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Welcome to the Sunflower Club End of Summer Party

Google tells me that the world’s tallest sunflower grew to over 7 metres tall. So ours aren’t going to break any records but they have reached a very respectable 2m 47 cm. (Did I hear you say ‘wow!’?) They have brought us so much pleasure over the summer and the girls have learned lots of things through growing them. The sunflower height chart we made also revealed that Little isn’t quite as little as she was when we planted our seeds as she has grown 2.5cm too. Although they have grown tall this year the flowers appeared early and have faded now and we’re wondering what to do with the seeds – so if you have any suggestions we would love to hear them.

If you have been growing sunflowers or doing any sunflower linked crafts or activities we would love you to link up with your posts. Please use the linky below to show us how your sunflowers have fared and to give us some craft and activity ideas to use next year.

Thanks for following along in our Sunflower Club – we hope you’ve had fun too.

(You could add a link in your post to here so your readers can come and share all the ideas in the link-up too.)

In our acrchive: all of our sunflower activites.

To make simple flags to deck out a sandcastle: take a rectangle of card, add a design, fold and glue onto a stick.

We’re off to the beach for a few days  – see you when we get back!

Happily shared with…

Have you ever tried writing poetry with children? So far this summer the Sunflower Club has inspired us with measurement, science, art, numbers and biology and today we’re tried out some poems about sunflowers.

We had a go with two different prompts. The first was to take each letter of the word ‘sunflower’ and see if we could find another word beginning with that letter which suited our flowers. This worked well for my 7 year old but didn’t click with my four year old.

For the second prompt we used some starter sentences to brainstorm ideas. For example…

A sunflower is….

The sunflower’s colour is…

A sunflower is tall like…

The petals are like…

We then took the ‘answers’ and combined them to make our poem.  Here’s what we came up with – what do you think?

Sunshine

Up to the sky

Nodding

Fiery

Lovely

Over our heads

Wonderful

Extremely tall

Radiant

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Bright, beautiful, radiant colour

Like a lion’s mane

Tall as a mountain, up to the sky

Happy and sunny and radiant

And don’t forget you are invitied to our Sunflower Club linky party on August 25th. If you have been growing sunflowers or doing any sunflower activities over the summer please come and share your ideas with us. Whether you’ve a tip for planting, advice for growing giants, sunflower pictures or crafts, please come and link up with us.

Happily shared with…

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One of my favourite memories from childhood is going blackberry picking along the lanes near where we lived. The scrapes we got from the brambles were worth it once we’d collect a bucket full of berries for mum to turn into a crumble. I remember always finding the ripest, juiciest, plumpest berry just a little too high to reach.

And one of the best things I think about being a parent is sharing your memories with your children and getting to do all the fun things again with them. This week we’ve made the most of a few sunny evenings and been blackberry picking on the lane nearby. B and L had a little wicker basket to fill – although most of theirs were eaten before we got home.

(If you haven’t got any wild blackberries near you, how about visiting a pick your own farm?)

And what to do with your blackberries?

The girls wanted to make juice so they squashed and sieved some berries and mixed it with apple juice. It tasted great (and gave you a wonderfully purple moustache when you drank it!)

I love to make a blackberry and apple crumble with a topping made from 3oz butter rubbed into 6oz flour, with a 1oz of butter and 3 tablespoons of oats sprinked in – maybe some cinnamon too.

English Mum has a recipe for blackberry jam I’m going to try.

The Pioneer Woman’s recipe for blackberry ice cream would be great to go in the homemade cornettos we made yesterday.

Do you have any blackberries growing near you? Or any recipe ideas to share?

This post is happily shared with The Gallery at Sticky Fingers which this week is all about ‘A Memory’

and with SevenClownCircus Wordful Wednesday

and with Life as a Mom’s Frugal Friday

One of our favourite summer treats is homemade ice cream cornettos. Great fun to make and ever so yummy.

To make some you will need: wafer ice cream cones, soft scoop vanilla ice cream, raspberries, icing sugar, chocolate, fudge

Keep the ice cream in the freezer until you need to use it – you don’t want to melt it and re-freeze it.

(The quantities given below made 10 small cones, with some tasting and nibbling as we went along)

Chop up 100g chocolate and 100g fudge into small chunks.

Melt 200g  chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.

Whizz 100g of raspberries and a dessert spoon of icing sugar to make a raspberry sauce.

Wrap each cornet in a strip of greaseproof paper, held in place with sticky tape.

Paint the inside of each cornet with melted chocolate using a pastry brush. Make sure you get a nice pool of chocolate in the bottom  so you get a chocolatey treat at the end of your cornet.

Wait until the the chocolate has set  inside the cornet (about 5-10 mins)

Fill with layers of ice cream, raspberry sauce, fudge and chocolate. Work quickly so the ice cream doesn’t melt. Fill over the rim of the cornet, inside the greaseproof paper for that authentic cornetto style.

Pop back in the freezer for a little while so the sauce can set, then remove the greaseproof paper and…

Enjoy!

You can’t beat home made cornettos for a great summer treat.

Happily shared with We Are That Family and

It’s summer holiday season when lots of us are travelling with kids so this week’s Twitter Tips* are all about keeping children entertained on a car journey.

Twitter Tip #1 The key to traveling happily with kids is a little planning: make a box of goodies for snacks, treats and activities

Twitter Tip #2 Make a bingo game to take along with pictures of roadsigns, vehicles, people and landmarks you can spot along the way

Twitter Tip #3 Play 20 questions. With younger children give clues to about someone in the family, let older ones ask questions

Twitter Tip #4 Stock a busy bag with pens, paper, stickers, doll, magazine, books, sweets, a magnetic scribble pad, magic colour pens

Twitter Tip #5Every 20 mins or so give the kids something new from the busy bag – keeps them busy & helps measure out the journey

Twitter Tip #6 Take along some audio books (borrow some from the library ) -better for carsickness than watching a film on a screen

Twitter Tip #7 Locate the playgrounds along your route. Stop regularly and get out of the car to let the children run around.

Twitter Tip #8 Put together a compilation of the family’s favourite music: can’t beat a singalong to lift everyone’s mood!

Twitter Tip #9 Make story magnets & play with them on a baking sheet -they won’t get lost down the car seats

Twitter Tip #10 How about some washable car window crayons to let the kids get creative while they ride?

*These #goplayTwitter Tips are tweeted each Friday at 8.30pm – follow @nurturestore or the #goplay hashtag to share

View the Twitter Tips on playdough, water play and encouraging reading and writing

Happily shared with Top Ten Tuesday and We Are That Family’s Works for me Wednesday

Regular readers will know we’ve been running a Sunflower Club over the last few months, with families around the world joining us growing sunflowers and having fun with lots of linked activities. I thought you might like to see how our own sunflowers are getting on.

Here’s one we grew:

And here’s one we made:

Now, I hear some of you have sunflowers that are, shall we say, a little vertically challenged? Fear not – with this handprint sunflower you can make it just as tall as you like!

Here’s how: have fun making lots of handprints, cut them out and then staple them around a paper plate. Scrunch up some black tissue paper (which is fantastic exercise for fine motor skills!) and glue into the centre.

We have one more Sunflower Club activity for you, coming up in the next week or so. Then, on Wednesday 25th August 2010 we would love to have a Sunflower Link-up Party. I’ll be revealing just how tall our sunflowers have grown (keeping our fingers crossed!) and my girls would *love* to see what sunflower activities you’ve been up to.

So mark Wednesday 25th August in your diaries and please come over to link up your posts and photos to the Sunflower Party.

This post is very happily shared with the Sticky Fingers Gallery, which this week is celebrating ‘Nature’.

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A Vision to Remember

and

Make a Clothespeg Butterfly Mobile

Look what’s been fluttering in our garden: a Lesser Spotted Peg Butterfly!

We had some wooden clothes pegs left over from making our pegdolls and Little wanted to make a butterfly. Here’s how we made it….

We used a sheet of clear plastic to cut our a butterfly shape – but card or paper would work just as well.

L was in charge of customising the butterfly, with liberal amounts of glue and bits and bobs from our making box. We talked about symmertry and L had a good try at getting her butterfly to match.

We put lots more glue down the centre of the butterly and inserted the wings into the peg. We also tied a length of string around the peg. Sitting the butterfly on the side of a glass helped press the wings in place while the glue dried.

We twisted a pipe-cleaner around to make the antennae, and drew on a face (you can see this on the first pic). Once all the glue is dry you can hang your butterfly up and watch as the breeze makes it flutter around.

They’re so pretty, why not make lots more to decorate your bedroom?

Happily shared with…

and

For the last few weeks we have been collecting ideas for things we’d like to do over the summer holiday and starting to think about all the plans we have. Then yesterday Deb from Carrots and Kids shared an idea for a Summer Holiday Planner she’d seen over at the Future Craft Collective. It’s such a great way to give some shape to the holiday but still keep things flexible. It includes a calendar for any days  out or events that are scheduled  and pockets to fill with ideas of things to do, people to see, chores that need completing. You can pop over to the Future Craft Collective to find a complete tutorial on how to sew the planner and ideas on what to include. We went for quick and instant with our version and used envelopes stuck on with sticky tape for our pockets. We’ve included some blank cards so we can add ideas as we go along (and encourage B do keep up with her writing over the holiday too). It will also be great to have a store of ideas in the ‘things to do’ envelope, ready for the first cry of ‘I’m bored’!

Are you a holiday planner kind of family – or do you take each day as it comes?

There are 23 days until the school holidays begin.

Believe me those 23 days are going to whizz by in a blur of summer fetes, sports days and school concerts and before you know it you’ll have 7 long weeks of holidays stretching out before you, with children to keep entertained.  Are you ready?

How are you going to keep your kids entertained for 7 whole weeks? We have a plan! Grab yourself a big sheet of paper, stick it to the door of your fridge and start brainstorming. Every time one of the children say ‘Can we make some ice cream?’ or ‘I want to go fossil hunting’ scribble it down on your wish list. You can include:

- places you want to go

- films you want to watch

- books you want to read

- crafts you want to make

- meals you want to cook

- toys you want to play with

By the time the holidays roll around you should have a list of ideas long enough to last you through, bringing lots of fun to your summer.

Got ideas already? Please leave a comment to share your ideas – so we can get some inspiration from you! And don’t forget to keep popping back to NurtureStore as we will be bringing you play ideas right through the summer. Why not subscribe to our feed, join our Facebook page or e-mail me  (cathy (at) nurturestore.co.uk) to join our e-mail newsletter so you don’t miss any of the ideas.