Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Autumn Beginings

We are most certainly well into Autumn, the weather is getting colder, the leaves are beginning to turn and I'm starting to get my hibernation feeling! Not that I want to hide away from the world, but I do want to be curled up in a blanket with a book or some knitting in front of a fire....shame we don't have a fire!

This morning we got out of the house for a nature walk! We went looking for those tell tale signs of the change of seasons

Beautiful red and orange leaves

Also took this last chance to get some blackberries before Michaelmas and began collecting some bits for our Autumn Nature Table!
Not many leaves have fallen yet so we didn't get as much for the Nature Table as I would have liked but we did add a bit to our already HUGE conker collection and found a bit of a branch.

It was a lovely morning out in nature, letting the dog have a run around and snacking on some wild blackberries, Little 'A' however slept through the whole walk so I enjoyed it by myself!!

Back home after Little 'A' woke up and had some lunch we sat down to read some nice stories we got from the library earlier in the week. We read 'Knight School' by Jane Clarke (also linking in nicely with Michaelmas next week) and 'Sometimes I like to Curl up in a Ball' by Vicki Churchill. Two lovely stories with a bit of an Autumn theme.

Although Little 'A' is now only 15 months he loves to sit and look at some longer books aimed at older children. He listens to the rhymes in the stories and points to the pictures of things he recognises often with a sound and an accompanying baby sign!

Shame I didn't get any pictures but next up we played with a sheet of bubble wrap. Little 'A' already has a good pinching grip but I thought we could work on improving his strength, and what can be more fun than bubble wrap! We started with some pinching and one fingered pushing, Little 'A' has worked out he can pop the bubbles by scratching with his nail too. He then went and got a building block and started hitting the bubbles with that but soon found it didn't really work, so he stood on them, lay down on them and then started grabbing the sheet in a grasp and squeezing a handful at a time. All wonderful fine motor practice and just plain good fun, I got some huge smiles with each 'pop'!!

Next we grabbed some paint!
Over the last couple of weeks Little 'A' has started displaying some ability to use tools for a purpose, connecting his movement to the parks they leave, so we'll be building on this over the coming months.

We painted some toilet rolls...

...and took some hand and arm prints. These have been left to dry and will need to be finished next week now...can you guess what they will be yet??

After all that excitement Little 'A' went off for another sleep, he's been quite tired the last couple of days, there was just enough time for a bit of diner before Little 'A' went home for the weekend.

So that was our first fun week of Autumn!

Thursday, 15 March 2012

Books, books, books

Another lovely morning with baby 'A', I thought those books would be coming out again, he doesn't have eyes for anything else at the moment so I'm indulging him as much as I can!
horses
and dinosaurs 
learning to turn the pages
just checking if there is something to feel in this book, you never know!

We had a really lovely morning the pair of us rolling around the floor just looking at the books over and over, these moments make my heart smile xxx

Tuesday, 13 March 2012

A Lovely Monday!

Baby 'A' and I had a lovely morning together, we popped out to our local library to get some new books!
He really loves the 'That's not my....' series and always goes straight to where the texture is, even if he's never seen the book before!
We went home with four new books to look at and I'm sure they will be coming out a lot this week!

The librarian also gave baby 'A' a bookstart bear club pack, so each time we go to the library he gets a stamp in is passport, and every six visits he will receive a certificate. He really does love looking at books so I think we will make good use of this!

Then little 'C' arrived after lunch and we headed off for an afternoon of fun with http://wormseye-view.blogspot.com/.
She had a lovely St Patrick's Day treasure basket to explore, baby 'A' spent lots of time looking at all the different things.
Little 'C' joined in exploring the sensory box and found this lovely hair band and rainbow!
Next up was some lovely colourful hand prints....
....which magically turned into.....
LEPRECHAUNS!!!!

I do try not to do too many 'adult focused' activities, especially with very young ones. It's so easy to get caught up in having something to send home for parents. The focus really should be on the process not the product, but sometimes these things are just too cute not to do!! I've got another product focused idea to do this week but it is mother's day so I think I'll get away with it!!

The weather then started to warm up a bit so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in the garden
Having a look at new surroundings
Learning how to get around a new environment safely
Playing with Pippa's fantastic outdoor music wall!!
And meeting Pippa's lovely chickens Matilda and Gertrude.....oh mind your fingers!!

Such a lovely start to the week and great to get the kids in the garden! I can't wait for summer to arrive!