Making Boys Men

Just One Game Review

2018-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I love a family game with the kids, sometimes something a bit more serious and competitive, but sometimes a party game is what's required. 'Just One' is a super easy to play, but incredibly fun party game for 3-7 players, it took literally seconds to explain as the concept is so simple, but the next twenty minutes of play produced a lot of laughs, puzzled looks and 'aha' moments, want to find out more? Read on.....

'Just One' is a word association co-operative party game suitable for ages 8 years plus, or to be honest younger depending on their reading ability. Each player receives a mini whiteboard and pen and then the first lead player takes a card and without looking picks one of the words numbered one through five. The other players, who can see the card, then have to write words on their whiteboard that will help the lead player guess what the word on the card is. The fun bit is that any duplicates on the whiteboards are removed, so the trick is to choose a word that is obvious enough the lead player can guess the word on the card, but not so obvious that other players have also chosen the same word. Then the next person gets to be the guessing lead player. Got it? Here's an example in the picture below, what would your guess be??

Did you guess it? The word was 'wave' and yep we guessed it correctly, in fact in our three player game (which means you all get two boards each) we scored nine and then twelve out of thirteen cards correctly. The words are pretty clever, lots of double meaning - wave goodbye, waves in the sea - which to be honest added to the hilarity. Especially, funny moments were when duplicate boards had to be taken away or when someone had a super obscure clue - what would you guess if the clues were 'eggs', 'twigs', 'bed' and 'chimpanzee'? We didn't get that one right either (it was nest!).

The whiteboards and pens were great quality, all fitted back easily in the box and with 110 cards with five words on each there's lots of replayability. Brilliant for those occasions when you need just a bit of fun, and or there's lots of non-gamers wanting to play. The only complaint was you're against the game and just trying to get a perfect score, so there's no real winning, but that concern was soon left in the dust after several hilarious rounds! We had a great time playing this I hope you do to.

Kid made jewellery

2016-07-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a simple friendship bracelet craft for the Sunday School group that I teach when I came across this fantastic tutorial from Club Chicca Circle, so I thought I'd give it a go with the boys. It's a perfect craft for them as it involves hardware (hello diy store) and perfect for me as it was dirt cheap (yey!).

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The materials need are metal washers, I got ours from Wilkos (I'm British) where you can fill a bag for £2 in their hardware pick and pix section, I must have got over 60 squished in my bag so lots more crafting to come. If you're not British you could check out these washerson Amazon. Then you need either permanent pens, I used cheap ones, but Sharpies are always the best and/or nail varnish (go crazy for colour with these!).

Then you either paint with nail varnish or draw direct with the permanent pens. We didn't try this, but lots of the Sunday School kids were patient enough to wait for the nail varnish to dry and then put permanent pens on top. Sorry no photos so you'll have to take my word for it that they looked pretty good - or obviously try it yourself!

Here's the finished product, I just looped wool through the finished washers once they were dry and turned them into either friendship necklaces or bracelets.

This was my sons bracelet of choice. I don't know why, but the washers were a big hit with the kids and apart from a couple being turned into lethal weapons as they were swung round heads, I'd say this craft went pretty well!

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Slacklines - Outdoor adventure play

2015-10-01T14:53:00.003-07:00

What is a slackline? It's basically a strap / rope (I believe it's officially called webbing) that you set up between two trees (or anything else that won't move!). At the first tree you loop the strap round the tree then at the second you ratchet it tight and basically create a tightrope. Very good fun for adventurous kids and HAS to be done outdoors.

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To give you a better idea of what I mean this is similar to the Slackline we bought...

This picture is an affiliate link.

Still not sure how it works? If you click through to Amazon on the above picture there is a picture with instructions or check out the pictures below and hopefully it becomes obvious.

We visited a local forest and that's where we did our slacklining. Our slackline is 16 metres long, so you can get a really great long line to walk on and lots of choice as to which trees you can put it between. I believe you can also get tree protectors, but with only young children using ours I don't think the trees even had a scratch on them!

So how do we use our slackline? Mostly like a tightrope, which the boys love, Champ in particular believes he is destined to join the circus as a strongman, apparently by age ten he wants to start practicing throwing daggers, but I digress!

Next up we created a 'zip line' using a stick and Hubby wizzing the boys along, although we reckon if you put one end of the line a lot higher than the other end you could have a go at creating a very basic zip line, for kids at least.

We did also catapult a few pine cones, but I didn't get any pics as I was a bit busy trying to stop this little man running after either dogs or getting in the line of fire of the catapulting pine cones!

It was great fun, feels incredibly adventurous (yes I have had a go!) and clearly was so much fun we had several families come up and ask if their kids could join in, quite the seal of approval.

And when the slacklining was done, there's always time for some stick sword fighting!

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DIY Monster Chalkboard

2015-09-13T08:33:00.001-07:00

Recently we have been fortunate to extend our house so that we have a larger playroom. This has given us loads more space and it's been great fun working out what we do and don't want in there. One thing I've always wanted for the boys was a chalkboard, we've done loads of chalking outside (like our chalk monsters), but never really inside. I didn't want just a plain rectangle chalkboard, so we decided to go for something a bit more fun, hence the Monster Chalkboard!

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I'd seen a very cool Monster Chalkboard sticker from notonthehighstreet.com, but we wanted to make ours unique so we sat down and designed a few different monsters with the kids. The trick was to get a shape big enough to use as a chalkboard, but looked monster-y enough to be a bit different AND very importantly could be painted freehand. In the end we googled monster silhouettes and came up with our own from there. Below is what my husband and oldest son came up with together.

Next up, Hubby very kindly drew the monster freehand onto the wall in pencil, he majorly impressed himself with his ability to draw a large circle freehand - quick tip, do it quickly - but, was super pleased we hadn't gone with some of the boys other more elaborate designs!

Then I outlined it all in chalkboard paint, we happened to already have some in the cupboard, but if you're interested in doing this yourself I found something similar here.

Next up we painted the bulk of the monster. This actually took three coats before we were happy and it looked properly black. Below is the almost finished product (if you're super observant you can see where there's still pencil marks and this is actually after coat number two, so it did get a bit darker).

But, the boys got stuck in to the actual chalking so quickly, that I didn't get a picture of the finished product. Big tip here I bought cheap chalks for them to use as that's what we've always used outside, but next time I will buy some anti-dust chalk like these for indoors just to minimise the dust and mess on the floor.

So, far so good it's holding up well, it's looking a little more 'well loved' now that it's in full use, but I'm enjoying adding little features and messages every so often for the boys to discover in the morning. I'm using a chalk pen to do that, like this one, it's the sort restaurants often write their signs with, bit pricey so the boys haven't had access to that yet!

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Animation for Kids (& Hue Animation Review)

2014-02-08T13:18:00.002-08:00

Bud has been getting interested in animation recently ever since we had a discussion about how some of his favourite cartoons were made. He was particularly intrigued by how the stop motion ones (think Wallace and Gromit) were made when I told him they filmed them with tiny movements, so I was thrilled when we were given the chance to review the Hue Animation Moshi Movies kit.

Not only did we end up making our own movie (Hollywood here we come!), but it turned out to be a great opportunity to encourage Bud's creativity, planning and oh yes - patience!!

We received the Hue Animation Moshi Monsters kit for free, but all opinions included in this review are our own.

So first to the kit. What we got were instructions, some cardboard backdrops, USB cable, CD, webcam and plasticine (modelling clay). We got the Moshi Monster kit, but Bud decided that he'd rather use some of his toys to try out our movie making capabilities. It's worth saying that you need your own computer to make this work, our laptop doesn't have a disc drive, but the software was easily downloaded from online.

So, what did we do? Bud picked the backdrop and a couple of toys and he set to work. It was super, super simple, basically you move the characters, press the space bar then make the next tiny movement, press the space bar and so on. It's worth saying at this point that Bud is 5 and he picked it up super fast.

However, one lesson he had to really learn was patience!! Getting the concept of making only tiny movements between each picture took a while. The first movie we made (the one the photos are of) is, well, not so hot!! Very juddery and the characters seem to jump all over the place, but it didn't take him long to get it. What really helped is that the previous shot stays as a shadow on the software so you can see how much you've moved things - this turned out to be invaluable!

Here he is hard at work!

After we'd had a good test of how the webcam and software worked Bud really let his planning and creativity flow. This is what he wanted to film - the dinosaur and the blob!! He planned it all out himself and then talked me through it.

And this is the finished product, I hope you enjoy. Bud did all of it himself except for the explosion and the sound effects, that's the fun I had one evening!! I don't think we'll be hitting Hollywood just yet, but Bud was thrilled with the results and has plans for his next movies!

In terms of the product, what did we think? Hue Animation is marketed as:

Hue Animation hopes to inspire young movie makers, encouraging children to be more creative; thinking up their own storylines and bringing the lovable monsters to life.

The all-in-one kit includes the Hue HD camera, easy-to-use stop motion animation software, features and backdrops and is available for £49.95. The software can also be purchased on its own for £19.95.

Did it live up to expectations? Absolutely we definitely got to exercise our creativity and make our own storylines, and I say 'we' as to be honest I probably enjoyed this as much as Bud did!

It's a great project for an adult to do with a child, it brought out the little bit of techy geek in me and I enjoyed following Bud's creative lead. That's not to say he couldn't have done it on his own, it was super simple and he could have, but I'd like to think we had more fun together!

Interested in finding out more check out Hue Animation on their website (this includes their shop which ships to UK, US and Europe, and lots of help, tutorials and extra downloadable backdrops) their Facebook page and Twitter account.

I'm definitely inspired to try out some more animation. We're going to do some more movies, and I'm hoping to make a flick book with Bud, but what else could we do?? Any suggestions are most welcome in the comments. Thanks!

Shaving Foam Painting (& Outdoor Play Party)

2014-01-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party! This week we did a little shaving foam painting in the chilly sunshine. A little messy, but a fun sensory way to paint.

Little Dude enjoyed this craft, although Champ did join in later. I made the 'paint' with shaving foam and food colouring, which wasn't very vibrant - in fact I basically managed to make off white and grey! But, it was something a bit different as it stayed all puffy.

We started off with paint brushes, but it's so fluffy that this isn't what you want to use if you're trying to create anything you'd want to frame later!

We did manage to make a few interesting shapes and patterns, but it was definitely more about process than product!

Then, of course, we went for fingers and hands got stuck in and squidged the paint everywhere.

When Little Dude started to shiver we moved inside and I squirted a bit of real paint into the mix. It made the paint way more vibrant and made for much more interesting pictures so I think we'd go with that method next time!

What have you been up to outdoors? If you've played outside with kids this week, why not link up below. My favourite post from last time was the Polly Pocket skating from Happy Hooligans, some icy fun!

Worm Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

2014-01-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party! Slightly later than usual due to pregnancy brain and chickenpox (the boys not me!). But, we've been outside!

In an attempt to collect some of the leaves covering our garden Dude and I ventured outside the other day, but instead of helping me with the leaves he got way too distracted by a worm!!

Not the most adventurous, not the most organised, but he had a lot of fun making the worm a home, showing it different parts of the garden and making me hold it (not my favourite!).

Simple play, but a lot of fun!

My favourite post from the last party was from Learning for Life, with their post on loose parts. Worth checking out!

Treasure Hunt in the Dark! (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-12-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party! If you've been outside with kids this week then why not link up what you've been up to? Our Winter so far has been very mild, but very wet and it gets dark by about 4.30pm, so its not my ideal outdoor play environment to say the least! But, today I was determined to get outside rain or shine and enjoy the darker evenings.

We did quite a bit of play in the dark last year with our torches and fun in the dark, but this year I've been a bit more hesitant, mostly due to an overwhelming desire to be permanently seated due to a very tiring fourth pregnancy! But, today we dug out some glow sticks we've had forever and ventured into the garden (aka the mud pit!).

I say 'we', but Bud couldn't be persuaded to come out in the rain and Little Dude had just fallen asleep in the buggy, so Champ and I played on our own.

Champ was glow stick hider and I was hunter. I know it looks super bright outside, but it really was dark!

Champ soon worked out that to hide it the best he had to stop the glow, so this is him trying to paint it with mud to cover up the glow and we almost lost it when he hid it so well in the leaves we couldn't find it!

Very pleased we made the effort, we had fun despite the rain!

What have you been up to outside? My favourite play idea from last time was Kitchen Counter Chronicles with their Outdoor Play Ideas in a Jar, even better you can download the ideas they used!

Linking up gives myself and my co-hosts permission to share your post with a picture and link on social media sites.

Leaf Collection and Collage (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-12-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party! If you've been outdoors playing with kids then please do link up. This week we did a bit of leaf collecting in the garden, plenty of leaves to choose from as you can't actually see the grass for leaves at the moment! But, Little Dude who had been ill early in the week seemed to enjoy the opportunity to be outdoors.

Here is the man himself kindly pointing out that, 'yes' we do have lots of leaves in the garden! The ones on the grass were a bit damp so we opted to collect the ones by the house.

Plus of course a few sticks and stones got picked up on the way. None of my kids seem to have the ability to walk past a stick without picking it up!

Then once we had enough leaves we were back inside for a bit of collage. Lots of concentration going on here! He's a bit of a dab hand with the old glue stick.

And here is our finished article. OK so its not going to win any awards, but this was all led by Little Dude and he was quite pleased with his efforts. Plus of course it got us outside on a bit of a miserable day, not for too long, but we did venture out - hooray!

What have you been up to? Stuck for ideas on what to do outside? Well my favourite post linked up last time may be able to help as Mummy, Musings and Mayhem share some Easy Ways to Play Outdoors.

If you've played outdoors with kids this week then please do share what you've been up to. Linking up gives hosts permission to share one photo with a link on social media.

What to do outdoors in the rain? (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-11-22T02:43:00.003-08:00

Welcome back to the Outdoor Play Party! If you've been outdoors playing with kids then please do link up, we'd love to share your ideas. It's done nothing but rain here recently and I've been a bit stumped for ideas for outdoor play in the rain, so I've had a dig through the archives and come up with some great activities that we've done before that we are going to do again! Read on to find out more....

1 - Mud Painting

We painted the toy car, but Champ came home from Pre-school the other day with muddy wellie boot prints on paper which I thought was a great idea

2 - Rain Painting

We used the rain drops to create our rain painting, the results were very soggy and I'm not sure they made it in the house, but it made for some colourful on a wet day!

3 - Water Play

Well there's plenty of water around so we may as well make the most of it! Here our sledge turned into a water table and the boys floated boats.

4 - Water Wall

Possibly one of our favourite outdoor activities was when we made a water wall. Great for setting little engineering minds to work and the water was in ready supply so why not!

5 - Window Painting

Not as messy as it looks, this window painting kept everybody entertained so it's definitely one to try again if this rain continues

6 - Chalking

Turns out chalking works almost as well in the rain as it does the dry, we did ours on the trampoline for a bit of variety and to avoid anyone actually sitting in the puddles!

7 - Puddle Jumping

The classic, puddle jumping, something oh so satisfying about jumping up and down in muddy puddles!

8 - Snow Free Sledging

With wet grass turns out you don't need snow to make use of your sledge! This was A LOT of fun, don't think it did the grass any favours, but we did create a few memories that day!

I feel like I might be able to take on the rain again now! If you've been outdoors with the kids then please do link up below. A favourite from last time was the stick men from Adventure Togs. We seem to have a permanent collection of sticks on the go so I think a few stick activities will be lined up for the boys soon!

Treasure Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-11-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party! If you've played outside with kids this week then please do link up. This week we've been treasure hunting, we walk a lot and this activity is guaranteed to keep our Pre-schooler walking!

Our treasure hunting is basically finding junk on our walk home from Pre-school, its nearly a mile away so we have to keep entertained especially when it's raining which it does a lot!

You might notice from the picture a warning about dog poop! So, just so you know we have rules about what we pick up, it needs to be Mummy approved, not sharp, not too dirty and very importantly to my son shiny!

The type of stuff that gets collected are ring pulls from drinks cans.

And, any old metal rubbish. Bin day increases our finds!

What is trash to others is a treasure trove of very valuable shiny finds to my son! It keeps us walking, we chat about what it was and what he plans for it to be (we plan to hot glue it all together as a robot!) and it works rain or shine. Plus his little brother has now joined in, no photos of him though it was time to put the camera away when the two of them were loose!

So, what have you been up to this week? Have you played outside, if so link up with the Outdoor Play Party below. My favourite from last week had to be the loose part play from Racheous, I loved the mirrors outdoors - still not done that yet.

Linking up gives hosts permission to share a photo & link of social media sites.

Potion Making (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-10-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party! The weather here has been rubbish, we've been outside lots, but I haven't set any play stuff up for the boys for ages. So in a rare ray of sunshine we had some potion making fun.

This is what I set up..... I put out leaves, mud, green tomatoes, shaving foam, soapy water, coloured water and some oats, plus some bowls and spoons and then let the boys get stuck in.

It was messy, but really nice to see all three boys play in a collaborative way. Lots of pouring and stirring, plus of course all the imaginary things they were going to do with their mixtures.

A lot got spilt, but they had fun and would have stayed out a lot longer if we didn't have somewhere to go.

And this was the aftermath!

What have you been up to outside? If you've played outside this week then why not link up below? My favourite from the last Party was from Laly Mom with their Pet Shop Pouring Play

Linking up gives the hosts permission to share a link and photo on social media sites.

Our Favorite Fall Activities (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-10-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party, if you've played outside with kids this week, why not link up below. We love Autumn (Fall) and it's a brilliant time of year to get outside, not too hot, not too cold and loads of natural stuff (leaves, conkers, acorns etc) to play with. So here's a round up of some of our favourite ways to play outside this fall.

1. Leaf Rubbing

Find some leaves, cover them with paper, rub with crayons and voila a beautiful reminder of Autumn. Check out how we made ours here.

2. Conker and spoon races

An Autumn twist on the summer egg and spoon race! We have millions of horse chestnuts (conkers) so this is a great way to use them. This was originally posted with lots more conker ideas.

3. Conker Golf

We used sticks to play 'golf' with and I made a target out of an old box. Super simple, lots of hand eye co-ordination and lots of fun. Even more conker ideas here.

4. Conker Rolling

Not fed up with conkers yet?? Then how about conker rolling, guaranteed to keep little ones occupied for hours!

5. Acorn Treasure Hunt

Fed up with conkers, we painted our acorns with glitter then hid them round the garden for a quick treasure hunt. Lots more acorn ideas here.

6. Pinecone Toss

We've not run out of Autumn goodies yet! Next up the pinecone toss, where you guessed it you toss pinecones into a bucket! Plenty more pinecone ideas here!

7. Pinecone Bird Feeder

A classic kids craft. A pinecone, peanut butter and bird seed. For full instructions check out what we did here

8. Leaf Masks

A fab combination of foraging and art, plus you get a cool mask at the end. A great all age craft, that you can read more about here.

If you haven't had a look at the last Outdoor Play Party then check it out here, there were heaps of play ideas to get you and your kids having fun outside. A favourite of mine was the leaf slide from Happy Hooligans, just because, well who wouldn't want to slide into a giant pile of leaves!!

If you've been playing outside with kids this week then why not link up below. Linking up gives the hosts permission to share a photo and appropriate link on social media. Let's see what you've been up to.....

Leaf Play (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-09-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party! If you've been playing outdoors with kids this week then don't forget to link up your ideas below. This week we've been playing with leaves!

Our walk home from school takes us past several trees, and a lot of leaves! So, one day this week I took a bin bag with us and they collected leaves on the walk home.

Most amusing was I told the older two boys that had to carry the 'sack' of leaves home, they promptly ran off shouting 'we're late, we've got the presents to deliver' and kept calling one another either Santa or Elf depending on who was carrying the sack.

When we got home they decided to string up the bag, split it open a little and use it as a punch bag to test out their ninja skills.

When all the leaves were out they just enjoyed throwing them at one another.

Little Dude wanted in on the action and loved throwing leaves at his brothers.

And so, to the Outdoor Play Party. My favourite post from last time was from Happy Hooligans and their Mirror Play.

If you've played outside with kids this week then why not link up? Doing so gives the hosts permission to share one picture and link on social media sites.

Blackberry Splat Painting (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome back! It's another exciting Outdoor Play Party, if you've been outside with kids then please do link up your activity ideas below. This week we've been taking advantage of the last few wild blackberries around and have done some berry splat painting!

The idea for this came from the children's version of a wildlife magazine someone gave us, but after a quick flick through milk got spilt on it and it got binned before I remembered to look at the name - sorry! But, as we have berries on our route home from school we took the opportunity to pick a few of the remaining wild blackberries before the birds finished them off!

We then placed a berry on paper, folded the paper over and well splatted it!

Bud used a hammer whilst Champ and Dude used stones, both equally effective for bashing berries. I did have to dissuade Dude(nearly 2) from using his hands too much which he more or less listened to!

Then there was a bit of teamwork from Bud and Dude as they decided to bash their pictures together, or rather Bud did and Dude didn't object!

And their pictures looked like this and ...

...this! I'll be honest they went straight in the bin, but it was fun while it lasted and the berries were free and a bit past eating. If we'd of had more I reckon this could be awesome sensory play, only problem is it might stain the kids into looking like little berries!

Looking for more outdoor play ideas? Then look no further than the Outdoor Play Party. One of my favourites from last time was Buggy and Buddy's symmetry in nature post. Heaps of learning in one fun outdoor walk, worth checking out!

And so to the Outdoor Play Party, please link up your outdoor play posts below. Doing so gives us permission to share one picture with appropriate link on the hosts blogs or share via social media.

Kids Outside (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-08-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party. If you've been outdoors this week then please do link up your post below. We've been outside loads this summer, but I've not been so great at posting about it, so here are a few of the things the boys got up to during a recent trip to the park, all their own ideas.....

1 - Tree climbing

The ultimate classic and could Champ look more pleased with himself!

2 - Create your own bat and ball

With a bit of help from Pa this kept Bud entertained for ages

3 - Toddler photography

Our not yet two year old took a bit of a keen interest in the camera, I now have fifty photos of his thumb!

4 - Nature Hunting

Don't worry this is mega zoomed in and no animals or children were harmed in the taking of this picture (unfortunately the same can't be said for when I let Dude inspect a dead wasp which promptly stung him, HUGE Mummy guilt). Anyhow, on this occasion we inspected bees, found a tiny frog and the boys tried to catch butterflies.

5 - Make your own Tools

Very proud Mummy moment when Champ made his own stake out of a stick by whittling it down against tree roots for AGES! Then once happy with his tool he started to dig with it, I happily let him carry this tool around the park and only thought afterwards that perhaps to others it may have looked a bit lethal, opps!

6 - Hide and Seek

Yes a two you truly do believe a bit of greenery completely masks your presence!

Ready for the Outdoor Play Party? My favourite post from last time was from Takoma Park who wrote a great article about risk taking. If you're a parent or carer who lets your kids climb UP the slide then this is for you!

5 fun ways to play outdoors (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-08-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party! We've been doing heaps of Outdoor Play, but as there were so many great ideas from last link up I thought I'd share a few of my favourites!

1. Happy Hooligans shared not 1, but 10 ways to have some balancing fun

2. KC Edventures had some science fun as they made their own boats

3. Fun Toddler Activities had some fizzy puddle fun

4. Mummy Musings and Mayhem continued to create their outdoor playscape with tin can music

5. Learning for Life did some simple tin can cooking

What have you been up to outdoors? Why not link up your outdoor play ideas below?

Marble Chutes (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-08-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party! I hope you've had the opportunity to play outdoors this week, if you have then I'd love to see you link up below. Looking for more outdoor ideas? Then you've come to the right place, check out all our ideas here.

Last Outdoor Play Party the boys played with marbles and mud this time we made some super simple marble chutes. Here's how we got on...

This was unbelievably simple. I took a few plastic bottles out of the recycling and chopped off the ends with a knife and gave Bud a box of marbles, and well, that's it!

Bud played for ages like this setting himself different challenges, shooting them from different distances and heights.

Then I had to be involved so he could check out his shooting skills from further away. Champ wasn't interested at all, he was far too busy working on his chalk art work, but I'll come back to him in a minute.

Little Dude on the other hand definitely wanted in on the action and stealthily collected up any marbles that went shooting down the path.

And, while I was busy with marble chutes, someone else was busy chalking more than just the pavement - off for yet another bath!

And so to the Outdoor Play Party. My fave from last time was from Mummy Musings and Mayhem with their Imagination Circle which is part of their ongoing series of posts on creating their outdoor playscapes.

Marbles and Mud (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-07-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hooray for another Outdoor Play Party! You'll be pleased to hear that the British weather is now hot, hot, hot so the outdoor play is pretty much constant, plus the school holidays start tomorrow - more cheers at least from the boys!! If you've been playing outdoors don't forget to link up below.

We've been digging for treasure in the dirt, this activity definitely required a bath afterwards so maybe it should be a three splatter, at least we didn't add water this time! Read on to find out what we got up to...

Meany Mum that I am the boys paddling pool is tiny, partly because the large one we had before got so little use, and partly because I don't want to spend my entire life blowing it up with three impatient little scamps asking if it's ready yet and then another lifetime filling it with water!

However, with the awesome weather we've been having it seems a larger paddling pool is definitely on the horizon so on a day that I didn't want the boys to get soaked AGAIN! We put it to good use as a sort of mud pit!

I gave the boys a large pot of compost as well as spades, trowels, dinosaurs and garden pots. They soon set about creating a dinosaur world.

Then there was a lot of filling pots and transferring mud around. This is where putting the mud in the pool was great as it kept all the soil contained (that is until the next day when Champ tipped it all over the garden, but that's another story!)

But, the real fun came when the boys started to chat about buried treasure. Thinking cap on I came back with a bag of marbles which I told them were jewels and the play went on and on and on. Burying them, digging them up, rolling them around, burying them again etc etc. Who knew mud and marbles could make such a good combo?

The only downside was that there are now marbles scattered across the lawn from the play over the next few days, Hubby is very concerned for his feet and the lawn mower - whoops!

And so to the Outdoor Play Party. What have you been up to this week? I had lots of favourite posts from last time and had to narrow it down to two.

The first is from Fireflies and Mudpies with the three games to play with water blasters, chosen simply because I know the boys would love everyone of these simple water activities.

The second is from ABC Does with their Make a Mud Kitchen post. This has to be the most awesome mud kitchen I've seen yet and the picture below doesn't do the whole post justice as there are simply heaps of ideas as to how to expand your mud kitchen. Check it out...

Please link up your outdoor play ideas below. Doing so gives myself and my co-hosts permission to share via social media using one photo and an appropriate link back.

Summer Love Books Exchange - Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers

2013-07-14T14:55:00.001-07:00

We love books so have been really excited to take part in The Educator's Spin On It Love Books Exchange. Basically bloggers are paired up and you each send one another a kids book and related crafts. We were matched with The Gingerbread House who we sent Aliens Love Underpants (a household favourite) and we received Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers plus no less than FIVE crafts. Here's how we got on...

Up and Down (affiliate link) by Oliver Jeffers is a lovely story of a boy and a penguin who wants to fly, I won't spoil it for you, but the story involves planes, a cannon and a circus and the boys thoroughly enjoyed it.

And so to the crafts, Jenny from The Gingerbread House sent us five different crafts three penguin crafts, friendship bracelets and dream catchers. I'm going to share three of them here as we are saving two of the penguin crafts for a rainy day.

1 - Penguin Footprints

First up penguin footprints, as you can imagine the boys were delighted to be allowed to paint the soles of their feet.

They printed their feet onto paper and then added some white paint for the penguin's belly's

Then they added feet, beaks and eyes with pens. Fortunately the paint dried pretty quick so they were able to do each stage back to back as my kids seriously don't have the concept of needing to wait for paint to dry. Patience is not a family virtue!

And, these are the results.... Champs are on the left (with assistance from me) and Bud's handiwork is on the right although he decided that he'd re-design his penguins to look like him and a friend dressed up hence the penguin mutation into humans!

2 - Dream Catchers

This was probably my favourite craft, dream catchers. We started by cutting out the centre of the paper plates that Jenny had provided for us.

Then the boys decorated them with washi tape and foam stickers. We also added a loop of string so we could hang them.

Here are the results. I did the one on the left and Bud did the one on the right. I used string to create the dream catcher part, but Bud was rather taken with the washi tape.

3 - Friendship Bracelets

And finally, friendship bracelets. We chopped up the straws Jenny had sent then threaded them onto string. Bud could only be enticed to do this activity if he could use all green straws and tell everyone it was a Ninja Turtle Power Weapon (or something like that!).

Whereas Champ was quite taken with this craft, although judging from this picture I think he may then also have declared his friendship bracelet a weapon too, hmmmm not quite what I had in mind!

I hope you've enjoyed this post. If you'd like to check out more book related activities then check out the Love Books page and Pinterest Board.

Stick Writing

2013-07-08T12:34:00.004-07:00

We love getting outdoors, but the British weather doesn't always make that the easiest so when we get a bit of sunshine we spend as much time outdoors as possible. But, the boys never like to just chill in the sun they always like to be busy (sigh, from their weary mother!).

So, on a recent trip to a nearby stately home when the grown ups wanted to sit in the sun Hubby kept Champ busy with some stick writing.

Not too much to write about this really, they wrote names with sticks! I don't think we'll be winning any prizes for creativity or originality, but hey sometimes simple is best!

Champ is pretty good at recognising his own name and the letters that make it up so he got stuck in pretty quick. It also gave him the opportunity to identify a few more letters as he had a go at writing his brothers names.

I'm sure this is great for early literacy, letter recognition etc, but I'm not an educator so I won't even attempt to sound vaguely knowledgeable about that stuff. I was just pleased that Champ was engaged and I got to sit down for two minutes, at least until Little Dude (a.k.a I'm too independent to hold hands or go in my buggy) decided to head towards the canal.......

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Sprinkler Fun (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-07-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party! I've finally got internet up and running after our house move just in time for the latest Party, phew! If you've been playing outdoors with your kids this week then why not link below? In one of the rare outbreaks of sunshine this week we broke out the sprinkler for some water fun. This is how we got on......

We recently bought a sprinkler, a very basic one, but lets face it what more does a sprinkler need to do than spray water? The kids had been desperate to run through it every time we'd set it up for the plants, but it's been freezing here despite the fact it's summer, so on the first available rays of sunshine we let the kids go wild!

As we had other kids over several of whom didn't have swimmers (but don't worry the did have a change of clothes) we let the boys go in the sprinkler fully clothed which only added to their excitement, it clearly seemed very daring to be dressed!

Then we got the tarpaulin out and created a water slide, the kids did have a go but the only photo I have is of Hubby who also clearly had a lot of fun!

And so to the Outdoor Play Party. My fave post from last time is from My Nearest and Dearest who wrote a great post about how to create an Outdoor Play Space, perfect for us as we look to sort out our new garden.

Linking up allows us to share one photo (with appropriate link back) on social media (Facebook, Google+, Pinterest etc) and on the Outdoor Play Party host blogs.

Outdoor Styrofoam Art (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-06-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Yey for another Outdoor Play Party! For regular readers apologises for my absence, but we've been moving house. We have however managed to slot in a bit of outdoor play, including this outdoor styrofoam art. If you've been playing outdoors with kids then please share, and enjoy our outdoor art.

I had a leftover styrofoam base from a frozen pizza we'd eaten and thought it'd be fun to try out some sticky art completely inspired by this beautiful mosaic art from CBC kids.

I painted the styrofoam with acrylic paints and then chopped it up into different shapes and sizes.

It made for a pretty assortment and I found some book covering paper, the sticky sheets you can buy and took both outside to the boys.

The boys all got stuck in, our eldest Bud (age 5) got very stuck in and was soon bossing his brothers around with instructions as to what to place where.

Gradually the collage built up and they had a story to match as to what it was all about, as they always do!

Then the picture was enhanced by adding in some natural stuff from the garden leaves, stones etc. So what was planned as a bit of art fun in the garden ended up embracing the fact we were outdoors which I enjoyed, made me feel a bit mother nature-esq, but in reality I suspect the boys just enjoyed encompassing dirt into yet another area of their life! Ah well!

And so to the Outdoor Play Party, lots of brilliant outdoor play ideas last time my favourite was the colour matching from Train Up A Child (itself a guest post from Twodaloo). Really pretty, great for little learners and would brighten any garden, worth checking out!

Linking up gives us permission to share (with appropriate link back) one photo from your post on our blogs as well as on other social media (Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc)

Dragon Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

2013-06-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party! If you've been outside playing with your kids this week then please do link up below.

This week we've been Dragon Hunting! This activity was all Hubby's idea and involved catapults and colouring, this is what we got up to.....

First of all Hubby drew some pretty awesome dragon pictures.

Then the boys coloured them in, they had a dragon each. I then hole punched the top two corners and threaded them with string, these were our dragon targets.

Later that day we went to a nearby wooded area with a group of friends. We found some suitable trees and hung up our dragon targets.

Before getting to the trees we collected lots of pine cones from the ground, so that we had some ammunition. We got out the catapults (similar to these ones from Amazon - affiliate link)

This was a great activity and everyone had a go, from youngest (Our Little Dude at 20mths) to oldest, yes of course all the adults had a go!

Then when the targets came down, someone suggested a new target!

And so, to the Outdoor Play Party. Last time we had LOADS of great outdoor play ideas. If you've been playing outside with kids this week then do link up below, doing so gives me and my co-hosts to share one photo with an appropriate link to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.

My favourite link from last time had to be ABC Does' Outstanding Outdoor Spaces. We are soon to move house and have a small garden that's a completely blank canvas so I'm on the look out for ideas and this post is full of them!

Matching Shoes

2013-06-03T13:01:00.003-07:00

Some super quick fun today. When Bud gets home from school, the boys can be a bit excitable so one day in desperate need of some distraction we started playing with the shoes by the door. Next thing I know we have a whole game of matching pairs on our hands.

First the boys sorted all the shoes out, they all live in a big box jumbled up together so this took a bit of time (phew distraction achieved!).

Then we chatted a little about how the boys could tell which shoes matched and why. Then the game changed to pretending to be a shoe factory, then changed again to trying to wear all my shoes - oh joy!

I hope you enjoyed this post, want to read more then check us out on Facebook and Pinterest.