Growing sunflowers with children? Download our free sunflower activities ebook.
Come and join our Sunflower Club for lots more sunflower fun.
The music on the slideshow is from the Album Frogs Legs by Various Artists Kazoomzoom
Growing sunflowers with children? Download our free sunflower activities ebook.
Come and join our Sunflower Club for lots more sunflower fun.
The music on the slideshow is from the Album Frogs Legs by Various Artists Kazoomzoom
Hello everyone and welcome to Guest Post Day! Erica over at Littlemummy.com has been organising ‘blind dates’, linking up pairs of blogs to swap posts today. I am delighted to be paired up with Sandy from Baby Baby and to bring your her post, which even includes a story she has written just for us, which I hope you will enjoy reading with your children. (And please do pop over to Baby Baby to read the post I’ve written for her.) So, over to Sandy….
Hi, I’m Sandy. I write the blog Baby Baby. Baby Baby is my place to rant, rave, process my thoughts and attempt to entertain. One thing I don’t do is write about crafting. My two boys, Presley, 2 and Cash, 1, enjoy colouring at home and occasional sticking, but we tend to leave the messy stuff for Toddler Group.
When I found I was swapping blogs with NurtureStore for the day I felt inadequate. What on earth could I write about? Cathy has written a wonderful post for me called A Reluctant Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Craft. Yep, that was definitely written for me!
The name of this blog however, NurtureStore, inspired me. Here is my guest post.
It’s never too early to encourage a life-long love of books in your children.
One of my earliest memories is being read ‘Toby to the Rescue’ by my Mum. I was only two. Part way through the story the phone rang. Mum answered it and I carried on ‘reading’. I could remember every single word.
Another treasured memory is of my Dad making up stories about a family of hedgehogs at bathtime, then my Mum would read stories and sing to us as she tucked us up in bed.
I’ve always loved books and I still read every day, even if it’s just a couple of pages of a novel before I fall asleep.
Newborn babies will love being read to. They will be comforted by the sound of your voice. As they develop and their eyes begin to focus, babies will enjoy looking at the pictures in board books. Soon they will reach out to touch the images. This is where textured books are brilliant. They may annoy mum and dad, but books with animal sounds will usually raise a smile from your little one.
Encourage your baby to hold books. As they learn to turn the pages of a board book they are developing motor skills. Make books part of their everyday play, don’t just save them for bedtime.
The bedtime story is a wonderful part of childhood. You can start your baby’s bedtime routine at any age, the younger the better. To begin with you may think they’re not listening, they will grab the book and try to eat it. Do persevere. This is a wonderful opportunity to bond with your child – for both parents.
Soon your little one will be choosing books and you will accidentally on purpose rotate them so that you don’t have to read ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle for the thousandth time! Presley loves Julia Donaldson stories, particularly ‘Night Monkey, Day Monkey’ and, of course, ‘The Gruffalo’. Cash’s current favourites are ‘Elmer’ by David McKee and the Panda and Gander stories by Joyce Dunbar and Helen Craig.
Reading can be free, you just need to join a library. Our local library is tiny, but they have hundreds of children’s books. You can also ask for books as presents.
Happy reading!
***
One thing I’ve never done is write a children’s story. It’s always been something I’ve thought about, but didn’t have the inspiration – until now.
This week I was sat with a toddler on each knee, looking at the garden. We saw squirrels, birds and bees. I started to tell my boys that bees made honey. They looked at me like I was making it up. So I made this up instead.
Boris was a young bee.
Boris was a busy buzzy young bee.
He didn’t stop buzzing all day.
Boris spent all day flying from flower to flower.
He collected pollen from the flowers in little bags on his legs.
When the bags were full he flew back to his hive.
Boris lived in a hive with loads of other buzzy bees.
The buzzy bees made delicious honey in the hive.
One day Boris was buzzing around some beautiful yellow flowers.
He had collected a lot of pollen and it was nearly time to go back to the hive.
All of a sudden he heard Walter the wasp flying towards him.
Walter was a naughty wasp who liked to cause trouble.
Walter didn’t have an important job, like Boris.
Boris was scared of wasps and Walter was a big wasp.
Boris decided to fly home, but Walter chased him.
Walter laughed as he chased Boris, but Boris was too quick for him.
Boris buzzed away from Walter.
When he could no longer hear Walter, Boris stopped buzzing and rested on an orange flower.
Boris looked around. He didn’t know where he was. He hadn’t seen orange flowers before.
Boris was lost! He didn’t know what to do.
He had a little room in his bags so Boris collected some pollen from the orange flower.
It was getting dark, but Boris didn’t know the way home.
Then Boris heard buzzing and saw a big bee from his hive flying towards him.
‘There you are, Boris!’ said Billy, ‘I’ve been looking for you’.
Boris was very happy to see Billy and followed him back to the hive.
All the other buzzy bees were pleased to see Billy and Boris.
Boris turned his pollen into honey and it tasted wonderful.
After that all the buzzy bees from the hive collected pollen from orange flowers.
Boris was a beaming busy buzzy bee who decided he was no longer scared of wasps.
Thank you for having me, Cathy.
Normal service will be resumed next time!
I love the way these tissue paper suncatchers look so vibrant in the sunshine. They’re very easy to make and even toddlers can make their own masterpiece. You’ll need a laminator to make this version, which you can buy: Cathedral A4 Laminator with Jam Release or your local print shops may offer the service. Alternatively you could use sticky-backed plastic to hold the tissue paper in place.
To make the heart shaped suncatcher, we arranged the tissue paper in the heart design on the pouch and then cut round the outline after it had been through the laminator machine.
Ever inventive, the girls have taken the suncatchers and turned them into stained glass windows in their story tent.
And if you’re enjoying creating with tissue paper, you might also like this flower craft.
happily shared with the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party
Growing sunflowers with children? Download our free sunflower activities ebook.
How are your sunflowers coming along? Ours went out in the garden a couple of weeks ago. The tallest one is up to 45cm on our sunflower height chart and mostly they’re doing well – working their way up the wall but not yet taller than Little. One however has been munched. The girls were horrified! Who had done such a thing? Pulling some ivy off the wall this weekend we found our answer: 14 snails, sat biding their time, waiting for the feasting to begin. I am such a hippy, harmony-promoting gardener that I can’t bring myself to squash them, so they are flung over the back wall (into an alleyway, not someone else’s garden!) – which of course only delays the munching.
Before the snails went for the high jump, we put them through their paces in a Snail Race.
This gave the girls the opportunity to look at the snails up close and ask lots of questions about their shells, slime and ‘sticky out bits’. Snail World had all the answers. We talked about our responsibilty to animals and both girls were very careful when handling the snails. One thing we did discover was that snails just don’t understand the concept of keeping in your own lane – so if you fancy trying this I’d suggest more of a ‘bull’s eye’ circular race track, starting all the snails in the centre and seeing which makes it to the circumference first.
What do you do when you find snails, or slugs, in your garden? Have you got any alternative solutions to stop them munching?
8.25am is the most stressful time of day in houses with school-age children*. That last push to get out of the door and off on the school run can be the biggest hurdle of the day. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Welcome to Part Two of our series: Starting School. In part one we looked at School Dinners, this time the topic is:
Putting on Your Own Coat and Shoes
A simple skill we grown-ups take for granted can actually be quite tricky for little ones to master. So here are a few thoughts which might help.
1. Let your child have a try. This sounds obvious but in the rush to get ready I see many parents doing up buttons and putting on shoes for their children. While this saves time, it’s not giving your child any chance to learn the skill for themself.
2. Take your time. You need to allow plenty of time to master this skill – so start when you’ve got lots of time to get ready, not when you’re already late. Little does a great job getting her own coat on, but the buttons take her ages. I have to remind myself to give her the time she needs – we wouldn’t rush along a child taking their first steps, so we need to slow down here too.
3. Give your child some Top Tips. You put on your shoes without even thinking about it, but does your child actually realise there’s a difference between their right and left foot and they need to match up the correct shoe with the correct foot? Little knows to line up her shoes on the floor before she puts them on. She knows that the flowers on the outside of each shoe shouldn’t be touching – if they are, she knows to swap them over. This is how she gets them on the correct feet. Even black school shoes often have a little pattern on the outside, so you should be able to get a pair with this picture clue. If not, maybe you can draw arrows or make a mark inside the shoe.
With coats our top tip is to get one with a hood. Then, the first step to putting it on is to put the hood on your head. This leaves both hands free to get the sleeves on – instead of having to hold the coat and get your arms in at the same time. Try it both ways and see how the Hood Manouvre helps!
4. Zips, button or toggles? Which can your child manage by themselves? Try a few in the shop and buy whichever your child finds easiest.
5. Laces or velcro? One child I know had a pair of high-top lace-up ankle boots, which were always tied (by their parent) in a double knot. She couldn’t even get the shoes off by herself, let alone lace them up. So my choice is always to go with a simple velcro strap.
With 25 children doing coats and shoes, up to 10 times in one day, your child’s new teacher will be so pleased you’ve worked on this!
(*Source: My good friend Catherine heard this on the radio. Not exactly scientific, but you agree don’t you?)
You might also like this idea for organising your school run.
Happily shared with WeareTHATfamily’s Works for me Wednesday
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.