Making, doing, playing

Back after an unscheduled blogging break!

Winter goes on, not with snow and ice but with rain and floods.  We're very lucky where we are.  The canal is unlikely to flood, as it flows into a brook (which does flood, but further downstream).  We've been on many muddy walks, sailed origami boats on puddles (brushed with melted beeswax first), and stayed in a lot!

I ordered a free trial of a Weekend Box for Betsy and Meg, and we dug into them today.  They're pretty cool, with more content than I expected.

We started with mini kites made from straws and old carrier bags.  Meg in particular loved running with the kite flying behind her.  Freddie wanted one too so I made a stealth kite by request (clear plastic bag!).  I've added 'go fly a kite' to my list of things to offer the kids soon.

Meg really liked the box and was keen to chose another activity.  She opted for snowball cakes - little cakes made from butter, sugar, flour and chopped nuts, then rolled into balls and baked.  When they were cool she rolled them in  a mixture of icing sugar and desiccated coconut.  Cute!  The nuts and coconut were in the box, I had the rest of the ingredients on hand.

Next to do was a colour mix paint activity.  Each box had two small packets of powder paint.  I added a few drops of water and Meg and Betsy mixed it into each colour.  Then they mixed their two colours together.

There is also a map making activity, we'll probably have a look at it tomorrow.

Fred continued to build on his Clash of Clans success.  He's a silver 1, and very pleased with that.  Today he bought some hog riders, something he's been wanting to do for a while.

Betsy, Meg and I started making some daffodil bunting, an idea from the Garden Classroom ebook I've had for ages and not used.  It has some cool things to do, and I've made alist of the ones I think will appeal to the kids.

The daffs need their trumpets gluing on, then we can stick them to some ribbon and hang them up.

Betsy has been collecting photos of birds to make into a bird book.  She picked a pink display folder last week, and started writing the names of the birds today.

Apart from that there's been minecrafting, Dino D-Day, Littlest Pet Shop, Johnny Test, Octonauts, pretend fishing with a garden cane fishing rod, Playmobil.

And here, because I can smell them while I'm writing this, is a glorious daffodil, telling me spring isn't too far away.