We've withdrawn Harlan from nursery. I was never entirely comfortable with putting him in but we decided to try it as he may have loved it. But I think changing from childminder to nursery, plus R being back at work, has just been too much change for my little man. As a result, he's been waking upset at night (and spending the rest of the night asleep across me!) and been clingy and whining. He's home with me now, and will be doing one day a week with his old childminder. Hoping this will help him to feel more secure again and I'll get my happy boy back.

On a walk the other day, Harlan spotted a concrete bollard which had been partially knocked over. I asked him what he thought had done it and he replied it was a space ship and went on to describe to me a five-eyed, five-legged, ten-armed blue alien. It led to a few discussions about space and the planets so today I used a piece of cardboard and cut out a rocket ship. He painted it, added some shapes for buttons and windows and tissue paper for flames. I'm planning a space themed wall, we can make planets, the sun and moon and stars. Really looking forward to it developing over the next few weeks. Here is the rocket, and I'll add more pictures as he creates his galaxy.

Inspiration

It seems that we, and many of our friends, are having trouble finding our rhythm again after Christmas. For instance, Harlan and I have packed away all our Christmas crafts, but it is a little early to start Spring ones yet. As a result, I've been racking my brains and scouring books for ideas and thought I would collate them into a blog post in case anyone else needs some inspiration too!

Bath salts
In a book called "501 TV free activities for kids" I found a recipe for making fizzing bath salts. I figure we could make them in an afternoon then use them at bathtime, plus they would make wonderful gifts in little pots for friends and family.

You need:

Glass jar with a lid
3/4 cup bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp cornflour
1/2 cup cream of tartar

Stir the ingredients together until smooth. Add a few drops of essential oils, perhaps lavender for a calming bath or something more invigorating like grapefruit. To use, just drop a handful into a warm bath and watch it fizz.

Weather chart

 This is something we will be doing next week, hopefully charting the improvements in the weather! Divide a large piece of card or sugar paper into 31 boxes and number them. An older child can then draw on a sun, cloud, rain drops etc onto each day. Harlan is not a keen illustrator so I plan to make small cardboard shapes to represent the different weather patterns for Harlan to blu-tack onto our weather chart.

Pond/stream dipping

Ok, ok, I know the weather isn't great at the moment, but either save this until later in the year (when you could also go paddling in a shallow stream) or just put coats on and embrace the rain! If you buy a fishing net, try to get one with the finest mesh you can, as bigger holes let small creatures escape but also can damage delicate newts and tadpoles. However, an old pair of tights and a wire coathanger are just as effective if not better. A kitchen sieve works too, if you are able to get very close to the water, perhaps while paddling. An ice cream tub, tupperware container or large glass jar will be perfect for observing your catches, just remember to add a little pond/stream water and always pour the animals back carefully when you have finished looking at them. If you are lucky enough to catch a newt or a frog, ensure your hands are wet before touching it as you can actually damage their skin if your hands are dry. Older children can use a book to discover the names of what they have caught if they are not already familiar with them.

Eggshell pictures

Next time you have eggs for breakfast, save the shells. Rinse them out and use food dye to colour them, before crushing them. If you put them inside a sandwich bag you (or your children) can bash them with a rolling pin until they are the size you want. When I was a child I used them to decorate picture frames, boxes and make pictures. Sand is another good one for making textured pictures - just put PVA wherever you want the sand to stick and sprinkle it on like you would with glitter.

Cress heads

I'm doing these with the children at our local H.E. group next week, as I have fond memories from my own childhood of growing green hair on funny faces. You can either save an eggshell or use a small yoghurt pot for your "head". Decorate this with googly eyes, a funny nose and maybe a ribbon for a bow tie! Put damp cotton wool or kitchen roll into the container and sprinkle on your cress seeds. You should see your cress growing within a week, so it's not too long to wait. Once the cress has grown you can trim it and use it in a sandwich or on a salad.

Pasta shapes

Another craft I did when I was young was crafting with dried pasta. There are different shapes available, and it is a cheap material - I bought some value penne for 24p a few weeks ago! It sticks fine with simple PVA and can be painted too. It can also be threaded onto string or shoelaces to make necklaces or decorations.

And finally, don't forget that if you run out of PVA, just mix flour and water to make a rather effective glue!

New year, new projects

Happy New Year! We had a wonderful Christmas, split between Stoke and Gloucester, and Harlan was thoroughly spoiled by all the family, as usual. Despite being ill with suspected IBS on Christmas Day, he coped very well with the whole caboodle and the excitement and lack of sleep only caught up with him on New Years Eve, when he had a huge meltdown but has been fine since. Obviously needed to get it out of his system.

He is still Mario obsessed, but to encourage imaginative play we got him Mario soft toys. I was excited about two of his presents in particular; a bug vacuum, which harmlessly catches insects so you can observe them, and a wormery. The vacuum will get a lot of use this summer when the bugs flock to eat our homegrown veg! I've found an idea in a book to make a little house to attract bugs too, so he can make that with me and I'll help him identify any insects we find.

Today I filled his wormery with layers of soil and sand, and turned over the soil in the garden to catch some worms. Harlan took great delight in carefully putting worms of all shapes and sizes into the wormery and adding some fallen leaves. We discussed how they prefer dark to bright light and gently led him through the reasoning of this being because they live underground. He knows they will eat the rotting leaves and I explained how they pull them down under the ground, which makes the soil good for flowers to grow in. He is quite pleased that worms will help make "beautiful flowers" for him. We have a well illustrated encyclopedia of animals so I will see if there is a page on worms to look through with him, and find a few bits online too.

The rest of our day today has been taken up with a rather cold walk to the village to go to the library. We played I-spy on the way, and I discovered that he is good at working out the word when given the first letter, but struggles to identify the first letter/sound of an unfamiliar word. A few more games of I-spy should help with that! We spent about an hour at the library, reading and doing floor puzzles. We found two (!!!) Winnie the Witch books that we haven't read before, and another book by the same author (Korky Paul). We've also borrowed a fourth book, one from the "Mr Bear" series. We already have "Mr Bear's New Baby" and I was attracted to this one as the cover shows Small Bear being carried in a sling on Mr Bear's back.

Crafting in the morning, and a parenting fail!

This morning Harlan was up bright and early at 6am. Fortunately I'd had an early night so I was in full super-mum mode (doesn't happen often!) and got the glue and craft materials out. I'd prepared some pieces of wool and cut out some felt shapes a few days before ready to make a picture of a sheep, but Harlan went on glue strike for a few days. Today he was enjoying sticking so he made a masterpiece, which will be blu-tacked to our art wall once it is dry. He then used some felt off-cuts to do a portrait of his dad. He wanted googly eyes to complete it but we don't have any, so I offered to draw in some eyes in felt tip.

 

And now to the not-quite-so-super-mum bit. Over the last month or so, Harlan has started playing Mario and Mariokarts on the Wii. He enjoys it, his co-ordination has improved massively, and if I'm honest... it gives me a break. The problem is that it is beginning to cause tantrums, which he is not normally very prone to. 'Normal' occasional tantrums he can be easily distracted from, whereas these are real whoppers! I've had two trains of thought: one - limit time on the Wii and two - let him play it lots and he will get bored. Well the second plan hasn't worked, so time to start limiting it a lot more I think. I'm planning to use the timer on my phone which has been effective previously, and limit him to half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. I know we'll have a few meltdowns over this new rule but I think in the long run it will make things easier. I hope!

H.E. day

Today we went to our local Home Education group, which gives Harlan chance to play with other children in a fairly large group (five children today, sometimes more, sometimes less) while parents chat and swap ideas. We've been able to offer help with science subjects, so hopefully we are contributing something to the group, and I'm hoping to use the space in the room to do more crafting with Harlan - without cats and dogs poking their noses into PVA and paint! We're hoping to start a similar group nearer to us, either once a month or once a fortnight, to complement the existing group.

By the time we got home Harlan was getting rather tired and overwrought, so I produced a kit for making a Halloween mobile and we sat for a while doing gluing with pom poms and pipe cleaners. He's gotten much better at following instructions and waiting for things to dry, rather than randomly squirting glue around and pulling previously glued items apart! Once he had created some bats and spiders - complete with googly eyes - I attached them to some lolly sticks and tied the whole contraption to the light fitting in the front room, where my husband keeps walking into it!

We ended the day with a few games of Snap! which is his current favourite game. For his birthday last week he was lucky enough to get some animal snap cards and the Gruffalo ones we bought him, which can be used for snap or rhyming word games. We played with both sets of cards tonight, but he got so over-excited that we needed a few stories before bedtime to calm down again!

Tomorrow we are at a party for his friend's birthday, but in the evening we will be having movie night - another wonderful birthday present, consisting of a beautifully patterned box containing "tickets", a DVD and popcorn. I'm looking forward to the three of us cuddling up on the settee in the dark, munching on popcorn and watching a film, sounds like a great night to me.

Life is changing

The boy has turned three. It crept up on me, it seemed as though I would have a toddler forever but of course he is now officially a preschooler. Except he won't be going to preschool. He currently goes to his beloved childminder two days a week, as my health isn't always good and I need the rest, but come Christmas things will be changing. R will be going back to teaching, and will be gone five days a week. We've been very lucky to have him around so much, even if it meant finances were tight, and we'll miss him when he's gone - all the while being very proud of the work he's putting in to make a better life for the three of us.

The boy's routine will be changing too - he will be leaving his childminder as the others his age will be off to nursery and preschool. We think that, for our family, the best thing to do will be to find a playschool we love, that he can attend part time. I don't want somewhere that pushes learning and prepares children for school, although I know all of them will do that to some extent. I want somewhere he can go for a few hours, have fun, then come home. This coming week will hopefully involve lots of visits to local nurseries and playgroups to find the perfect place for my little man.

We still intend to home educate him for the first few years of primary school at least. I feel that, by not sending him to preschool, we are making our first leap into H.E. but the truth is that it's the first time our decision is being noticed (and sometimes questioned) by other people. Harlan has always learned from/with/around us. At the age of three he can recognise some letter and words, count forwards and backwards, know shapes, colours and name a huge amount of animals. So he is not lacking in education, despite the fact we are yet to sit down with a workbook.

Today has not been a good day for me health-wise, so R has looked after Harlan for most of the day and he has entertained himself mostly with his birthday presents. When I came downstairs we did a bit of crafting, making cardboard dinosaurs and playing games with them - what are they called, what do they eat? Aside from the things I try to set up to initiate learning, he learns a lot from asking questions and having them answered. And boy, does he ask a lot of questions!

Once upon a time we went to a farm...

Once upon a time there was a boy called Harlan. One day he went to the farm with his parents, their friend and her baby, who Harlan loved having cuddles with. Maybe one day Harlan would have a baby brother or sister!

When they arrived at the park, Harlan spotted a merry go round and mummy said he could have a go. He chose a lovely blue seat and held on tight as it went round and round, up and down. In moments of bravery, he let go long enough to give his mummy and daddy a quick wave, before grabbing the rail again ready for the next go round!

 

After riding on the merry go round, they all walked through a narrow doorway, down a ramp, and into a courtyard surrounded by pens and stables. There was a small and very friendly Dexter cow called Beetle, three ponies, some goats, a sheep and a pig who was bigger than Harlan, bigger than mummy and bigger than daddy!

When Harlan had fed the animals there, they decided to pay to go into the birds of prey rescue centre, where Harlan was very excited to see chickens roaming around on the paths, and a cockatiel danced with daddy!

Not long afterwards, everyone started to feel hungry and decided to go to the playbarn for some lunch so Harlan could play while they waited for their dinner. The playbarn was huge! There were little huts with bridges to connect them, a windmill, the biggest bouncy castle Harlan had ever seen and even pedal tractors to ride on. Once mummy had shown Harlan around, he felt confident enough to explore on his own and was soon running around and working up an appetite.

On the way back to the car, Harlan got to have a go on the other merry go round, and he chose to sit in a lovely red aeroplane. If he'd had chance, he would have had another go and sat on a quad bike but mummy and daddy said it was time to head home. Unfortunately when they got to the car park Daddy's car wouldn't start, so while they got it going mummy's friend sang songs to the baby and Harlan as they were both getting tired. By the time he got home, Harlan was fast asleep so mummy cuddled him up and carried him into the house. It was a tiring but very enjoyable day for everyone.

The end.