Messy Play...

I thought it was about time I got around to sharing the rest of the details from the group messy play session that I held. So as well as the paper plate turtle craft (click for more details) we had lots more fun...

Painting with cars on a big scale (the boys have done this at home before but on a smaller scale see here)

Joseph(4.5) enjoying painting with his friends.

Jelly frog pond green & blue jelly made with gelatin & food colouring, as blue jelly doesn't seam to exist!

This was a very popular station!

Dinosaur small world in an Argos paddling pool.

With play dough to make footprints. This was similar to our Dinoland we made a while back.

Coloured rice sensory box (apologies for the poor picture!)

Daniel (3) enjoying the rice with his friends.

In our other pool we had our button & cotton real threading. With all the other activities on offer this was more popular than I was expecting!

All the children enjoyed the hour, especially my boys, so over the summer holidays I have decided to hold more sessions for the public wish me luck!

x Jo x

Frog Pond - We love Weekends Blog Hop

After our finding tadpoles on our picnic last weekend we decided to make a small world frog pond. Firstly the table needed a good clean after being stood up for the winter. After tipping out the water & wiping away the worst of the algae with kitchen roll & anti-bac spray, I re-filled it & let the boys help me finish cleaning it with some old cloths. Another empty & refill & we were good to go.

Ewww yucky water table!

We then gathered our collection of plastic frogs (yes its growing) & I cut some lilly pads out of craft foam. The frogs had lots of fun in our 'pond' they even had a float on the lilly pads. They were then joined by some rocks to play on & some boats (came with water table from Argos). The boys had lots of fun & got very wet even with their aprons on. Joseph (4.5) is getting so tall that he now has to kneel to play. The water table was one of Daniels (now 3) Birthday presents last year.

We Love Weekends Blog Hop

A fellow UK blog What To Do With The Children is launching a weekly blog hop & to celebrate has asked several other blog's including Le Baby Bakery to join in. This will be the first blog hop or linky (as they are also known) we have co-hosted so let me know what you think & if you would like to see more. Why not check out the other blogs who are co-hosting:
Peakle Pie
Diapers-n-Heels
Lalymom

<div align="center"><a href="http://whattodowiththechildren.com/category/we-love-weekends/" title="What to do with the children"><img src="http://whattodowiththechildren.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/we-love-weekends-button-150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="What to do with the children" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Its a place for other bloggers to link up with ideas of all kinds and information they think you might find useful or just for a good read. Anything goes on We love weekends, so if you are a blogger please feel free to link up a post & grab the above button if you'd like. And if your a follower, crafter, or reader please take a look at all the wonderful ideas being linked up. Bloggers love comments so if you like a post a comment is always appreciated. If your not a blogger but would like to share your fun ideas or what you are up to this weekend, please leave a comment on this post.

Swans, Tadpoles & A Picnic

 On Fridays the boys go to pre-school just for the morning. Normally I pick them up & we go home for lunch. As the weather was looking good I thought we would take advantage & go for a picnic. 

I quickly packed a lunch before going to pick them up, I only had 15 mins so no time for anything fancy!

Ham sandwiches, seafood sticks, grapes, cucumber & a packet of wotsits for the boys to share. I'm having to be very good at the moment & stick to my Slimming World plan 100% after gaining 3.5lbs at Butlins (post to follow about our holiday).

Daniel was obviously tired after pre-school...

We went to a local nature reserve, the boys probably would have chosen one of our parks however I find the play equipment soon distracts them from their food! Even though the sun was shining on us, the wind was chilly, hence the coats.

After we had finished our lunch, we went over to feed the 'ducks'. There weren't any ducks today but a slightly over friendly swan came over to eat our bread. I think I saw the other one sat on a nest in the reads. Then along came a family of coots, daddy, mummy & 4 fluffy babies. Both Joseph (4.5) & Daniel (3) loved the babies & thought the were 'very coot'.

Next we went along the 'bridge', which is more of a raised walkway over some boggy grass/pond area. This area is perfect for frogs, so we went looking for some tadpoles.

 We saw a few here & there & it wasn't until the very end that we found a whole cloud (thanks goggle) of them. They were right at the edge which gave the boys a good view. I did get asked the question 'can we take one home?' so we might think about getting some frog spawn next year...

x Jo x