Country Kids: A Cloudy Carnival
Every Summer our town has a holiday fortnight, culminating in a carnival and fireworks.
Well it used to be a fortnight, and it used to have a parade with about thirty floats in it. It also used to be sunny in the Summer but there you go. I wonder if it was health and safety that put pay to that as well? The dreaded H&S ensured the end of our very popular parade as community groups and schools could no longer afford the spiralling costs of the insurance. We haven't had floats in about ten years, nowadays it's a walking parade which quite frankly, is pants. And because there's no focal point for the day now, it has slowly dwindled to a handful of stalls down the beach front, a few children's rides, and a few bands who take their turn.
Today was carnival day, so we prepared to head down to the beachfront late afternoon. And while we were standing in the porch it started to rain. Just for a change. So we donned waterproofs and wellies, and trundled down anyway.
While everyone else was huddling under any shelter they could find, we splashed through the puddles. All three of us. We had great fun, as did the people watching us. Sometimes you just have to embrace the weather and deal with it.
—
366 #28
This time next week, we will have passed Day 200 of the project. How cool is that?
I've been taking inspiration this month from the Instagram #PhotoADayJuly prompts run by FatMumSlim. With such foul weather at the moment, and me lacking time as the end of term looms near, it's been good to have an idea of what to take my photo of each day.
Anyway, time to link up with your favourite photo of the week:
- Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
- Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
- If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!
Saturday 14th July 2012 – 'Building' (196/366)
Learning Through Play: Sand Drawing
The Boy is becoming more and more curious about letters. He's desperate to know what they are called, he's practising the names and sounds that he's familiar with all the time, he's trying to form the shape of them in the air and finding letters he knows in books. I'm going to start focusing on the key letters and playing bingo games involving them because he just wants to learn!
One of the best ways to learn numbers and letters is through play. And one of the best ways to practise the formation of them is through play as well. The key point to note is that if littlies can't do it on a large scale, they can't do it on a small scale. So if they can't form the shape of letters in the air or a variety of other ways, then they won't be able to do it with a crayon on paper.
So we've been practising our pre-writing skills in a tray of coloured sand, to which I added glitter to make it more sparkly and attractive.
We explored the texture of the sand, making hand and foot prints.
We've been practising our shapes, squares are easy but triangles are tricky!
We drew faces and numbers.
Before we moved onto drawing letters. Initially, I drew the letters in the sand while he watched me. Then he held my hand while I drew them so he could feel the flow of the shape, then I drew them and he drew over the top of my letter. next he progressed onto drawing them himself. The hardest part in all of this was that, because The Boy is left-handed, I had to reverse it and draw it with my left hand myself!
Forming letters in sand in a big tray is one of the activities that is frequently used in my school in both nursery and reception. As I've said before, until they can do it on a large scale, the smaller and more accurate writing doesn't happen. And we should be encouraging them to draw zigzag, wavy, curved and straight lines, as these are the shapes of our alphabet.
Other good materials to do this with are wood shavings or sawdust, shaving foam and that weirdy bath jelly gloop stuff. Anything that holds the shape once a finger has been drawn through it.
I bought my coloured sand from e-Bay.
—
Friday 13th July 2012 – 'Open' (195/366)
Saving The Pennies
I'm counting down the days to the end of term at the moment. In all honesty, I'm counting down the hours and minutes. I can't wait for six whole weeks with my little boy, rain or shine. Six whole weeks of making and cooking, painting and building, running and climbing, singing and laughing. Six whole weeks of time together, restrengthening out relationship that I feel weakens during term time. Enjoying every second together, but also helping him develop into an independent boy who has learnt a whole load of skills.
Looking at the few calendars I've got lying around (and realising I need to tie them all together!), I can see that we've also got many weekends full of lovely family time; weekends away, and in the house playing and having fun. However, looking at the many events and days out that we've got organised makes me realise two things: we need to make sure we're not spending too much money (why is it that seven days out can cost more than two weeks holiday?!), and that we need to make sure that with us absent from the house as much as we're going to be, that it's secure and safe.
We're in the process of reassessing our finances with the usual checklist of home and contents insurance, car insurance, life assurance etc. We've actually sold Mr. TBaM's car, as since changing jobs in April he's used it about seven times. One less car insurance and tax to worry about. That leaves house insurance and my car insurance to worry about, as we've already checked off the life cover. We have used many different price comparison websites in the past, and the one that I genuinely find the most efficient features that little meerkat. ComparetheMarket.com is the quickest and most efficient site for double checking the various insurances, and it's something that we'll certainly be using over the next few days to try and save some pennies for our family days out!
Thursday 12th July 2012 – 'Texture' (194/366)
Day one of my sourdough starter batch. Hope it works! Using this recipe to get it going.
Wednesday 11th July 2012 – 'Letter' (193/366)
Country Kids: Sandcastles
I've noticed recently that we've stopped making the effort to go and do things on the weekends. We saunter along from household chore to supermarket trip to ironing pile, and at the end of the weekend have very little to show for it. Enough now! The year is passing us by and we're missing out on family time together.
So when Sunday dawned and I excitedly drew back the curtains, I saw… rain. Yet again. Bored of this I decided we'd hit the beach anyway and put The Boy's waterproof trousers and wellies in the porch next to the bucket and spade. We did a last minute toilet trip and the sun came out. A quick change of clothes later (with wet weather gear firmly in the boot) and we headed off for Barry Island.
By the time we'd managed to find a parking space (four laps of the island!) the sun was blazing down and we had a really pleasant two hours building sandcastles, paddling in the sea and eating chips!
—
- «Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- …
- 266
- Next Page»
