Out with the old...

I have finally started sorting the boys' bedroom. We have been in this house over 18 months now and in all that time the boys have not been able to play in their own bedroom despite it being the largest of our three bedrooms because it has doubled up as our 'storage room'. The problem is that nearly all of the stuff being stored did not need to be kept, some of it should have been sold/given away/disposed of before we even moved here.

Today I have given away three bin bags full of boys clothes ranging from newborn to five years and two car stereos (why did we have two?) via our local Freecycle list. I've also offered an old printer, scanner and bedding although I expect that they will end up in the tip due to their age. I've also filled a bin bag for the clothes bank and filled two bin bags for the tip.

I bagged up some baby and toddler toys with the intention of also offering them on Freecycle, however when I had two full bin bags I decided that there was quite a lot of toys which might collectively be worth something at a car boot. So next week, if the weather is nice again, we intend to go to the car boot with a load a baby and toddler toys, girls clothes (I have still have a lot of Sarah's baby clothes), a crib (only used for four months until I followed my instincts to co-sleep), a couple of children's bikes and possibly a couple of other bits too. If the weather is bad I will post a few bundles on Ebay and Freecycle the rest. I'm on a roll now!

What we've been doing

Since I lasted posted the children, the dog and I have been to visit my parents for a few days. We visited the circus which was the children's first visit to the circus. Percy loved it! He especially liked the slapstick comedy of the clowns such as the clown having a drink and water squirting out of his bottom and hat! Sarah enjoyed the acrobatic acts and Bill hated it and finally decided that the best solution was to go to sleep on my knee...until the next loud act woke him up again :-( In the car when the other children were discussing the best bits, Bill said that he didn't like the circus and never wanted to go again. However, by the time we had got back to my parents' house (10 mins) he told my sister that he'd had a nice time and loved the motorbikes at the end!

We also went to a dinosaur evolution exhibition at a leisure centre local to my parents. It was really good. It had lots to look at as well as some fun hands-on activities including a video wall where you could see your self walking with dinosaurs! Unfortunately, that particular activity just made me feel that I ought to start dieting or exercising, or both, soon!

The children also discovered that playing 'two- player' on the ds was fun as both my brother and my Mum have one. It looks like I need to start saving up for a ds for Percy's birthday!

We drove home on Wednesday (3 hours) and went straight to the HE group that I co-run and all had a lovely afternoon as usual.

On Thursday we spent the afternoon with a friend and her children. It was really lovely because all the children played together all afternoon without needing any adult intervention to solve any disputes. Whilst my children have always counted my friend's children among their best friends (and vice versa, I think!), in reality they have often found it difficult to find things to play and play peacefully due to their different stages of development and their different personalities. On this occasion my friend and I were able to enjoy our cups of tea and chocolate with much less interruption!

On Saturday dh came home from America with gifts for the children. Sarah had the cooking game that she had requested for her ds, Percy got Mario Karts for Sarah's ds and Bill got a fossil that he had to release from a rock with a hammer and dinosaur mosaic sticker set. They were all very pleased with their presents and also very pleased to see their dad as he has never had to go abroad with work or left us for a whole week before. After lunch we went to J's 7th birthday party. Sarah and I met J and his mum when Sarah and J more just 7 and 6 months old at Aquatots, a swimming class for babies. On this occasion J was having a joint party with his friend E who Sarah went to kindergarten with. Sarah and E have only seen each other twice since E left kindergarten to go to mainstream school over two years ago. Both of these occasions have been J's birthday parties, and both times the two girls have chosen to play together. This party was no exception, E hugged Sarah when we arrived, they held hands throughout most of the party and E's mum and I have been made to promise that we'll arrange a play-date soon!

On Monday, the children went to their friend's house without me, an arrangement we have for every second Monday.

Wednesday was French Club as usual followed by an HE gathering at a local soft play centre. The children had a fantastic time at the soft play place and I've had to arrange more play-dates - next week is looking busy already!

The rest of the time the children have spent playing various role play games that they play for hours at a time, playing on the ds, playing on club penguin, watching their new Power Rangers dvd, we've finished reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and started on The Horse and his Boy, and they've probably done loads of other stuff that I can't remember now.

Now I'm going to google 'animation' because Percy wants to know they make Lady and the Tramp move if they're only drawings!

Lost post

I've just come to write a blog post because, yet again, it's been 2 weeks since the last one and found that my last post hadn't published properly. All you could see was the title! Fortunately, I don't have many readers yet so I don't need to feel too silly!

Baking and making

Today, Bill and I made more mini muffins, triple choc and plain (for Percy). He's getting really good at mixing as long as the butter is really soft.

Percy watched more Power Rangers on Youtube and also Star Wars lego movies. Sarah wanted to make 'diaries' for the game that she wanted to play with her friends tomorrow (you've guessed it, Power Rangers!). I asked her what she envisaged these diaries to look like - I've learnt from experience not to assume that the idea I have is the same as the one that she has had. I then made a quick sample of what I thought she was describing and we discovered that we hadn't many staples left. I suggested that I used a bookbinding technique that I learnt last summer to sew the books together. She agreed and insisted that the book covers had to be white. We made the books by cutting three sheets of white A4 paper and one sheet of A4 card in half. We lay all the paper on one half of the card and folded to make a twelve leaf book. I sewed the spine using a figure-of-8 techqniue, starting and finishing in the middle. Sarah cut out Power Ranger figures and stuck them on and finished off by drawing flowers or footballs on them.

Bill came to join us and cut out his own pictures to stick on his book. I had no idea that he could cut so well!

Sarah then made rings using a kit that she had been given for her birthday.

This evening Sarah went to drama and we had chinese takeaway for tea. I've been really good recently, ordering our weekly shop online but this week we didn't do a weekly shop and have eaten mostly what we had in the house, needing only to buy a few extras such as bread and milk. Hence, I thought that we had saved enough to afford a treat!

Power Rangers and Socialisation

Tuesday:
Sarah and Percy spent much of the day on Youtube watching the latest series of Power Rangers which isn't released on dvd until next week. There was a time when this would have bothered me, not only because of the 'plugged in' aspect but also the whole commercialism side of of things. However, with regards to the television watching, I have noticed that the children seem to have self-regulated their viewing habits. I no longer panic when they spend a whole day in front of the television, or even a few days because they don't do this every day and can go for days or weeks without switching it on.

The issues I have with the whole commercialism and marketing aspect have probably been harder for me to let go of but seeing the children loving playing with their Power Ranger figures and dressing up in their costumes has made me realise that is much more beneficial for them to chose their own toys, and really enjoy them, than have the ones that I think that they should have. I have also really enjoyed watching the way that they play Power Rangers inspired games. Anti-TV people often use the argument that watching television and playing with television character toys hinders children's imaginations. This has not been what I have observed. My children play Power Ranger games in several different ways; they do sometimes re-enact storylines that they've seen on television, but more often than not they make up their own story lines whilst in character. They use the plastic figures along side other small dolls, flower fairies, My Little Ponies and various small teddies to create all sorts of imaginative games, often including getting married and having children. I do wonder how many children dress their Power Rangers up in dolls clothes!

Meanwhile, Bill and I made mini chocolate chip muffins and he did one of his Usbourne Apple Tree Farm sticker books.

Sarah had her ballet lesson and Bill fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Wednesday:
We went to French club first thing. It is held in a lovely arts cafe in town which is about a twenty minute walk with children and often we don't have any breakfast before we go. Today was one of those days that we hadn't had breakfast and I had forgotten my purse. Fortunately, we had a friend that was able to lend us some money. We walked home, had lunch and went out to our HE meeting. It was a really nice meeting. The children played mostly outside (more Power Rangers I think) and made small 'gardens' in tins and tubs. Bill made friends with another little boy the same age as him and we arranged for Sarah and Percy's new friends to come and play on Friday. Percy also played with a little boy who we have known for ages. Percy has always said that B was not his friend because B never speaks to him. I think that the truth is that they are as shy as each other and neither of them have been brave enough to speak to the other before. Anyway, today they played together, discovered they have some mutual interests and both desperately want to play at each other's house! Socialisation: tick! We dropped off the little girl that we take with us and went to get our tea from the McDonalds drive-thru because we were in a rush to get Sarah home and ready for Rainbows and me for work. Why do I feel that I have to explain why we went to McDonalds?

Unplugged project - bottle

This weeks Unplugged Project theme is bottle. Somewhat lacking in inspiration, I looked at my various 'things to do' books and found a page with the title 'Expanding and Contracting' in The Usbourne Big Book of Experiments which descibed three experiments involving bottles. I thought that they looked fun and visually appealing to three young children. So I checked I had all the materials that we needed and this morning we got started. However it wasn't to be a successful morning!

Bottle Fountain:

I made a hole in the screw top of a glass bottle, pushed a drinking straw through the hole and sealed it with playdough. I half filled the bottle with water and food colouring, and replaced the lid with sthe straw. Then we put the bottle in a bowl of hot water and waited...

and waited! The water did rise up the straw but not with enough force to give the fountain effect.

Cooling and shrinking:

Whilst waiting for the bottle fountain not to do its thing, I asked Sarah to break up some ice cubes in a plastic bag using a rolling pin.

We then put the broken up ice into a small plastic bottle and replaced its cap and waited...

and waited! Nothing happened. After a while Sarah said, 'the experiment's working, the ice is melting and turning into water.' However, this was not the result I was hoping for. The ice was supposed to cool the air inside the bottle causing the air inside to contract and pull the sides of th eplastic bottle in.

Magic balloon bottle:

Feeling a little disheartened we started our final experiment. I warmed another glass bottle and stretched a balloon over its neck and then stood the bottle in a bowl of cold water. Then we waited...

and waited! The balloon was pulled down into the bottle a bit but not completely.

So not the most successful activity! We will try these experiments again when the mood takes us though.

Next weeks theme is happy.

Unplugged project - clothing

I've been intending to join the unplugged project for a few weeks now. We finally got around to it this week albeit a little bit late. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll be in sync with all the other participants. For more information about this project, go to unplug your kids.

Last summer I made Percy some felted slippers and recently Sarah and Bill have been asking for some too. So when I saw that this weeks unplugged theme was clothing I immediately ordered the merino wool in Sarah and Bill's chosen colours.

Making Bill's slippers: to make the template, Sarah drew around Bill's feet, then I drew a line around it, rounding it off and enlarging it by about an inch all round. I drew two lines up to make a boot shape then cut out a template using a plastic placemat. Meanwhile Sarah decided to make a pair of slippers for one of their Power Rangers!

I then started to lay the wool over the template. On the first layer we lay the fibres running from left to right then on the next layer we positioned the fibres running from top to bottom. I repeated this so that we had four layers making sure that each layer was about 1 inch larger than the template. Then we dampened the wool with some hot, soapy water to press the fibres to gether before carefully lifting the template and wool up and turning it so the the wool was now on the table (on top of a towel, beach mat and bubble wrap). Next, I folded the excess wool over the sides of the template then repeated the above process.

Next I covered the wool with a net curtain and massaged the wool through the curtain. When the wool appeared to be felting I removed the curtain and rolled the wool covered template in the the bubble wrap and beach mat and rolled backwards continuously, only stopping to move the template around in different directions.

I then cut through the wool and template to separate the slippers and continued to roll them a few more times.

Then I started on Sarah's slippers. At some point the children decided that their Power Rangers and dolls needed rugs and blankets, so this is what they were doing:

And the end results:

For some reason neither of the two pairs of slippers that I made yesterday felted as well as Percy's (in the middle). I'll have to find an experienced felter to ask where I'm going wrong. Nonetheless, we had fun and I'm still reasonably pleased with the results. If you want to try making these slippers, I used this pattern and from there you can link to the method.

The next theme for the unplugged project is bottle, due to be blogged on Monday.