Uh-uh, a forest, a deep dark forest!

I’ve been unwell with gallstones/suspected gallbladder infection for most of this week. By this afternoon, I was beginning to feel the need for some physical exercise after five days of barely leaving the house. One thing that has been difficult to do on foot or by public transport is visit woodlands, so I did a quick search online and discovered some woods that I have never been to, despite living here for most of my life. I loaded the children into the car and managed to find the way there by myself without any problems, navigating some very narrow country lanes. I felt quite proud of myself when we arrived!

Once we got through the gate, Aaron said he was scared. As far as I can remember, we haven’t been to any proper woods since last summer, so it has been quite a while!

He said he didn’t like the noise of the wind in the trees, and I don’t think he liked the enclosed feeling as he kept asking how we were going to get out. With a bit of persuasion, I managed to keep him going by pointing out things to look at until he began to enjoy himself.

Tabitha was in her element with sticks and mud! We had a lovely circular walk, spotting various interesting things and acting out parts of “We’re going on a bear hunt”.

Now that we’ve discovered some accessible woodlands within easy driving distance, we’ll have to go back regularly. Unfortunately Aaron began throwing up just as we arrived home, so it looks like yet another sickness bug has hit. The children seem to have had loads this year after never having them previously!

Themed heuristic play for babies

Baby M joined us last week. He is 9 months old, not yet mobile and puts everything in his mouth. Heuristic play, which is playing freely with a selection of objects, is a perfect activity for him. Rather than simply getting out our treasure basket, I decided to create some themed sensory setups for him to explore.

My first theme was “shiny”, inspired by this post at Worms Eye-View. Baby M loved the crinkly thermal blanket and spent a long time tugging it. There were lots of shiny objects, which gave him the opportunity to experience cold, hard metal and various jingling sounds.

This setup included lots of objects made from natural materials. Baby M loved kicking his legs over the beach mat to make a squeaky rustling noise. There was a wide range of textures to explore, with smooth, rough and spiky objects. Some were hard and some were soft, some were cold and some were warm to the touch.

These themes have been a big success, so I’d love to think of some more ideas to try. A “soft” setup with blankets, cushions, fabric toys and playsilks maybe? Please feel free to share any other suggestions!

A sneak peak

Our Montessori learning space is almost finished, although there are still a few things that need to find new homes. Today the children were able to enjoy using it for the first time.

Aaron hasn’t done any Montessori language work yet, so I decided to quickly whizz through the pink series to review what he already knows. This first activity was only intended to be matching objects to initial letters with the moveable alphabet, but he decided it was too easy and spelled out the whole words.

The orange star was supposed to represent “sun”, but he decided it looked more like a compass!

Little Miss Scruffy worked on the knobbed cylinders and then put them away on the shelf.

It is much easier now for the children to take materials to their rugs, rather than having to carry them through the narrow corridor and around the corner. There is also more space for me or Colin to sit with the children while they work, which is lovely. I’m really liking our new learning space so far!

An idyllic evening

This post could otherwise be entitled “why I love having a car”. We don’t often go out in the evenings, because by the time Colin gets home from work we are all feeling too tired to go far. But today we jumped into the car and drove across to the allotment.

Here is the view down the allotment from the shed. My dad has put in a lot of hard work to get it looking so good.

And this is the view back up the allotment towards the shed, which is painted forget-me-not blue and will eventually have a rainbow mural painted on the back!

Once all the watering and hoeing was done, we  headed off to our favourite fish and chip shop for some well-earned dinner. We very rarely go there, because it is the other side of town and previously the food would have been stone cold before we walked home. But today we drove down to the quay and ate by the waterside, watching cormorants catching fish and a family of swans. Afterwards the children spent ages throwing stones into the water. It was a beautiful evening and a real treat to spend time out together as a family during the week.

DIY Montessori Sound Cylinders

We’ve had a lovely week with Colin off work. Money is tight at the moment so we didn’t go anywhere very exiting, but we’ve visited nearby towns and beaches. I’ve clocked up over a hundred miles in the car and Colin has been very helpful, giving me advice, directions and reassurance. He would make a fantastic driving instructor if only he could drive! I think I’ll be confident enough now to go out on my own with the children (driving to Sunday School and back doesn’t really count!).

On a very sad note, all our tadpoles died. We changed their water as normal and I decided to try and clean some of the algae off the sides of the tank. I stupidly used a brand new sponge which I did rinse, but obviously not well enough. There must have been some chemical residue on the sponge (to stop it drying out in the packaging) and the next morning all the tadpoles and even the two snails were dead. I was devastated when I found them and woke Colin up crying! The children are disappointed and I feel so guilty.

Another trouble this week has been Aaron’s behaviour, which is really challenging at the moment. Some days I struggle to catch even a glimpse of the sweet little boy I know. I’m glad that Colin has been home to help deal with it but I’m secretly dreading next week! Hopefully some more structure and challenging new activities will help.

I’ve been working hard to completely reorganise our Montessori learning space upstairs. It’s gradually getting there, but there is still some big piles of junk  junk scattered all over the floor that needs to be sorted. The children’s shelves have been moved from the narrow corridor into the main part of the room, which should make it much more usable.

This evening I decided to remake our sound cylinders. I had ten empty film canisters and colour-coded them with red or blue stickers.

I experimented to see what dry foods would make the most different sounds and ended up using salt, hundreds and thousands, rice, split peas and cannellini beans. The stickers on the bottom are a control of error to show which cylinders match.

Here they are on the shelf. I just couldn’t resist these cute little wooden trays when I found them this afternoon!

Tabitha wanted to try the new sound cylinders out straight away.

Checking her own work to make sure she’s got it right!

I’ve got an 8 month old boy starting on Monday, which means I’ll be working about 20 hours a week for the rest of the term (not counting paperwork of course!). I’ve also got Ofsted coming soon and need to get my work-based learning placement done for college. I passed all my first year assignments with flying colours, so that was a relief. Making more time for friends is something that I am feeling the need to make a priority, as the days and weeks just seem to fly past!

Hope you have all had a wonderful half term.

Weekly Wrap-Up

We successfully released another little froglet back into the wild.

A wasp flew into the house, much to Aaron’s fascination. We got out some of our books about insects for him to find out more. He asked lots of questions about how the wasps find their way around and how the sting comes out of the abdomen. This kind of learning is part of our daily life and often slips by unnoticed.

On Wednesday we did lots of pretend cooking play. I got the children’s cooking equipment out of their kitchen cupboard and added it to the stuff in the play kitchen. We used loose parts such as conkers, pinecones, pebbles and shells as food. We do have a small set of wooden cutting veg but I’ve noticed that the children play much more imaginatively with the open-ended loose parts.

Tabitha used tongs to transfer the pinecones into cupcases and baked her “apple pies” in the oven. Little F did lots of stirring, whisking and transferring items between different containers. She figured out how to squeeze the tongs but they spring open too wide for her little hands to use properly, so I need to get another pair.

Eventually the play developed into a cafe. Aaron wrote out this menu with prices.

He practised giving his customers the correct change.

Then the children helped me do some real cooking by grating courgettes and picking herbs from our balcony baskets to make fritters for lunch.

Playing with the sand has also been popular this week.

On Thursday we had a wonderful time in the park with friends. It was freezing cold but the company was the best. Running around pretending to be a shark, octopus, colossal squid or various other creatures kept us warm!

We had to wait in on Friday for a delivery. Tabitha is keen on puzzles at the moment so we spent ages making the same puzzles over and over again. I set up an invitation to play, with some baskets of blocks and wooden people and our large acrylic mirror. Tabitha built a slide for the people and Aaron created “the grand old duke of York and his ten thousand men”.

Today we’ve all been working hard cleaning our new-to-us car! It’s been given to us by my lovely in-laws. I haven’t driven for about 4 years and only occasionally in the 7 years since I passed my test, so my parents took me out for some practice yesterday evening before flying off to France. I’m feeling a lot more confident already. This morning we took the car over to their driveway and spent several hours hoovering, scrubbing and washing it.

Tabitha was sick several times today, hence why she is wearing the seat belt instead of her impact shield. I don’t think it was my driving as she threw up all over the supermarket floor too!

Colin has next week booked off work so we are looking forward to some lovely family days out. We’ve managed fine without a car until now but this will open up so many new and exciting opportunities!

A dose of reality

I know I’ve been very quiet on the blogging front recently. There are a couple of reasons for that.

I finished and handed in my final essay on Monday, which was a fantastic feeling of relief. I enjoyed relaxing for a few days, but now I’ve got to focus on getting my presentation ready for next Monday. Then my first year will be over! It’s been a lot harder than I anticipated, having breezed through university at 17 and 18. I’ve really struggled with the stress over the last couple of months, and relied on support from others much more than I would like, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing as I often get told off by friends and family for being too independent! There have been moments when I wondered why on earth I ever started this course, but I think it will be worth it in the long run. I am enjoying it, despite all my moaning!

We made a fresh batch of playdough this week and added some fresh herbs from our balcony baskets to one ball. We used chocolate, lavender, orange and peppermint to scent the rest. I’ve noticed that the playdough doesn’t get used as much now that it is stored in our art cupboard, so I think I’ll have to move it back onto the side where the children are more likely to help themselves.

Tabitha is very much into helping with kitchen tasks at the moment. She loves cutting things and washing up.

Usually I fill a bowl with soapy water for her, but I learnt about this whisking activity on a Montessori course I’ve recently started. It’s great for strengthening the wrist and the children loved making their own bubbles!

We did some very messy play with shaving foam on our big acrylic mirror. Unfortunately I didn’t have a box or tray large enough to put the mirror in, so I risked putting it down on the floor on a mat. Big mistake, it went everywhere! The children had fun though and especially liked how slippery the mirror became.

On Thursday we went out shopping between rain showers and stopped for a while at a lovely grassy mound. The children spent ages running, climbing and rolling all over the wet, freshly cut grass. . . needless to say, they ended up rather green!

Today we enjoyed some sunshine again. We bumped into Auntie Hannah and Uncle Tom in town, who gave the children some money to spend. We then bumped into Nanny, who also gave the children some spending money, so they had ice creams for a treat on the way home from the playground.

I introduced Aaron to the stamp game, as he’s been keen to use it ever since it arrived. Watching him do addition with four digit numbers was quite impressive! We also played lots of games making numbers and practised changing.

So there’s a brief summary of our week. Please note that I have left out the many arguments, frustrations and oh so much screaming (seriously kids, I’m getting fed up of this phase!). Or the fact that on Thursday morning, the children moaned and whinged for hours to go to the playground. I told them that we could go out as soon as they were dressed, but they ignored me and refused to get dressed until mid-afternoon, by which time we needed to go food shopping so that we had something to eat for dinner! Poor hubby came home to find me in tears over the children’s behaviour.

I’m conscious that I blog about the things I want to remember. I don’t want to dwell on the bad bits, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any! Our life is far from perfect. Right now the house looks like a bomb has gone off. Even when it’s tidy, there are nearly always crumbs on the carpet, because my children don’t believe in eating snacks at the table. I get frustrated, I shout. I even resort to bribery or threats, knowing that it’s not the right option but sometimes it is just so much easier in the short-term. I am definitely not organised, most of our activities are spontaneous and there are plenty of days when it feels like we have done absolutely nothing. I’m human, and so are my children.

The last thing I want to do is make anyone feel inadequate or give the false impression that we lead a wonderful life in a tidy house with loads of fun activities! At the same time, I like to count my blessings by focusing on the good stuff, and I don’t make a habit (at least I hope I don’t) of moaning about the difficult bits as it feels disrespectful to my children. So there you go, a long-winded disclaimer basically saying that whilst I try to be honest, blogging doesn’t always give an accurate picture of reality!

On a more positive note, something really exciting is happening to our family next week, thanks to some amazing generosity. It will make a big difference to our daily lives. Here’s a clue. . .