Country Kids: In The Country Park

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Near us we have a country park that started life as a quarry. During the 1980s it was flooded and turned into a country park and lakes, and is a popular place to visit on a weekend for a stroll around the main lake, a play in the park and a trek through the wooded area.

The recent rainfall meant that the lake was at least a foot higher than it should have been, the surrounding boardwalk was flooded. However, we took some stale bread and fed the ducks while shoo-ing away gulls with the umbrella (like Sean Connery in Indiana Jones). We took The Boy's bike for him to practise, although daddy had forgotten to raise his seat so he struggled a little. That mixed in with ruts in the path meant that he toppled over a few times, even with stabilisers on, but he got back on and continued pedalling away: good lad!

Today brought a new first; showing The Boy how to climb a tree! (As Coombe Mill has pointed out, it was one of the things to do before 11 and ¾!)

I must confess though that I am properly chilled to the bone now, time for me to invest in some thicker trousers (or even long johns?!) for our outdoor play, I think.

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coombe mill

Oreo Cookie Cupcakes

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There are quite a few recipes out there that involve putting a whole Oreo cookie into each cake case, mine doesn't and I think allows for the taste and texture to vary while eating each cake.

There are two specific things that I've added to this standard cake recipe to make it taste delicious; vanilla bean paste and vanilla yoghurt.

Ingredients:

  • 4oz butter
  • 4oz caster sugar
  • 4oz self-raising flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tbsp fat free vanilla yoghurt
  • 1tbsp vanilla bean paste
  • 10 Oreo cookies, chopped roughly
  • icing sugar, soft butter, vanilla bean paste and white chocolate for the buttercream.

Oreo recipes

Method:

  1. Cream the butter and sugar.
  2. Mix in the eggs, adding a little flour if it starts to curdle. Add the remainder of the flour.
  3. Whisk in the yoghurt and vanilla bean paste.
  4. With a spatula or wooden spoon, slowly stir in the chopped Oreo cookies so that they don't break up any smaller.
  5. Spoon into cake cases (this made twelve) and cook on 180 for 15-20 minutes.
  6. Leave on a wire rack to cool.
  7. To make buttercream you'll need double the amount of icing sugar as butter. I also added half a bar of white chocolate and two teaspoons of vanilla bean paste. Add more icing sugar if needed, to stiffen the mixture.

Oreo recipes

I was sent the Nielsen-Massey vanilla bean paste to test. So much easier to use than vanilla beans and more authentic than essence. I thoroughly recommend it. The recipe is my own and unbiased.

Linking up to Foodie Foto Friday

Sponsored Video: Playing And Learning Through Technology

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This may be a sponsored post, but the content is relevant and worth not being dismissed.

Last week I wrote about the role of technology in our children's lives, and the responses that I had to this was fascinating. Most people who commented agreed that our children, those little beings that are barely out of nappies and only just making themselves truly comprehensible, are far more familiar with technology than we were, or even their older siblings were. A few commenters were concerned about children having a balance of play experiences, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I wanted to highlight that actually I feel not allowing children to explore and use technology as a tool will hinder them in their future schooling and careers. However, I'm biased because I'm an ICT co-ordinator who is passionate about the use of technology and allowing children to become more independent in their learning.

Education nowadays is completely different to anything most adults (without a child in the school system) can imagine. Schools nowadays, especially in Wales, are all about child-led learning and a teacher's job is to facilitate the child's ability to find out what they want to, and guide them into enquiring about their world if they're not sure how. Gone are the days of 'chalk and talk', but eleven years ago when I started teaching that was standard practise and it makes me shudder to think of children filling pages in their books because 'that's how they learn'. It's not; most children learn experientally.

In last week's RE lesson we used the school's newly purchased tablets. I placed a QR code on each table, with a tablet next to it. The children came in from assembly and were asked to sit at the tables straight away, click on an app and scan the code. It took them straight to a video about an influential Christian which they watched completely engrossed in the message. I drew the children together and we discussed the key points which I listed on the tablet connected to the interactive whiteboard. The children were then split into groups and set the task of researching another influential figure. Twenty minutes later they presented their findings to each other.

Having taught the same lesson two years ago, I can honestly say that those children learnt far more in last week's lesson because they were able to steer their own learning and answer their own questions.

Technology is a valueable tool for learning. Schools across the developed world are realising the importance of it to build the next generation of inquiring minds and independent learners.

This post has been sponsored by Samsung, but all thoughts are my own.

Flashback Friday: Spooky Bangs!

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This week's theme for Flashback Friday is Hallowe'en, however I'm bending the rules slightly and including Bonfire Night as well.

I relish any opportunity to dress The Boy up, but as he gets older and develops his own personality, I'm not particularly welcomed with open arms when I wave a cutesy costume at him.

However when he was 18 months old, that was a completely different matter!

I'm hoping to get The Gruffalo costume on him at Christmas time!

This weekend we're off to the annual Sparks In The Park in the ground of Cardiff Castle. Last year we left it to late to gain access but were directed to an excellent spot by the university building which would give a great view. However, it's not the same if you're not in with the thousands of people who are all freezing and queueing for the portaloos together, so I've prebought our tickets.

Our first time at a firework display was two years ago, and The Boy was way more interested in the falling leaves and trying to glue them back on to the trees, than any shooty-whizzy-swirly-flashes in the sky.

I look at these pictures and he looks so tiny and babylike, yet it seems like yesterday!

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Linked up to Flashback Friday at Mummy Mishaps and Real Housewife of Suffolk County

Country Kids: St. Fagan's Natural History Museum

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In the north-west corner of Cardiff there is a (not so little) treasure. Up until recently, we haven't been able to partake of its resources because The Boy has been a little bit too young, but now that he's becoming more and more curious it's ideal.

St. Fagan's Natural History Museum is an outdoor museum that houses a multitude of buildings from different times throughout history. It's also set in beautiful woodland with lots of areas to explore and a farmhouse with some animals in the yard. This was originally why we went, but we gained so much more! (We actually popped in on Saturday for an hour before closing, and decided to go back on Sunday as there was so much more to see. As it's free entry, it's a good day out)

It's called a museum but it's so much more than that. A museum is not traditionally somewhere children can immerse themselves in the past by being in the place, but at St. Fagan's that possible because of the reconstructed buildings. The newest addition is St. Teilo's church which was originally thought to be five hundred years old (until they found paintings in it that were three hundred years older than they first thought), and my favourite is the Rhyd-y-Car Ironworkers' houses, which is a row of six terraced houses and gardens, each decorated as they would have been at various points from 1805 to 1985. It makes Mr. TBaM and me chuckle to see the huge video players from our childhood.

The Rhyd-y-car houses were one of the things that The Boy found most interesting, the houses of 1955 (when nanny was a little girl) and 1985  had recognisable features to him: Did nanny have those lights?Is that what a tv was like when you were little mummy? It was an excellent way to introduce him to the concept of history in a way that he can equate to as most of the time he has difficulty remembering what he had for lunch! He was horrified at the concept of outdoor toilets!

We had great fun pretending to be chickens in the cockpit (we glossed over what the chickens would have been doing there), buying bread from the old bakery using flour ground on site, sitting in a Celtic roundhouse and pointing out he wouldn't like to live there because 'it's silly!' (which we went onto discuss meant different), and exploring the woods. The real gem was finding out there was a small, hundred year old, vintage, children's funfair there: his first go on the swingseats!

As it's a museum it's free, although parking is £3.50 a time. I actually bought a year parking permit for £17.50 because I can see us going there lots of times over the forthcoming year to explore the many different buildings, take part in the arts and crafts at different celebrations, explore the woodland, or just for a picnic and a play in the excellent playpark there.

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Linking this up to the fantastic linky 'Country Kids' over at Coombe Mill. Fiona does an excellent job of promoting and encouraging us to get outside and play with our children, and her linky is one year old this week!

coombe mill

Show Me Your Pumpkins!

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It's that time of year for all things ghoulish and spooky. We've never really 'celebrated' (seems the wrong word somehow) Hallowe'en before as The Boy has a low tolerance for anything vaguely malevolent and asks a hell of a lot of questions. Yesterday at St. Fagan's outdoor museum in Cardiff, there was a fantastic scene set up for the Hallowe'en festivities, but of course there was fake blood and skeletons strewn everywhere. How do you explain that to a three year old who's asking what the bones are for?

However, one of the best bits of Hallowe'en for children is pumpkin carving, and this year we had a go at it for the first time ever!

The Boy drew the outline of the eyes on and the position of the mouth, I did the rest. He was completely and utterly captivated by the finished product and as a result, I have to go and buy another pumpkin tomorrow to carve another one out!

This was our finished pumpkin!

What do you think?

Instagram and twitter are full of everyone's fantastic carvings at the moment, and so I thought I'd set up a linky for you to show off your pumpkins! Pumpkin carving seems to bring out the artist in all of us.

Please join in below with your carvery skills, show off your witches, wizards, ghouls and goblins.

If you don't have a blog, link up the Instagram or twitpic URL.



What Role Does Technology Have In Our Children's Lives?

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I'm writing this during an INSET where the speaker has introduced her session on challenging More Able and Talented children by showing a photograph of four nursery age children who were playing on iPods and not communicating, thus illustrating her concerns about the use of technology by children. This angered me slightly; it was shown out of context with little information about the children's task, what they were doing immediately before or after.

It's started me thinking about the technology that The Boy uses, and why.

On a daily basis, The Boy can help unload the dishwasher, turn on the television, select channel 614, play puzzles on the iPad, take photos on his camera, turn on the washing machine and play on one of his preschool games on the laptop. Don't get me wrong here, we also do art and craft, jigsaws, book reading and general playing. However my point is, that The Boy uses a lot of technology, and with a father who's a software developer and a mother who's an ICT coordinator then it's difficult for him to avoid it.

It started when he was 20 months old and I would give him a bubble-popping app on the iPod; not for a distraction but to help him develop his hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. I would load the app for him and he'd play for just a few minutes, it was amazing to see the tracking in his vision. One day I nipped out to the kitchen to get a drink and came back in to discover him switching between the apps and playing a matching pairs game. I'd never shown him that, he'd worked it out for himself.

Children are innately curious, technology is an amazing tool for encouraging this.

We have made a conscious decision to provide The Boy with a range of technology so that we ignite within him the curiosity needed to investigate further technological innovations…

"The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life." – Bill Gates

This is true. The technology that our children will use in the future is inconceivable: who would have thought five years ago that I'd be carrying a high powered computer around in my handbag with tens of books on it, access to the Internet, a camera, 'board' games and films on it, let alone that I'd be able to access all of that within seconds of reaching for it.

Technology has its place and is a valuable tool as a platform for learning; it is not a demon to be criticised at teacher training days, and children using it is not something that should be frowned upon. Of course there are going to be those parents who use it as a babysitter or pacifier (and in some situations it's needed), but it's also an amazing and innovative device for developing so many skills.

So here's my question to you: what is your stance on technology in your children's lives?

Slow Cooker: Vegetable Stew and Dumplings

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I love Autumn because of the memory of Summer, the warming tone in the sunlight, the rustling leaves, the promise of Christmas without the cold and bleak days, and the onset of stews.

As a vegetarian, I'm quite limited in my stew range, but there's nothing to me that tastes better on a Sunday evening than soft, root vegetables in stock and herby dumplings.

Ingredients:

  • sweet potatoes
  • carrots
  • leeks
  • mushrooms
  • brocolli
  • swede
  • parnips
  • stock cubes
  • a knob of butter
  • 1tsp of ground nutmeg
  • 3ooml of hot water
  • 50g Atora suet (vegetarian)
  • 100g self-raising flour
  • salt and pepper
  • 2tbsp of dried onions
  • 1tbsp mixed herbs
  • 5tbsp of cold water

vegetarian stew and dumplings

  1. Melt the butter in the slow-cooker pot on the hob and add the finely chopped mushrooms and leeks to 'sweat'. Stir in the crumbled stock cube and nutmeg.
  2. Chop the root vegetables into large, square chunks and with the other vegetables to the pot, transfer to the slow-cooker. Pour in 100ml of the hot water and stir to combine the sauteed vegetable mix with the root vegetables and liquid.
  3. Cook on high for 2-3 hours, or medium for 4 hours.
  4. Mix up the Atora suet, self-raising flour, salt and pepper, dried onions and mixed herbs with enough of the cold water to form a pliable dough. Divide into balls.
  5. Add the remaining 200ml of hot water to the pot and stir thoroughly. Gently place the dumplings into the slow-cooker and press down carefully to cover with liquid. Cook for 30 minutes on high.
  6. Turn the slow cooker off and let it rest for five-ten minutes before serving.

vegetarian stew

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Linking up to Mediocre Mum's Slow Cooker Sunday

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