Homemade Poi for Waitangi Day!

Today in New Zealand it is Waitangi Day, a public holiday commemorating the signing of the treaty of Waitangi, their founding document.  Whilst looking at Activity village, for some inspiration for and activity, I found a video of the All Blacks ruby team doing their famous Haka, Arthur was in awe and we had to watch it multiple times, and then he wanted more.  I then noticed a mention of Poi, an ancient dance using balls on a string. After looking at a video I realised it was the same thing I used to do when I was younger, and I still had the Poi easily to hand in the house.  So I showed Arthur the video, then showed him mine.  I then decided to make him some mini ones so he could have a go too, using a ball pool ball, as it is soft and wont hurt if he hit himself, and a sock!

Both Arthur and Alyssa had great fun dancing around the front room to various Maori songs whilst playing with the sock Poi, imitating the Hakaand sticking our tongues out, it's amazing how much fun can be had with a ball and a sock!  I think next time it would be better if I had more colourful socks though! 

Preparing for the Winter Olympics

The Olympics start on Friday in Russia, and seeing as I like trying to keep my two fit and active, it's a great opportunity to show them different sports and get them interested in exercise.  So I used the wonder of Youtube to show them various winter based sports, such as Bobsledding and Skiing.  Then using some ribbon and glittery gold card, I made two gold medals for the Aj's then we had some races up and down the front room, we would of gone outside, but are in the middle of a terrible storm! Alyssa isn't really able to run yet as she is only just walking, so I lifted her off the ground slightly and ran with her whilst we raced Arthur.  It was wonderful hearing her giggle, and Arthur shouting "Ready, Go!"  We also used the washing basket as a pretend bobsled and slid around the front room and practised learning into the curves like a proper bobsledder, which they both seemed to enjoy! My poor back didn't though, I think I may need to hide the washing basket from now on!

The Gold medals

"We are the Bailey Bobsled team!"

Testing if it's real!

Action running shot!

Exploring shadows for Ground hog day

In honour off Ground hog day, I decided to play with shadows with the Aj's.  So I brought out the torch and a couple of small toys, and we had fun making the toys shadows as big as Arthur almost then shrinking them down again, as well as doing the same with Arthur.  We also stood by the window and looked at our shadows appearing on the front room floor, however with the terrible weather they weren't very bright.  We were going to draw around the shadows, but as they were so faint, I decided to lay the Aj's down and draw around them, I drew some very basic facial features and clothes on the outlines, then let them get to work colouring them in.  Soon Arthur wanted to colour me in, it is not easy or recommended to draw around yourself! Not only do you almost do yourself an injury, but you also end up resembling Mr Blobby, unless that's just me??

Life sized Arthur Colouring picture

Alyssa's Outline

Getting to it!

Working on the face

Helping Alyssa with hers

Choosing crayons

Funny looking Alyssa (so hard to draw around a baby!!)

Oven baked prawn toasts!

So it's Chinese New Year on Friday, the year of the horse, but between now and then we wont be able to do anything to celebrate it, so I decided to do a little cooking activity today with Arthur of oven baked prawn toast.  I looked up various recipes online and the all involved frying, I am trying to be a bit health conscious, and also hot oil and toddlers definitely don't mix, so I decided to experiment and try and make it in the oven.

Ingredients

1 cup frozen peeled prawns (defrosted)
2 slices of bread no crusts (we used Hovis best of both)
1 egg white
small amount of lazy ginger
pepper
sesame seeds
Olive oil

Sweet chilli sauce for dipping

We put the prawns, egg, ginger and seasoning in the food processor and whizzed it to a paste.  Then we dabbed the toast with olive oil to help it crisp, and cut into triangles.  Once the paste was ready we spread it on the toast, and dipped it prawn down onto the sesame seeds. We then put it in the oven, at about 180 for 20-30 mins, until it looked like the seeds were browning and the toast was cooked.

To go with this I cooked some noodles with peas and sweetcorn, although it was a bit of a waste of time, as Arthur was in one of his "don't like it!' moods before he had even tasted that or his toast! Alyssa however thoroughly enjoyed eating the toast, before copying her big brother and throwing noodles everywhere!

Dabbing the bread (Yes he's still in his PJ's!)

Adding the prawns

Whizzing it all up

Yummy Yum Yum!!

Aboriginal cotton bud painting!

Inspired by yesterday's Australia Day (unfortunately I was at work so couldn't do anything then!) I thought today would be a good day to get the paints out again and get creative! It seems like forever since I let Arthur paint last,  which is a shame as I know it's something he loves.

I searched Google Images for Aboriginal art, and found various pictures to show Arthur and talk about how they are created but lots of dots.  I then got some black paper and some earthy toned paints, and some cotton buds.  I chose one of the more simpler pictures and left it on the screen of my Kindle for inspiration for him, and did a few dots in a 's' shape to show him how to use the buds, then let him go wild. 

To begin with the concentration was immense whilst he carefuly dipped the bud, then dabbed it on the paper, then he just started using it as a normal paintbrush and swirling it around the paper.  It was very interesting watching him look at the screen every now and then, I may start putting more pictures up for him to 'copy' and be inspired by.

Alyssa also joined in, but with chalk and black paper instead of paint, as I didn't want her playing with the cotton buds, she still tried copying Arthur with the dabbing motion though.  She soon got bored however and wanted to get down.

Chalk dabbing

Cotton bud dabbing

Intense concentration!

Less concentration

Arthur's final masterpiece!

Oatcakes for Burn's night!

So January 25th is traditionally Burn's night in Scotland, a celebration of one of their most famous poets.  Traditionally it is celebrated with a Burn's supper of Haggis, 'neeps and tatties' (parsnips and potatoes) and plenty of whisky!  Not really something you can do with a toddler and a baby, so I decided  to have a go at another Scottish food item Oat cakes !

I got all the ingredients together then got Arthur to weight them all out for me, I also gave Alyssa a small bowl with a small amount of oats and flour in to play mixing with, which soon dissapeared into her belly!!  Arthur did really well adding the ingredients to the bowl, and stopping when I told him too.  He really enjoyed squidging the butter into the oat mixture, and cutting out the cakes at the end.

Once cooked we went on a nice windy woodland walk, to come home to the oat cakes with cheese and apple for our afternoon snack.  Alyssa really seemed to enjoy them, but Arthur just ate the cheese!  Definitely something to make again for regular snacks, so simple and nutritious. 

Measuring!

Mixing!

Cutting!

BAking!

Cosy den book nook fun!

Today was another wet and windy miserable day, our original plans for the afternoon had been cancelled, and Alyssa had her one year jabs in the morning.  So not wanting to drag her out too far just in case she became grouchy, I decided that today called for a nice cosy den and some book reading, so that if a certain little lady decided to sleep she could do so easily.

Arthur was very excited about the den and wanted to eat in it, so I decided to make a fun party picnic style lunch, including some special crisps bought specifically on the way back from the doctors as a treat.

Once lunch was other Arthur was desperate for me to read, I ended up reading "We're going on a bear hunt" about four times as he really enjoyed it, then he finally let me move on to a few more other books.  Alyssa wasn't really interested in the book nook, she was quite happy to crawl in and out and play with her toys, she did finally have a little nap.

At one point Arthur and I were lying in the den pretending to go to sleep, when he noticed that the blanket looked like it had stars on it where the light from the room came through.  I then tried telling him the name of some stars as we pretended to stargaze! I can't wait to sit out with them in the garden looking at the stars and camping, I really need to learn more about star systems!!