It’s virtual book club time with Toddler Approved and The Educators Spin On It- and we have read this book online as our library couldn’t get us a copy in time. So this months is The Very Quiet Cricket. Now I can tell this is a popular book choice for J as he has been going around reciting the bit about “rubbing his wings together” all week. It’s also requested regularly and it’s so nice to have the story read to us with some great animation as well all in the style of Eric Carle.

For a [...]]]> It’s virtual book club time with Toddler Approved and The Educators Spin On It- and we have read this book online as our library couldn’t get us a copy in time. So this months is The Very Quiet Cricket. Now I can tell this is a popular book choice for J as he has been going around reciting the bit about “rubbing his wings together” all week. It’s also requested regularly and it’s so nice to have the story read to us with some great animation as well all in the style of Eric Carle.

For a change we decided to take our activity outside (well the weather has been glorious) and we went hunting for some of the creatures that The Very Quiet Cricket met in his first day.

J looking through his bug explorer at the different bugs we found

Equipped with our bug explorer we searched the undergrowth trying to find any of the bugs – I didn’t want to tell J that most of them we wouldn’t be able to find in the UK garden, in fact we didn’t find any of the creatures mentioned in the book. We did however find some really interesting bugs and J got used to handling them, putting them into his bug explorer and then taking them out and returning them to the undergrowth.

Our first "bug" a snail

We first found some snails which J knew where they were from our Snail Hunt last week. Yes we had looked at them last year but not in our bug explorer – J liked the lines on the shell and the circles that he could see – we were able to talk about the spiral instead of circles and I have been asked to draw spirals over and over again for him to make some snails.

Next find was a red and black beetle

We have lots of little beetles in our garden at the moment – this red and black beetle was on our nettles which J has realised aren’t a good thing to touch so I had to put it into our bug explorer to have a look at – he thought at first it was a lady bird – we have had a few black with red spot lady birds in the garden but then realised it wasn’t as curved as they were. We also have some of my nemesis the red Lilly Beetles which J is in charge of finding amongst my Lilies and removing from them.

Our last find was a spider

As the theme for The Very Quiet caterpillar is the noise that the bugs make we listened out for any bug noises (quite difficult over the noise coming from the black bird nest at the rear of the garden) but we were able to hear the buzzing of a bee amongst the honey suckle. I am looking forward to taking J and T abroad where they will be able to find noisier insects as we are very limited in the UK.

As a child part of the excitement of birthday’s was seeing what cake my Mum had made for me. As a teenager and early adult I always believed that making a birthday cake was too difficult for me to do. But I’ve since discovered it’s not and I really enjoy making them for J and T. But today I’m handing this post over to my friend Jules to give some advice on making birthday cakes for kids including a tried and tested recipe.

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This is an easy to make traditional Victoria Sponge Recipe

you need 2 x 7″ sandwich tin 110g butter 110g [...]]]> As a child part of the excitement of birthday’s was seeing what cake my Mum had made for me. As a teenager and early adult I always believed that making a birthday cake was too difficult for me to do. But I’ve since discovered it’s not and I really enjoy making them for J and T. But today I’m handing this post over to my friend Jules to give some advice on making birthday cakes for kids including a tried and tested recipe.

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Easy Victoria Sponge Recipe

This is an easy to make traditional Victoria Sponge Recipe

you need
2 x 7″ sandwich tin
110g butter
110g caster sugar
110g Self Raising flour
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

How to make a birthday cake

Pre heat oven to 170 degrees Centigrade, grease tin and line with greaseproof paper (Baking Parchment), cream the butter and sugar together
when it is fluffy add the eggs 1 at a time mixing well then add the vanilla and mix again. Sift in the flour and divide between the 2 tins and create a well in the center of each to achieve an even cake top and less waste.

Bake for 30 minute or until a skewer comes out clean (this will depend on your oven, a fan assisted oven will be quicker and may need a slightly lower temperature).

After 5 minutes remove from trays and then leave on a cooling rack until they are at room temperature.

Traditional Victoria Sponge

To make your sponge into a traditional British Victoria Sponge cake add stiff whipped cream and jam(jelly) with a dusting of icing sugar on top.  However, why not jazz it up a bit….

Getting creative with birthday cakes

When the cake is cool wrap the cake in clingfilm (saran wrap) and put in the fridge to firm up. Leave it for at least an hour or overnight if you can.

Make a butter-cream by mixing 100g butter to 200g icing sugar, mix until creamy (it will get there but it does take some elbow grease) and then add half a tsp of vanilla extract. if the butter cream is too thick then add a splash of milk a tbsp at a time until its of a thick spreadable consistency.

Put butter-cream and jam(jelly) to sandwich the cakes and the add a crumb coat the the whole cake, do this by using a spatula or a non sharp knife. (this will stop any crumbs coming loose and spoiling your icing, it will also give your icing something to hold on to).

Next you want to take your chosen icing, be it royal icing or fondant (which i prefer as it tastes nicer). Roll out (using a dusting of icing sugar if it sticks or corn flour/starch) the icing wide enough to cover the cake but not too thin of every little bump will show through your aiming for a depth of 5 to 7mm.

Once this is done place your rolling pin in the middle of the icing and fold the icing over in half and lift the rolling pin gently and place in the center of your cake, now lift over the flap which is over the rolling pin and smooth over the top of your cake with your hand. carefully making sure not to apply pressure (so you don’t tear the icing) smooth down the sides and cut any excess off with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter if you have one.

Now your ready to add anything you like to your cake. If your not confident in making your own edible cake toppers many cake craft store have ones you can buy, or why not by a few figures of your child’s favorite character and place these on the cake with a little icing or butter-cream to keep them in place.

To cover the join at the bottom or the cake, either add a ribbon nice and simple or roll little balls of fondant/icing and dot around the base, again attaching with icing or butter-cream.

Some birthday cake making tips

If you find using icing sticky add icing sugar and wash your hands in cold water, dry your hands and continue, if you want to make this into a chocolate cake remove 30g of flour and add 30g or cocoa powder instead. Take your time, any offcuts you have from leveling off your cakes, make into bread crumbs mix with some butter-cream until you have a moldable dough, roll into balls put in the fridge when hardened insert a lollipop stick and dip in melted chocolate the let the chocolate set and you have cake pops!

You could always cover the cake in butter-cream which is delicious and decorate with sweets or get your kids to do that part.

Most importantly, have fun and bon appetite!

Jules is a Mum to an almost 3 year old and has recently started to make cakes. She can be found at Truly Scrumptious cakes, and her facebook page which is updated showcasing some of her gorgeous creations regularly.

Welcome back to Tuesday Tots and what another amazing week of links, and this week in honour of Jubilee Parties that we are having and preparing for this week some fun jubilee and party inspired posts from last weeks linky.

First off from Happy Whimsical Hearts – a silly hat tea party – this looks so much fun

To enjoy a true British Jubilee party we need some Union Jack Bunting and A Mummy Too has a great one to printout.

Welcome back to Tuesday Tots and what another amazing week of links, and this week in honour of Jubilee Parties that we are having and preparing for this week some fun jubilee and party inspired posts from last weeks linky.

First off from Happy Whimsical Hearts – a silly hat tea party – this looks so much fun

To enjoy a true British Jubilee party we need some Union Jack Bunting and A Mummy Too has a great one to printout.

We could make cakes for our party – but with wearing our silly hats what would be better than to pop to a playdough cake shop from Create with your hands and buy some brilliant play dough cakes.

No Jubilee party would be complete without a Crown for the queen and Multiple Mummy has a great one.

f you have been featured please grab the badge from our sidebar and add to your blog or post to show that you have been featured.

Now for this week linky as normal is for any post about under 5?s – whether it’s a craft, activity, play idea, recipe, proud moment or advice you’re welcome to link up. Growing a Jeweled Rose are co-hosting and we would love for you to link up 1 or many posts this week.

Here are a few guidelines

We spend time in the garden come rain or shine and one of the things that I take time to do is explore and look at the plants and flowers with T and J.

We’ve written about the seaons changing – with gardening in the winter, hunting for spring and looking at spring changing to summer.

J digging for compost to fill his seed pots with

With J we have planted seeds ideal for toddlers as the seeds [...]]]> We spend time in the garden come rain or shine and one of the things that I take time to do is explore and look at the plants and flowers with T and J.

We’ve written about the seaons changing – with gardening in the winter, hunting for spring and looking at spring changing to summer.

J digging for compost to fill his seed pots with

With J we have planted seeds ideal for toddlers as the seeds were enclosed within their own growing package so there wasn’t any little seeds that he would be tempted to put in his mouth.

adding a fence and gate making a child safe garden

We have worked on our garden near the house to create an area that is safe for babies and toddlers to play and also has enabled us to keep our wildlife area and will in the future allow us to expand and grow the area that the children play in. We put a fence and gate in so that the garden is enclosed and from the house I can see the children where ever they are.

Lifting T up to see and smell Lilac in the garden

When out in the garden we look at the plants and flowers – J and T are encouraged to pick dandelions and daisy’s to look at  we will sit and pull the petals off and talk about the parts of the flower, or try to blow Dandelion clocks explaining that they are seeds and we need to get them to float to grow more dandelions. With flowers that are high up like our apple blossom and lilac I bring the children to the flowers so that they can touch the plants and learn what they look and smell like from close up.

I find it a challenge to grow seeds with J and T this year – I had great plans but even without growing our own we are exploring the garden and they are learning respect for the garden, seeing it change and learning about growth from what they see and we look at. Our garden is a living classroom for them to learn in about the world as well as play and enjoy themselves.

We are joining forces with these amazing bloggers to bring your a gardening — flower, plant and garden linky for the month of May and would love for you to link up your gardening posts to the party.

www.momto2poshlildivas.com

http://www.kitchencounterchronicle.com

www.theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.com

http://www.duckduckoctopus.com

http://livingmontessorinow.com

http://www.athomewithali.net/

http://www.rainydaymum.co.uk

http://readysetread2me.blogspot.com

http://playfullearners.co.uk

http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/

http://glitteringmuffins.com

Please link up below any old/new and help share the learning and fun to be had growing, learning about and having fun with gardening for kids what ever the age.

As you can imagine with 2 toddlers in the house sharing is not something that comes easy to either (well it shouldn’t it’s normal toddler behaviour) but my mum strikes again….. Taking Turns for 10 is apparently something that she used with me and my brother as toddlers/pre-schoolers and it’s been a success ever since.

The idea is so simple I just thought everybody did it – but after been begged to write it up by a couple of friends I am guessing it’s not something that everyone does. So here is how it [...]]]>

As you can imagine with 2 toddlers in the house sharing is not something that comes easy to either (well it shouldn’t it’s normal toddler behaviour) but my mum strikes again….. Taking Turns for 10 is apparently something that she used with me and my brother as toddlers/pre-schoolers and it’s been a success ever since.

The idea is so simple I just thought everybody did it – but after been begged to write it up by a couple of friends I am guessing it’s not something that everyone does. So here is how it works.

• Toddler 1 wants something that Toddler 2 is playing with
• You say – Toddler 1 takes turn for 10
• Toddler 2 and you count to 10 whilst Toddler 1 plays with the object
• After you have said 10 Toddler 2 gets the object
• Count to 10 with Toddler 1
• repeat

The nice thing about this is we have progressed from 10 and now can count to 20 or 30 depending on how long a J or T needs to play with the object properly. I also never realised how great this is for counting practice as well. T who can’t count doesn’t speak her numbers has quickly learned that when we say 10, 20 or 30 it’s her turn to swap and she will do it (she’s 14 months) and part of the fun for J is that he gets to count with me as well.

With all of the wet weather in the UK recently we have taken the opportunity to look for some snails. So J and T went hunting in the undergrowth that is one of our flower beds (yes maybe I need to do a little weeding but I love the greenness of it!).

J is extremely good at spotting bugs – whether because he is closer to them or because he has great eye sight I will never know but very quickly he had found some snails in the bush.