Pumpkins

So it has been a little while! We have been busy in our house. With Pickle and Penguin both having a birthday with a joint party in the middle and then half term with all the madness that brings.

We have been having fun with pumpkins in our house! We visited a pumpkin farm over half term and picked up a few beauties. Yellow Bean and Pickle picked out classic carving pumpkins and Penguin and I chose edible ones. We also picked some cheap ones up from supermarkets.

So....what have we been doing?

First we did some scooping. But I failed to get a snap of that one...too much excitement and mess.

The kids had some great fun with the squidgy squishy innards of the pumpkin and did a pretty good job scooping it all out.

Then we washed the seeds. Pickle, Penguin and I loved the feel of the slippery seeds in the water. A great sensory activity!

We dried the seeds and picked a few to put aside for planting next year. The rest we mixed with a little oil, some brown sugar and mixed spice and roasted in a medium/hot oven for 15min. Yummy!

Pickle enjoyed carefully cutting the face he had drawn himself out of his pumpkin. We used a pumpkin carving kit we picked up in the supermarket. It was great, the blade is serrated but not sharp, totally suitable for my newly 4 year old boy.

Penguin is still a bit too little, she had a fabulous time drawing all over her pumpkin with sharpie pen.

For another pumpkin activity Penguin used a hammer to tap some golf tees into another pumpkin. He then wound black wool around the tees to make a pattern. He decided that this was like a spiders web so we have since added a black pompom and pipe cleaners to make a spider.

Not a bad little batch of activities that the small people certainly seemed to enjoy. I am looking forward to lighting them tomorrow evening!

Until next time....S xx

Painting Rocks

This summer many people in my local area have been painting rocks and leaving them in the woods for others to find. Rocks, paint, woods, outdoors, art. It sounded right up our alley.

So we decided to join in and give it a go. We started out by digging in the garden, finding rocks and giving them a good wash. This was a great activity and Pickle and Penguin dove into it with all the energy and excitement that small people seem to muster from nowhere. They found a lovely selection and were really keen to get started with the paint.

I covered them in PVA once they were dry and the next day we went out into the woods to hide them and search for others. We found a few and have been back a few times since to find more.

Pickle and penguin love to see the different designs others have chosen, to them every single one of them is beautiful and exciting. I love to see the world through their eyes. Some are amazingly creative, taking into account the shape of the rocks, others are very much toddler painted.

I would highly recommend getting involved in community projects such as this, it is really great to see so many families getting involved and enjoying the outdoors. I have seen a lot of posts about this on the facebook community so it would be worth looking to see if it is going on in your area.

Until next time. x

30 Days Wild - Day 30

So!! We made it. Today was a great day. We had a full morning out going wild. We went to a field nearby and were catching grasshoppers. Pickle even managed to catch one himself! We collected a few natural materials while we were out and then Pickle and Penguin both made clay butterflies with what they found.

What beautiful art, showcasing the world around us and a perfect end to our month of wild!

30 Days Wild- Day 21

Today we made some butterfly pictures in the garden. Pickle and Penguin put pieces of tissue paper onto butterfly shape cut outs and then sprayed it with water. It was a lovely cool activity for a very hot day!

After a little while we peeled off the tissue paper to reveal a beautifully patterned butterfly! It would be really lovely to make this with different shapes of tissue paper when they are a bit older and more thoughtful about design.

30 Days Wild - Day 18

We have been reading a book we have borrowed from the library, it is called 'Where's the Starfish' by Barroux. It looks at the problems caused by ocean pollution in a way that is easy to understand for toddlers and young children.

We try to read a broad range of books and like to include those which deal with issues such as this. 'The Lorax' from Dr Seuss is another favourite of ours and we have also read 'Where's the Elephant', also by Barroux.

The books by Barroux have beautiful illustrations and leave a very powerful message in their wake. Pickle and Penguin love the game of finding the animals in each picture and have made thoughtful comments throughout the book. They are great for their ages of 1 and 3 but I expect the impact will be greater as we look at them again as Pickle in particular gets older and more observant. It is an important message that lies very close to our hearts.

30 Days Wild - Day 14

Today we did some weaving. I made a little weaving frame from some sticks and twine, then Pickle, Penguin and I went on a little walk and collected grass, flowers, leaves and feathers to weave into the twine.

It was pretty successful. Penguin is too little for the weaving but she was really keen on picking the flowers and grass for Pickle and I to weave in. They also spent some time exploring a log for animal homes. There are a number of holes in and around the log, I would love, love, love to know what lives in there!

30 Days Wild - Day 3

Today we had a little scavenger hunt to make a rainbow from the plants in our garden. We struggled a bit for blue, strange as it is my favourite colour......

Sorry for the bad light in the photo. I took the picture after Pickle and Penguin were in bed, we were just too busy before hand!!

30 Days Wild - Day 2

Day 2 of our 30 days wild challenge. We decided that we would have a go at potato printing outside in the garden! Using vegetables and spending time outside!

Sun Catchers

So, with some lovely sunny weather the past week I though I would share with you a lovely little craft perfect for the summer time!

Suncatchers! We made these a while back but they are easy peasy, Penguin and Pickle both loved the activity and both were able to join in nicely. Penguin even managed to find a rouge googly eye which she added to her suncatcher. See if you can spot it in the picture!

So these are super simple, cut a cardboard frame, add some sticky back plastic then cover the 'window' with bits of cut up tissue paper! I hope you guys have a try!

Until next time.....

Painting on Foil

Penguin is not very good with the cold. She is still little and is quite slight. In this weather we can't generally stay out for very long before taking her back inside to warm up. Last week was a welcome break from the icy weather but one colder day we decided to get on with some painting. 

I am rather a Pintrest fan and have seen various Pins about painting on foil so I thought we would give it a try. I rolled a long sheet of foil out on the kitchen floor, taped the ends down and let the kids go at it with a brush each and a few colours of paint. Here we used green, blue, white and a blue glitter paint.

It was quite fun, although I am not sure how different Pickle and Penguin found it from painting on paper. Pickle later in the week asked to to painting. On paper. Penguin was a little more intrigued sticking her finger in and sliding it in the wet paint, although she ended up sticking her painty finger in her mouth (typical) and then trying to walk all over it with her socks still on (Mummy Error!!!).

I think it will be a nice activity to try again when Pickle is big enough to think about shapes and to look at some examples of Swirly Monet painting. I have seen swirly patterns work very nicely on Pintrest....here and here are just two examples.

Water Resistance and Penguin Feet

This past week we have been playing with water resistance using our fantastic Usbourne 365 Science activities book. Pickle and Penguin have been engaged in the activities and Pickle has been asking questions too. 

The first activity we took part in was drawing with crayons and then painting over with watery paint. We used white crayon on white paper so you could really see where the paint didn't stick to the crayon marks. We had fun playing with the materials and Pickle is pretty eager to do some more things from his science book.

Today we did a second activity which was an extension of the first. The small ones did some finger painting with margarine and then painted over it with watery paint. This was far more exciting for P & P. Using familiar materials in different contexts really got them excited and the results were a lot more obvious! You could really see where they had put the margarine. We had fun and it was a nice short activity.

This past weekend we finally got around to one of our seasonal family traditions. Since becoming a family of four every season we have created a foot or hand print picture. So far we have had snowmen, butterflies, bees and leaves. This time around we made our feet into penguins. 

Looking at them in this photo they look a bit like surprised penguins but in the 'flesh' as it were they are a lot more friendly looking...

We also painted Pickle and Penguins' feet to look like penguins on their own to make our Christmas thank you cards. These ones have googly eyes on them which gives a little more character.

I hope that this is a tradition we can continue with as the small people grow, I am already scouring Pintrest for  inspiration for future print portraits....see you in a few hours....

S xx