Home » Archives for Activities

Tea Loaf recipe

by

This tea loaf recipe is easy to make, tastes delicious and with a fairly low butter and sugar content, combined with dried fruits, it’s a healthy pudding choice to give to your kids. It freezes well, so you can slice it, wrap the individual slices and then take them out of the freezer when you need them to add to lunch boxes.

Here’s the recipe:

Healthy Tea Loaf Recipe

Ingredients:
300g dried raisins, cherries and/or mixed peel
225ml hot tea (we use Earl Grey)
50g butter
100g brown sugar
1 egg
225g self-raising flour
sugar to sprinkle on the top (optional)

1. Soak the fruit overnight in the hot tea.
2. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together, then beat in the egg.
4. Sift in the flour and mix in.
5. Add the fruit and any remaining tea.
6. Spoon into the loaf tin and level off the surface.
7. If you have a sweeter tooth you can sprinkle 1-3 teaspoons of sugar on top of the loaf at this point.
8. Bake for 1 hour at 180C / 160C fan / Gas 4.
9. Check it’s cooked through by sticking a skewer in the centre – if it comes out clean, the loaf is ready.
10. Leave to cool completely in the tin. Then slice and enjoy.

Like some more recipes?

How about:

Banana Yoghurt Cake

Raisin Oat Cookies

Classic Gingerbread

The Best Birthday Cake Ever

Car Sandwiches and Traffic Light Jelly

NurtureStore Highlight: Frugal Family Fun Blog

by

To inaugurate the NurtureStore Highlight of My Week, I’d like to tell you about the Frugal Family Fun Blog: a blog which focuses on things you can do with your children for very little cost but with lots of fun. The blog is run by Valerie and records the crafts and activities she does with her two lovely daughters, along with other money saving ideas.  Her 12 Ways to Boost Happiness (for Free) gives a great round up of ideas you could try. And her idea for Story Stones is one my girls love – in fact we’ve been working on our own version of it this weekend.

So I hope you’ll pop over to see the Frugal Family Fun Blog and find some great ideas to inspire you too. Tell Valerie I sent you!

Teach the alphabet with dough

by

A simple bread dough is a perfect medium for children to explore with. It’s easy to make using ingredients you can keep in your storecupboard and I find children always take great pleasure in using ‘real grown-up’ materials. There are lots of ways you can use a bread dough to let your children play with counting, measuring, pouring, cutting. Today we’ve been teaching the alphabet with bread. We’ve a recipe and a song to share with you.

 

Weigh 500g of strong bread flour and a teaspoon of salt out into a big bowl. Little thought it felt very tickly.


 

Practise your scissor skills to add a 7g sachet of fast-action dried yeast.


 

Pour in 300ml of warm water and a tablespoon of olive oil using good hand-eye co-ordination. Little liked mixing the colours to combine all the ingredients into a ball of dough.


 

Develop strength in your fingers by kneading the dough for 5 minutes on a floured surface. (Getting fingers ready to one day hold a pencil and write well.)


 

Try out a different texture as you spread a little oil on a baking sheet.


 

Introduce some letters by making your own dough alphabet. (If you want to use the recipe to make a proper loaf you can shape it and then leave it to prove for 45 minutes before baking.)

 

Put your letters on the baking sheet and bake in an oven pre-heated to Gas 7/ 220C for about 10 minutes, depending on the size of your letters. (Bake for 25 minutes if you’re making a whole loaf.)

If you can spot the letters in your name you can eat them!

Mini beast hunt

by

Growing sunflowers with children? Download our free sunflower activities ebook.

Our sunflowers have now moved outside to our little greenhouse to enjoy the Spring sunshine and get them used to being outside. We’ve been out enjoying the garden too. Little has been especially interested to see creatures out there. She will stop in her tracks and peer at her feet, watching an ant running around. Big is interested to know which animals are goodies (that would include worms and ladybirds) or badies (which definitely includes slugs and snails). So we have decided so survey what animals we have sharing our garden with us by playing… Garden Bingo!

First we talked about what animals we might expect to see. (Sorry Little, but no elephants are likely to be found.) Then we drew pictures of them. Everyone can join in with this, no matter how young or artisically challenged they might be. Little did a great worm, ladybird and spider – with carefully counted legs. Big’s cat is very characterful and her butterfly is perfectly symmetrical. I was able to muster some greenfly and wowed everyone with my woodpigeon.

Then we stuck our animal pictures on to our bingo card and wrote their names underneath, along with a tick box for each one. Each time we spot an animal in the garden we’re going to tick them off our card. Take time to have a good look at each animal as you see them. Look at their shape, colour and patterns and count their legs (or note their lack off). Talk about their role in the garden ecosystem and decide if they are goodies or badies.

If you like a competition you could make each person a slightly different bingo card to see who can spot all their creatures first to get a ‘full house’. We like to promote harmony in our garden so we have one big bingo card to complete all together.

If you’re out in the garden and growing things with your children, come and join in with our Sunflower Club to get a Spring and Summer full of activities all linked to growing and gardening.

Role play camping

by

Yesterday, boredom and a well stocked craft box were the spring board for creativity and play. Today it was a story book which gave a play idea.

Shirley Hughes books are favourites in our house and The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook (Red Fox picture books) is Little’s favourite of them all. It’s a collection of short stories and poems about outdoor play and adventures. One tells the story of Bonting, Alfie’s treasured pebble – so of course Little now has a Bonting of her own which she carries with her in her coat pocket.  Today’s story though was about Alfie’s camping trip.  Little is in awe of Alfie going to sleep out at night in a real tent. Now, the weather is still a little chilly to get me in a real tent overnight, so it’s forturnate she was satisfied with a play tent.

She knew from the story all the things she needed to take on her trip. Having said that, we have read the story several thousand times so she’s had plenty of time to memorise the list!

She even made a campfire to cook her breakfast on.

What’s your child’s favourite story? Could you bring it to life for them?

And if you love pretend play you might like these ideas for a role play shop and a role play hospital.

Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up for more play inspiration.

Messy play: what’s your view?

by

How do you feel about mess? Do you let your children have free rein around the house to play with what they like? To pull all the cushions of the sofa to make a boat? To use all their bedsheets to build a den? To take pasta from the kitchen cupboards to use in their pretend kitchen?

And how do you feel about them playing in the garden? Do you let them dig? Make mud pies? Pick up worms? Fill the watering cans to make a swamp? Pick leaves and flowers to ‘bake’ with?

Do you give them messy materials to play with? Play dough? Paint? Felt tip pens? Sand? Glitter?

Someone told me recently that they’d never let their children play with playdough. And someone else commented that they spend so much time cleaning already that they don’t want to encourage their kids to make even more mess. This got me wondering how everyone else views messy play. I wonder if you encourage this kind of play at home or do you keep it just for pre-school? Do you let babies and toddlers get stuck in or do you reserve it for your older children? Do you think messy play is beneficial or educational or just for fun? And what do your children think about messy play – do they love it or loathe it?

I’m not looking to criticise anyone’s approach, I’m just genuinely interested to see what the opinion is on messy play. Will you share your thoughts and tell me what you think?

NurtureStore