Chapter Forty: 09/10

14.9.10

Take a walk

B has been asking to walk to school. Often.

We live about 2.5kms from school. That doesn't sound far, but its about a 30 minute walk depending on how long your legs are.

Since spring is finally here, (Yeah!) one fine afternoon I walked up to collect him so he could walk home with me. It's a gentle downward walk home so I though that would be a good start for him, and we wouldn't have to worry about getting to school on time.

We held hands for a while

He happily carried his school bag

We window shopped

And noticed things we had never seen before

He got thirsty and hungry here

So we refuelled

Back on the move we did road safety

And took a short cut

B found this

He made some noise

And finally ran for home

Not only was this a healthy active way to get home it was great for B to get to know his neighbourhood and experience the details that normally whizz by. He felt a real sense of achievement at home, as well as feeling tired, but not tired enough for bed of course.

Find out what other parents are playing with their kids at Childhood 101.

12.9.10

I love it when....

My kids are fast asleep

The conflicts of the day are forgotten

Any tears have dried up

There they lay, trusting in the dreams of tomorrow.

10.9.10

Where you came from

We are really loving the book 'Where you came from' by Sara O'Leary. It deals with that dreaded childhood question "Where did I come from?' with imagination, humour, and poignancy. The illustrations are also very engaging and delicate.

B's favourite is
"Your father made you in his workshop. He carved you out of wood. It took weeks. And we loved you just like you were a real little boy."

Whereas Little Miss prefers,
"The fairies brought you. It must have taken dozens of them to lift you, because they were so small and you were so big."

Check it out here.

8.9.10

Coloured Rice

Changing plain old rice into bright exciting colours sounded like a lot of simple fun.

I used zip lock plastic bags, regular white rice, food colouring and hand sanitiser.

We just put the dry uncooked rice into the zip lock bag added a few drops of food colouring and a squirt of hand sanitiser. Then we zipped up the bag and the children did the shimmy shake. (Make sure those zips are well and truly done up.)

Before their eyes the rice changes colour.

I only had a small range of food colouring, yellow, green and red. After we did a bag a of each B was keen to see the colours mixed. We did a bag with green and yellow and got a nice lime green, and we achieved a pretty orange with red and yellow. B really wanted to find out what colour would be made with all the colours mixed together, so we got a beautiful rainbow, um sorry, I mean brown too.

We had to let the rice dry before playing with it.

I thought glue (PVA) painting then rice sticking might be a natural progression.
Little Miss was happy with that. Note that I tried to contain the rice inside a tray. It kind of worked.

But B had other ideas. He wanted containers to put the rice in, then added other things to it, like big stones and small rocks. He put lids on the containers then he decorated them saying that they were from different places. I think this originated from school. In class they released a helium balloon, called Charlie into the sky and now it is travelling around Australia. The kids have received messages from Charlie. He is really getting about enjoying Sydney and Uluru.

I can't remember where I saw this colouring rice activity (if it was you, thanks and let me know) Making coloured rice was really easy fun and a little magical. There are heaps of other great activities for kids (and their parents) at childhood 101.