Tin Foil Painting

The boys liked the effect of painting on the foil, Samuel was practicing his 's' for Samuel.
In the end they painted their arms and crumpled up the foil, but had the best fun doing it.

Lentil play...Fine motor skills-part 1

The littlest boy seems to have developed really strong fine motor movements. I wanted to look at ways to help develop this even more and also help his big brother whose pencil control still needs a bit of refinement!

The first activity we tried at home was a bit of lentil play. I got a couple of containers together and filled one with some green lentils. They only cost 75p from the coop so its a real bargain to use them at home. Any that weren't used today we will save to make musical instruments with.

Sammy quickly decided that the lentils were rubble and moved them between each container with a truck. I sat with him for 10 minutes while he used his pincer grip to transfer the lentils and chatted to himself about what he was doing. He ended up playing for 45 mins!

When we collected Barnaby from school I hoped that they could play with the lentils happily together. Unfortunately world war 3 broke out over who would get to use the biggest truck!

I'm planning on doing some scissor activities, cornflour gloop, weaving and some mark making over the next few weeks so keep an eye out for more posts soon.

Meal times top tips!

Stressful mealtimes? Welcome to my world. This is what I have learnt:

1) Child sized portions- this will stop the fussiest of eaters from feeling overwhelmed.
2) A little of what they like! Include a fool proof favourite of theirs when introducing a new food.
3) Pay attention to the good, ignore the bad. Even if your little one takes a bite of something- praise goes a long way.
4) Set a good example- share mealtimes with your little ones and show them how it's done.
5) Clear expectations- so that you are all reading off the same page, parents need to be united.
6) Let your children find out where their food came from, grow your own veggies, involve them in the supermarket shop, let them help with the cooking.
7) Make meal times fun- recreate meals from your favourite restaurants, invite friends around, make your own menus, let your children make their own place mats and lay the table.
8) Reward with favourite foods. When a child eats something new without a fuss, let them choose the pudding.
9) Be realistic- even as adults there's food we don't all like. Not everyone has to like all food. But expect your child to give it a go. We have one rule, just give it your best try and don't make a fuss!

Even after all this I think we'll forever have tears from my eldest when I serve up a roast dinner or when his food touches on the plate!

Easter gifts

I wanted to do something a bit different for the boys this year instead of the usual shop bought Easter Eggs. I filled egg boxes with some chocolate treats, fluffy chicks and a lego movie keyring and decorated them with some wrapping paper.
I hope they go down well with the little ones but I'm sure they'll get spoilt by the grandparents with copious amounts of chocolate anyway.

Peter Rabbits Garden

The boys new obsession seems to be Peter Rabbit. Barns dressed as him in a rather fetching bunny onesie door world book day and now they are watching the show on cbeebies religiously.
Today they used their pocket money to invest in some figurines so we built them a garden to play in.

Sweet peas

After digging the new flower bed in the front garden last week, I've decided to try growing some sweet peas from seed. The garden is a cottage garden theme but it looks a bit sad and bare at the moment :-(

I've planted some delphinium and herbs to start me off and a couple of lavender plants, also I've scattered some yellow poppy seeds in the bed but not sure what will come of them.

Mothering Sunday

Had a lovely breakfast in bed and a biscuit brought to me by my eldest.
Been wrapping presents for the 'Nanny's' my wrapping is always style per substance!