International Mud Day!

It would have been a shame not to have celebrated International Mud Day!  So off we went to the park with a picnic, and then once we had enough energy it was time to set off on our hunt for mud in the woods...


It didn't take long to find some muddy puddles on our walk down to the woods.

Albie, A and J jumped straight in!

M sat in the buggy watching the other children jumping in the mud, squealing in delight, so I decided to let him join in the fun too!  

M absolutely loved the mud, especially when the older children jumped near him and the mud splashed on him, you can see the delight on his face!

We then continued our adventure into the woods.

We then found the perfect spot to continue our mud play.  I had brought bottles of water just in case the ground wasn't muddy enough - we didn't actually need these, but the children added them anyway!  I had also brought big spoons, ladles, a masher, a whisk, and some pans.  The children soon got to work!

Everyone got very muddy, some more than others!! 

After an hour of mud play it was time to get clean.  However, on the walk back to the car, the muddy puddles we had to walk past proved to be too tempting for Albie...

which resulted in a very wet and muddy foot!

We all had a wonderful day, the children in the car on the way home told me they had never played with mud like that before!  


Parents beware - due to the success of today I am planning on repeating this activity during the summer holidays!

Water, water everywhere!

What an absolutely scorching day!  As it was so lovely, and the forecast is that it will be our last warm sunny day for a while we decided to stay at home and play with water to make the most of it!


The children enjoyed playing in the paddling pool filled with water and balls.

A slide was added - J realised only too late that the water was COLD!

Though by the afternoon the water had warmed up nicely, and M spent a lovely long time splashing about!

Thankfully the hosepipe was turned off!!!

New 'Playgroup' and Volcano eruption!

I was very sad on Wednesday to learn that Play Patch (our usual Friday haunt) has now been closed and is being sold in order to cut costs to the council, ultimately the land will be grassed over and all the lovely play areas and resources will be lost - what a waste.  However the childminder group have managed to secure the use of a playroom and garden at a local Children's Centre when it is not being used.  I was concerned that it could not live up to the wonderful Play Patch, happily I was wrong!  


Friday was our first day there and it was fantastic, the facilities are great.  The outdoor play area is much bigger than we are used to and has lots of areas to explore and lots of toys to play with.  We spent a short amount of time outside, then a toilet visit meant it was necessary to go inside.  The boys then discovered a fire station and fire engine, a car transporter and cars, and a bin wagon - it was boy heaven and there was no way after that point in time that they were going back outside!!!


I am hoping that I might be able to tempt the children outside for a slightly longer time in future visits, although I have a feeling it may involve the relocation of the fire engine, car transporter and bin wagon!

The children had painted the volcano earlier in the week, and after the paint dried I painted a layer of PVA glue to offer some protection.  Then after pre-school on Friday it was time for our experiment!  The children were fascinated by the volcano erupting, especially as the lava was red!  


I shall investigate more experiments for us to do in future weeks, though I may try them first following the complete disaster when we tried to make slime!

Eric Carle inspired pictures

 I only found out on Tuesday that this week is the birthday of Eric Carle - had I known earlier I would have planned more!  On Wednesday the children all created some lovely patterned paper by first painting it one colour, then adding a pattern in another colour using lego blocks to make prints.  

We left the paintings to dry overnight, and I cut them into lots of random shapes.  Today the children created lovely collages using the shapes they painted, to create beautiful pictures in the style of Eric Carle.

Here are our finished pictures, I think they're lovely!

We then enjoyed reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  More caterpillar pictures to follow tomorrow time allowing!

No sweeties?!

It has been a while since we have done 'heuristic play', so that is what I planned for this morning.


The babies got stuck in straight away, and it didn't take M long to work out that he could make a VERY loud noise by banging a wooden spoon on a metal tin!

It really was great fun and it made M laugh a lot!

J was engrossed in putting corks and wooden pegs in the top of a long cardboard tube that I balanced at an angle.

And amazingly they came out again at the lower end, but when J tried to push them up the lower end they just fell out again!  How clever that J has learnt all about gravity today!

J was quite disappointed that there were no "sweeties" - he kept asking me and then telling me "all gone"!  What a mean childminder I am!

Before lunchtime the babies had lost interest so I tidied the heuristic play things away in the corner of the lounge, however I didn't get the time to put them away in the garage.  Which turned out to be a good thing, as in the afternoon the older children got everything out all over again and had a wonderful time!


Albie enjoyed putting the rings on the mug holder.

A enjoyed playing the drums and figured out the cardboard box, metal tin and plastic box all made different sounds!

It was a really successful day enjoyed by all, and we will definitely do this again; although I think that some of the success is down to the fact that it has been a while since the children have done this activity, so it was 'new' to them again, and as such we may leave it a few months!

Baby song time & Volcano part 2

This afternoon with the two older children both at pre-school, it was just the babies and myself at home.  We had been outside in the sunshine all morning at Play Patch (our outdoor playgroup), and after lunchtime the sun was a bit too strong for us to stay out - it's not often I say that!  So I decided that we would be better off playing in the shade in the conservatory, which was nice and cool with the doors wide open to the garden.

J suddenly started singing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', which was my queue to get the finger puppets out and have a good old sing song with the babies, who loved choosing the puppets and singing the songs. 

J is getting very good at singing in tune, and M found us both very amusing!  What a lovely time we had.

Later on when A and Albie had come home from pre-school it was time to paint our volcano, which really is starting to look good!  I am hoping that we will get some dry time later on in the week to make our volcano erupt - which I plan to do in the garden!

I couldn't put any info up about our Fathers Day presents that the children made last week, as I didn't want any of the children's Daddies having their surprise spoilt!  Here is a photo of the lovely noticeboards the children made....

I painted the board with 2 layers of magnetic paint, then painted a base layer of blue.  The children then got to work painting the boards.  We then stuck little magnets onto foam shapes, sprinkled on glitter, attached a ribbon to the board to hang it up, and ta da!

Obstacle course

At the end of our session at Physibodies on Wednesday, Hazel set up a little obstacle course for the children to complete - this gave me an idea to do the same at home in the garden so that all the children could enjoy it.

 I had a few little helpers in 'building' the obstacle course!

One contestant insisted on adding a new obstacle each time they completed the course!

We learnt lots during this activity - taking turns, watching and cheering on our friends, counting, colours, using physical skills (running, jumping, crawling, climbing and balancing), time duration - and we had lots of fun whilst we were doing it!  

  We have spent a huge amount of the last week outside, I am hoping that this will be the way it will be for many more months as both the children and myself enjoy being outside immensely.

More outside painting!

After a lovely morning at playgroup where I spent quite a while stopping a mischievous 12 month old from eating sparkly play dough, we came home and again the children all sat outside to have their lunch - we are loving this lovely weather!


After lunch the children asked if they could do some more painting, how could I say no!  As well as continuing to paint the paper still stuck to my conservatory window, we decided to do some hand and foot prints which we will later turn into fish to create a sea collage.  


The paint was "cold, slimy and it tickles" as it was painted on the children's feet.


It did not stop us having fun though, and some of us got very messy!  Although, I think you will agree, it is very clever trying to paint your own feet?