Introducing birdwatching to children

Are you a birdwatcher?  Whether you are a back-door birdwatcher admiring the birds on your garden feeder, or enjoy nothing better than getting up before the sun, heading down to your nearest estuary reserve and watching the geese and lapwings greeting the sunrise, while sipping from a flask of cocoa in a hide; bird-watching is a relaxing hobby that brings you closer to nature.  Wouldn't you like to share that hobby with your child or grandchild?  It can be a bit nerve-wracking though.  Can you imagine the disgruntled faces turning around from their binoculars and scopes as the birds fly off in a hurry from the sound of a stampeding and screeching toddler in the hide?  It's not a pretty thought.  So how do we introduce this wonderful hobby to children?

First, get them interested in birds.  A little knowledge goes a long way in getting a child interested in something.  Try some of the following:

• make bird feeders with them.  A quick internet search will reveal loads of ideas using recycled milk bottles etc.  
• Feed the birds.  Make bird-cakes using fat, seeds, grated cheese, meal worms, bread crumbs and any other tit-bits that you can find.
• Teach them the names of some common birds.  You can do this by looking out of the window and naming some of the birds, but you could also try making a set of bird picture cards (two of each) and playing memory pairs or snap.  As you pair each card you can name it, and your tot will soon be able to tell the difference between a robin, a heron, a golden eagle, a blackbird and a chaffinch.
• Get crafty and make bird nest boxes or model birds.
• For any bird-watching activity provide them with a simple picture spotting sheet (to tick off any birds they see) or simple bird ID book (the RSPB do some excellent children's ones) and a pair of children's binoculars so they can actually see what you're peering at.

Now teach them how to be quiet.  It's all very well telling children that they need to be quiet or they will scare the wildlife away, but many children don't actually know how to stop their feet sounding like herds of elephants.  Play whispering games - whisper a command (hop 3 times, turn around and touch the ground, come and get a sweet) and see how the child starts to be quieter so that they can hear the whisper; whisper messages to one another etc.  Play tiptoe games - they have to sneak up on you and pinch the keys from under your chair without you hearing them.  Talk about fairy feet and fairy voices.  A bit of practice pays dividends.

The first few times you go on a bird-watching expedition, keep it close to home.  Set up a hide in the garden (a small tent covered in camouflage fabric, or a bean teepee), and make yourselves comfortable with binoculars, a snack and a flask.  Keep it short - aim to tick off 8 different species, or to stay out for fifteen minutes or so the first time.  Next you could aim for a less popular hide, for example at a local woodland - where your child will be unlikely to disturb anybody except you and the birds.  Make sure that each visit is a success, with a couple of birds identified and praise for quietness.  If they enjoy these, and seem to have got the hang of being quiet for the required time, you can progress to the RSPB reserve (with the promise of cake from the cafe at the end!).  

Congratulations!  You have a new bird-watching partner!

Fundraising for pre-school and toddler groups - 10 ideas.

I'm no fundraising expert.  Far from it in fact - and the groups I have been involved with are always looking for more ideas, so if you have any I'd love to hear from you.  Here are ten ideas for fundraising for groups of small children - sponsored silence is out of the question, non-uniform and dress-up days are... every day?  Some need bigger numbers to make them work, which has been the problem for the groups I've been part of.  In our rural corner, all these groups are tiny, only just scraping together enough kiddies to make them viable.  This makes fundraising crucial, but also much more difficult.

1. Easy Fundraising - www.easyfundraising.org.uk - Your organisation or group signs up, and you encourage parents, friends, granny and grandad etc. to sign up on-line and select your group to "support".  They get a little icon on the toolbar, and whenever they visit a website which is linked to easyfundraising, they get an alert asking them if they want to activate a donation.  Whatever they buy in that transaction, a percentage is paid to your group.  Tesco direct, Amazon, John Lewis, Argos, National Express and many many more are all linked in, so any time you shop at any of these websites, your group gets cash!
2. Catalogues - there are a few catalogue companies that are set up for fundraising.  Two examples are Webb Ivory (www.webbivory.co.uk) and Yellow Moon (www.yellowmoon.org.uk).  Webb Ivory is very Christmas oriented, with tons of Christmas cards, decorations and wrapping paper, though they do have other seasonal catalogues, while Yellow Moon is much more about children's crafts.  For Webb Ivory, you order the catalogues and distribute them to the parents / families /supporters of your group.  They order through you.  25% of the order total comes to your organisation.  For Yellow Moon, you order the catalogues and get a unique code.  When your parents/supporters order from the catalogue or website they enter the code.  20% of the order total comes to your organisation.
3. Sales - For a bigger group you could hold your own toy sales, table-top sale, nearly new sale, bake sale, coffee morning etc.  For smaller groups, you might take a table at one of these sales, or simply put a table out to sell to your own parents.  For baby groups, you might take a stall at an NCT sale, which are very well attended, and in Scotland we have Jack and Jill sales, which are for any children items.  Our pre-school parent committee collected unwanted children's items from amongst the parents and amassed a ton of stuff, so now we are booking a table at the next few Jack and Jill sales in the area to try to make a bit of money.
4. Sponsored walk - It doesn't have to be far for little ones.  This may be the first time you've troubled your neighbours, uncles, aunties etc. to sponsor little Billy for something, but be assured, it won't be the last!
5. Quiz - Depending on the size of your group, you might hold your own quiz night in the village hall or whatever, though that does then require all the parents in the group to get a babysitter in!  A better option, which we tried out this Easter, is to simply print out a quiz and distribute it amongst friends, family, neighbours and door-to-door in the local community.  People answer the quiz and return it with £1 taped to it, to be entered into a prize draw (ours was for a nice Easter Egg, donated by one of the parents).  Every quiz returned is money for the group, with very little effort and outlay apart from printing and distributing the quiz.
6. Jam Jar - One of the parents made a batch of jam, which was loaded into plastic jars.  Everybody had to buy a jar of jam for £1, and then return the jar a couple of months later filled with coins.  The jars were sitting on kitchen counters and mantlepieces just collecting loose change, and soon filled up ready to be returned.
7. Rag-bag - www.rag-bag.co.uk Again this is something that happens in Scotland, but there may be something similar where you live.  You basically collect up unwanted clothing, shoes, linen and towels from your supporters and arrange a collection by the company.  They pay £400 per tonne.
8. Personalised Items - this tends to be a popular option at Christmas time.  You can either do it yourself, or it's easy to use one of the many companies out there.  Get the children to create a design of some sort, maybe a self portrait, or a Christmas picture, some art work, photographs of the children or whatever.  Parents can then order different items with the design on - calendars, coasters, mouse-mats, tea-towels, t-shirts, mugs, key-rings etc.  At Christmas time they will order away, knowing that Grandma and Great Auntie Doreen will be thrilled to have a mug, keyring and tea-towel with Little Suzie's art-work on it, and ticking off their tricky-to-buy Christmas presents at the same time. A large percentage of what they pay goes to your group.
9. Duck Race - this is the reason I'm writing this post today!  This morning we went to our neighbouring village of Dollar, for the annual "Dollar Under-5s Duck Race".  This group manages the local baby group, toddler group and playgroup, so they have quite a lot of supporters.  Their annual duck-race is a real keystone in the local calendar.  Ducks are sold by parents and committee members, but are also available to buy in the deli, the butchers and the paper shop, and people from the village and surrounding areas do buy the ducks, as almost everybody has been through or knows somebody who has been through the under-5s group.  On the day they also hold a craft sale, BBQ, ice-cream stall, children's games etc in a local hall.  Hundreds turn out to watch the ducks swimming down the burn, and the children all wade in to "rescue" the ducks when they get stuck on rocks or reeds.  Afterwards everybody heads to the hall for cake and BBQ and to hear the winners announced.  A FABULOUS fundraiser!
10. Ceilidh - this is another one that has really worked for us.  It's been held for the last two years between Christmas and New Year raising money for our pre-school and the local primary school.  It's a CHILDREN's ceilidh, which means that it's early afternoon rather than late in the evening.  At this time of year everybody is eager for a get-together and this is an opportunity to get Granny and Uncle Phil and all the kids out from the Christmas TV and doing something different.  Our local ceilidh band has donated their time for free, but you're unlikely to be so lucky!  Get a band, get a good patient caller who can teach the dances, sell drinks and snacks and include a raffle and you've got yourself a winner.

Toddler Activity Cards

When reading parenting forums, particularly amongst Stay-at-Home-Mums you'll often come across a plea for ideas of simple things to do with toddlers.  Things which don't take much effort, minimal resources.  We're talking about easy activities to allow parents to spend quality time with small children who don't have the attention span or skills to play involved games.  Sometimes these activities can be used to distract a child who is about to lose the plot, who is demonstrating that dreaded attention-seeking behaviour.

When C was little and I was heavily pregnant with Bug I compiled one hundred simple activities and made a set of cards.  These cards have been in a stack on the bookcase in the sitting-room ever since (nearly three years now) and whenever I could see that the children were needing some direction I would just grab the top card on the pile and try to do the activity.  Now that they are older (four and a half and nearly three years old) they are pretty good at using their own imaginations for independent play, and if they are struggling I'll get out the colouring books, or a card or board game, or simply change around the toys on offer in the sitting room, but there are still ample opportunities for these five-minute activities to distract and redirect, to build skills and interact.

In short, these activity cards have been awesome.  So here comes my commercial idea... Could I print these out on nice card with an attractive design on the back, and sell them on my website or craft stall?  Would people pay £5 for a set of 100 "Quick And Simple Activities for Toddlers"?  What do you think?

Topics for toddlers and pre-schoolers - Woodlands

As you may remember, I try to have a vague topic or theme each month, to keep activities fresh and give some direction to exploring.  Since we love woodlands, that's what our topic is for June.  Here are some of the things that we've been up to or are planning to do:

• lie in long grass and look at the sky
• forage for food - a bit early for wild raspberries, but Wood Sorrel and cleavers are out there, as well as nettles for soup.
• identify wild flowers - Bug chose to buy a wild flower ID book with her holiday spending money, which I think is awesome!
• visit woodlands - as well as our local deciduous and conifer woodlands, while we were on holiday we found our way to the Stackpole Estate, to Colby Woodland Gardens and to Lawrenny Quay (all National Trust properties in Pembrokeshire) so we've had a wide variety to explore.
• tree and leaf collages with pictures from magazines
• read woodland books
• make a bird box
• make a collection of interesting "finds" from the woods - seed pods, feathers, interesting sticks etc.
• wild weaving
• sing "Teddy Bear's picnic"
• press leaves and flowers
• have a picnic in the woods
• roll down a hill
• make trees from newspaper
• introduce woodland words such as names of woodland animals, deciduous, conifer etc.
• identify types of tree
• string print tree picture - use string dipped in paint to print branches of tree
• leaf and pine cone printing - a painting activity for outdoors I think!
• play a matching game with pictures of woodland animals and their young
• camp out in the garden
• make a giant spiderweb in the woods out of string between trees

A crafty morning with the little ones.

"Mummy, can we do some craft things this morning?"

"Yes.  What would you like to do?"

"Can we use the fancy scissors?"

At the moment he still goes with what he wants to use, rather than having a project in mind, so at this point I brought out "Creative Crafts for Kids", which I borrowed from the library and will definitely be buying a copy of.  We chose a quick and easy project to make little baskets using the fancy scissors.

•  You get a square of coloured paper and cut along one edge with the fancy scissors.  
• You then roll the square around a beaker, with the zig-zag edge towards the top of the beaker.  Fasten with tape.
• Fold the rest of the paper square down over the bottom of the beaker to make the base of your basket and fasten with tape.
•  Use your fancy scissors to cut a strip of paper for the handle and staple or tape in place.
• Decorate.  We used self adhesive holographic shapes.

While they were finishing decorating their baskets I got some paints out in blues, greens, a dash of white, yellow and black, some sparkly and some not. 

We started to paint pieces of paper to be the sea.

 Then we drew and cut out a boat.  The one below is C's pirate ship, and he painted on a pirate as well.  He likes pirates at the moment.  Once the boat was complete and cut out, and the painting was dry, we stuck it on to the sea.

Bug's new bed

Bug is now a big girl.

Not long before her second birthday we decided that it was time to transition from cot to big-girl-bed.  Her bedroom is a little tight for space, so we had decided some time ago that she was going to have a cabin bed. Our selection criteria were that it:

• should be wooden
• should be sturdy, as we want it to last into her teens
• should have a decent rail - she's still quite little and I don't want her falling out
• should have steps (however steep), rather than a ladder with rungs.  Again, she's only little, and I want to make it as easy as possible for her to get in and out safely.

This is what we ended up with: 

We spent a Friday evening assembling all the different components and then, very excitedly, she climbed in.

Unbelievably, she has yet to try to climb out during the night.  She seems to accept that she is supposed to stay in until morning!  She loves her pillow and her duvet, and she loves that Mummy or Daddy come in for a cuddle and a story at bed time, which we obviously couldn't do with the cot.

There's a little corner at the end of the bed where the shelves are, which I have filled with her bean bag, cushions and soft toys - it's her story corner.  If, at any time, she goes quiet and I don't know where she is, she'll either be in bed with a book, or in her story corner with a dozen books.

As you can see from the pictures, C loves his sister's bed too.

 Now I'm just keeping an eye out for a solid wooden chair, which I'm going to paint to co-ordinate with her bedroom, to go with the desk part of the bed.

Quick and Easy Craft Ideas for Toddlers - Sticking

I'm sure that I've mentioned this on here before, but it's such a great activity, so easy and yet allowing them to practise so many skills that I'm going to put it on again.

What you need: some paper - preferably allow them to choose their colour; some glue - you can use PVA and a spreader or a glue stick (I like to vary it so that they get practice at both); some scissors - zig-zag ones make a change; old newspapers, catalogues or magazines - our theme for January was "plants" so we had out the plant catalogues.

What to do: 
Get the children to choose their paper colour and decide which way up it will go.  This is a useful TEACHING POINT - you can introduce the vocabulary of landscape and portrait.

Give them a catalogue and depending on their age and ability or inclination, or whether you are focusing on cutting skills or sticking skills, they either cut out whatever pictures take their fancy, or you do.  

Once they've got a good selection of pictures, encourage them to work out where on the paper they are going to stick them.  This is another TEACHING POINT - you are encouraging them to think through their art work before they launch into it.

Then they get sticking.  Depending on their age and experience you'll have a few different teaching points here too - do they put the glue on the paper or on the picture to stick?  Does the glue go on the back or the front of the picture?  How much glue do they need?  Should the glue go in the middle or around the edge?

It's so much fun and they love the results.

Simple crafting - coats for teddies!

 It all started with the little "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" house that I (cough - Mrs Santa) made for Bug.  Daddy Bear has on a green waistcoat.  Suddenly Bug decided that Teddy - the love of her life - needed to put on the waistcoat, but it wouldn't fit!  I offered to make Teddy his very own waistcoat, and she was delighted to be able to choose the colour.  She also insisted that it needed to have a button.  So Teddy has a red waistcoat.  It wasn't long before C brought me Bunny (I knitted Bunny for him when he was just a bump).  Bunny needed not only a long purple waistcoat, but also a hat.

The method is very easy.  Use felt, it comes in a variety of colours, is very forgiving and doesn't need any hemming.  Use the teddy to design your pattern, fold over the felt when you cut it so that it's the same on both sides.  Cut the shapes you need, and then stitch any joins, using a co-ordinating thread.  Sew on any buttons you want, and use narrow ribbon to make a loop to fasten the button.  It might not look as though it will appear on a catwalk any time soon, but your toddler will love it - and the fact that they can ask for it and it will be complete in just half an hour suits even their impatience!

Child-led crafting

How often do you let your child lead the way with crafting?

I'm guessing that the older your child and the more comfortable you are with mess the more likely it is that you let them lead the way.  The younger they are and the more pristine you like to keep the nest, the less likely that they get free rein.

Up until now I've mostly led the way to some extent.  Either I've told them what we are making (such as with the snowmen and the Christmas tree decorations, or I've just decided on the equipment or media and let them get on with it, such as with our shell sculpture, or pipe cleaner people.

Sometimes C has asked for particular items, but up until now he's been a bit aimless, and just been sticking or cutting randomly.

This week was the first time that he's had a very particular end in mind, and has come asking for the bits and pieces he needed.  He had an interesting stick which he had found in the garden and brought into the house.  He left it to dry on the radiator for a couple of hours.  At the beginning of quiet time he requested "some sparkly things and some glue".  When I asked what for, he said he wanted to make a sparkly stick as a present for Santa.  I suggested that he might want something to stick the stick into so that it would stand up, so he also asked for some playdough and a little pot.  I provided the goodies and left him to it.  A little while later he reappeared and asked for a wet cloth so that he could wipe the glue off his fingers.

Here's the result:

Isn't it awesome?!  He came up with this all by himself, and he's only three and a half.  He is adamant that its a gift for Santa and that we need to take it with us to leave with the beer and mince pie that we leave out for the big man on Christmas Eve.  I just love him so much.  He makes me proud.

Easy Toddler craft activities - salt dough Christmas tree decorations

Salt dough is a brilliant activity for toddlers.  It feels good, it is cheap, it washes off and you can do so much with it!

I've made things with salt dough in the past, but not for a long time and this is the first time I've done it with the children.  We made Christmas Tree Decorations, which we've painted with glitter paints and threaded with ribbon ready for the children to give as Christmas gifts to whoever they would like to.

Salt dough recipe:
Use half as much salt as flour and mix to a dough consistency with a little water at a time, usually about the same volume as salt.  I used one cup of flour, half a cup of salt and about half a cup of water and it made two baking trays full of decorations.

What to do:

• Make the dough by mixing the ingredients (you can add food colouring and even glitter at the dough stage if you want).  Knead it well - the more you knead the smoother it will be.
• Roll it out.
• Cut with cookie cutters or just free-form if you prefer.  For Christmas tree decorations or anything else that needs hanging, don't forget to poke a hole through with a skewer at this stage.
• Bake in the oven at 120 C until the dough has completely dried out.  I think I left it in for about two hours, but I'm not sure that this was enough, and now I have the finished items sitting on top of a radiator just to make sure they are completely dry.  Apparently you can also put them in the microwave for two or three minutes.
• Once dried out, paint your creations.  You can use any type of paint - poster paint, acrylic, glitter glue.  You can also varnish with proper varnish or with PVA and water mixed 1:1.
• Thread with ribbon.

Quick Christmas crafts for toddlers - angels and stars!

This is a glittery one, so beware!

What you need:

• some doilys (white, silver or gold - all good)
• some cardboard - empty cereal box is perfect
• glue
• glitter
• pencil
• string or thread
• scissors
• selotape

The Angel

• take a doily, and imagining that it's a pizza, cut out 1/3.
• Cut out a piece of cardboard that is the shape of a skittle (head on top and a fattish bit for the body).  Get your toddler to draw a face on the blank side of the cardboard.
• Take the larger piece of doily and wrap it around so that it makes a good cone shape, cut off the pointiest bit.  Unwrap again and then rewrap with the neck of the cardboard in the point of the cone (look at the pictures for help deciphering what I mean here) and glue the dress in place.  
• Now glue the smaller piece of doily onto the back as the angel's wings. 
• Dab some glue on to the front of the angel's head and dip in glitter to make a halo.
• When it's dry, use some selotape to attach a loop of thread to the back so that you can hang it from the tree.

The star

• show your child how you use a ruler to draw straight lines.  Draw three longish lines all crossing in the middle, and then three smaller lines each going in between the three longer lines.  Now join up the ends of all these lines (again, look at the picture to get a clue what I'm on about).
• Depending on the development of your child you can then get them to draw their own star, or not; and to cut out their star... or not.
• Get your child to put glue wherever they want on the star.
• Sprinkle glitter over the star (show your child how to do this inside a tray so that the surplus glitter can be collected back up and sprinkled again).
• When all the glitter is dry, use tape to attach a loop of thread from the back so that you can hang it from the tree.

Enjoy!  Please share links to your favourite Christmas crafts for little ones, I'm always after some inspiration.

Quick and easy crafty ideas for toddlers - cotton wool snowmen

I think that these are totally cute, and very easy to make.

First - take an empty cardboard box from the recycling and cut out a snowman shape.

Next - provide your toddler with glue and encourage them to liberally spread it all over the snowman shape.

Provide them with cotton wool balls and show them how to tease out the ball shapes to make "clouds", then get them to stick the cotton wool all over the snowman.

For the next stage it depends on the development of your child.  If they are happy to do it, then just provide them with some coloured paper scraps and encourage them to cut out appropriate pieces for hat, nose, eyes, buttons etc.  If they are still... well... anything like Bug, then you need to cut out the shapes and direct them exactly where to stick them on (she really wanted to stick the nose on to her own nose... and to stick everything else to the table!).

Et voila!  Gorgeous snowmen to decorate your home.

Things to do in central Scotland with toddlers - Stirling Castle

The accumulation of another twenty stars on the fridge (rewards for doing as they are told promptly, being kind and helpful etc), it was time to choose another treat.  Sometimes they get a new book, sometimes a toy, and sometimes a trip out.  This time it was a trip to Stirling Castle - the centre of the Scottish Universe back in the 16th Century. 

As well as exploring the rooms, looking out over the battlements and generally roaming around, I was delighted to discover a change since my last visit - the Vaults.  These were originally used for storage, but have now been turned into an interactive space for younger visitors.  There's a musicians vault, where you can try out some musical instruments, and hear the type of music that would have been part of the castle day.  The Jester's vault, the Painter's Vault... and best of all the Tailor's Vault, where you get to try on Stewart Dynasty costumes!  How gorgeous do my two look with their outfits on over the top of their big coats!?

The hour that we spent on this visit is really not enough, as there is so much to see.  We'll be going back again soon so that we can explore a bit more.  Preferably in the warmer months so that we can spend a bit more time outdoors!

An advent calendar of activities to prepare for Christmas with toddlers.

Once the advent calendar comes out we know we're on a countdown to Christmas.  C knows what to expect, and with non-stop Christmas music in the shops, Christmas trees and Santas wherever you look and all the hype, it'll be an achievement to keep his feet on the ground in the run up to the big day.  Bug is still pretty clueless.  She'll go with whatever her big brother suggests.  So, to keep them on track, help get things organised at my end, encourage them to think about what Christmas means, and about other people, and allow them some way to express their excitement I've come up with twenty-four activities for the advent period.  One activity for each day. I've kind of broken them down into which need doing earlier to help me out, but there isn't a specific day, to allow us a bit of flexibility.  Hopefully I'll be blogging as we go through December on some of the progress that we are making with the list.

• Make Christmas cake
• write and post Christmas cards
• go to Ceramic Experience to make gifts
• donate things to charity shops

• make stars and angels
• make a wreath
• make a stable scene (felt I think, but maybe card)
• make snowflakes (paper cutting - C will love to practise his cutting skills)
• peace and goodwill chart (we'll put stickers on whenever we do something to make somebody else feel happy)
• go to a Carol Service (it'll be my District Scout one)
• make Christmas decorations (fir cones dipped in glue and then glitter, salt dough and felt)
• watch The Snowman
• check that we've got all the presents that we need
• read the Christmas story
• make a snowman (if we don't have any snow then we'll use cotton wool and make a mini one!)
• plant a mini-Christmas tree
• do some artwork for mummy and daddy (I've started a tradition of them doing something for us as a Christmas present which then goes on the sitting room wall)
• go for a winter walk
• plant a fruit tree

• decorate Christmas tree
• wrap Christmas presents
• pack for Christmas trip
• leave snack for Santa and reindeer and put out stockings

Play prompts and i-pad apps for toddlers

My camera has given up (I've only had it since last Christmas...  I've managed to kill a camera in under 12 months!).  But I'm now armed with Hubby's camera #2.  It's a little bigger than my usual, and won't just slip into a pocket or handbag (perhaps where I went wrong with my camera?) so won't get as many outdoor photos, but at least I have one that works now.

This month our vague theme is "shape and colour" about which I based this morning's invitation to play.  C was busy with the i-pad, more on that in a second, so this was really for Bug.

I started by stacking her coloured stars, stacking her coloured cups, stacking her coloured cars and laying out Mr Potato Head's accessories, as well as leaving my brightly coloured poncho lying around and setting up a shape puzzle.  She spent some time playing with all of these, mostly taking the stacking items out of their towers and fitting them inside one another.  Eventually she finished this play and wandered off.  When she returned I had rearranged everything.  This time the stacking items were lined up in order of size, Mr Potato Head had a funny face, and I had put out some different shape puzzles ready to complete.  She couldn't resist.  She came back to have another play, this time rearranging Mr Potato Head's face, and making towers out of the stacking items, as well as having a go at the puzzles.

Meanwhile, C was busy with the i-pad.  He'll sometimes take no notice of it at all for weeks on end, and then he wants to have a play on it every day for a while.  We first introduced it as a distraction/treat to keep him on the potty when we were first potty training.  I usually give him a 20 minute time-limit - which he is more than happy with - but what does he play on there?  Here are the "apps" that we have on there for him and Bug, if you have any good app recommendations then do let me know:

itunes.apple.com

• Art of Glow - a simple programme where you can draw firework-esque pictures that glow in different shapes and colours.
• Counting 123 - I'm not a great fan of this one.  You do things - such as tapping on the fish or dresses on the screen and it counts to ten and then gives you a cheer.  I suppose that the repetition of counting to ten helps children to remember the sequence, but that's about it.
• Animals Zoo - This one is a bit like animals flashcards, only animated, and when you tap the animals they make a suitable noise, and when you tap the animal name, the computer reads it to you.  Both my children are now pretty confident with the names of all sorts of animals, and I think this app has helped.
• Paint Sparkles - you can either draw freehand with paint, crayons, sparkly ribbons etc, or you can colour in one of the many provided pictures.  If you have the sound turned on then the american accent will also tell you the name of the colour.

That's about it on our i-pad for the kiddies - any others you'd recommend?

Baby and Toddler groups

I go to one Baby and Toddler Group.  It's little (too little actually, we are struggling to be viable at the moment - any new members please?) and friendly and right here in the village.  So we toddle down there every Tuesday and have a nice big village hall to run around in and lots of interesting toys to play with, and I get a change of scenery and some lovely mums to chat to.  

Just one group a week is apparently quite unusual for a Stay-at-home-mum.  I know several who have groups to go to nearly every day of the week, sometimes one in the morning and one in the afternoon!  I like just one though.

I've heard new mums wondering how they are ever going to make any "mummy" friends.  They are newly at home and their friends are still at work and/or childless and they suddenly feel all cut off and alone.  I always advise that they get along down to their local parent and baby group, assuming that this friendly group will be as welcoming and friendly as the group I belong to...

... I have now discovered that they aren't all like this.

I found a booklet in the library last Monday about Clackmannanshire Storytelling Festival, and one of the events was going to be a drumming workshop for toddlers, hosted by another toddler group (do I mention the name?  Hell yes, name and shame, it was Alva Toddlers).  So last Tuesday at our toddler group I shared the info and we collectively decided that we would cancel our group and go to the drumming workshop.

The drumming bit was fine.  The toddler group was massive, way bigger than our little group (we've never had more than about a dozen children, and more often operate with about five).  There were children everywhere, and adults everywhere, and a lot of noise, and a lot of toys.  You know what though?  We were there for an hour and a half, looking friendly and everything, and in an hour and a half not one person spoke to either me or my children.  Not one.  Even though we joined in with the drumming, and we joined in with snack.  Everybody just chatted with the people they knew, and dealt with their own children and totally ignored us.  I couldn't wait to get out of there.  

Now I know what people mean when they say that they tried their local toddler group and won't be going back.  All of you, come and join our Baby and Toddler Group.  We welcome everybody, chat to everybody, make you a tea or coffee and have a nice time.  Okay - rant over... and breathe...

Simple craft ideas for toddlers - Paper weaving

Anybody remember good old paper weaving from Primary School days?

I had a delivery of art and craft supplies yesterday, which included a pack of construction paper, so while a tired Bug extended her afternoon nap, C and I took the opportunity to try a new skill.

I took the piece of background colour paper and folded it in half, then cut from the fold to about an inch away from the edge of the paper to make slits.  I then cut the other piece of paper into strips about an inch wide.

I then showed C how to push the paper over and under to weave, and showed him how the colours alternated to make a pattern.  He tried it himself, but found it quite tricky, so needed quite a lot of support, but he loved the result.

This afternoon I think we're going to try some Wool Weaving to make a bracelet, but I'm not entirely convinced that it will be a success... we'll give it a go and show you how we get on.

Crafty ideas for toddlers - Wool Winding Pictures

Mr Maker is a popular man among the three-year-olds in my family.  

To me he's a little over-the-top.  I really don't like the way that he cuts shapes out of the middle of a piece of paper and wastes the rest of the paper.  I spent years as a Primary School Teacher telling children that they should cut from the edge so that as much of the paper as possible can be used for something else.  He seems to require a lot of his resources to be bought, rather than following thrifty and environmentally sound principles of reusing things from around the house.  There aren't many items using bottle tops, egg boxes or old newspaper or loo-roll tubes for example.  Enough ranting - C loves his show on CBeebies.

Yesterday afternoon he decided that he wanted to cut a piece of cardboard.  I immediately made the connection to the wool picture that Mr Maker had made on the television in the morning, and produced the necessary resources.

We needed:

• pieces of cardboard cut from a cardboard box, about A4 size
• A4 coloured paper
• sharp scissors
• glue
• sticky tape
• oddments of coloured wool.

What to do:

• stick the coloured paper to the cardboard and trim so that they are both the same size.
• Use the scissors to cut little v-shaped notches around the edge of the card - as many or as few as you like, there should be at least one on each side.
• Fasten the end of a piece of wool to the back of the card with sticky-tape and start winding it around the card, feeding it through the notches.  The bit that C found tricky was keeping it tight enough rather than just looping it around loosely.
• When you reach the end of a piece of wool, fasten it on the back of the picture using more sticky tape, and fasten on your new piece of wool.  It looks good with two or three colours.
• I then cut the centre of another piece of A4 paper (I used a wavy line so that it wouldn't matter if not entirely central or straight!) and stuck this on as a frame (not shown).

C really enjoyed making something he'd seen on the television, and was proud of the result, though he did comment that "it was tricky and hard".