VBC summer camp - Bug Friendly Area in our Garden

We are joining the virtual book club summer camp hosted by The Educators' Spin On It, Rainy Day Mum and Toddler Approved. To get into this week’s theme of bugs we reread Luath’s favourite two bug books What The Ladybird Heard and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Earlier this year we started creating a bug friendly area in our garden and this week we did a little more work on it.Natural England have a downloadable leaflet “Minibeasts in your garden” which is very helpful.  Flowers, places to hide, hot spots and dead stuff are what insects need and the leaflet explains each of these headings in more detail. It is a small L shaped space but we are managing to fit a lot in. This is what we have done so far:

I moved two old insect friendly logs to the new spot.  We spotted a few inhabitants on one of the logs.  We add some fresher logs from a tree we trimmed.

The corner already has a few slates and we added rocks for more places to hide. We placed a flat one in the sun for butterflies.

Our insect box is now hanging up.

I moved some flowers, we have already sown butterfly and bee friendly flower seeds, and have also let the “weeds” and grass grow.

Maybe not so friendly for the bugs but we made a toad home after finding a toad in the garden.  We can’t find him now but are hoping he will return.

 
We have a small pot dish pool with a stone.  Luath loves refreshing the water.

This week we saw some bees enjoying the flowers and a frog.
   
(Luath is 29 months)
shared with eco kids and country kids from Coombe Mill

Outdoor Play – watch out it’s raining

Near our home there is a bank of Rhododendrons along the side of a path.  One morning they were still wet from an earlier shower. 

We played a fun game of shaking a branch and saying “watch out it’s raining”.  Luath and I took turns wearing the rain hat but we did a few without it.  I did have to bend down to make sure Luath did shake the rain onto me.
 
It was such a simple game but it gave us a giggle.  Luath hates getting water on her hair and face, although can sometimes tolerate a little shower after swimming, so it was an opportunity for her to get a little water on her.
(Luath is 29 months)
Shared with Outdoor Play Link up via Learning for Life

Outdoors everyday – week 25

Not much sun, but most days a bit of jacketless weather.  Drizzle and midges though.   Some of the things we did outdoors this week were:

Petal puddle play.  A three legged walk. Plank balancing.  Stile climbing.  Bee spotting.  Gardening.  Decorating a rain hat with petals.  Hula Hoop fun.  Silly rope antics.  Foliage head gear.

Also this week we had some barefoot outdoor time and Luath mastered climbing up the slide (the chute bit).


(Luath is 29 months)

Book of the week – Where are you blue kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark

Where Are You, Blue Kangaroo? is a picture book about Lily and her blue kangaroo.  She heads off for different adventures – going to the park or shopping, but Kangaroo gets left behind each time.  Lily’s Uncle George takes Lily and blue kangaroo to the zoo.  Blue is placed on a seat but what happens to him next shows him a way to not get left behind again. 

It is a lovely story.  Luath really feels for the blue kangaroo when he gets left behind.
(Luath is 29 months)

Craft – TP tube windsocks for Canada Day and US Independence Day

We are planning to celebrate both Canada Day and US independence day next week.  I thought we would make a decoration for both days.  One of the things I remember from living in the USA is decorated porches including welcome signs and windsocks.  Luath isn’t the biggest craft fan but she enjoys glue so I set up a windsock craft we could do together. 

I pre-cut the toilet paper roll and paper.  We didn’t have the right colour of blue and four stars were enough.  I didn’t quite master a maple leaf but once I do we will add that.

Luath loved all the gluing.

She wanted to try threading the string through the holes.  It was way too tough but she gave it a lot of effort.  I did then help her get it in.

We hung them on Luath’s bookcase as they wouldn’t last long outside.

(Luath is 29 months)

Shared with discover and explore  via fantastic fun and learning

Celebrate Mud Day – 29th June

An email arrived from Muddyfaces with resources to download to help celebrate Mud Day on 29th June (case studies, A-Z of muddy ideas, mud kitchens book).  Luath loves muddy puddles but so far isn’t quite so keen on getting her hands muddy.  I am hoping she will enjoy mud soon as I have great memories of mud pies and get muddy as a child.  This year we will celebrate with pretend mud.

Mud playdough

Recipes:

Colour with food colouring, chocolate I can teach my child, coffee kids activities blog.  My nearest and dearest added ingredients to make it more earth like – dried herbs, rosemary, oatmeal
Ways to use:

Small world play (construction site), mud pie cooking, gardening, dinosaur excavating, making animal/car tracks, a Gruffalo (mud hut mama), make chocolates
(Luath is 29 months)

Celebrations – Christmas picnic in June

As Luath now really gets pretending I thought it would be fun to have to do Christmas in the summer.  My family did this one year after finding left over Christmas crackers and it was a giggle.  I selected the 25th June as it was halfway between Christmases and also daddy would be at work (he doesn’t like anything to do with Christmas other than in December).

I had thought we would have an outdoor picnic so we could be like our friends in the Southern Hemisphere but it ended up indoors.  I kept things simple so used a few props -  Christmas headwear, our elves Alfie and Elfie, and some books That's Not My Santa (Thats Not My)   That's Not My Reindeer (Touchy Feely)   Maisy's Christmas Eve   Little Owl and the Star

For food I  went with what we had at home.  I made a Christmas tree shape from a tortilla wrap resting on a pineapple trunk.  It was decorated with tomato candles with red pepper hummus flames.  The star was made from cheese.  I put extra wraps, hummus, cheese and tomato on a separate plate.

We made some strawberry Santa's.  We had them at a party, made with cream, but Luath didn’t like the cream and it isn’t something we buy, so I altered them slightly. Overnight I froze yoghurt in a mini Easter egg mould.  We cut the top off a strawberry and then placed one frozen yoghurt piece on the strawberry and replaced the top.  We gave Santa eyes, a beard and mouth, and his hat a bobble using writing icing.  We sprinkled white glitter sugar as snow.  Luath loved these, but that isn’t surprising as she adores strawberries and likes frozen yoghurt.

Luath loved her picnic.  She kept saying “is this for me” when she saw things, and when I said “yes”, she would say “wahey” and clap her hands.  She did tell me that if it was Christmas we should have a tree.
   
After lunch we read the books, played with the elves and made sure everything was tided away before daddy came home. 
(Luath is 29 months)

Shared with Share it Saturday – Sugar Aunts