Summer Bucket List - an early start

photos to follow having upload photo issues!

We had planned to start our summer bucket list around the 20th of June but we have had almost a week of summery weather and you grab that while it is here since you never know when the warm weather may reappear.  A lot of our list are things we can do a few times anyway.


Paddle in the sea
We paddled in the chilly North Sea. I had debated about removing Luath's nappy but as I had just planned a little paddle decided against it.  What I hadn't foreseen was that even fairly gentle waves can unbalance a toddler.  As I stood taking a photo a slightly bigger wave than a ripple came in and she wobbled, lost balance and ended up on her bottom.  She didn't mind and was even happier when for the rest of the beach time she enjoyed some nappy free time (I had left her nappies in the car).

Picnic
I am sure we will have a few of these but we have enjoyed two with my parents, a lunchtime picnic on a grassy slope near the beach and afternoon snack in the park.  We also had a lunch picnic with my friend and two of her dogs by a castle.  Luath, the dog and I had a high speed picnic sitting on a log - Luath was keen to keep walking rather than eating.

Walk outdoors barefoot
Luath enjoyed walking barefoot on the beach and also on my parents grassy garden.

Fly a kite
I found a pocket size kite and we give it a try.  The wind wasn't enough to get it flying as Luath trailed it behind her, but we got it flying a little with a good adult run.

Blow bubbles
I had forgotten how much fun bubbles are.  Daddy and I had a great time sharing bubble blowing with Luath.  Even the dog joined in trying to catch them.

Build a sandcastle
My mum stopped off on our way to the beach to buy a bucket and spade set supposedly for Luath but I am pretty sure it was for herself.  Luath played with the set a little but my mum played with it a lot.  We brought it back to the beach when we returned with Luath's cousin.  My dad made some sandcastles which Luath would stand and look at until her cousin would come and smash them to pieces.

Not on the list but summery bucket list style fun
An outdoor bath
Luath was still sandy following our beach trips and since it was such a hot day we took her bath outdoors.


Paddling pool fun
Luath's auntie bought a paddling pool and Luath and her cousin had a fun afternoon playing in it.  Her cousin didn't like sitting in the water though.


Have an ice cream cone
Luath and I shared a strawberry ice cream cone.  Luath loved it, in fact she had so much of mine my mum offered to go get me another one.

(Luath is 16months)

Sharing a rainbow platter

As mentioned previously we are aiming to eat as wide of colours as possible and for fun sometimes we try to have some rainbow meals.

We enjoyed a shared rainbow platter, it is so nice just to have one big plate that we can eat from.  Luath tried everything, she didn't like the spring onions or the orange pepper.  We ate our meal on the back doorstep as it was such a lovely day.  That was an novel experience as Luath could stand or sit to eat.

Tomatoes
Orange pepper
Sweetcorn
Lettuce
Broccoli
Raisins
Spring onions
Melon
- with cheese and oatcakes

The meal was such a success and we were needing to eat up the fruit and veg that we had a similar meal the next lunchtime.

Tomatoes

Orange pepper

Sweetcorn

Lettuce
Broccoli
Plums
Spring onions
Melon
- with cheese and jacket potatoes

Music time - Minnie mouse, Tchaikovsky, a laptop and a keyboard

It has been a little while since I had out our electric keyboard.  Luath enjoys listening to, dancing to and playing music.  We try to let her experience a wide range of different types of music and song.  Today I found a video of Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto, I had planned for us to listen rather than watch it,  however when I saw the close up of the pianist hands I thought it would be fun for us to play along.

I placed the laptop in front of the keyboard and I stood behind Luath.  I then copied the pianist hand movements, there is a great part near the beginning when the pianist moves his hands up the keys.  Luath then hit a few keys along to the music.  - if either of us hit the right notes and the right time if was pure luck!

Luath then got Minnie Mouse to join in the fun by dancing on the keyboard and then tapping the keys.

       

We both enjoyed our interactive music session.

(Luath is 16mths)

This week's 7days7ways outdoors

This week's 7days7ways to add a little more to our outdoor time:

Day 1-  Have fun at the local school fete, especially checking out the play equipment

Day 2 -  Play outdoors with daddy and then pick the heads off "maisies" (daisies)

Day 3 - Share a rainbow platter while sitting on the back door step


Day 4- Collect some feathers, make a display for daddy


Day 5 - Go for a walk somewhere new on our way to grandparents.

Day 6 -  Enjoy the beach even thought the harr made it very misty

Day 7 - Take a bath outdoors.

Background:

I read about famiglia&seoul's 365days outdoor challenge she set herself after reading Rebecca P. Cohen's Fifteen Minutes Outside: 365 Ways to Get Out of the House and Connect with Your Kids (you can get 50 ideas via Rebecca's blog if you sign up) and I also have read Greening Sam and Avery's everyday outdoor play resolution and I decided to do the same.  Simple things to get more out of our outdoor time (we already are out most days dog walking) and to try and be outdoors everyday (some days it is so wild daddy walks the dog, but we will try and go outside for a little while).

(Luath is months)

Book of the week - Up and Down and this week's 5-a-day books

This week's books are a mishmash, all but the Gingerbread boy where library picks, the mobile library doesn't have a huge selection so we just choose what either Luath or I like the look of.

Book of the week

Up and Down

A lovely drawn picture book about a boy and a penguin who are friends.  The penguin wants to fly.  He finds a way he can fly and goes off to try.  The penguins rushes off and forgets to tell the boy he is going.  I hadn't heard of Oliver Jeffers before but we are now fans and will be looking out for his other books.  The test and drawings are very enjoyable.  Daddy is a fan.

5-a-day books
(I started doing this after reading this post on the Imagination Tree blog about selecting five books to read everyday for a week and why it is important), 

Maisy tidies up

A picture book.  Maisy is cleaning the house when Charley arrives.  There are some yummy cakes but the floor is wet so while it dries he helps Maisy tidy up.  Luath very quickly started repeating parts of this book.  One day we were out for our dog walk and she was chatting away.  I realised she was actually saying bits of the story. 

Two by Two and a half

A picture book.  The nursery are off on an outing.  They hold hands and go two by two, expect little bat Jack, but he doesn't count.  On their trip they think they spot some creatures - a lion, dragon, rampaging ragamuffins.  Each time it is just little bat Jack.  He does save the day though. One of the parts of the book is too old for Luath to understand, the creatures are actually tricks of the eye - the way a tree looks, the way a wall is in shadow.  It would be fun to read once she understands and then go off on an adventure to look for our own creatures hiding in places.

Handa's Hen

We have Handa's surprise so I thought we would try this one.  A picture book, lovely drawings.  It is a counting book within a story about Handa and her friend Akeyo looking for Handa's grandmother's hen.  Introduces some Kenyan creatures.  I prefer Handa's surprise.
The Gingerbread boy

A Luath selection,  She picked this from her book cupboard the other week and as she enjoyed the story I thought we would have it as a 5-a-day book.  It is this version, an old ladybird book, so the text might have changes, but the main part "run run as fast as you can" is there.

 

Toddler kitchen - Trying something new - dudhi

I don't have a fear of trying something different, I just can be a bit apprehensive about taking that first taste.  I am not the most adventurous and I think a lot of that is because we ate pretty basic and relatively bland food as a child.  I was 17 before I ate pizza!  It took into my late 20s to enjoy chilli and curry.  Luath already eats a wider selection of food than we did as teenagers..  We try to offer Luath a variety and differing tastes along with food/meals that she enjoys.

I  noticed that our supermarket has some different fruit and vegetables.  I took the plunge and selected something I hadn't heard of before and had no idea how to cook.  A dudhi.

It is actually a bottle gourd and has a few different names.  I peeled it and cut into it.  Looks pretty much like a courgette (a member of the same family) 



    I looked up some recipes online, the main one being a dessert, but it sounded far too sweet for us.  The other one was a chickpea curry.  In the end I just made a sort of curry/chilli dish.

Reminds me of a courgette.  The taste of the dudhi is pretty much nil.  Daddy described it a bit like pineapple without the taste.  I wont be buying it again, although we will be trying some more new foods out as it is good for us all to experience new things.

Tot friendly kitchen cupboard revisited

In February I cleared out a kitchen cupboard and made it into a tot friendly cupboard for Luath.  The idea is that she can take and play with any of the contents while we are in the kitchen together. The cupboard has been working well although it has become a little bit of a disorganised shambles.  Some things Luath chooses to play with a lot, others she overlooks.  Some days Luath enjoys pulling everything out of the cupboard.  I decided it was time for a thinning out of the contents, although there still is quite a few items in there.  I should have taken a before photo, especially when everything has been taken out and is all over the kitchen floor.

 How it looks now.

 Contents:

Some cookie cutters.  Two plastic jars with screwable lids.  A microwave pot with lid (that has a slight crack in base so can't use any more).  Two different tins with lids.

A tray of different lids, extra ones that fit the above two jars and one of the tins.  An extra bowl for transferring items into.  A bowl with various small sized cooking utensils - spoon, spatula, whisk and sieve.

 

Towards the back of the cupboard, items for me to take out as Luath not so interested in independent play with these.  Various ice cube trays - have used these for coloured ice cubes, playdough, sorting.  Small shaped jelly moulds - playdough, water play.  A cat shaped jelly mould - water play.  Ice lolly mould holder - coloured ice, sorting

At the back of the cupboard base.  A salad spinner and a bowl with coasters and some paper cases.

No doubt it'll get a untidy again, espeically as daddy tends to put Luath safe things in here when he isn't sure where they belong!

Toddler kitchen - rainbow meals - Culiflower curry

Following on from our rainbow week and my aim to ensure that as a family we are eating a rainbow of colours and also trying to broaden our horizons, I am trying to have some meals which cover all the colour groups:

Red
Orange and Yellow (similar benefits so often grouped together)
Green
Blue and Purple (similar benefits so often grouped together)White
White


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    Cauliflower and chickpea curry, followed by mixed berries

 

Main dish

Tomato
Yellow pepper
Green pepper
Cauliflower, Onion

Dessert
Blueberries, Blackberries, Purple Grapes 

Luath was a bit unsettled and at one point I had to chop a pepper one handed while I held her for a few minutes.  She then sat in her high chair at the kitchen counter and helped me by holding the different vegetable while they were awaiting to be chopped.  She particularly liked the yellow pepper.  She then enjoyed ripping up the cauliflower outer leaves. 

Recipe
Another recipe from the slow cooker curries book

1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground ginger (this is quite a lot if not used to having ginger in your dish)
2 tablespoons curry poser
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 onion
300g cauliflower (was half a medium sized one)
1 400g can chickpeas
mixed peppers
1 300g can tomatoes

Fry the onions and garlic in oil for about 4 mins.  Add the spices, fry for another few minutes (watch they don't burn)/  Add cauliflowers and peppers, fry for a few more minutes.

Put the onion mixture, tomatoes and chickpeas in the slow cooker.  Cook on low for about 6hours.

We had our curry with wholemeal tortilla wraps.
We has another rainbow meal two nights later using the rest of the cauliflower.  Cauliflower, broccoli and sweetcorn cheese (and onions), served with tomatoes.  For dessert summer berries (red blue and purple)
(Luath is 15months)

Music in the kitchen

Last night while I was preparing dinner Luath was quite unsettled.  I am  used to cooking, washing up etc one handed - she doesn't like to be worn indoors, she prefers to cling and have more freedom of being up then down then up again.  She didn't know what she really wanted, so I had a look around to see if I could think of something new to distract her.

I spied a wine box in the recycling and thought it would make a great drum.  When I took it out I saw the carry handle opening on the back and thought I could rip it further and use elastic bands (we have a jar of saved ones in the kitchen) to make a harp style instrument.



What a success, I think I have played with it more than Luath!  You can strum with your hands and strum with different utensils, it makes a great sound.  You can still use it as a drum.  Each side makes a different sound.  If you hold the bands and hit the oppostie side and then compare it when you let the bands twang.

Luath tried sitting and hitting the box today.  It is sturdy enough to let her do this.  We tapped out nursery rhymes with our hands.



If this  isn't quick enough for you another one we recently played was jar lids.  The best kind are ones with safety button tops, they make such a great clicking sound, Luath loves it.  Plain ones work fine for banging together or hitting with a spoon.



Another insturment we made lately was a shaker out of a plastic jar and some milk bottle lids.


Of course nothing beats a pan and some spoons!

Oh and the wine box has a great posting hole on the side for when you get fed up playing music.


shared with Tuesday tots see what else tots have been doing

 (Luath is 16 months old)

Indoor Play – A boat ride

 We had lots of fun with our imaginary boat ride that thought I would share.  I lay down a blue duvet cover, some towels, a couple of cushions and a tea towel for our base.  I then took Luath's bath, attempted to add a flag (a golf club and material).  I then added some toys.

We had a mermaid and a crab on a rock.  (I had made this mermaid tail for Luath when she was a few months old for a mermaid birthday party, so I just narrowed the waist and tied it onto a dress up doll)

We had two frogs on a lily pad.

A dolphin swimming alongside the boat.  A whale (shape sorter) and a penguin on an iceberg (at the back)

   

An octopus and some fish.

 

Even Nessie the Loch Ness monster joined in (on the left of the boat)

We just and no more both made it into the boat.  Luath loved it when I made the sea choppy.  We sang some boat and sea life songs.  I repeated her favourite story from this week about a boy who builds a boat and goes off for an adventure, with a few mishaps (Jack and the flum flum tree).  She did some shape sorting in her boat.

Some fishing using her golf club.

 

She especially loved capsizing her boat.

I am having so much fun joining Luath on her imagination play journey.

shared with Tuesday tots see what else tots have been doing

 (Luath is 16 months old)

Nursery Rhyme - Little Miss Muffet - Some Resource Links


Some of the  for the slightly different things I found for Little Miss Muffet 

 

An alternative verse for a 1940s ad to 

encourage reading   source




the graphics fairy has vintage paper doll
with miss muffet costume



written in ASL here



science sparks show how to make curds



make learning fun has some directional art

(scissor practise)

 DLTK has some links including colouring, food and toilet paper craft