Alternatives to a sand pit

(Goblin is 33 months)

If you are looking for fun ways to entertain your kids in the garden this summer how about building them a mini Quarry. Goblin likes his sand pit but has a tendency to empty the contents all over the lawn. The cat has also taken a liking to the sand pit if its left uncovered - if you know what I mean! 

So I was looking for an alternative and I found a giant bag of white gravel in B+Q for £6. It is perfect for Goblin to play with his diggers and dumpers in. I have contained it in a seed tray which is cool because you can add water to make reservoirs. I popped some pebbles and a few shells we had lying around the garden into the mix to add some texture. 

Goblin has been enjoying this a lot - he has also been using the gravel in his imaginary garden cooking!

I'm sharing this at

Kids Co-op Link up (#6 for me)

 
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It's Kids Co-op time again. Please take some time to check out all the awesome ideas that people have linked up, and link up any ideas of your own too. If you have any questions about linking up leave me a comment and I'll see if I can help. And here is my contribution that I will be linking up this week:

Celebrating the Wind

It has been very stormy this week. But today, in between the rain there were glorious periods of sunshine and Goblin was keen to play in the garden. Despite the sunshine the wind was crazy. Our garden is still very immature and we don't have any lovely big trees to blow in the breeze so I decided to tie some ribbons to the canes in our sunflower tub.

I also tied a kite to the washing line and brought Goblin's wind chimes down from his room hanging them on a nail in the fence. When Goblin went into the garden he was enchanted by the ribbons that were dancing in the gusts.

I don't have any 'full time' garden wind chimes because we live on quite a built up housing estate and I don't think its fair to the neighbours to have them chiming away all through the night. In fact although I like wind chimes, after half an hour of their incessant tinkling I had to take them back in side (only so much 'celebrating the wind' I can handle - I'm obviously not a born hippy).

After a while playing Goblin decided he wanted to run around with the kite. The wind was too inconsistent and blustery to fly the kite properly so I let him have it without the string and he ran around the garden with it.

A teacher friend of mine once said that when it was windy the kids in the playground all went a bit bonkers. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with Goblin, but then he's always a little bit bonkers when he's outside anyway.

And now to the link up:

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Garden adventures and Guineapigs

(Goblin is 27 months)

I was feeling a bit guilty today that I failed to take Goblin to the park. He'd been asking to do "running" since lunch but instead we went to the supermarket. So when we got home I turned him loose in the garden. This may sound bad but its actually his favourite place to be.

Our garden is a bit sparse, other than the sand pit there isn't any play equipment.  I was worried that Goblin might get bored, but toddlers are amazingly good at creating their own entertainment if you let them. For example Goblin decided to do some mud art using our brand new back door as his canvas. My initial instinct was to tell him to stop, but I suppressed that thought and instead helped him fill a bucket so he could create more mud. Hublet came to view his art work. Goblin likes Hublet lifting him in through the back door window, but he was a bit too muddy for that game today. So instead Hublet played throwing baby marshmallows into Goblin's mouth. Hublet's aim wasn't great and a lot of them went via the floor into Goblin's mouth. We are working on the basis "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger!"

We also played with our guineapig. 

Sadly just before Christmas four of my five guieapigs died on the same day. I took one to the vet to see if they could tell me how they had died but they couldn't. It hadn't been cold and there were no marks on the dead pigs to indicate an animal attack. My conclusion was that they had either died of a virus or they had been poisoned by something in the garden. To be on the safe side I dug up the only new plant that I had seen them all eat. I have no idea why my remaining guineapig survived. I have been debating getting her a friend to keep her company but as I don't know what the others died of I am concerned about exposing another pig to the same fate. So for the time being I have one lone piggy. 

 Goblin was never particularly interested in the pigs when I had lots, but now that there is only one he loves looking for her in her cage, and getting me to take her out so he can stroke her. He knows he has to be gentle and that he isn't allowed to get her out of the cage without my help. I do let him hold her when I am present because I think its a good idea to get children used to holding animals. They aren't like dolls or soft toys, they wriggle and because they have claws they can scratch. I have seen much older children drop animals from a height because they were scared/shocked when the animal wriggled or scratched. I want Goblin to understand how to hold an animal safely and securely so that he never endangers them.

But Goblin is still too young to safely be left alone holding an animal. Its really important for the safety of the animal and the child not to allow children to play with animals until they are old enough to understand how easily they can be hurt. This is an ongoing process and thankfully at the moment Goblin seems reassured by my presence and hasn't shown any desire to try and play with the pig without me there.

Granny and Grandpa's house

(Goblin is 25 months)

We stayed at Goblin's Granny and Grandpa's (my parents) last night. Goblin woke at 6am (groan!) but I managed to entertain him until 8am before he decided it was definitely bothering time. Fortunately Grandpa was on good form and played aeroplanes with him despite having only just woken up. 

Goblin's favourite bit of the day was running around Granny's garden. He discovered sheds; played with the guineapigs and rabbit; and dug up the flowerbed. 

Goblin helped Granny tidy the leaves in the garden. 

 And granny rewarded him by letting him start a fire! 

 With Goblin's fire engine obsession I have been wondering whether we might be raising a pyromaniac and he certainly seemed to like the garden brazier. 

Montessori with kitchen tools

(Goblin is 24 months)

Today I found a lovely new factory seconds kitchen shop. They had lots of equipment in lovely colours and I bought Goblin a turkey baster and new kitchen tongs. "Why?" I hear you say. Well both tongs and turkey basters can be used to do some Montessori practical life activities that strengthen pincer action and encourage accuracy in placement. 

Goblin was so excited by his new tongs that he played with them in the car all the way home and when we got home he ran straight into the garden and started tonging sand from the sandpit into his bucket. The sand was quite damp so it held together quite well.

 Then he packed his bucket of sand in the back of his tractor trailer and drove over to the guineapig's hutch where he started tonging straw from the ground into a flower pot. It really reminded me of the Eeyore's birthday story in Winnie-the -Pooh. The straw was Goblin's popped red balloon! 
When I finally coaxed Goblin in from the cold he discovered the turkey baster on the table. So I set up some bowls with water and blue food colouring. 

I didn't realise how tricky this activity actually is. You need to squeeze the turkey baster, lower it into the water, leave it in the water while letting go of the bulb, wait for it to fill, then transfer the water to the other bowl with a clear aim. I was quite impressed at how well Goblin did it. Although as he got the hang of it he actually got worse because he started trying to pull the baster out of the water before it had filled. When the water got low Goblin cheated and poured the water across. 

Nanny's Garden of Adventure

(Goblin is 23 months)

This weekend Goblin went to Nanny's house. Goblin always likes visiting Nanny. Not only does he get lots of cuddles, but she has the most fantastic garden. It goes on forever and ever and has brilliant places to hide as well as lots of things to do. 

Goblin got to feed the chickens. "Chicken" is one of his new words this fortnight. 

He played with the dog - well Ok he chased her until she took refuge in the vegetable patch. He really loves Nanny's dog, and we are lucky that she is a very calm and patient dog and will usually allow Goblin to drag her around. We do try and ensure that she has somewhere to escape to if Goblin gets a bit too much. 

Goblin has a wheel barrow and some plastic garden tools at Nanny's house. He loves raking the gravel and moving the big stones around in his wheel barrow. But today he was using his diggers instead. 

And he made a den in the wood shed - yes they have a wood shed, every small boys dream! But I had to coax him out after he showed a bit too much interest in the ladder. He is quite good at climbing ladders but this one wasn't attached to anything. 

I distracted him with a mini percussion session using an upturned bucket and the garden sieve which was hanging on the side of the shed. He soon came and joined me, and brought his own drum stick. 

Then Goblin and I went on a nature hunt. We started off looking for snails. He'd seen a picture of one earlier and its another new word of the fortnight so I wanted to reinforce it by showing him some. But Nanny's garden appears to be snail free. We looked under pots and near the two tub ponds, and under big leaved plants. Nada, nothing, no snails to be found! But we did find three ladybirds and a couple of woodlice. Goblin liked the ladybirds. I got one to walk onto a stick so he could have a really close look. 

The one thing Nanny's garden did have a lot of was spiders. This pot which we turned over contained four. "Spider" is another new word this fortnight (you may have guessed that Goblin has been on a bit of a word binge the last two weeks). So we walked all round the garden finding spiders and spider webs. We found an enormous one in the boat bench.

The web spanned the whole boat and the spider was right in the middle of the web so we got a great view. 

While looking for spiders Goblin found a pot of clothes pegs. I tried to show him the different colours of pegs but he wasn't interested. He did like trying to peg them onto a stick. I had to spend quite a lot of time showing him how the pegs work. Pegs are a great toy for toddlers because they encourage a pincer grip which is needed for holding a pen or pencil when writing. So I was really pleased that Goblin initiated this game. 

And after a long day of play Goblin needed a rest, and what better place than Nanny's wooden sun lounger. 

Fairy Garden

(Goblin is 23 months)

I was really excited when I found the blog The Magic Onions. I am interested in Steiner-Waldorf philosophies of education and this blog has some really great articles. But whats more it has the cutest crafts and this fab competition. However being my usual disorganised self (and because Goblin has been ill) I didn't get round to actually entering - Doh!

But I did make a fairy garden with Goblin and here it is.

As you can see its still a work in progress. I had a barrel that I had planted lavender in last winter. A couple of the plants have died so there was a space which was just perfect for a little garden. I wanted to let it mature into a really lovely garden so I have left room for the plants to spread. I also didn't want to use too much "fairy furniture" because Goblin is still quite keen on a) putting things in his mouth and b) destroying things. But if you want to see some really cute fairy furniture go and check out the people who were organised enough to enter the competition. All the photos are available at the link above. 

I did make a little pool nestled in the lavender forest. I am keeping my eye out for a nice deep finger bowl in charity shops but for the moment I am using a black saucer so it doesn't hold much water. I used some blue flattened marbles that I happened to have. I think they make nice sparkles.

The "grass" is a type of low spreading thyme. Goblin helped me plant it with his little trowel - he liked digging the hole. The thyme smells lovely. Mixed with the lavender it makes the whole fairy garden a really smelly sensory affair. 

I made a little fairy hut using air dry clay. This one took half a packet. You can wrap the rest in clingfilm and pop it in a bag and it will keep for ages. You would think I would realise that air dry means what it says - but no. As you can see the hut is made from a pinch pot on the bottom and a cone shape on the top. If I had been sensible I would have made them separately and let them dry then stuck them together with glue. But instead I stuck the roof on while it was all wet and then left it to dry. Needless to say within seconds of Goblin discovering the garden he tried to pick up the hut and the roof came off exposing still wet clay. And this stuff is dyed to look like terracota so it stains clothes, hands and toddlers! Lesson learned. 
My pièce de résistance' was going to be some cork screw grass. It is supposed to look like this - which I thought would add whimsey. 

But mine looks like this:

After my trip to the garden centre and I popped it down in the garden in its pot while I took Goblin upstairs for his nap. When I came back down my 5 free range guineapigs had feasted upon it and razed it to the ground. I'm hoping as it is a grass it will regrow with a bit of TLC.
Goblin doesn't seem too upset by the lack of corkscrew grass. He has decided that while the fairies are away during the day the garden is an excellent playground for his schleich animals.