A teddy bears picnic

One of the things we wanted to do this summer was a teddy bears picnic. We were lucky enough to find one was being organised as part of our local carnival, at a beautiful park local to where we live. So our theme this week has been about picnics and the summer (a good job as it feels like the weather is starting to feel a little more Autumnal!).

This week we have been reading 

1. Skip through the seasons - a beautiful looking book by a company called Barefoot books, by Stella Blackstone and Maria Carluccio. We have a couple by them out from the library and they are very visually inspiring. I think this one in particular I am going to buy as a book to help the boys learn about seasons as they grow up - it is also great for them spotting things in the pictures.

2. We're going on a picnic - by Pat Hutchins. Although I loved some of the illustration, this hasn't been one of my favourite books - that's definitely the advantage of trying to find specific things through the library or second hand.

TIP - when you are buying books on Amazon you can often get new or used books slightly or considerably below the full price. Just remember to consider where they are being posted from, and postage costs.

We had a fabulous time at the teddy bears picnic! We took our teddy bears with us and there were lots of people there. We had a teddy bear themed picnic including this lovely recipe for cheese biscuits that I got from Pinterest.

Although the boys didn't go on anything they loved the music that was playing in the bandstand and seeing everything that was happening around them. I'd definitely go back next year, and hopefully take part in the teddy bear parade. Shortly after the picnic the boys were ready to be off and playing so we packed up and went to play instead.

The boys loved their teddy bear biscuits! And they even tried a bit of egg which they haven't been bothered about before. It was a good reminder to keep trying foods with them.

We haven't done so many crafts this week but we did manage to do some colouring at the end of the week and used a teddy bear as our shape to bring the theme to a close.

Story time - crafts and fun with the Hare and the Tortoise.

Last week we did a few crafts all around one story, Hurry up and Slow down, a version of the well known story the Hare and the Tortoise. As I mentioned, I have been finding free time at home one of the times I can feel disengaged when the boys are throwing their toys around. One of the things I have done to be more connected and mindful with them is to focus on a theme for the week around one of the books we have been reading. 

This last week it was Hurry up and Slow down, and all the crafts were around the Hare and the Tortoise. I used Pinterest to get ideas of what crafts we could do together, aiming to:

• Keep it simple
• Remember to use craft ideas that seemed applicable to their stage of development so that we were set up for success.

I've found it really useful having some ideas ready to pull out when we are at home, especially on days where we didn't have any other activities planned. 

This week we have:

• Hare and the tortoise potato stamping: I simply cut a potato in half and used a felt tip to draw a very simple shape before cutting with a knife around the shape. Because I put the paint onto the potato it limited the amount of mess that was about but we all had fun.
• Hare and the Tortoise colouring pages: I found these on the internet,and when the boys got bored of the structured sheet we simply used a plain piece of paper.
• Hare and the Tortoise - being a tortoise: I sellotaped 4 pieces of card together, drew on some shell shapes and then put some rounds of parcel tape on the back and stuck them to the back of the clothes. Whilst this looked super cute, it was probably the least successful - N had a go but J just pulled his off and sat playing with the shape! It was still fun to try out!

I've started saving some of the ideas on a story time craft board on Pinterest- do feel free to follow :)

Would love to hear what stories you are reading and any crafts you do with your little ones.

This week we will be reading Peek a Boo Zoo (although most of the peekaboo bit doesn't work as the ears got pulled off!)