Nature – A Bug hotel

We have been adding to our wildlife corner in the garden and decided to upgrade the insects accommodation by adding a hotel.  There is plenty information online on DIY bug/insects hotel/homes.  Many of the plans use pallets, we don’t have the space for them and I can imagine Luath would use them as a climbing frame.  We planned a small hotel so it would be more stable and fit better in our garden.
For our hotel’s structure we found the bricks on the beach and the pieces of wood in our garden.  We had lots of fun gathering items for different themed rooms in the hotel. It cost us nothing to build and hopefully we will have lots of beneficial bugs making use of it.
   
I also found some broken patterned terracotta pots on the beach which we used to decorate the front of the hotel.  We added Luath’s stone ladybird so the bugs knew they were welcome.  As Luath would say “Come in, come in, you're welcome in”.
 
While I was hunting for wood I found an old bed post which we utilised to make an architectural unique bug hotel.  We attached some flower pots to the hole in the post and then filled these with grasses, twigs etc.  We placed this behind the bug house.
 

(Luath is 30 months)
Shared with Tuesday Tots and Eco Kids

Indoor Play - A bag of golf tees

Daddy ordered a big bag of golf tees and they were too tempting to ignore.

We pushed and hammered into styrofoam.

We connected the tees using elastic bands, making funky art.

We made shapes.

Sorted into colours.
   
Sorted by size and arranged in order.
Balanced objects on them, then hit the object off.
And a few other silly things.
(Luath is 30 months)

Craft – Gruffalo Natural Art Scavenger Hunt and Picture

The Gruffalo is a big favourite in our house.  We haven’t read the book in a while but we talk about it often, quoting parts of the book and acting it out.  At the weekend Luath saw a pile of logs and immediately said “a log pile house”.  I planned for us to make a Gruffalo so I brought out the book to read.  Next we looked out the colours that makes the Gruffalo. Luath knows her colours so we really didn’t need to do this stage but I thought it was good matching practise. 

Later we went on a natural scavenger hunt for these colours.  I had planned to go to the woods but we ended up doing the hunt in our garden.  We struggled to find bright orange as I was trying to avoid Luath picking our flowers.

I drew the Gruffalo’s outline (sorry doesn't show well in photo) onto thick paper from the inside of a banana box.

We then covered the picture with glue – Luath loved this part.  We then added the leaves, petals, bark to the appropriate parts.

Once it was drier I drew the outline in thick marker pen.  I was quite surprised how well our image turned out.  If you had an older child and more time you could get a stunning picture.
 
(Luath is 30 months)
Shared with Tuesday Tots and Eco kids.

Craft – a seed picture

We were looking at flower seeds in the garden and saving some to sow.  I looked out some seeds from the kitchen so Luath could make a picture.  We had butternut squash (from previous nights dinner), orange and apple (we had saved to sow), fennel, coriander and cumin from the spice cupboard and carrot from our seed box.

We started by smelling the seeds.  Luath loved doing this and smelt them often while we made the picture.  She thought the butternut squash seeds smelt like orange and that the spices were like cinnamon.

A lot of fine control and concentration was needed to apply the glue to the seeds – You can see Luath’s tongue sticking out!  She did finish by tipping out the seeds onto a pre glued paper.

The finished work.
       
(Luath is 29 months)

Seeds – looking at and saving flower seeds

Some of our flowers are ripening their seed heads.  Most of these flowers are great self seeders but it is still nice to save seeds to sew where you want them and that you are getting flowers for free. I thought it would to interesting to show Luath.

Welsh poppies grow in many gardens here and they can be quite weed like, however their yellow petals brighten the day.

I showed Luath unripe seeds inside a green seed head and also the black ready to sow ones in a brown ripe head.
 
After quite some searching I think this flower is Centaurea triumfettii (Squarrose Knapweed) and sounds as if it shouldn't like our windy, sea salted, wet location.
 
It has soft feathering blow in the breeze seeds.
  
We have a few different coloured Aquilegia, seemingly they often change colours.  The bees love them.

These seeds are still green but are different as you break each pod to see them.  Luath thought they were like pea pods.
 
Some of the seeds we found we directly sowed into the ground.  We have also placed some stalks or seed heads of each flower (although aquilegia are best sown immediately) in the shed to make sure they are dry and then will store in a paper bag. 
(Luath is 29 months)

Seasoning with Love

Tonight I saw something that I instantly wanted to make, “seasoning meals with love” by life as mom  via  awesomely awake  .  I knew it would only take me minutes to make my version.  I already had a clean empty spice jar in the cupboard, a sticker, some crayons and pens.  In high speed time the jar was sitting on our kitchen counter ready to sprinkle love into our cooking. 
 
I am now impatiently waiting for some of our other spices to run out so I can make some other types of seasoning.  I am also thinking of a way I can make some safe spice jars for Luath’s kitchen.

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 - milk bottle fun



My mum and I have been collecting milk bottle tops for a while as I thought they would be useful for different activities.  Luath is slowly coming out of her mouthing stage so I thought it was time to take them out and see what we could do with them.  Some of the things we did I wasn't expecting Luath to be able to do, I was just interested to see what she could do and what she understood.  We mainly have red, blue and green tops so I used these three colours for most activities. NB I didn't leave Luath alone with the bottle tops, they are large enough that it is highly unlikely she could swallow them but she did a couple of times hold them between her teeth.

Sorting

I placed the tops in a basket.  I then took three jars and showed Luath me putting one of a colour in a jar.  I then repeat the same thing again so each jar had two of a particular colour.  Luath copied my putting a top in a jar, sometimes she would do a few right and I would think she understood, but then she would just mix the colours up.

Selecting a twin

I placed three of each colour on a tray.  It took a little time until Luath let me place all nine tops down and not then pick them up.  I was in no rush so I just waited until I got them down.  I then picked up a top from the spare tops in the basket and asked Luath to find me one that was the same.  The first three times she selected the twin, but after that she just picked up anyone. 

Stacking

I tried stacking the tops, they don't stack well if they are all facing the same direction, but if you alternate direction, they stack great.  This was too difficult for Luath, I didn't ask her to try, but she enjoyed me stacking and her knocking the pile down.

          

Making patterns

I like the pattern blocks and cards that I have seen so I tried out making some shapes and objects with the tops.  I can see this being a good activity in the future.  It would be quite easy to make up some cards for Luath to copy.

Musical shaker

 Using the jars from the sorting game, we put some tops into the jar and then screwed the lid on.  They made some fun shakers.  They were also fun to roll.  The dog joined in with this, she thought they were a great new toy.

Just in case you think all this ran smoothly and textbook style here is Luath sitting on the tray (she is still putting tops into a jar).    

The main thing we did was have lots of fun.  We played with these over a few days and Luath liked to select the closed jars to initiate play. We did a lot of pouring them out of the jars and onto the floor.  Rolling them around.  Throwing them into the basket.  Throwing them into the air to watch them fall. I am looking forward to using these free tops again.  I told my mum that we will need to look out for different coloured tops for various milks and shops to add to our collection!

shared with Tuesday tots see what else tots have been doing

(Luath is 15 months)