Bathroom make over

I was a bit fed up of the bathroom, we had not decorated since we moved in, the bath panel was looking a bit grubby and the shower curtain covered in mould.
Ideally I'd like to replace the tiles with brick shaped ones but seeing as 90% of the bathroom is tiled it would be an expensive and mammoth task.
Instead I've painted the bathroom a very girly shade of pink (not deterred by the 3 men in my life) and replaced the shower curtain with a biscuity floral design.

It's looking much nicer now! Just need to sort out the ridiculous amounts of bath toys and it'll look fancy!

Mark Making- Fine motor skills part 2

Its tricky thinking of new ways to encourage the boys to do drawing and mark making. Both of them get a little tired of being sat in front of a plain get of paper. One day I decided to let them be really naughty and draw under the table. The only rules were they were not to draw on the legs and no one was to tell Nanny! They loved the novelty of this and stayed under there for the best part of 20 minutes in utter silence, I used this time to clean the kitchen.

A few weeks later the boys were getting a bit disruptive again and needed something fresh to keep them amused, we found an empty cardboard box and set to work creating a little world inside. Afterwards they played with small cars and characters.

Other ideas we've tried include-
- drawing on the sand at the beach
- drawing on steamed up windows in the car
- drawing round hands and feet
- using pencils to trace around maps

Are we nearly there yet?

I've put together some bits and bobs to entertain the tiddlypeeps on our 6 hour car journey tomorrow. I've drawn a eye spy sheet of things the boys can spot, they can also colour them in too. They have sticker books, colouring books and maps. I wonder if we'll get out of the village before they get bored?

Summer holidays!

1- library reading challenge
2- swimming
3- horse riding
4- fishing with grandad
5- weekend at the beach
6- fruit picking
7- rock pools
8- Cheddar Gorge
9- Longleat
10- evening picnic
11- cuckoo woods
12- make cheese scones
13- sort out toys
14- go for a long bike ride
15- make a magic portal
16- build a spaceship
17- finishing reading the BFG
18- Petworth Park
19- keep a holiday diary
20- Classic Car Show

Mario 6th Birthday Party

I have just about survived having 16 6 year olds round for Barnabys Mario Party!

Two and a half hours seemed like it would go on for an eternity but the children loved decorating their mario karts and racing round the garden track in their teams.

By the time they'd eaten their pizzas an watched the popcorn machine there was some time left to run around like escapees from the zoo and then mummies and daddies came to collect.

So exhausting but worth it to see the big smiles!

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.