As it was a rainy morning we decided to have a break from parks, and go to the cinema for a Friday treat, however we had a few hours to kill, so I got one of the children's craft books out. H chose his activity - making a knight themed wall hanging decoration. And then he told me he couldn't do it! So I showed him how....
I drew a castle, and with each line I drew on the paper H copied mine. Eventually H had a great looking castle!
We both then drew a sword with H copying mine.
Then we drew a shield.
H then painted his pictures using watercolour paints, something he hadn't used before.
Here is H's finished piece of art, I love the watercolours, and I think his drawings are fantastic! He was very proud of his masterpiece!
The painted shield.
The painted sword.
The painted castle.
We visited the Science & Industry Museum in Manchester during February half term week. We walked around the 'Textiles' exhibition, which was slightly more interesting than it sounds(!) due to the interactive elements of it. The children had a go at knitting (I wasn't very good at helping them despite the 4 step instructions - knitting is one thing I could never master!) and weaving (this was a doddle for me to explain!)
We walked around the aircraft exhibition and saw lots of different flying machines, the children enjoyed this bit, especially the spaceship!
We all played with the interactive wall of televisions and became famous for a while!
The children had a play in the play part of the interaction section of the museum, this was great fun and allowed everyone some freedom to run about and play. After about an hour of playing here the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building! That was the end of our trip! It was a lovely day out and somewhere I would definitely take the children back to again - hopefully next time we will be able to finish our explorations!
"Goodies and baddies" has been the favourite game here for a few weeks now, occasionally it veers off and the children play "Peter Pan", this is generally the same game but with character names! The children are all very good whilst playing their game; they know that they are not allowed to hurt anyone; only those involved in the game join in; they swap teams happily and include others in their play; and although they may "kill" each other and they may "die" and "be dead", somehow they always come back to life and this is an acceptable part of their play.
We decided to make shields to defend ourselves from the baddies - some of the shields contained "force fields" and "laser beams" - the imagination being used was fantastic!
The children cut pieces of sticky backed foam to decorate their shields - this was a good activity to develop children's fine motor skills and hand muscles. The children here have access to scissors from a young age, they are taught about scissor safety and are supervised appropriately. I believe that it is important to give children opportunities to use scissors and learn how to use them safely.
After another gorgeous morning out at the park (thankfully without the predicted rain) we came home, got clean (there were quite a few muddy and sandy fingers thanks to the park), ate a scrummy lunch and then set about making pancakes. I had printed off a visual recipe for the children to follow, and with a little assistance they made the pancake batter themselves.
Each child had a job to do....
HT measured out the flour.
J sprinkled in the salt.
Everyone gave a good stir.
Albie and HB cracked an egg each (just look at HB's face when the egg cracked!).
T measured and poured the milk.
Then everyone helped to stir up the mixture.
(Albie was given a plate to put the egg shell on - somehow it ended up in the bowl with the flour?!)
We tasted pancakes with lemon and sugar, and with chocolate spread. It was pretty much 50/50 with regards to our favourite topping, everybody liked both toppings! Yummy!
