Holiday Bags

I love the long holidays - time pressures are off, and there's time to do some of the fun things that we don't always get time to do. The first week of our holiday is spent running a holiday Bible club at the church, our kids love it  despite the hanging around before and after as Mum and Dad set up and sort out! Then we usually head off  camping for a couple of weeks,  lots of exploring and bike riding. By the time we get back and sort ourselves out there are only a couple of weeks left before we are thinking about going back to school.

Quite early into Rebecca's school life we discovered two things. With Rebecca's short term memory issues stopping doing written work meant she would begin to slip backwards - things that were not established in her long term memory would be forgotten and that Rebecca loved writing and doing 'work'.

Taking these things into consideration and bearing in mind the limited space on camping trips I decided to make each of the girls a holiday bag - it would contain all they needed to keep them busy and entertained wherever they were, be it hanging around waiting for mum or on a wet days camping. The bags would be fun, would contain mostly previously unseen items, they would include worksheets to keep Rebecca's brain active and most importantly would not be compulsory - they were not homework that had to be done - whether they did any of the sheets was completely up to them. In fact what I found was that the sheets they had not done during the holiday would re-emerge months later -so none of the work was wasted.

The bags they have now come from a recycling store so cost nothing, prior to getting these They would have a cloth supermarket style bag, but there are attractive bags available at pound stores - so need not be expensive - the bag is important as it identifies whose belonging they are, keeps it all together and is easy to pick up and stick in the car when heading out.

I then create a book of worksheets - I have begun to design my own but most definitely a work in progress so most of the sheets come from free educational sites on the internet. These could go in a folder but this year I have simply gone for holes and a ribbon.

To complete the worksheets they need pencils, coloured pencils (they fair better than felt tips in a hot tent!) pencil sharpener glue and scissors - so these are all included in the bag.

Then in addition I add  plain sheets of paper - this is available for about £3 for 250 sheets this is great for drawing cutting and sticking.

I include packs of stickers -usually can pick up books and sheets of stickers for a £1 or so which they can use to create pictures or add to their worksheets.

One important feature of their activity bags is a scrapbook in which we try to keep a diary for most days of the holiday - the girls have our old digital cameras and so at various points in the holidays we dive into boots and print off some of their pictures - multiprints- that is 4 small pics in one 6x4 sheet keeps the cost down and means that they can add pictures of their adventures. In addition we collect leaflets, tickets etc and include these in the scrapbook. When they are in the mood we encourage them to write  something about their day - what they liked how they felt etc. To facilitate this , I have found this year some pretty journaling sheets so  I have included these in their worksheets.

My girls love making things (I can't think where they get that from!!) so I often look out for kits that can be made anywhere - this year I found these lovely dolls on offer in Hobbycraft for just £1.99 these will be things that we sit and do with the girls rather than something they just get on with - but it gives a great opportunity to spend time creating something together as well as learning to follow instructions.

These scratch cards were just £1 each again from Hobbycraft and will be something they can do independently.

I collect items when I see them reduced  or on  offer - which keeps the cost down - the phonics books were a set from Book People - working out at £1 each

I include a couple of reading books each and that is pretty much it. When we camp we will take some of games they can all play and a doll or cuddly toy - we always say one toy - somehow we always end up with several each!!

Teacher's gifts??

So do you  give the teacher's a gift at the end of the year? and when did we start  doing so? I am guessing sometime between my leaving school and my kids starting school - in fairness that it a considerable time frame! Don't get me wrong I actually like giving the teachers a gift. I think that having worked day in day out not just educating my kids but inspiring them, developing their confidence and independence, something that shows that they are appreciated  can only be a good thing. As much as I love chocolate and flowers and smellies even I can appreciate that there is may be a  limit to the amount one person needs!! So when Rebecca started school I decided that I would try to give small but unique gifts with some homemade element. Among  the offerings to date have been :

Handwoven Easter baskets after a particularly stressful and difficult term

Hand felted and embroidered picture cards

 

  

As well as Christmas pudding baubles, stationary boxes, paint can chocolate tins, and felt Christmas decorations. 

This year the girls chose to repeat an idea we had used a couple of Christmases ago - cookie jars. The idea is that the gift is the dry ingredients to produce cookies to which the recipient adds eggs and butter. So they get cookies and a nice jar. The Christmas cookie jar had been white chocolate and  cranberry so I wanted something different this year - my sister in law over at Dreaming of the Country  had posted the recipe for these m&m cookies which looked great.

 
 So I downloaded her recipe which fitted nicely in the 1 litre jars that I picked up on special offer at Sainsburys.

 The tags and cards came from an internet card making site 'card making downloads' It is a useful site when running short of time to create cards from scratch  - you simply purchase the downloads you require then print and assemble them.

 
For fun we added a red spatula and some ribbon from my ribbon box.

 So we are all set for the end of term - roll on the holidays  - and my next post - holiday bags!!!

Oh no it's a Gruffalo

Four years ago Rebecca started school, Sophie missed her sister and we were struggling with challenging behaviour from a bright two year old. I decided to re-visit the idea of sending her to playgroup. My search led me to Stanmore Baptist Church Playgroup, I liked it's style, the time they gave to the children and the genuine care that they showed.  Sophie started mid-term and she loved it from the start, so much so that we abandoned plans to send her to the school nursery. She finished her two years and went  onto school a confident and well adjusted child.

So it wasn't even up for discussion when it came to Annie - she couldn't wait and looked forward to playgroup days.

  
It is hard to believe how quickly the two years have passed. When I completed my Goldilocks story sack I took it into playgroup - they loved playing with it - so the idea of creating one for the playgroup as our parting gift was born. The story that they chose was the Gruffalo. It's a great story and lent itself to the story sack idea well.

The sack featured owls which fitted in with the story but was also bright and fun, the letters I printed out, then traced them onto 'Heat n Bond' iron on adhesive. Once ironed on to orange felt I could then cut out the felt letters and iron them on to the sack.

Three of the puppets were created  from felt -I sketched out the image then used the sketch to cut out the pieces which were sewn together with blanket stitch.

The snake was created from a sock ( my husband now has 41/2 pairs of stripy socks!!) - I used cardboard to stiffen the mouth onto which was sewn a felt tongue. the eyes were created from circles of felt which were lightly stuffed to make them stand out.

I thought about creating the Gruffalo however was not convinced that I could reproduce a very specific character well so I purchased the soft toy.

The backdrop was challenging - mainly trying to keep it lying flat when attatching the trees - within the backdrop I created three pockets in the houses of the story characters so the puppets can return to their houses at the appropriate places in the story. With more time and more experience with my sewing machine - (we are not friends!!!)  I would have liked to back it with cotton  - maybe next time!

  

The flashcards are from a great site called Primary Treasure Box    

There were a number of Gruffalo resources available. I chose sequencing cards as they were most useful for pre-schoolers but included some word flash cards and a pairs game.

 

I included some Gruffalo resources, a domino game, a snap game and the Gruffalo song cd which has great songs for a number of Julia Donaldson books - the 'squash and a squeeze' song  however should never be played on a long journey - it's far too addictive and you end up singing it for weeks.

I was pleased with the end result and hopefuly lots of children will enjoy playing with it.

 

 

 

 My next cunning plan is to produce story sacks for some key bible stories - but trying to be realistic I am going to start with Christmas!!

Wonky Wedding

A year ago we had a wonderful day celebrating my sisters wedding - It was an amazing day and went beautifully - which with 12 bridesmaids and pageboys under the age of 12 is no mean feat!!!

One of the lovely things about decorating cakes is that I have been able to make  my siblings wedding cakes as my gift to them. Beth  didn't know what she wanted - then she found wonky wedding cakes and that was it - so just had to work out what she wanted - it turned out to be flowers and beads - lots of flowers and beads - so for weeks my dining room table held flowers in varying stages of production and my bead box travelled with me  for those odd minutes when I could get a couple of strands made.

The cake itself was very simple decorated with varying widths and shades of blue ribbon.


The flower bouquets took a while to produce, they wrapped around polystyrene spacers to give the effect that the cake was sat on the flowers.

 

It took a while to get used to the idea of it being wonky, but I was pleased with the end result.

I set it up before the wedding and it was only during the official photos that I realised I had put one tier the wrong way round!!! It gave Beth a chuckle and though no-one else in the room had noticed I knew and so it needed to be put right!!! So a quick pause in the photo taking and all was right again!!!

 

 So all that was left was to dance the night away!!

 

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