Showing posts with label Celebrations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Celebrations. Show all posts

Friday, 29 March 2013

Easter Eggstravaganza!

Well it looks like our Easter Eggstravaganza that I had planned for over Easter weekend will be more of a souffle flop and all thanks to hubby bringing home some viral illness from work. Who says my husband doesn't give me anything! lol.

It's a good job I had planned some things ahead of time to show all my lovely blog readers what we should have been getting up to, which we will do but it may just be a little later than planned! One of the reasons I had planned some things in advance is that Little Boy Blue has an egg allergy so I needed some egg free activities especially for him.

Colour Egg Game

This year Book Worm, Bug Boy and I designed our very own board game or should I say chocolate box game. Once the chocolates were eaten (mummies job done!) we used the empty chocolate box as our board and we filled different coloured plastic eggs with a slip of paper each with an instructions on it like miss a turn, put on the bunny ears, pick another egg, cluck like a chicken etc. Making use of an old dice to roll we up-cycled it with coloured stickers to match the eggs, got our bunny ears, bunny nose and bunny tail and we then set out the game rules. 

Rules

1. Start with the youngest player to roll the dice first then take turns going round to the right.
2. What ever colour lands face up is the colour of egg to be picked up. If that colour is no longer available then it is the next persons turn.
3. Open egg and do instruction on paper, keeping the egg once completed.
4. The person with the most eggs at the end wins. The end is when there are no more eggs on the board.
5. An extra prize is given to the player who at the end of the game has the bunny ears, nose and tail on.




Colour Match Egg Box/ Busy Bag

Little Boy Blue has been using this colour match game since it was put together and loves it because it incorporates so many things he loves - small toys, colours, opening/ closing things and peek a boo.


To fill our multi coloured eggs we borrowed some of Book Worm & Bug Boys Gogos and put it all together in an old egg carton. Depending on what your little one is like with little bits remember to keep an eye on them with small parts. Even after Easter is passed this will be popped into a ziplock bag and be added to our busy bag activities.


Alternative Duck, Duck, Goose

If any of you play the game Duck, Duck, Goose with your children then I'm sure it's a firm favourite as it is in our home, especially at parties. For those of you who don't know it basically the rules are that everyone sits in a circle, one child is chosen to be 'it' and they go around the circle patting each person on the head saying Duck, Duck, Duck and so on until they pick someone to be Goose. To this person they pat on the head and say Goose, the 'Goose' gets up and chases the other child around the circle and the child who was 'it' has to reach the chosen 'Goose' child's spot in the circle and sit down and now the 'Goose' is it. If how ever the child gets caught by the 'Goose' then they must be 'it' again. Clear as mud? Google it for clearer instructions! 

Anyway, playing Duck, Duck, Goose with just three boys is a bit less fun so I have made an alternative that can be played even with one. I took out six yellow plastic eggs from my multi coloured packs and to five I added a little fabric duck and to one a little fabric goose (all taken from an old soft baby book) and put the eggs into an old egg box. The object of the game is to pick an egg until you get the goose then start again making sure to mix them about.

 

Egg Sensory Play

Following a talk about how chickens are not the only animals to lay eggs (and that the Easter Bunny didn't!) we looked at other creatures that lay eggs, including Dinosaurs. This gave me a great twist for our sensory play material we had from a few weeks ago, all I needed were some of my plastic eggs and a few Dinosaurs and 'Ta Da' a Dino nest!



Art

I'm trying harder to include more art and craft to our 'school' week and for Easter I thought I'd hatched a great plan (get it hatched! lol) but so far no one has been well enough to do it. Last week I blew the yoke and white out of six eggs then filled each with a different colours of paint mixed with a little PVA and plugged the holes with play dough.


When the boys are better we will go outside, put paper on the ground, stand up on chairs and drop the paint filled egg shells onto the paper, I can't wait to see how it turns out!

The project Little Boy Blue and I did manage to do was to make an Easter art work from his paintings he did a few weeks ago.

Here he is painting his MANY art works, now what to do with them?
I tend not to buy in to the whole commercialised side of a lot of the different holidays but generaly we celebrate in our own way. In the Jewish calendar they celebrate Passover and as Christians we celebrate Easter when Christ became our passover lamb so that we might be saved and we give thanks. So Little Boy Blue and I traced around his magnetic letters onto is dried paintings and came up with a picture that enbodies the Easter lesson for us.


Have a blessed Easter.
 


Friday, 25 January 2013

Happy Burns Night

I'm proud to be Scottish but don't normally do the whole Burns supper thing on Burns night and although I like some of his poems and songs I don't necessarily agree with celebrating his notorious life style as a drunk and a womaniser! However a home education outing to the Robert Burns Centre (http://www.dumfriesmuseum.demon.co.uk/brnscent.html) then to a workshop on Scots language using poem and song by Dr Fred Freeman changed my mind.



The classes were aimed at 5 to 8 year olds but Little Boy Blue loved it and joined in too.

So I decided to use this oppertunity to do some traditional Scottish things with the boys. 


We made shortbread

We Looked at a Sporran

We Designed a Tartan and listened to audios of Burns Poems & Songs

We made a toy haggis from socks, stuffing & string

We ate a traditional Burns Supper of Haggis, Neeps & Tatties



 Here it is all done.










Saturday, 5 January 2013

Christmas Traditions Part 2

 Some of what our home decor looks like at Christmas




As promised here is more of what our Christmas Traditions are, sorry it's a little late but like yourselves I was busy enjoying the festive season with loved ones.

Christmas Book

This years book


This is lovely, the best way to describe it is: its a story with in a story. I don't like calling things from the Bible a story but this tells the gospel (with some minor embellishments) with in the story of how a young boy gets stranded out in a snow storm and gets taken in by a kind lady who tells the true meaning of Christmas. The older 2 boys loved it and Little Boy Blue enjoyed the pictures, the illustration is beautiful.


Christmas Shopping

During the year we collect all our coins in a jar and the boys add £10 each from their piggy banks and this makes up the Christmas spending money. Each year the boys go out to get Christmas gifts with Daddy, they have lunch out and have a little list of who they have to buy for.


List: Daddy (I get), Mummy, both Grannies, Granddad, Papa and each other. 

Make Gifts for Neighbours & Special Friends

We also make gifts for our neighbours and special friends, this year we got plain cups and decorated them with Christmas Theme pictures on one side and a Bible verse on the other then we filled them with sweets and wrapped them up nice.



(I love pretty wrapping)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is a real family time and something I hope the boys would continue with their own families. 


We get into out PJ's 


We eat candy canes from the tree


We watch a movie

This years choice was The Snowman & The Snowdog

We set out a snack for Santa & the Reindeers


We read a book before bed

The same one each year


(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-Before-Christmas-Clement-Moore/dp/0007167113/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357343926&sr=1-3)

Christmas Morning

My children don't usually go down stairs without adult supervision so it's not hard to get them to wait for us all to go down stairs together come Christmas morning. They get the 'Santa' toys & stockings first. Chocolate coins and sugar mice are a must for our stocking fillers!
We then have our breakfast followed by more gift opening! For the last few years our Christmas morning have involved us building lots of Lego! Even Little Boy Blue has a love for Lego.











Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Christmas Traditions (Part 1)

Well it's that time of year again, Christmas is coming :)

I love the thought of making memories and family traditions with the boys, they  don't always play out as idilic in reality as they are in my head when I plan them! I suppose that's part of the memory too! lol

Decorations

Each year we try to make one new Christmas decorations and this year we have been very productive. My eldest, L - 8 years old, has out done himself with Lego creations.



Some More Of This Years Creations:





We are running out of time but not ideas! 


Some of my favourite sites for ideas:

http://happyhooligans.ca/
http://www.inlieuofpreschool.com/
http://rainydaymum.co.uk/7-days-of-christmas-crafts-and-activities
http://www.theimaginationtree.com/search/label/Art%20and%20Craft
http://crafts.slides.kaboose.com/326-christmas-crafts
http://icraftdaily.com/?s=christmas+craft
http://zakkalife.blogspot.ca/search/label/Christmas
http://allsorts.typepad.com/allsorts/2005/12/tiny_button_tre.html
http://kidsonthegrand.com/2010/12/20/cute-as-a-button-christmas-ornaments-2/

A few decorations made in previous years:




Visit Santa

We always go to see Santa in his grotto each year. The past two years we have gone to The Cocoa Bean Factory (http://www.thecocoabeancompany.com/) and been very happy with the quality and price. For £5 each they got to see Santa (we could take our own photos), get a gift (L got a summersaulting car, S got a Toy Story board game, Little Boy Blue got a teddy & they all got chocolate buttons), the older ones had a quiz sheet to fill in to get a prize (more sweets), a rub on tattoo and face painted! Well worth it. 





Little Boy Blue wasn't sure what to make of Santa that is until he got a gift!



The two older ones loved the Christmas Themed face paintings, Little Boy Blue wouldn't sit still long enough.



Best Christmas Lights Tour

Each year we always drive around to find the house with the best Christmas Lights. I know the boys would love it to be our house all lit up but this is way easier! Little Boy Blue was amazed and kept saying WOW! all the time. Here is the best we have found:



Winter Activities

So far this year we have not had snow just some frost but it hasn't stopped us from doing some winter activities like (trying to) sledge and ice skating.

(S is desperate for it to snow)

(Ok it was at an ice rink but still very cold!)