Learning about the festival of Halloween

Unlike many people we don't celebrate Halloween in our house, we prefer to celebrate the light of the gospel rather than the darkness of the occult.  I was reminded of this verse this morning when it popped up on my Facebook newsfeed and it sums up our views on Halloween entirely.

As our boys grow up we hope to teach them about Halloween and why other people may celebrate it, but we will group it together with other festivals such as Diwali, Hanukkah or Chinese New Year - festivals we don't celebrate ourselves but learn about them as part of our world diversity.  So that being said, these past couple of days we've been learning about and exploring some items associated with Halloween that are also a natural part of Autumn - spiders and pumpkins :)

First of all we looked for a spiders web to see how awesome and beautiful they are!  Fortunately we didn't need to look far as we found a HUGE one on our washing line.  It was quite hard to photograph in the light so this photo doesn't do it justice, but this was the inspiration for our spider games, crafts and activities this week...

The first activity we did was a spiders web balancing and collecting bugs game.  I taped some electrical tape to the rug then scattered around some buttons I had.  I didn't have any flies so Daniel had to make do with some bumble bee and frog buttons!  They were the closest I had!  There wasn't too much to do in this game but it fitted Daniel's level of ability well - he just walked up and down the web collecting the bugs as he went.  We then sat down and did some sorting of the buttons - until the dog got a bit too interested and wanted to eat the frogs!

I then found some cheap plastic spiders in the seasonal aisle in Morrisons so I bought a couple to do some water play with.  We sang and played Incy Wincy Spider using a washing up bowl of water, a cut up empty orange squash bottle and a toy watering can.  Daniel had no fear in playing with the spiders - I personally didn't like them as they looked a bit too real!  He had great fun walking them up the spout then watering them back down again.

We were very hungry after all that splashing so using the spiders web as inspiration we made some cheesy webby pizzas!  Yum Yum!  They got a little bit burnt as Ben had a poosplosion whilst they were cooking!  They were still very tasty though and Daniel gave it his seal of approval - a clean plate!

Then in the afternoon we did some spider painting.  We made a large blue spider out of a paper plate and some pipe cleaners.  Then we did some handprint painting to make some small spiders.  Daniel's ended up looking more like a crab than a spider but it was close!  I keep trying to do messy things with Daniel to help work on his sensory issues and I think we are making progress.  He still cried a little bit when he got paint on his hands but this time it was only a cry not a scream and a meltdown... we may get there one day.

By then we were all spidered out!  Over the couple of days we also did some pumpkin activities.  First up we made some chocolate crispy cakes - made into little pumpkins by using white chocolate with orange food colouring, and with a green M&M to make the stalk.

Secondly we decided to try and grow some pumpkin seeds - using the pumpkin as a pot :)  Nobody in our family is green fingered so we have no idea how this is going to turn out but I'll probably put money on us killing whatever grows in a matter of days!  Daniel enjoyed making a mess of the kitchen floor by getting soil everywhere!  We roasted the seeds we didn't use and had a yummy snack - Daniel wasn't so fond of these though - all the more for Mummy and Daddy ;)

All in all I think Daniel has enjoyed learning about some aspects of Halloween.  Next up... Bonfire Night :D

Nikki x

Homemade Christmas Presents Part 2: Family photo pairs game

My second homemade Christmas gift for Daniel is now complete!  Again, this had been 80% finished for quite a while but I hadn't found a suitable box/container to store it.  So once again, the sewing machine came to the rescue to make a bag :)

This game is a personalised pairs game using photos of members of our immediate family.  I've made it so there are two ways of playing this game: one is the standard pairs game - there are 2 matching photos for each person and it will be a simple turn them over and match them up game.  Or secondly we could just use one set and Daniel will have to match up who lives with who - Grandma with Pops, Grumps with Nanny, Auntie Carley with Uncle Matthew and so on.

Here it is...

I'm looking forward to playing with these come Christmas!

Nikki x

Holiday!

Hey :)

I've been quiet on here recently as we've been on holiday!  We went to Riviere Sands Holiday Park in Hayle, Cornwall and had a lovely but tiring week.  Daniel had an awesome time exploring Cornwall while Ben slept through most of it (he even slept while Mummy had a go on a bumpy slide!).  We went to the beach, to Paradise Park, Land's End, The Minack Theatre, St. Michael's Mount, One2Eleven play centre and Healey's Cyder Farm, as well as going for walks, playing mini golf,  finding swings and slides in every town we went to, chilling in the caravan and going out to eat - it was a very busy 4 and a half days!

I wanted to keep a record of the holiday for Daniel even though he is still to young to do a diary/journal so I decided to make him a photo experience book of his holiday.  I just captioned some of my favourite photos from the trip, printed them off, laminated them then joined them together with a ring. I was really annoyed that I couldn't find my hole punch so I used my flower punch instead.  I'm sure it will be a little less robust but at least it looks pretty!  Here are a couple of pages from it...

Hope he likes it!  I may do a few of these experience books for different trips/holidays/outings until he is old enough to keep a diary or journal for himself.  It will be something nice to look back on in years to come :)

Nikki x

Ahoy me hearties! Playing Pirates: Part 3

Ahoy there!

More pirate antics have ensued this weekend so here's what we've been getting up to...

Digging for treasure!  One washing up bowl of sand, a toy spade and a rake, a handful of charity shop beads and necklaces and a few chocolate coins makes for a messy but fun game...

Once again, Daniel wasn't so fond of the feel of sand on his fingers, but once he got the idea he could eat the chocolate when he dug it up, he dove straight in there!  Thank goodness we've got a good hoover as the sand got thrown around quite a bit!  If we do this again, we'll do it in nice weather so we can play outside :)

Next up was a sea-themed snack, not exactly pirates but as piratey as I could do :)  Meet Captain Crab Apple!

Then we decided to make some telescopes.  Nothing too fancy, just a toilet roll tube decorated with tin foil and star stickers.  Daniel didn't quite get the idea of looking through it with one eye, he had it balanced on his nose!  Nevertheless he had great fun :)

And finally, I made a treasure chest colour sorting game from an old egg box, coloured paints and pom poms :)

Daniel did surprisingly well at this - I thought it was possibly a bit too advanced for him but he proved me wrong!  We will have to do more colour sorting activities with a few more colours :)

Other than this we've watched a few episodes of Swashbuckle on Cbeebies, and we're planning on watching Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid this week. I've got a couple more pirate activities in the pipeline which should see us through until we go away next week.

Nikki

Ahoy me hearties! Playing Pirates: Part 2

Ahoy!

We've been having great fun with our pirate theme this week and here is a few more snippets of what we've been getting up to over the last couple of days...

Firstly, I made some sailing boats out of washing up sponges, lollipop sticks and green paper and we sailed them on the great washing up bowl sea!  We also went searching for sunken treasure (charity shop bead necklaces broken up) at the bottom of the sea  :)

While we were playing boats, I talked to Daniel about things that float (the sponges) and things that sink (the treasure) but I think it all went a bit over his head as he was having too much fun splashing in the water!  He wasn't too sure about retrieving the treasure from the bottom of the sea, but once I semi lifted a couple of them out he was well away.  We were having great fun, then all of a sudden a great white beast came to drink from the sea... :)

Next up we decided to make some parrot paintings.  We used red, yellow and blue paint to make handprints to stick on the parrot to look like his feathers...

Daniel also had great fun painting a picture using the parrot coloured paints...

And finally, we realised that Daniel actually has a pirate ship in the house that we had forgotten about!  It's one of his bath toys!  So we've been playing pirates in the tub of an evening too.

I think that's all for now, but I've still got some pirate themed games and activities planned for the coming week, as well as watching Peter Pan.  I think we are all going to be pirated out by the time we actually get to Penzance!!

Nikki x

Ahoy me hearties! Playing Pirates: Part 1

Ahoy there!

In a couple of weeks time our little family is off on holiday to Hayle in Cornwall so I started talking to the boys about going to the seaside and the theme of pirates came up.  So until we go away, we are going to be playing pirates!  Here's what we've been getting up to so far...

On Sunday we went to visit Kate, Ethan and Tanya up in North Devon and we took a trip into Westward Ho! for dinner.  Daniel played on the pirate ship play equipment and we found a pirate outside the sweet shop!

On Monday we went for a walk up to Stoke Village and raided the charity shops for treasure!  We came home with a selection of plastic bead necklaces and bangles, which we will use later in the week, but for now Daniel has been having great fun dressing up in them...

We also went to the library and found a selection of pirate themed picture books to read at bedtime.  Daddy does story time when he's not on a late shift and I think he approves of the choice of books...

Today we've been walking the plank!  I used a cardboard box to make a plank and some crocodiles then added Daniel's stuffed shark and Nemo.  Nemo was there to save him from the shark and crocs if he fell in!  Excuse the half naked toddler and the blurry photos - he was too excited to play this morning to bother with clothes!

Then whilst Daniel was napping, I went shopping with his Grannie Annie and we found some dressing up clothes in the Halloween aisle.  Grannie Annie treated Daniel to a pirate costume!  So this afternoon once Daniel was home from Little Kicks we did more walking the plank dressed up!

So that's where we're up to so far, but there are more pirate adventures to come :)

Nikki x

Homemade Christmas Presents Part 1: Rainbow peg matching game

I like to make homemade gifts for people and Christmas is no exception.  I can't show you all what I'm making for family and friends as that would ruin the surprise, but I can post the toys and games I'm making for the boys.  I've finally completely finished my first Christmas gift for Daniel - a rainbow peg matching game, made simply from some wooden pegs and some sample paint charts from Homebase!  This has been 80% finished for quite a while now but I needed a box or a bag to store it in and after not finding a suitable box amongst my recycling, I opted to sew a patchwork bag using some of my fabric scraps.  You will have to excuse the wonkiness as I cut the pieces out whilst watching a very dramatic episode of Casualty with a glass of wine... I was a little distracted!  I'm sure Daniel won't mind the wonkiness though :)  So here it is...

Fingers crossed Daniel likes it when he opens it on Christmas day!

Nikki x