Baking at Home

Do you want to have a fun baking project with the children? Here is a fantastic idea for a project that is fun for all ages...3D biscuit structures. The Great British Bake Off has been inspiring us and biscuit week saw the contestants try to make a biscuit box. Most of the contestants made a box and lovely as they were it was a particular man's bake that caught our attention....a fire engine. My boys love anything with wheels and fire engines are Mr Cheeky's personal favourite so we just had to have a go.

I used a basic biscuit mixture of the following:

Mix 250g softened butter and 140g caster sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, then add 1 egg yolk and 2 tsp vanilla extractand briefly beat to combine. Sift over 300g plain flour and stir until the mixture is well combined – you might need to get your hands in at the end to give everything a really good mix and press the dough together.

Once rolled out we used our precut templates that I had cut out of the remains of a cereal box over breakfast to put over the top of the dough and cut around. The shapes were put on a tray and put in the oven to bake at 160 degrees until a light golden colour then they were allowed to cool on a wire rack.

Once cooled we had fun decorating them with royal icing and using a thick buttercream to glue the sides together and this is what we created:

The fire engines looked great, they boys had such fun and were really proud of their creations and what's brilliant about this project is that it taught them mathematics through measuring and also making templates and not to mention we could eat our creations. Yum Yum!

Just a spoonful of sugar...

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down...
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag.
I could go on but I know you probably have your hands over your ears thinking that I would never get very far on X factor! Well that's what you would be thinking if you could hear me. So what has prompted my singing outburst? A delightful book by P L Travers captured my attention on the library bookshelf.

Growing up I had watched Mary Poppins on TV on numerous occasions and I had never once considered that it had started it's life as a book. When I did find out it was a book first I was slow to read it, and in time forgot about it until I recently watched this film.

It was an enlightening film and reawakened a quest to find the book and read it with my boys. So when I was at the library recently I was pleased to find this book and eagerly sat down with Mr Social and Mr Cheeky to read it. Reading a chapter a day and we were soon we'll on our way to finishing the book. I was surprised to read of a Mary Poppins that seemed to me to be more strict, more unusual and certainly less musical. There were no dancing penguins for a start and Mrs Banks was certainly not a suffragette. There were no rousy choruses and no bank crisis, all in all the book seemed to be quite different. On finishing the book I found myself feeling quite sorry for P L Travers who may have felt like her work was being pulled apart and developed in a way she hadn't intended. I wonder which version you prefer...book or film?
My boys are yet to see the film, they will be in for a surprise when they do. They may be disappointed at the lack of a night time zoo or a sweet lady putting stars in the sky, after all the thought of a magic compass inspired my boys to make up their own adventures and travel to mysterious parts of the world. For the time being I will let their imaginations flourish and hold off showing them the film.
We did take an opportunity to create some shadow paintings of Mary Poppins with a lovely sunset in the background and a Mary Poppins being taken by the east wind.

Mr Social and Mr Cheeky are still at abstract level when it comes to painting, they had great fun doing it and loved the red and orange tones.

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Lego Maths

There are many memories I have of growing up...playing in parks, making daisy chains, fun bike rides on holidays in the forest, sandcastles on beaches and playing with dolls in a unique hand crafted doll house. I was one of 4 children and the only girl. 

An abiding memory of growing up was creating models with lego. As well as the standard blocks I had a lovely pink set that had horses and horse boxes that my brothers never really wanted to touch. At that age I never envisaged the learning potential of lego because I just felt like I was playing and having fun. My sons love playing with this classic toy too. We have helicopters, emergency vehicles, police mobile units, castles and knights, and racing cars. We also have a selection of standard blocks for their own creations. They enjoy following the patterns and they get a great sense of achievement when they complete a model all by themselves.

Recently I came across some activities that can be done using lego blocks and a favourite of ours is a lego maths again teaching simple addition and subtraction. The printable game board can be found here. I didn't print out the spinner like it is suggested on the page but just used a dice (we have plenty of those). With a basketful of lego pieces we set about playing our game and racing to the finish line. Once we were over the finish line I had my boys count their lego pieces and chart them on a number line. 

Honestly think the inventor of lego was a genius!!

Telling the Time

Mum, can we have breakfast now? No dear it is half past 5 in the morning.

Mum, is it not time for tea yet? No dear it is only 2pm and we only had lunch an hour ago.

Mum, when is Daddy coming back from work? At half past 4. But when is that?

Sometimes I feel like I am Mr Wolf and all I hear is What time is it Mr Wolf? Except very rarely do I get to say it's dinner time and I think it is frowned upon if I gobble the children up. I have tried on a few occasions to teach Mr Social to tell the time but with little success. We got him an easy to read watch that is red on one side and blue on the other with numbers for the hours and separate numbers for minutes.

Although he loves it and thinks he looks real smart wearing it, he doesn't really want to tell the time for himself.

So then I tried printing out a large clock with hands that can be moved so that he could fiddle about with it and learn through play. 

Again it sparked his interest for a while. I even laminated it so I could write minute numbers around the edge and mark the sides clearly with past and to. Once again interest lagged and as I pulled out my clock yesterday to recap time with Mr Social I was met with a blank face as he struggled to grasp the concept of quarter past and quarter to and getting muddled with hour and minute hands.

Back to the drawing board I went on search of something different to help us out and renew his interest in telling the time. I was on the lookout for something quite specific and was resigned to having to create it myself when I remembered a resource website that offered free printables called twinkl. Twinkl is a great resource and I have used their free printables on a number of occasions now. They also offer a subscription based membership and lots more resources become available to you. On this occasion I was looking for a game. I have always had great success with game based activities and I found a lovely time bingo game which I printed and laminated and which we have gone on to play for most of the morning. 

By the end of the morning Mr Social was confidently picking out quarter past and quarter to once again. I will of course revisit this game frequently at the moment to reinforce the lessons. Once again I find myself being thankful for the plentiful free resources that are now available over the internet and pleased to be able to share them with you.

Sick days

With my new notice board at the ready I was all prepared to be planned out and efficient. We had a number of exciting things lined up ready to brighten up our routine including a day spent with family relatives and a very cute baby nephew. On a Sunday evening I filled in the planner board and listed the tasks and lessons for the week ahead and on the Monday morning I was looking after a sick child that turned into a sick child and a sick mother, which then passed on to another child and then back to the mother. For 2 weeks now I have been dealing with a particularly nasty strain of a stomach virus and Mr Faithful is now suffering with it.

So what does your household look like when your children or Mum and Dad are sick?

1. Books

When energy is low a blanket and a pile of books to look through and read are a comfort to the suffering.

Favourite books at the moment include The BFG by Roald Dahl, Winnie-the-Pooh by A A Milne, Five Children and It by E Nesbitt as well as the vast amount of picture books from the library and our bookshelf, too many to mention.

2. Audio Books

When reading books yourself is too much hard work then audio books provide a welcome relief. My android phone supports an app called Overdrive which allows you to borrow ebooks and audiobooks instantly by downloading them on to your media device and streaming them for instant use. We also have our own small selection including The House at Pooh Corner...a family favourite.

3. Construction Toys

I am not talking about building enormous models but Lego or Meccano keeps little boys happy as simple models can be built without too much moving and Mummy can sit with them and help them out.

4. DVDs

I normally have a restriction on screen time and normally reserve it for tea time when food preparation requires my complete attention and little boys are fractious and tired. However on sick days I lift the restriction and bring down some of our DVDs. Charlotte's Web, Jungle Book, Wallace and Gromit, Cars, and Postman Pat have been the choice DVDs this last week.

5. Sleep

Although I do not often get the chance to get some sleep during the day when ill I do encourage my children to do so, and they don't need much encouragement to sleep when truly ill. Whether it is on the sofa or in their beds I will cover them with a blanket and let them sleep for as long as and as often as they need.

6. Imagination

I have recently started making up my own stories and have enjoyed telling my boys tales of Little Timmy Mouse who goes on lots of adventures and we have enjoyed cuddles whilst making up the next adventure for the little mouse.

7. Love and Cuddles

You can't beat cuddles with mummy. When one of my boys are ill I only do what is necessary in the house and spend as much time as I can loving my poorly child. I often get on top of the house chores when the poorly child is sleeping to give me that time with the children. It makes them feel so special and loved knowing that Mummy and brothers are there to cheer them up.

I hope that we are coming to the end of this sickness so we can get back to our usual activities. 

Alphabet Activity

It's time for Mr Cheeky to get to grips with his alphabet. He probably knows about half of it and can do the sounds for s, a, t, p, i and n thanks to Jolly Phonics. The problem is Mr Cheeky is quite a different learner to his older brother Mr Social who picked up the alphabet in a matter of a few sessions. I saw problem...maybe that's the wrong terminology. We all know that children learn differently and that there is no one mould to suit all and that is what I am learning with my boys. Mr Social is gifted with his literacy, he loves books and he learned his alphabet quickly and had a thirst for learning to read. I was curious to see what he would be graded as a reader if he was following some kind of graded system and he was very excited to take some reading tests (which for him meant just more opportunities to read which he loves) and I discovered that his reading ability fell between an age of 7 1/2 to 9 1/2. (The range in age comes from the fact that the reading level tests focused on different things). He turns 6 at the end of the month so I am thrilled that the one thing I was nervous about teaching has gone well and he is quite fluent now.

Mr Social learned his alphabet and sounds mainly through the Jolly Phonics reading scheme. It involved work sheets and I supplemented with other activities like playdough letters, alphabet magnets, letter bingo and other such fun crafts. We also have bananagrams which is great for teaching letters and we play a few modified versions of the game depending on what I am wanting to teach.

Mr Cheeky on the other hand does not want to focus his attention on worksheets or if he does it is for very short bursts. And he often resists my attempts to turn everyday play activities into alphabet learning opportunities. But I did find a happy marriage this morning of two things he loves doing...jigsaws and running. Slightly odd combination as they do not normally go hand in hand but I did get a sustained period of alphabet learning from him. Mr Cheeky has always loved puzzles, he is of a more logical nature and his grasp of logic and numeracy is very good. For his last birthday he received a lovely Dr Seuss alphabet jigsaw and he happily pieced it together this morning. Noticing that he could do with running off a bit of energy I challenged him to run into the kitchen and bring me one letter of the alphabet off the fridge at a time and match it up with the matching letter on the jigsaw. Well a challenge is enough to get this boy moving and off he whizzed and came skidding back with his first letter. I asked him to name the letter before he placed it and if he couldn't name it then he was allowed to place the letter in the LeapFrog letter machine to hear it's name and the sound it makes. This kept him occupied until he had completed about half of the alphabet. I was pleased with his attempt and let him finish as I didn't want to dissuade him from returning to another alphabet task tomorrow. So that was my impromptu alphabet activity of the day.

My very own notice board for planning the home

I have had a busy week on the computer but it wasn't blogging that was occupying my time but designing a notice board. For a while now I have wanted to make a board that was easy to use and for everyone to look at so we all would know what we needed to achieve that week and although I have not quite finished here is what I have got so far.

I am quite pleased with how it has turned out so far. I purchased a cork notice board for a mere £2 a while ago and whilst painting Mr Smiley's bedroom I used some of the yellow paint to paint the wooden edge to the board. Once done I had cut a selection of patterned papers to decorate the background and found a selection of pushpins to add to it. And for 4 months there it stood waiting for me to do something with it. Well I finally bit the bullet this weekend and designed a few items to go on.

This idea for a reward chart I got from pinterest. Each morning they boys (represented by the red and blue button) start on great job, behaviour above what I ask for gets them up to amazing and poor behaviour sees them move down. If they hit consequence then on top of our usual discipline they will lose a privilege but if they end up on amazing at the end of the day they gain a privilege. Mr Social was very concerned to hit warning yesterday that he promptly looked at my chore chart and went and did the vacuuming not only downstairs but upstairs as well.

I have been planning meals weekly for some time now but it made sense to make these plans public. Firstly I may now avoid the question of "What's for tea?" which causes my shoulders to sag sometimes as it is a constant reminder that my jobs are never done (I have been lacking motivation in the kitchen recently and I hope that this will help give me a boost again too). Secondly, I hope to inspire my family to go in the kitchen and help create these meals too as a chaotic 1 yr old is currently hampering my efforts in the kitchen (he does love my cupboards and drawers).

The main body of the board is our school plan. There are eight spaces for each day and I have included only Monday to Friday as the weekend is our family time. Now we all know what the plan is for each day and the hope is to have instructions for each topic for the day to be left next to the notice board so that I may encourage some independent working if they feel inclined to do so. I feel this may become of more use as they get older as only Mr Social is able to read yet. As soon as the list for the day has been achieved then we can either go out or have free playtime. The work I set is definitely able to be completed within a morning.

The to do list...I could have a lot of things listed here but only chose a few things that the boys would be able to help with so in the event they wanted to they could do a task for me. They are expected already to keep their bedroom tidy, clear toys away, clear table after meals and help with the dishwasher so these things didn't end up on the list.

Memory verse corner...we are using the Charlotte Mason approach to scripture verse learning and the current verse we are attempting to commit to memory goes on the board.

And finally I added 2 verses from the bible that I really like and also need reminding a lot.

I hope to add a section for the date and some more verses but for now we have a useable notice board.