Tag Archives: farm

Playing with oats

4 Replies

Yesterday our friends from The Adequate Parent and 3 Kids and a Gluestick came over and I decided it would be a good opportunity to get going on our Farm topic with some more messy play in the Tuff Spot.  Owl spent a long time carefully setting up the farm animals and fences, and then I added two large bags of oats, and a few shredded wheat.  Some of the children helped to crumble the shredded wheat up; Tiddler particularly enjoyed this, and was happily occupied eating it for quite a while.

I set out some farm-themed books on the table to provide an alternative activity.  I knew we had rather a lot of farm books, as it is something we all love, but even I was a little surprised at the size of our collection.  In fact I think we probably have even more, as I only spent about 5 minutes looking and we have books in nearly every room of our house.  It was fun to gather them all together anyway, and we will be using them for inspiration over the next few weeks.  Monkey and Rabbit rediscovered some rather nice little stencil books and drew pictures of horses and farm animals.  Rabbit also drew a rather lovely picture of a horse for one of her friends.

The children played with the farm scene nicely for a while, and then a few of them decided it would be more fun to throw the oats.  So we moved the Tuff Spot outside!  This meant that the children spread out a bit and found other things to do.  They decided to fill up the play sink with water, and then inevitably decided to add some oats.  They made a lovely mess and it kept them busy all afternoon.  You can read another version of events here.

A good day

Leave a reply

Today was busy but successful.  In the morning I took Tiddler to his Musicbox class while a lovely friend looked after 6 children in my house (3 of mine and her 3).  The music class is a relatively new thing for us, and I really enjoy doing something with and for my littlest one, as most of our activities revolve around the older ones.  I’ve wanted to do it for a very long time, but it seemed impossible.  I’m so glad I’ve finally made it happen (and very grateful to the kindness of my friend, and in other weeks my mother-in-law, in looking after the big three children.)

When I arrived back home, the two of us gathered up our collection of children, coats, packed lunches, etc and got ready to set off for the city farm.  A friend joined us with her two little ones, and when we got there we met up with several families from another local home ed group which has recently been set up (there are a lot of us about!)  It was fun to meet some new people and we were fortunate to be able to join in the farm tour which they had arranged.

The children enjoyed feeding the animals (sheep, goats, alpacas… I’m not sure if any of them were brave enough to feed the cows, they were a bit too slobbery…), looking at the tiny newborn piglets and their enormous mother and watching the ducks for a very long time…Tiddler in particular kept coming back to them.   They also had fun stroking a rabbit, visiting “chicken village” (love the name) and feeling a newly laid egg which was warm.

Next we headed into the classroom to eat our packed lunch.  The peace was spoiled by a classic Tiddler tantrum, when he spotted a chocolate bar and therefore refused to eat his sandwiches.  I would like to apologise to the other families (if they happen to be reading) for the terrible noise, but would also like to claim experienced parent brownie points because I WON and he ate his sandwich and apple in the end.  Of course he got the chocolate bar afterwards so he was happy!

The final activity at the farm was clay modelling which was a great hit with the older three children.  They were asked to make models of animals, and were absorbed in the task for a long time, before heading out into the fresh air and sunshine.  It was a lovely outing, and we returned home in time for the children to enjoy some downtime and a Friday afternoon free choice of activities.  Monkey continued to work on and perfect his clay model, and he and Owl did some drawing while Rabbit played with her favourite doll (Holly – who probably deserves a post of her own sometime) and Tiddler had a very long sleep.

I managed to fit in a session tutoring a lovely nearly 10 year old girl (while her mum looked after my children) and the day ended with some fun playing in the garden, enjoying the evening sunshine, until Rabbit demonstrated clearly that it was bedtime by biting her big brother’s arm.  Oh dear – but at least she was tired enough to settle down quickly, as was Tiddler despite the afternoon sleep.  The big boys stayed up a little later to enjoy 20 minutes computer time which they had earned earlier in the day, before going to bed quite cheerfully.  So all in all it’s been a good day!

Monkey’s Cat in a basket

Owl’s Ducks in a duck pond

Rabbit’s Very Big Pig and Very Small Piglet