It’s been a bit wet this week, but it hasn’t stopped us from getting out in the garden. On Tuesday, Rabbit, Tiddler and I planted some more seeds. They insisted on watering their pots, even though it was raining the whole time we were out there. Perfect toddler entertainment, and I found it rather therapeutic too.
On Saturday, I went to London for the Big IF event in Hyde Park. I travelled up with my friend from church (who is also the children’s piano teacher) and another friend of hers. I really enjoyed the opportunity to have uninterrupted conversation with adults and so the train journey was quite relaxing. We took the tube to Lancaster Gate and walked through the park. It was a lovely walk on a beautiful sunny afternoon, and we saw a heron, some rabbits, swans and cygnets, geese, ducks and coots. I really must take the children there sometime, they would love it.
I was surprised that there were no signs about the Big IF at the entrance to the park and no stewards. There were so many people in the park who must have known nothing about it, which was quite a missed opportunity I’m sure. We did find our way there though, and walked through an area with food stalls and children’s activities before making our way to the front where the stage and screens were. I happened to meet a friend from a local home education group and she joined us for part of the afternoon, which was a good opportunity to catch up and chat. We were sitting in the blazing sunshine all afternoon and I was very aware that if I’d had the children with me we couldn’t have got close enough to hear anything as there was no shade anywhere near the stage. I exchanged texts with another friend (Jax) who had come with children and had to retreat to a tent at the entrance, so was unable to hear the talks. There must have been many parents in this situation. I did manage to catch up with her on my way out which was lovely.
So I know I was lucky to hear most of it, though we had to leave before the end. I heard Bill Gates, Danny Boyle and Satish Kumar, among others, and it was very inspiring. I did a bit of live tweeting, though it was tricky as lots of people were presumably doing the same, and some of my tweets failed to send. With hindsight a notebook and pencil might have been better for keeping a record. The most memorable part for me was Satish Kumar talking about the importance of farmers, especially women. He was eloquent on the subject of why we should pay bankers less and pay farmers more. “Is it more important to fiddle with figures than grow real food?”
The message of the day was clear. There is no need for hunger in the world. As Bill Gates said, “You are the activist generation. Tell leaders that a world where two million children a year die of hunger is unnacceptable.” Maybe thinking of the problem in such a huge scale is hard to comprehend. So think of one of those children. A child dying for no reason. Think of his mother. Think of her father. Think of the irreparable damage done to their world. It’s happening to two million families every year, and it doesn’t need to happen. You can do something about it.
Find out about the IF campaign here.
On Friday afternoon we combined two of our favourite things – stories and messy play.
A few weeks ago, the children asked if they could have a book day. Since then we have revisited the idea several times, often on a Friday afternoon, including our story picnic the week before last. So we have decided to make it a regular weekly event.
On previous occasions, the children have made lots of collections of books and the toys that go with them, but I was aware that they spent more time collecting than concentrating on the stories! This time I suggested reading just two stories and basing our play around them. We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Magic Porridge Pot and then the children gathered the toys they wanted to play with while I made some porridge.
I recently wrote this post, touching on the ethics of messy play with food. It has been shared again on twitter over the weekend (thank you BritMums) and discussed in relation to the BigIF London event and the campaign to end world hunger. I think I need to write another post on the subject to respond to some of the comments on twitter properly, but I wanted to mention it here too. We are still playing with food, and I believe the benefits for the children are important enough to justify it. However, I have taken some steps to reduce waste.
When making the porridge, I tried to cook the amount the children would actually eat, and I got it about right. We did the activity at snack time, and of course some of it got smeared around the Tuff Spot (and on their bodies!) but they did eat most of it.
I am mostly trying to let the children play with food in such a way that it can be eaten as well, rather than mixing edible and inedible ingredients. However we do still play with flour and cornflour, which I do not encourage the children to eat!
When we play with dry food ingredients, I try to reuse them as many times as possible. We currently have a mixture of rice and lentils which has been used a lot, and now contains a bit of flour and some sand too! On this occasion I was not able to save the dry oats that we played with as they became mixed with the porridge. This was probably because it was raining so we had to play indoors with the Tuff Spots next to each other. If we had been in the garden, I would have put them further apart so that they were two separate activities.
For this activity, I made some traditional porridge, and also some instant hot oats. I used water instead of milk to try to reduce food waste. Then I started to think about the amount of water we generally play with and whether we need to think about that issue too. At this point my brain started to hurt from overthinking!
In addition to the two kinds of cooked porridge, I gave the children some dry oats and instant oats to play with, and some sugar, raisins and cinnamon to add to their porridge.
The children had a lovely time making mixtures of the various ingredients, using a Lego Duplo truck to deliver them (with a Playmobil 123 driver!) and eating rather a lot of very sugary porridge. They also discovered that cinnamon was very good for making marks in.
Monkey made a scene from the Three Bears story with our Maths bears (normally used for counting, colour sorting and comparing ) but it wasn’t long before the bears were swimming in the porridge.
One of the Fisher Price farm people also went for a dive in a cup of porridge, which Rabbit thought was very funny. We then did some mark-making and I was very pleased to see that Rabbit can now spell quite a few three-letter (CVC) words, and has definitely moved on to sounding them out rather than just learning each word separately. I am finding it very interesting to observe the different ways in which each of my children has learnt/ is learning to read. I think that subject merits a post of its own (I have such a long list of posts I want to write.)
Monkey and Rabbit are both so good at reading, writing and spelling that I don’t often focus on them quite so much when we are mark-making. However, Monkey did learn to spell the word “porridge” during this activity!
We had so much fun with our messy play this week, as always remembering Matilda Mae and her lovely mummy Jennie who has given us so much inspiration for our play and learning. We are joining up again with the Messy Play for Matilda Mae linky, and also wondering if we are brave enough to start a linky of our own about activities based on books and stories. So what do you think? If there was a children’s book- themed linky, would you join in? If you say yes, then I will have to do it!
Nearly one billion people go to bed hungry every night and two million children die from malnutrition every year. All over the world, and even in the UK, people are struggling to feed their families.
Over 170 charities have joined together to form the IF campaign, calling for the G8 to take action on World Hunger. “The world produces enough food for everyone, but not everyone has enough food. We can change this in 2013. IF we act together, we can make this year the beginning of the end for global hunger.”
The IF campaign is calling on world leaders to act on four big issues:
Together, we can make IF happen. The more people who get involved, the more pressure there will be on world leaders to tackle global hunger.
Tomorrow, as world leaders meet in London, the Big IF London event will be taking place in Hyde Park from 2 – 5pm. You can find out more about it here.
On Sunday we spent the afternoon in the garden enjoying the sunshine. We thought we would clear some wet sand out of one of the Tuff Spots, and Rabbit and Tiddler enjoyed helping to lift spadefuls of sloppy wet sand into the wheelbarrow. However, it soon became clear that they were having a lot of fun playing with it, so we changed our plans and let them carry on. We experimented with making marks in the wet sand and the children also buried their hands in it. Tiddler got right in there and stomped around in it too.
We then got some vehicles and Tiddler made tracks in the sand, while I drew shapes and Rabbit wrote some words.
This went on for a long time!
And I had as much fun as the children did!
When the little ones had finished, we removed most of the sand and then added our leftover rice and lentil mixture (I think there is a bit of flour in there as well!) This was more appealing to Monkey, who prefers “clean” messy play, so he and I spent quite a long time making marks in it, while the others dipped in and out of the activity.
The vehicles were added back in and more tracks were made.
And then of course there was the fun of washing the toys!
Meanwhile, in the other Tuff Spot…
Rabbit, Tiddler and I planted some of the enormous stash of seeds leftover from last year. I know it is a bit late for some of them, but it is such a fun activity and the seeds are not going to improve by being left for another year so we decided to try our luck.
Next we did some mark making and Tiddler drew a snake so I showed him how to write the letter “S” and we talked about how it looks like a wiggly snake.
After that, Owl and I did some more writing and drawing in the rice mixture, while Monkey made mud pies with the compost.
It was a lovely afternoon and once again it reminded me that the best play is often completely unplanned!
It seems a long time ago now, but we had quite a good half term, though it didn’t all go exactly as planned. On the first Saturday, Tiddler went to Dramabuds with daddy, and then I took him to Polesden Lacey while the big boys went to choir and Rabbit went to the Garden Centre with daddy. On Sunday after church, we spent the day doing housework and laundry and then set of to Granny and Grandpa’s house late in the afternoon. We were supposed to be staying for four nights but on the way we could smell diesel, so we called the AA out on the Monday morning. There was a fuel leak and it couldn’t be fixed there and then, so we arranged to be towed home on the Tuesday.
After sorting that out, we had quite a relaxing day. I went for a short run with Owl, then went out again to take photos as the countryside was looking so beautiful. The children set up a shop with their toys, played with Lego and drew chalk pictures in the garden. Rabbit and I made jelly, and she and Tiddler helped Granny make a cake. Owl had a friend over for a birthday tea (he is having a very extended birthday this year!)
On Tuesday, Rabbit, Tiddler, daddy and I went home in the AA tow truck, and Owl and Monkey stayed for two extra days with Granny. I made the most of the unexpected time at home and did a satisfying amount of stuff from the domestic to-do list. Rabbit and Tiddler did lots of drawing and making things, including collages, rockets and playdough people. They also played with blocks, did some painting, including bubble painting, and drew pictures with chalk.
On Thursday, the big boys came home, and on Friday we had a lovely day in the garden. We did bubble painting again in the morning, and in the afternoon we had our story picnic. On Saturday, while I was at Cybher, the children went to the Science Museum with daddy. On Sunday we went to church and then spent the afternoon in the garden playing with sand and planting seeds. It was really relaxing and a good end to the week.
Owl is nine today. This is his birthday interview.
What would you like to be when you grow up?
A policeman
What’s your favourite colour?
Green
What’s your favourite book?
Lego City: Meteor Shower. I also like Secret Seven books.
What are your favourite toys?
Lego, remote-control helicopter, hovercraft.
What is your favourite food?
Pasta with pesto, and pizza.
What is your favourite thing to wear?
Superman costume.
What do you like doing with mummy?
Playing Lego.
What do you like doing with daddy?
Flying my helicopter and building science model kits.
What makes you happy?
Getting presents and going to the Science Museum.
Tell me a joke
Why did the car go to the doctor’s? Because it needed a fuel injection.
Saturday was AMAZING. Went to Cybher 2013 with Mum Friendly Jo. Signed in and got a lovely (and very bright!) pink satchel. Coffee in the exhibition area, and then to the ballroom for an introduction by Sian, and an inspiring keynote talk by Zoe Margolis encouraging women to make connections and support each other. Met Jax who has inspired me so much over the last few years, as a home educator and as a blogger.
More coffee. Lovely to see Monika again. She is raising money for the Lullaby Trust by doing a sky dive in July. Go and sponsor her. I’ll wait….
Next, Jo and I both had a makeover. Yes, really. Me with make-up on! Here’s the proof.
Then off to a photography session with Mario Cacciottolo. The main thing I learnt was to think about where the light is and manipulate the subject, if possible, so that the light is on them. I also took some photos of the session but they weren’t great. The irony was not lost on me. Sigh…
Lunch next and more time to talk with some of the other bloggers – so many fab people, so little time.
My highlight of the day was meeting Merry. We have been friends for what feels like a very long time. It was hard to believe we hadn’t met before. She is just as lovely in real life!
Some excellent sessions in the afternoon, including Sian and Claire‘s really useful beginners’ basics session, and Jay‘s awesome inspiring talk about changing from Auto to Manual on your DSLR camera. I don’t even own one (yet) but for me it was the best session of the day. (I am now watching several cameras on Ebay!) I also loved Maggy‘s Google Plus session, so I’m going to have another try to get to grips with it. Then a really useful session about how to make your blog pay (might have to think about doing this so I can afford to keep going to blogging conferences) and a closing session back in the ballroom.
Out for a quick meal with old and new friends, and then back to the cocktail party where we met even more lovely people, including some of the Collective Bias team. I am feeling inspired and have lots of ideas for the blog. It was a brilliant day and I just want to do it all over again!
