Monkey for behaving well in the audience

remembering Matilda Mae x

Puppet playhouse theatre

One of the most successful presents we gave Rabbit for her birthday was this puppet playhouse theatre from Manhattan Toys which I chose online at the last minute, not quite sure if it would arrive on time.  Luckily I ordered it from PlayMerrily who are always reliably quick to deliver, so she got it on the day.  The description said there would be room for two children inside, so I thought they would have to take turns but all four of them have managed to squeeze in quite happily.  They have spent a long time planning and rehearsing shows, designing and making props and scenery, and performing for family and friends.  It has been really nice to see them all working together and having so much fun.

The pictures above are of the scenery for their jungle show, complete with palm trees, a snake and a teddy dressed as tarzan.  I love the ideas they came up with and the way they organised it themselves.  It was the perfect present for a five year old girl, but has been enjoyed just as much by the boys (aged 2, 7 and 8) so if you are looking for a birthday present for a child who loves imaginative play, it is highly recommended.  Especially if you are cutting it fine.  Thank you PlayMerrily for saving the day again!

Learning through play

The night before last a conversation on twitter got me thinking about learning through play, and in particular messy play activities to support early reading and writing.  So yesterday morning I decided that it was time to get the finger paint out, which I had bought a couple of weeks ago for this purpose.  I scooped some red and green paint out onto paper plates and Monkey and Rabbit spread them around and started exploring the texture.  Tiddler asked for white paint, so I found a black tray to give a more interesting contrast, but he asked for a paper plate so we transferred some of it onto one as well.  Owl came and joined in and for a while all four of them were happily occupied with spreading, squidging and mark making.  Then Owl extended the activity for the others by suggesting colour mixing, so we made brown and pink.  After a while, I suggested they might like to write or draw in the paint, and they wrote several letters, and drew a bus, a train, a sun and some shapes.

We had to stop when it was time for piano lessons, though I’m sure they would have carried on for a lot longer if we’d had the chance.  But it was a special day, as Rabbit joined the big boys and had her first piano lesson.   She did really well and enjoyed it, as did Monkey who is making very good progress, and Owl who was thrilled to start on his Grade 1 pieces after taking his prep test on Friday.  He enjoyed showing the certificate to his teacher, who said that if he got such good comments in Grade 1 he would get a distinction.

Back at home in the afternoon, I offered the children the chance to continue the finger painting activity.  Tiddler was really too tired, and the big boys decided they had had enough painting for one day, so Rabbit and I did it together.  This gave us the opportunity to focus on letter formation, and it was a really satisfying way to practise writing because any mistakes can be quickly “squished” and you can start again.  We did the letters from a to e first, and then m for “mummy”, some capital letters and a number 7!  Rabbit also enjoyed doing hand prints on paper, making “scratchy patterns” with her nails and drawing a spiral shaped fossil.

After snack time (some fruit arranged in a pretty pattern by Rabbit), we did some Maths together.  The boys were working on their times tables, and I decided to set up an “invitation to play” with plasticine for Rabbit.  I started making numbers, but had only made two when Tiddler came over and wanted to sit on my knee and “help” me.  He enjoyed counting the numbers, starting at 1 again every time I made a new one, carefully pointing to each number in turn.  He also self-corrected consistently, going back to the start when he made a mistake.  I knew he could count to ten (at least) but wasn’t sure if he had mastered one-to-one correspondence yet. Well it looks like he has!  While we were doing this, Rabbit came over to watch and I suggested she might like to make some numbers of her own.  She worked very hard to make the numbers 1 to 4 and was very pleased with the results.  She needed a little help to get the 3 to be the right shape, but did the others herself.

At the end of the afternoon, after a little bit of thank-you letter writing, we decided to draw some daffodils for our Spring display.  This was a second attempt, after drawing some flowers last week which were beautiful but didn’t look like daffodils!  This time, we looked carefully at the flowers, and discussed the shape of the petals and the trumpet before we started.  There was some initial reluctance as it seemed quite challenging, but they soon got into it and decided it was fun after all.  Tiddler did not want to be left out so I drew him a flower to colour.  But then he asked me to do the yellow bit for him.  And then the green bit.  However, he did write his name.  It is the yellow squiggle under the picture which you can see if you look really really closely!

Daffodils always make me think of a little boy called Freddie so I’m going to dedicate this post to Merry, and also to Jennie who started the conversation on twitter which made me get round to the finger painting.  Thinking of you and remembering Matilda Mae x

finger painting 26

Half term

We have had a good half term break, and done lots of things that I would like to blog separately, but I don’t think it’s going to happen, so I will just put them all here in one place.  On Friday 15th, we had a second go at the ice and water play.  We froze sparkles in the coloured ice cubes and watched them melt, freed a plastic seal which we had frozen in a cup of water a while back and forgotten about, and added a fishing net and fish from the bath toys collection.  It was a lot of fun, and we will be doing it again, I’m sure.

Saturday 16th was a busy day with Dramabuds, haircuts, choir practice and housework.  On Sunday 17th, after church we went to the Thomas Day at the Kent and East Sussex Railway.  It was a day of ups and downs, though overall a great success.  We arrived and the children were very happy to see Thomas.  Then they were very disappointed that the train we were booked on was being pulled by a different engine.  Once we got over that, they really enjoyed the train ride and were all keen to come again another day.  It was all going so well until Tiddler got his little finger trapped in the train door as we were about to get out, and it took daddy a very long 5 seconds to undo the door.  He was checked out in the first aid tent and thankfully it was not broken, but looked very nasty which distressed him as much as the pain, I think.  So while the big three watched a magic show, in which Rabbit was picked to go up to the front and sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, daddy and I took turns to try to cheer Tiddler up.  Having another look at Thomas helped a bit, a go on a roundabout nearly worked but then he cried and they had to stop the ride to let him off, but in the end a packet of Smarties just about saved the day.  The big three had a couple of goes on the roundabout, then watched a Thomas video while waiting for a platform ride on Thomas.  All four children really enjoyed that, so the day ended well, and I’m sure we’ll be going again before too long, but we’ll be keeping Tiddler well away from the door.

After all that, Monday was a much needed quiet day at home, and the children enjoyed plenty of play time and computer time, while I caught up on washing and housework.  On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, the big three went to a Dramabuds holiday camp, finishing with a brilliant show, as always.  Tiddler had a Dramabuds session on Tuesday afternoon as well.  We also enjoyed lots of visits from family on those three days.  My aunt came on Tuesday morning, with my cousin and her very new baby, which was lovely.  Then in the afternoon, daddy’s cousin came with his son for a sleepover.  All the children had a good time, and played really well together, so we are hoping they will come again soon, as it was such a success!  On Thursday, it was Grandpa’s birthday so he came for the show and stayed for lunch.  Granny F came for the show as well, but had to leave shortly afterwards.  Just as she was leaving, Granny B arrived, and the children were pleased it was a two granny day, even though they weren’t there at the same time!

On Friday, the big boys had their violin lessons, and then Granny F took Monkey and Rabbit shopping for birthday presents, and Supergirl looked after Owl and Tiddler while I did the birthday party food shopping.  In the afternooon, all four children had a wonderful time with our very good friend and occasional childminder, while Supergirl and I made cakes.  Suburban dad came home from work early to cook an amazing Middle Eastern meal for a family who had bid for it in the auction of promises at our church fair.  He made enough for us too and some more friends (Tiddler’s godparents) came and ate with us.

Saturday, was party preparation day, with several last minute shopping trips for all the things we had forgotten, and lots of cakes to ice, as well as Dramabuds and choir as usual.  And on Sunday, after church, it was time for the party.  It was a joint party for Monkey, Rabbit and another friend from church, and there were over 30 children, but also plenty of helpful adults so it went very smoothly and the children had a lot of fun.  And a lot of cake.

Today was Monkey’s birthday, and he spent most of the day playing with his new Lego, taking a short break in the afternoon to play with his Hornby set.  We also had piano lessons, followed by lunch at Pizza Express, and a very enjoyable family evening with Granny F, and daddy’s aunt and uncle who called in to deliver presents, and ended up staying for supper, cake and bedtime stories.  It was a good day.

Valentine’s day ice and water play

On Wednesday evening I read this post about an amazing mother’s creative plans for Valentine’s day play with her toddler twins, even while her heart is breaking for the loss of her baby daughter less than two weeks ago.  If she can do it, then I have no excuse, so yesterday morning I made some ice cubes with red food colouring in the water, ready for some messy play in the afternoon.  I couldn’t find my heart ice cube moulds, so it wasn’t quite as Valentine-themed as it might have been, but I don’t think the children minded having Hello Kitty, Lego and star ice cubes instead.

In the afternoon, we found some sparkly bits in our craft stash and put them in a large plastic crate with some water.  (We are going to do it again this afternoon, this time with the sparkles frozen in the ice cubes which I think will be even more fun.)  The children enjoyed pouring the water into the crate and then ran to get some bath toys (first just one boat, and later some more boats and a dolphin) to put in before adding the ice cubes and watching them melt and turn the water red.

Water play 1 Water play 2 Water play 3 Water play 4 Water play 5 Water play 6

There was lots of tipping and splashing and stirring, and a certain amount of inevitable ice cube eating.  They loved playing with all the different shaped ice cubes, and also enjoyed the patterns left on the plate that was under the star ice cube tray in the freezer.

Hello Kitty ice Star ice Star ice patterns Lego ice

They were having so much fun that when the ice had all melted they wanted more, so I found some extra plain ice cubes in the freezer.  And then Rabbit started rummaging in the freezer, looking for anything else she could put in, which is where it got a bit random.  I let her put some frozen green beans in, which made her and Tiddler very happy, and they started eating them too.  Rabbit still wanted more, so I let her put some raisins in, which they happily played with, fished out and ate.  I was a little bit worried about them accidentally eating the sparkly bits though, so I think I’ll lay the ground rules today, and no food will be going in.  And then another day, we might do it with everything edible, but not a mixture of both!

Water play 7 Water play 8 Water play 9

So that’s how to do Valentine’s day sensory play in a completely haphazard and random way.  If you want a more sensible, organised version, read Jennie’s account of her twins enjoying their ice and water play, and even getting in and having a paddle.  Although the same activity developed in different ways, in both cases it was good old messy child-led fun.  Thank you Jennie for the inspiration.

Playdough tea party – and a crocodile

On Tuesday, I took Rabbit out to spend some of her pocket money that she had saved up.  She chose two packs (eight pots altogether) of playdough.  I love it when we have new playdough, because almost complete silence descends upon the dining room, and it lasts for a long time.  This time Monkey, Rabbit and Tiddler decided to make cakes.

Playdough cakes Playdough cakes 2 Playdough cakes 3 Playdough cakes 4 Playdough cakes 5Next they made ham and cucumber sandwiches.

Playdough sandwich Playdough sandwiches

And then Monkey made a baby crocodile (because he was dressed up in a crocodile outfit at the time!)  He made a background scene for it, which he mounted on a stand made of Lego bricks to make it stay upright.

Playdough baby crocodile Playdough baby crocodile scene

It was a really fun afternoon and, as always with playdough, the children’s creativity was inspired in so many ways.  When the novelty of the new shop-bought batch has worn off I think it will be time to make some ourselves.  Good playdough recipes, anyone?