monday mornings, crafting and a find

I actually really love Monday mornings and for this reason: The utter sweetness of the children's love of the bin lorry coming to empty our bins. They call to each other when they hear it, Joa shouting 'Lo Lo' at the top of his voice. They watch it every time as if they have never seen it before and we are very lucky to have a bin man who ALWAYS waves at them. What a great way to start the week :-)

Another little thing I don't want to forget is how the kids always look for a pattern in how they sit. 'Look' explains Rebe 'Boy-Girl-Boy... but only if we do it this way round'.

They look for patterns in everything and the seating arrangement at the table is always a place they try and figure out our pattern.

We've been doing a fair bit of crafting. I have been trying to really limit my time in front of the computer and as a result I have found many more pockets of time in my day for crafts.

We got a wonderful parcel through the post last week from a lovely friend filled with pieces of cowboy material. So of course straight away we set out to use some and we made this:

What every cowboy needs,

a hot squash holster :-) There will be many more cowboy projects to come, thank you Nicole :-)

Benny has been making dolls:

this is his 'Avocado Baby' with many, many eyes, and I have been doing some rainbow knitting:

for my friends baby due so soon.

A wee while ago I was walking along the beach when I found this little lump of wet wool, I picked it up shook it out and found this gorgeous jumper:

Oh I bet some one's mummy was cross they left this behind!

But I think it will be the perfect fishing jumper for a certain someone in this house,

Someone who will be 4 in a couple of months and is growing so so fast! And someone who will adore these fishing buttons :-)

So I think limiting my screen time has been good, it has felt good too and I think I am going to really try and keep it up, I certainly get more done!

a jolly good hike

These pictures are actually from last weekend, but I have not been able to post them until now.

The weather was glorious, full of spring in the air. We spent the morning together crafting. I had picked up a couple of wooden peg people a while back and they had been hidden away in my crafting drawer. Rebe's little boy

such neat stitching

Benny's cowboy (of course)

As it was so nice we decided to head on out. Rebe is still completely in love with Famous Five and has been listening to Five on a Hike on audio tape of late borrowed from the library so she suggested that we be Famous Five and go on a hike.

We took a basket of essential items and headed off towards the woods.

In a very scary way we found some of the first bluebells out (wow they are almost 2 months early, boy the weather is doing some crazy things!)

Julian in the lead and Dick following

sunshine on the sea

It was a very long walk (we walked for nearly 2 and half hours) but we did have lots of breaks

eating buttered rolls

enjoying the fresh air and peace

finding violets

having another break

more early wakers

Joa walked the final part home (he'd been on my back in the sling) after a play on the beach

we had plenty of finds to add to our nature table

And the thing about a jolly good hike is that you deserve a jolly good meal afterwards

complete with carob cake and buns :-)

It was a jolly nice day!

Buddies ~ St Patricks Day

***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: movement and music, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's session with you here...***

Today at Buddies we celebrated St Patrick's Day.
We opened the session singing the Irish songs we have been learning (and of course Sleeping Bunnies and a Combine Harvester song that Benny made up).

For our craft we made these simple paper plate flags:
Susan had prepared all the pieces and had done all of the cutting so all that was required of the kids was some sticking.

Joa tasted all the glues for us and deemed them suitable for use, which was lucky, and the kids made beautiful flags.
Then we all got our wellies on and donned some very wonderful Patrick's day paraphernalia that Susan had brought and we headed off to the woods for our very own parade.

It was the sweetest Patrick's Day parade I have ever seen or been part of.

The walk in the woods was enjoyed by all

and gave us a good appetite for our snack when we returned.

The story was exceptionally special this week. Roisin told us the story of the three little pigs in Irish. She didn't explain this to the kids at all, she just started using finger puppets and play cloths to act out the story all the while telling it in the most beautiful and poetic Irish.

It was awesome! The kids didn't even notice that it was in Irish and watching their faces they were clearly following the story. Of course we all called 'again, again' when Roisin had finished it the first time and she obliged and we enjoyed it again.

How lucky are we to experience such and authentic and very special celebration of Irishness?

Buddies ~ spoon puppets

***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: movement and music, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's session with you here...***

We had a full house again this week with all families being able to make it, and I think that nearly no-one cried!! We practiced our Irish songs again this week and added 2 new ones including Happy Birthday in Irish! I love this, learning songs in Irish, I don't know where else I would have the opportunity to learn it, I do feel very lucky to be in a group with Irish speakers who are willing to teach us a little.

For this weeks craft I did wooden spoon puppets. I posted a tutorial here, rather than taking up the whole post.

They came out so well and the kids really enjoyed sewing with needle and thread again. All their little heads bent in concentration.

We're always surprised how capable our children are and watching them carefully, carefully sewing with real sharp needles was really special and certainly made my heart swell with love and pride.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this craft was watching their reaction to having made themselves a real, proper toy and hearing what they called them...if I remember they are called...

Benny, Mr Noisy, Beepa, Siobhan, Nina (oh blast I can't remember the other 2) but that was so funny and sweet!

It was warm inside today so the kids rushed outside to run about there in the breeze and squalls and splash in the puddles.

Of course there was still sometime for quietly just being special friends:

Zoe read us this story today:

It was really great, the illustrations were beautiful and there was much humour in it. I think we all agreed that paying someone to build your house with peanut butter sandwiches was a pretty good idea!

Just time to clean up a little before coats on and heading home :-)

Wooden spoon puppet ~ tutorial

This is such a great craft, I have made these a few times. It's one of those craft activities that can suit any age group, they are simple enough to make, but can be made as elaborate or simple as you want. So here's how to make a wooden spoon puppet...

Draw around a dinner plate on a piece of fabric and cut out.

Make a small mark in the middle of the fabric and about 5 cm on each side of the centre. Snip a cross on each mark. The middle hole is for the handle of the spoon and the other 2 are for thumb and forefinger to make the puppets arms, like this:

Now decorate the costume. This is the fun part and you can let your imagination go wild. Try glitter, felt, buttons, other pieces of fabric, sequins, ribbon etc...

Now you can attach the costume to the spoon. Do this by slipping the spoon through the centre hole and gathering the material at the neck and securing tightly with an elastic band. It's as simple as that!

This puppet has a little felt collar which hides the elastic band, but this is not necessary.

Now for hair, I happen to have lots of coloured wool roving, so we used that, but again you can use whatever you have handy: wool yarn, string, ribbon, cut paper, straw or you can even just draw it on.

Whatever you use put a good dollop of glue on the top of the spoon and attach the hair.

This puppet has long hair that I plaited on each side.
Now for the face,

stick on googly eyes if you have them, wax crayon works great for drawing on little mouths and cheeks.
If you want to have accessories you could make crowns or hats from paper, necklaces, cloaks and so on.
Now all you need to do is name it...

They were great fun to make and the kids love playing with them too :-)