Life Cycles

The children are showing a real interest in the different creepy crawlies they are finding in the garden, so I have put together some ideas to go with their interest and to extend their knowledge. have added in some plant/flower ideas too as we will be doing a lot of that too.

I have put together a basket of stories and fact books based on the above theme. The children really enjoy seeing what new books are out, they are all kept on the book shelf normally but having a selection put out based on their interests, really works well for us.

Next door cut their hedge this morning and we had some of the pieces, along with tree prunings etc from the weekend, I put them on our tuff spot and suggested to L she try and make a nest for her owl, which she did. She then decided the nest needed some eggs, so of she went and came back with two tennis balls for eggs and made a bed for the owl, with leaves as a blanket.

We had a lovely afternoon, some of it spent in the park and then a walk around the woods, L is wanting to know all the names of the flowers we are now finding, so we took some photos with the hope that I might be able to identify them when we got home, as I hadn't taken the field guide with me.

L has decided that an owl and an elf princess live in this tree trunk, as the hole looks like a doorway, I was told we won't see them today as they were busy having breakfast.

Caterpillars and Flowers

We have had a busy but lovely weekend, O had his 18th birthday do, it's interesting catering for multiple allergies but managed a lovely spread that was, nut, legume, soy, dairy, egg, sesame, banana and melon free. The lemon and blueberry muffins from this book Allergy Proof Recipes For Kids are amazing and make a fantastic plain cake too, think I will use this one from now on, instead of the war time one I had been using, as it keeps so well and isn't crumbly.

We have also managed to spend time gardening and up the allotment, pruned back our fake cherry tree, ended up only doing half a job as I discovered loads of caterpillars on it. L and co really enjoyed watching them yesterday morning, she has been out every day to check on them. Really looking forward to watching them grow and hoping they make their pupas there, it will be wonderful for the children to see, especially as I am planning on doing a theme on life cycles.

Yesterday morning we had a walk to our allotment, mainly to collect some flowers, as one of my little ones had brought their flower press. We looked at the apple blossom and

the blueberries have lots of flowers too, hoping that means lots of fruit later in the year.

L was really pleased to find more ladybirds, when we got home I decided to order the ladybird kit from Insect Lore as it will be great for them to see them go from eggs through adult ladybirds.

We collected flowers on our way home and in our garden to add to the ones we picked at the allotment. We also have a flower press so L was able to press some flowers to keep here.

Now they have to patiently wait a for a couple of weeks for the flowers to dry. L has asked several times if they are ready yet.

Reducing and Sewing

Those that know me well, know that over the past few years I have been changing the way I  work, the toys we have etc, well I am still sorting and reorganising the house but it is all finally coming together. It is not always easy to get rid of things which is why it has taken so much time, along with getting sidetracked with the garden and various craft projects. Sometimes I have just boxed things up and put them in the loft and waited to see if we really need them, observing what and how the children play. It's that difficult thing of never knowing what children or what ages I might end up looking after, so trying to reduce the toys feels more complicated than if I was just doing it for my own children. Anyway the sitting room is looking really good and it is working so well with my own children and minded children. We have reduced the toys a lot, so the cupboards only have a couple of toys to a shelf but it means they can easily find what they want and put it back. They have also at times taken every thing off a couple of shelves then used the shelves to make dolls houses with. Really noticing that they are being more creative and playing better now we have less out, rather than quickly flitting from toy to toy. So here are some pictures of our room, ok normally the floor doesn't look this clear.

The bottom of the white bookshelf cupboard, we have some jigsaws, our story basket, geo shape puzzles, bean bags and lots of books.

The other cupboard, has our block tray, bag of tree blocks and baskets of animals. Then I have been lucky enough to be able to slide 2 baskets under the unit, one has our musical instruments in it and the other is baby toys.

The other end of our sitting room, the cupboard has all our crayon, pencils, paper etc as well as more jigsaws and games, still need to sort through this cupboard.

One of the major things I did a few years ago was reducing our dressing up clothes, I still have a small box but it is normally upstairs and only comes out from time to time. I now have a basket of silk squares, scarves and coloured muslin squares

They have sparked so much creative thinking as to what and how they are going to use them for. 

They have been used for 

• Cloaks
• Baby doll slings
• Wrapped to make dresses/skirts
• Bedding for dolls
• Yellow square to make a sandpit
• Blue square to make a paddle pool
• Butterfly wings
• Fairy wings
• Hair
• Scarves

 to name a few and I have used them to create many story scenes. I have found that the children are more creative than they were with a box of dressing up clothes and they love trying to make new things with them. Don't get me wrong I do love dressing up clothes but if you haven't a lots of space you have to make a decision on what works best for you and your home/setting.

On a creative note I have enjoyed some sewing, I have only just come across the Ottobre design magazine, wondering how I have never come across them before and loving the patterns, the one that caught my eye was this one.

M and I went shopping and she helped to pick out this fabric and buttons.

Just love the delicate pleating.

Linked up with Frontier Dreams

Pattern Blocks

I know I am supposed to be reducing what we have, which I have done a lot of but couldn't resist these Geo Shapes, L and co love playing with the wooden ones we have but thought these would make a nice addition. They were a big hit and have been very well played with, there are about 20 double sided picture boards for them to use, plus they can use them to make their own pictures etc.

So these are a lot of fun to play with, great for counting, shape and colour recognition, fine motor skills - developing the muscles in their hands, co-ordination, as well as language, there was lots of chatter about what the pictures were, whether they have seen a frog, the different shapes etc.

Tower of Pisa

On Friday L and I spent time looking at the Tower of Pisa in this book 13 Buildings Children Should Know and found a couple of you tube clips to watch. She was fascinated by this one, which is people walking up all the stairs and then seeing the amazing view from the top but it gave her an idea of how high it was. I then suggested she try and draw the tower, which she thought was a great idea.

We then headed out to the sand pit to have a go at some tower building, first things first, needed to add a lot of water and mix well as the sand was very dry.

Once the sand was the right consistency for sandcastles, L set about filling her bucket to make the first part of out tower.

We talked about how difficult it would be to build a tower that leaned and why and that if we used containers that got smaller and smaller like the stacking cups do it might be easier, we did have some collapsed towers which she found amusing, especially when they buried her toes!

We did mange to build a couple of successful towers,

Then L had fun squashing them all back down and starting again.