First day of Spring

Spring, but pretty bloody cold.  The kids had pony riding this morning.  Betsy decided she'd like to have a go, the first time in weeks.  She looked so ridiculously happy on DeeDee!  She'd stopped as she said she found part of the lesson too hard, but today it was ok.  Meg had been looking forward to it all week, and Freddie really enjoyed trotting.  We'd stopped on the way to buy carrots and apples, and fed the horses after the lesson.

After lunch Freddie and I made some natural dyes to dye some duck eggs.  I chopped the beetroot, Freddie dismantled the red cabbage, and he measured out the turmeric.  He added vinegar, salt and water, and we simmered them for half an hour or so (I used this tutorial and used duck eggs as they are white).  We're all looking forward to seeing the colours of the eggs once they've soaked for a while.

Later we played some games: chess, sort-of-kind-of-backgammon (not really backgammon at all!), and shut the box.  Freddie beats me at shut the box every time.

Now Fred is at Jarvis's, Meg is watching Peppa Pig, Betsy is making a space rocket, and I'm excited about going to the cinema with my friend this evening!

Not quite to plan

I had a clear idea of what we'd be doing today.  Supermarket delivery between 10 and 11, then over to Caden and Mile's with a packed lunch and egg decorating supplies.  

Problem number 1 - Meg was asleep until I asked Betsy to wake her up at 10.25.  10.25!  For goodness sake.
Problem number 2 - the supermarket man phoned at 10.30 to tell me he had a puncture.  He was nearby, and I could wait maybe 2 hours, or go and collect from him.

So at 12.00 I was still putting the shopping away.  Oh well!  Lunch at home, and off to our friend's house without egg decorating gear, as it felt like a step to far today!

The kids had fun though.  It was mild enough to play outside, and they have a big garden with a trampoline, slide, playhouse, swings, sandpit.  Heaven!

Betsy landed badly on the trampoline and came inside to do a puzzle and some painting.  Freddie and Betsy did some colour mixing (eventually it all ended up sludgy brown) and Meg painted too.

I drank tea, and even managed to do some knitting!  Happy me :-)

Growing crystals (hopefully!)

We've had an unplanned day at home today.  We were going to meet up with my mum but we  moved it to the end of the week.  I dug around to see if I could find anything the kids fancied doing, as the weather was looking too dismal for the playground or the woods.

I sometimes get an online magazine called Alphabet Glue and it has lots of ideas for cool things to do, and lots of printable resources.  They have a straight forward tutorial for growing crystals using string and a bicarbonate of soda solution.  I haven't replenished our bicarb stock, but wondered if a salt solution might work.  

Freddie was keen to work on the experiment.  It took *a lot* of salt to make a saturated solution.

Once the solution was ready, Fred added some food colouring so that we would grow red crystals.

Fred poured the solution into the glasses, and added the string.
Meg helped me to make a sugar solution, so we could see if they grow differently to salt crystals.  I hope one (or both) of them work!

Meg is heavily into Fireman Sam at the moment.  Today she and Betsy played with the emergency vehicles for ages.  We have a Playmobil fire engine and ambulance, and a Fireman Sam fire engine that Freddie got when he was little.

I found Freddie a new game for the Nexus.  It's a shark game, and he gets the shark to swim about and eat stuff.  Right up Fred's street!

I found another idea from Alphabet Glue - story machines.  They are printed box templates that you make up, and fill with a very long narrow strip of rolled up paper, like ticker tape.  You pull the paper out to see what is written on it.

Alphabet Glue suggests you write a story on the paper strip, but as neither Fred or Betsy are writing yet we came up with something different.  Betsy drew a picture on hers.  I wrote jokes on the other one and gave it to Fred as a joke machine.  He read most of it himself, except where my writing was too sloppy!

Party for Betsy's friends

Betsy said it was her cuddly badger's birthday today.  I suggested a party.  She loved the idea, and remembered it was zebra and lion's birthday too.

We made mini fairy cakes, and Meg made sure the bowl was clean before I washed up.

I put up bunting, blew up balloons, and got out the streamers.  We had cakes and biscuits on the table.  We played pass the parcel, musical statues and what's the time Mr Wolf.  Betsy assured me that lion, zebra and badger had a great time!

There were Moshi Monsters inside the parcel, and the kids both played Moshi Monsters online for a while.

ThinkTank

Woooof, it's been a busy day.  We went to the amazing ThinkTank, Birmingham's science museum.  Our friend has membership and could get us in for free.  I felt it would be rude not to go!

Our journey was very smooth- no snarl ups on the M40, so it was an hour and 40 minutes each way.  Rob sweetly let the kids use his Nexus for the day, so they had that to play with in the car.

We arrived pretty much the same time as our friends, which was serendipitous.  Once inside there was so much to see and do.  We started with a mechanical digger, and a recycling exhibit.

Next we headed to the water area, with lots of different ways to move water and boats.  They all loved this, and we came back to it a couple of time over the day.

We played in the 'town' area, with a doctors surgery, cafe and petrol pump.  Then we went into the 'body' area.  It was amazing!  You could follow the transit of food along the digestive tract ( a big hit with my poo-loving kids), play with balls to show how the kidneys clean your blood, see a model heart beat at the same rate as your own (Betsy was grossed out by this), and much more.  Totally fascinating and very hands on.

We saw car-building robots in action, messed about with a heat sensing camera and checked out some trains, planes and automobiles.  We saw that crude oil makes so much of what we use every day. 

We finished off with the science garden.  There were air pressure rockets, pulleys that lift you up, a canal boat and lock system, all sorts.

An excellent day.  I'm exhausted!

Back with renewed energy!

I've enjoyed my blog break, but now I'm back!  It's still freezing, it keeps trying to snow, but spring is in the air at last.  

Since I last blogged, I've decided to step back from our regular group.  It was evolving into a more structured set-up, and that doesn't suit the kids.  We'll continue to meet up with the families we made friends with.

It changes the dynamic of our week, but that's no bad thing.  Thursdays have become our busy day, with pony riding and the opportunity to meet up with people at a National Trust deer park.  

Freddie and Betsy have both recently joined after school clubs.  Freddie is going to martial arts with two local friends and loves it, while Betsy has joined Rainbows and is very very happy too.  Big changes for us!

So, today.  Zoe and Billy came over today.  Billy likes Skylanders, so he and Freddie played for a while.  Freddie ordered a new giant yesterday - Thumpback - and it arrived today.

Betsy, Meg, Zoe and I played Pop to the Shops.  Freddie joined in with Thumpback!  It was quite hard to keep track of who was doing what.  Meg kept removing her piece from the board, knocking her money onto the floor, and changing her mind about what should be in her shopping baxket.  Freddie and Billy both came and went from the game, is was all very confusing!  In the end, Betsy won, so it was worth it.

After they left, Betsy asked me to draw around her.  We have a huge roll of paper that my step dad got from work, and is perfect for the job.

She added a dog to her picture.

Meg wanted to join in.

Tomorrow we're off to ThinkTank in Birmingham - time to get busy making lunches and getting clothes out ready for an early (to us) start.....