Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear

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The weather is getting colder and it feels like Winter is on the way, but we haven’t quite had the last of Autumn yet.  We are still enjoying going out for walks, playing in the leaves and collecting Autumn treasures, but the children are also asking when we think it is likely to snow.  Parragon Books have sent us a book to review which perfectly encapsulates the simple outdoor pleasures of both seasons.

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Wakey Wakey Big Brown Bear! is written by Tracey Corderoy and illustrated by Rachel Swirles.  It is published by Parragon Books and is priced at £5.99.

Big Brown Bear doesn’t want to go to bed, because he will miss Autumn, with its crunchy leaves and splashy puddles, and Winter, with its sparkly snow. His friends Little Grey Mouse, Snow Hare and Squirrel promise to wake him up, but they can’t so they have to find another way to make sure he doesn’t miss out on the fun.

It’s a story of friendship, and a celebration of the seasons of Autumn and Winter.  It is well written and enjoyable to read aloud, and beautifully illustrated too.  Our children all loved it, and they had fun drawing their own pictures – I was pleased that even Tiddler wanted to join in!

 

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We were sent the book for free for the purpose of writing a review.

Matilda Mae Welly Walk

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It’s taken me a while to write about the Matilda Mae Welly Walk, which was on Saturday 2nd November.  Being behind on blogging is nothing new, but it’s also hard to find the words to do it justice.  There were so many things I loved about the day.

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The beautiful setting of Beale Park in Reading, the pink and purple balloons and bunting, the gathering of so many friends who were there to support Jennie and David, remember Tilda and raise money for the Lullaby Trust.

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The careful planning, the attention to detail.  Questions for the children to answer on the walk, provided by twinkl.

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Wonderful live music, stars and bubbles.

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And after the walk, so many exciting things for the children to see and do.

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The Zu3D animation stand was the biggest hit.  More on that later…

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Hook-a-duck, a lucky dip and lots and lots of fantastic toys to play with.

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So many people to talk to, a beautiful montage of photos of Tilda to watch, pink and purple star cakes to be eaten (and delicious pumpkin soup, and crepes with chocolate sauce!)

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The children were having such a brilliant time, and were so engaged in what they were doing, that we even got to drink whole cups of coffee without them going cold.

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A storytelling session in a beautifully decorated pink and purple tent held the attention of our older children very well, while Tiddler had some more playtime with daddy – it would have been very hard to tear him away from the toys.

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Later on we went back outside for the welly throwing competitions and some time on the playground equipment.

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And finally, back inside and everyone gathered together for the prize giving and speeches.  Owl was thrilled to win a Kurio tablet – what an amazing prize!  Time for some more music, and a story read to the children by Jennie, a peaceful end to a lovely day.

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As it began to get dark, we said our goodbyes and set off with sparklers, and a bunch of balloons weighed down with pink and purple wooden stars.  The sparklers lasted a moment, the balloons a week, but the stars are in our playroom to stay.

To Jennie, David and everyone who worked so hard to organise such a perfect day, thank you.

We will always remember Matilda Mae xx

 

Meal Planning Monday 11th November 2013

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We followed most of last week’s plan, with a few small changes as a result of a couple of events being cancelled.  We’ve been at my mum’s house over the last few days, enjoying some lovely meals and appreciating the rest from meal planning and cooking!  Back home tomorrow, I’m not sure of the exact timing, so I’ll have to see how it goes, and start this week’s plan from Wednesday.

Breakfasts – We’ll be keeping it simple – I can’t remember what we’ve got in at home, but cereal and toast anyway, maybe porridge at the weekend.

Lunches – It will have to be something quick on Wednesday, so probably beans on toast; sandwiches on Thursday; Armenian soup (lentil and apricot) on Friday; whatever is on offer at Paul’s mum’s church fair on Saturday (probably hotdogs and soup); leftovers on Sunday.

Suppers

Wednesday – pasta with lentil and tomato sauce.

Thursday – lentil and vegetable casserole, using leftover pasta sauce as a base.

Friday – baked potatoes and vegetable chilli

Saturday – prawn curry and rice (I think we are out of random meat in the freezer but we do still have prawns!)

Sunday – roast dinner at Paul’s mum’s house.

Puddings – stewed apple (again!), might manage to make crumble at some point too.

Snacks – fruit, biscuits, crackers and oatcakes.

Most of that is based on what we already have in at home.  I’ll have to do a quick check when we get back, but we should get away without having to do a big shop this week (thanks to both our mums!)  Might have to stock up the freezer again at the weekend though 🙂

 

Meal Planning Monday

Saturday Snippets 9th November 2013

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{testing} the Zu3D Dinosaurs in Space animation kit and loving it

{buying} new wellies for Owl and Daddy, and some charity shop bargains too

{visiting} friends and enjoying some relatively uninterrupted conversation as our five boys between us played nicely together (Rabbit went shopping with Granny)

{discovering} new apps on the Kurio

{playing} Frustration with the (smallest two) children and Scrabble with the grown-ups

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Owl and Monkey have made their first Zu3D animation with Daddy and are excited about making another one tomorrow.  Rabbit is very good at playing Frustration and seems to win every time.  Tiddler has been woken by fireworks and is in bed with me now (at 11.30pm), chatting, and distracting me – he is quite good company though 🙂

Design and Drill – Review

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It’s taken me a little while to get around to reviewing the second item we received at the Junior Scholars event which was a few weeks ago.  We quickly reviewed the Magic Science kit, which we loved, and then we took the Design and Drill set away with us when we went to stay at my mum’s house.  I was really looking forward to this one, as I’ve wanted to try it for a long time.  The children were all very excited too, and we had to work hard to get them to take turns as they couldn’t wait to get started.  We had a little trouble with the drill at first, as it was wired up incorrectly so forward meant reverse, and vice versa.  However, once we realised what was going on it was easy to work around.  Unfortunately though, after about ten minutes of playing, the drill stopped working.  The children were obviously disappointed, but I told them I would find out about getting a replacement drill and that we would probably be able to try it out again at home.

I emailed the team at Junior Scholars and got a very prompt and helpful response.  They mentioned that it was unusual, as Learning Resources products are generally very reliable, and in my experience that is certainly true.  It was obviously just a faulty batch, and they quickly arranged for a replacement drill to be sent out.  We received it over a week ago, and tested it out the weekend before last, so most of the delay has been caused by illness, being too busy and me struggling to keep up with my mountain of overdue posts.

The Design and Drill Activity Center is aimed at children aged 3 to 7, and it certainly appealed to Monkey, Rabbit and Tiddler (aged 7, 5 and 3).  Owl (aged 9) liked it too, although it didn’t hold his attention for quite as long.

The set includes an activity board with 100 holes, 10 double-sided pattern cards, 100 plastic bolts in 5 bright colours, a combination spanner, a junior power drill with reverse function, a hand drill and 3 different drill bits.  The power drill requires 3 AA batteries, which are not included.  At £29.95, I think it is really good value for money as there is a lot of things that the children can do with it, from simple drilling to complicated designs, so they won’t get bored of it easily.

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Second time round, it was a great success.  All the children loved it, and this time there were no problems with the drill.  Tiddler really enjoyed using it and spent some time practising putting the bolts in and taking them out.  The older children were quite patient while he did this, and they used the small hand drill to add and remove some bolts as well.  After a while, Tiddler had had enough, and then Monkey and Rabbit had a chance to create some pictures.  (Owl had a go too, but couldn’t wait for Tiddler to finish, so he went and found something else to do.)

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They used some of the picture cards, to create a flag and a flower, before designing their own picture of a train for Tiddler.  They worked really well together on this, and it was clear to see that this toy has a lot of potential for a wide range of ages, as it can be used in different ways.

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Despite our initial false start, we are really happy with this set, and I’m sure it will be used by the children for several years to come.

We were given the set for free by Junior Scholars.  All opinions are our own.

 

 

Meal Planning Monday 4th November 2013

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Looking back at our plan for last week, I think we more or less managed to stick to it – though we didn’t get round to the baking (other than flapjacks) or toffee making. The batch cooking was quite a success, though I can’t say the meals tasted very much of meat as the pack of mince was spread so thinly.  That didn’t bother me, but it made me think we could just do the same thing with more lentils and no mince, so I might do that next time.

We had lunch at Granny’s house (Paul’s mum) today, which is our usual Monday routine.  For supper we had leftover sausage casserole and potatoes. This is the plan for the rest of the week.

Breakfasts – cereal, yoghurt, fruit and toast, and maybe porridge.

Lunches – lentil and vegetable soup (Tuesday and Wednesday), sandwiches (Thursday as we will be out) and eggs (Friday)

Suppers

Tuesday – the last of the sausage casserole and potatoes.  (I deliberately cooked a lot on Sunday, and also extra frankfurters and beans as we had friends round, so that we would have enough for three days and I got it just about right.)

Wednesday – Quorn chicken pieces, rice and vegetables.

Thursday – pasta and pesto.

That’s as far as I need to plan this week as we will be at my mum’s on Friday.

Puddings – We still have a lot of cooking apples, so it’s likely to be stewed apple most days.  We didn’t manage to make the toffee for our bonfire night last night so we will try and fit that in tomorrow.

Snacks – fruit, biscuits and rice cakes.

There wasn’t too much to buy this week, so the shopping at Lidl was cheap – at least it would have been if I hadn’t decided to buy winter boots for myself and three of the children!  Taking those off the bill, the regular shopping came to around £50.  There will be one or two top-up shops (the first occurred this evening as we needed more treacle which Lidl didn’t have, and also sparklers, so Paul has been to Sainsbury’s for those) but I don’t think we’ll need to spend too much more.  I will try to keep up the meal planning because it is definitely making it easier to save money.

Meal Planning Monday

Saturday Snippets 2nd November 2013

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{driving} to Reading for the #MMWellyWalk

{feeling} happy to see some very good friends again but wishing there was a different reason for the friendships

{enjoying} the beautiful surroundings of Beale Park

{listening} to wonderful music from Classical Babies, and my lovely friend who stood in at the last minute when they were a viola player down

{testing} Zu3D animation kits

{throwing} wellies

{eating} a very late roast dinner at Granny’s house after watching Strictly

{thinking} of Jennie this evening and remembering Matilda Mae xx

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{snapshots} It turns out that Owl is very good at throwing wellies a long way.  This may or may not be a useful skill in the future, but today it won him a Kurio tablet!  He and Monkey have also been improving their stop motion animation skills with Zu3D, and are very excited to have received a Dinosaurs in Space kit to review.  Rabbit enjoyed the hook a duck, lucky dip and tombola stalls, and spent a long time (and most of Daddy’s money) making sure she won several prizes.  She and Tiddler also had lots of fun playing with some excellent toys, including Haba wooden ball track which they particularly loved.

Room on the Broom

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I was very pleased to be offered the chance to review Let’s Read! Room on the Broom for Macmillan, because we love Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.  The children already know and enjoy the story of Room on the Broom and we found it interesting to compare the Let’s Read version with the original.

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Let’s Read! Room on the Broom, paperback, £4.99, published by Macmillan

The Let’s Read series takes the complete original stories of popular picture books and re-designs them to support children who are growing in reading confidence.  I asked the children what they thought of the new version and they said that they liked it.  They noticed that the print was clearer, with a child-friendly font (no strange curly letters like “a” and “g”) and the enlarged capitals at the beginning of each page have been replaced with normal-sized ones.  The book itself is a suitable size for a child to hold.  It is also shaped like other books which might appeal to older children, so they will not associate it with a younger child’s picture book.  I think it is a really clever idea, to extend the life of some excellent stories which can appeal to children of all ages.

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The story is about a witch and her cat who fly happily over forests, rivers and mountains on their broomstick until a stormy wind blows away the witch’s hat, bow and wand. They are retrieved by a dog, a bird and a frog, and each animal asks for a ride on the broom. They climb on, one after the next, until the broom is so heavy that it snaps in two!  They tumble into a bog and meet a greedy dragon who wants to eat the witch.  The story cleverly culminates in a perfectly satisfying denouement.

After reading the story, the children had fun drawing pictures of the cover image.

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All of the children really enjoyed the book.  The older boys could easily read either version, though I think the new one might appeal to them most.  Rabbit can’t read it all yet, but she definitely finds the new version more approachable and I think the series will be really useful to her as her reading skills develop.  And Tiddler was keen to read it too.  At first he had a look and said, “Hmm, I don’t know all the words…”, but then he decided not to let that stop him and sat happily reading the story to himself for several minutes.

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Thank you, Macmillan, for sending us this book to review – it is a great addition to the collection, and we are really excited about the Let’s Read series.

We were sent the book free of charge for the purpose of this review.