Rainy day activities

In between rain showers this week, we've been making mad dashes to the park and meeting up with friends, but I've not been well so haven't felt up to braving the weather too often. As a result we've spent a lot of time indoors.

I got some bargain dot to dot books at Aldi, which have proved popular with Harlan, as well as the obligatory dominoes games every day. My grandmother is sending Harlan some money this week and we're planning to take him to Toys'r'us to choose some new board games.



Last night I looked at the forecast for today, which predicted rain all day. I took a look at my Pinterest boards for inspiration and hit upon food dyed salt and rice. We had some green, red and blue food dye left from our flower experiment so I prepared the salt and rice and put it on the table ready for today.

 

We ended up spending the morning snuggled under the duvet watching TV and didn't even have breakfast until lunchtime! After brunch we got out PVA glue and sugar paper - did some patterns, a big letter H and on one piece of paper I helped Harlan write his name with the PVA, before sprinkling rice and salt all over the glue.

Afterwards, Harlan asked if he could do some washing up - and who am I to say no to such a request?! I set him up with some warm soapy water and left him to play, pouring water between cups and making bubbles. How many years before he starts trying to get out of washing up?

Birthday visit and illness

Wednesday was my Grandad's 71st birthday and my grandparents' wedding anniversary. We drove down to Nailsworth for a surprise visit and took them a laminated salad-spinner painting that Harlan had done and a garden wildlife reference book for my Grandad. Harlan, for some reason, was adamant that his Great Grandfather would want a card with a picture of a guinea pig riding a pink sparkly scooter so that's what he gave him! We also took Grandad out for a birthday ice cream on the common, where I used to go for a treat when I was a child. He is a very poorly man these days, and has been registered disabled for 35 years, but his face when he is playing with Harlan is a sight to behold. When we were on the common, Harlan and Grandad ran around, and whilst I knew Grandad would pay for it the next day, it was brilliant to see him so happy.

Unfortunately, since we got back Harlan has had a nasty cold. He's been coughing, snotty, sore throat, vomiting and generally miserable and lethargic. He seems to have gotten over the worst of it now, although not before infecting my Granny on the Wednesday we visited and myself since getting home! He's doing the usual of perking up during the day but flagging at night.

Undoubtedly I will have pictures to upload tomorrow, as the Easter Bunny has visited our garden tonight (with lots of milk/soya free treats!) and on Monday my Mum and brother are visiting and taking Harlan and I back with them to their home in the Brecons, for a holiday.

Lapbooks and leaps forward

We made our first lapbook at the weekend. It started from the walk Harlan and I took together before he went to bed one evening. As usual we took a bag and he collected treasures - stones, twigs, feathers, catkins...

Usually we would get the glue out and stick his treasures onto paper or card, but we've done that many times and I wanted something different to do with them this time. So we made a Spring themed lapbook from card and added pockets and flaps to hold twigs, catkins and feathers. I laminated some of them to make them last longer, printed a picture of a ewe with its lamb and Harlan made a collage of a rainbow.

For the cover of the lapbook, I did a dot to dot of the word Spring, then Harlan joined up the dots. He has always lacked confidence in using a pen/pencil/crayon and rarely draws at all. But his love of dot to dots (which he already does on the computer) won out and he wrote his first word. We discovered that he gets very frustrated with crayons and pencils as he doesn't press down hard enough for them to leave a mark, so I found a felt tip pen and he got on much better with that.
 
Spurred on by that milestone, the next day I wrote his name in dots and asked if he would like to have a go at writing his name. He wanted me to help him, so I cupped my hand around his - despite me not actually guiding his hand at all, it gave him the confidence to try and he wrote his name for the first time. Cue one very proud mummy! That was yesterday, and today he has written his name again, this time in a card for his Great Grandad's birthday. He also asked me to do dots of his Great Grandad's name, Ted. I have a feeling Grandad Ted is going to be exceptionally pleased with this year's birthday card!