Sunny afternoon and Planting our first few seeds

The weather here has been beautiful this weekend!! I have heard a rumor more rain is on the way though so we are taking full advantage of the sun while we have it.

After doing the school run we headed straight outside to enjoy the sun.

Out came the bubbles

Baby 'M' joined us outside for some fresh air too! She was watching the bubbles float around her.

Baby 'M' got hold of a ribbon wand, I'll need to make a couple of smaller ones so she can play too!

Lots more Bubbles and ribbon wands being flapped around to catch the "Bubble Bees!!!!"

'W' and 'E' spent some time exploring the new messy play area. I did a bit of gardening over the weekend and it seemed such a waste to put everything in the garden waste bin, so we chopped bits up ready for the children to play with!

'E' spent a lot of time looking through the tins, emptying them out, feeling the textures of the smooth leaves. She then started moving them around (this is linked to her emerging transporting schema that we learn more about here), putting some in the wheelbarrow, putting some through the cage for the rabbit to munch on!

Then we got on with our potting!!

I gave the children a couple of pots each and placed some compost in a large tray so they could scoop their own. The older children filled their pots quickly but then came back and felt the compost, squishing large clumps in their hands to break them up.

'E' had a tight hold on her pot and so couldn't get much compost in to start off with

She changed her approach to gently hold the pot with one hand and grab handfuls of compost to transfer instead! Great problem solving!

When we had our pots all ready we came back to the table to choose our seeds!! I have 3 different types of sunflowers and a Giant Pumpkin!! We started off with the Pumpkin, I handed out one big seed each. 'W' knew what to do with it straight away, he pushed his finger into the pot to make a hole and then dropped the seed inside. 'E' was watching her big brother closely and soon followed suit, we then worked together to push the soil from the side of the pot over the hole to tuck our seeds into bed!!

Sunflowers next, each of the children pointed to the variety they wanted to grow and we started off the process again. Poking a hole in the soil with our fingers and dropping the seeds in.

Once those were done I was faced with a chorus of "can I do another one, can I do another one?"

Lucky I had a few spare pots so the children each chose another variety of sunflower!

I made sure to label them as we went so I knew what and who's all the pots were.

By this point the boys had had enough and decided to return to their game of football which left 'E' and I with the final job of giving them a good drink. 'E' knew this was an important step and had run off to get a watering can before I mentioned it!!

Our seeds are now sat comfortably on the windowsill next to the frogspawn, I'm sure we will be checking in with them regularly to spot the first signs of life!!!