Magnetic Letters and Fridge Magnets

Sooner or later it happens to us all.  We fall off the wagon and stop doing something which we had been doing all the time.  It may be the exercise classes, the grocery budget, the toddler group which is great but just a little too far away from home, with me it has been blogging.  We have had an interesting last few months which have involved moving the kids and me back from Germany to the UK and therefore starting a new school and this in itself could be why the blogging has taken a back seat but in reality it was that my laptop broke.  B decided that the keyboard was thirsty and poured apple juice into it; the resulting gunge under the keys meant that the laptop thought the semi-colon key and the F4 key were being pressed and either booted up to the password window and didn't recognise the password or thought that I had wanted to go into system recovery instead of Windows.  Add the this the dodgy number pad where OH dropped his laptop on mine and the fact that the monthly Internet allowance for Broadband of 15GB was used by R and A in four days (thanks UTube!  Germany and the Netherlands have unlimited broadband for a monthly fee - a much better system than the UK) and so I couldn't download anything at all even when it did decide that it was going to work today.  OH kindly bought and fitted a new keyboard for me this weekend so now I have no excuse!

A and R are also struggling to get back on their own wagons; in their case reading scheme books for school.  They both love books - we have what is jokingly called "the library" on the landing outside their rooms but lets face it reading scheme books can be books for the sake of learning the words rather than books which are a good story.  The school they are at now is much more committed to raising the standards of its students and gives a certificate at the Celebration Assembly for any child who has done reading at home three times during the week - A was really disappointed not to get one this week so hopefully next week will be a different story.

Meanwhile B continues to lose interest in any activity that seems to be learning based ("No Counting!") and so I decided that we needed a set of magnet letters like these ones for him to play with to build everyday familiarity. These simple things have conquered the globe to become a bog standard image of early childhood learning but they are about £8 a set in the UK (WH Smith prices) and you need a lower case set and an uppercase set.  It is also difficult to use them to spell more than simple words as you generally only get one of each letter.  

I decided that it might be more interesting to make our own letters.  A local supermarket was selling tumbled stones - normally used to flower arrangements I think- at ridiculously cheap prices and "buy one get one free".  Add to this a paint pen in gold and a strip of cut to size self adhesive magnet strip (like this one Flexible Adhesive Magnetic Tape (1/2"x 30" Roll)) and this is what you get.  

Much more tactile than bits of  plastic and B who is a sucker for stones like most toddlers has been stealing them to play with before the magnets are even stuck on most of them.  R immediately fell in love with the gold pen and we also decorated some to just look pretty for our fridge.  

Right off to make a "Reading for School" chart to help with other wagons!

Gross Motor Skills:Trampoline

We finally took the plunge and invested in a  6ft trampoline to fit in our postage stamp sized garden.  (Ours was from Amazon.co.uk.)We bought ours because it is good fun and in moving back to the UK we have moved away from both a fantastic park but also a massive soft-play place which is in a converted factory  in Hengelo NL and had its own trampolines.
Did you know that trampolining is also great for exercising the eye muscles?  Two of our friends got theirs after it was suggested as helping "lazy-eyes" because the eyes have to constantly minutely adjust as you bounce up and down.  Horse-riding is also good for the same reason.  It is so good that one of our friends was told the only hope for her son was an operation by one consultant and when she got a second opinion and tried the trampoline for a year the improvement was such that he doesn't need the op anymore.
Took an afternoon to fit together and is a huge hit.

Back in the UK!

This is the end of our first week back in the UK.  It has been spent buying school uniforms, shoes, school bags, and a cat flap and not a lot of time for blogging.

Why the cat flap?

After losing our last cat in 2007 we finally are taking the plunge again and re-homing this lovely lady by the name of Bessie.  I contacted the CPL just one week ago to put our name down if they had any cats that might be suitable for a 3 kid family, we were lucky, they already had Bessie in their care.  We went to visit her on Wednesday and got the thumbs up as her prospective family. She is 6 years old and living at the Cats Protection League until next Tuesday when she will be dropped off at our house whilst the kids are at school.

Big week next week, new school, new pet (and for B first-time pet); unpacking can wait!

Cooking: Blueberry Ice-cream

Inspired by the discovery of a punnet of blueberries in the freezer and temperatures around 25 degrees.

200 ml double cream
200 ml milk
3-4 tbsp of sugar
1 punnet blueberries (150g)

Since we are in the middle of packing up to move (again!) this was a fast and furious method that consisted of throwing everything into a blender and whizzing until smooth,  The mixture was then poured into our icecream maker and switched on - easy peasy.  Of course if you don't have an icecream maker (I spent YEARS asking for one!) you can make it by pouring into a container in the freezer and stirring every half an hour to break up the bigger ice crystals.  Very fragrant and a beautiful purple colour, perfect for a hot day.

Cooking: English Shortbread

In honour of the Mongolian mum of one of our friends from the International School who loves all things English; easy peasy cook it in the microwave in ten minutes flat shortbread.

100 g / 4 oz plain flour
50 g / 2 oz cornflour
100 g / 4 oz butter
50 g / 2 oz sugar

Prepare a microwave-safe cake tin by lining with greased baking parchment - I use the lid of a Pyrex casserole.
Pour all the ingredients into a bowl and knead together with a spoon until mixture is evenly mixed.  The mixture will be quite dry - don't worry.
Tip into the dish and press down firmly.  Mark the top into segments and sprinkle with sugar.
Cook on HIGH for 3 - 3 1/2 minutes.
Whilst still warm divide into segments (when it cool is goes crispy and is more likely to crack).
Leave to cool and enjoy with a cup of tea.
VARIATIONS:
Substitute the following for all or part of the cornflour.
Ground rice (gives a "crunchy" texture)
ground almonds
semolina
cocoa powder
Also good drizzled with melted chocolate.

Spelling:shape wordsearch

Apologies that April was such a light month posting-wise.  We had several things happening here which included not only all the bank holiday/Easter stuff but a visit to the UK for 5 days in the middle.  Combine this with A having been asked in a very polite Dutch way to leave the International School because he cannot stay there now the verdict is in from the Dutch Ed Psych and the result is that we are returning to the UK minus OH, so packing and cleaning our 6 bedroom house has had priority over blogging at the mo and will do for May as well I suspect.
I did however find time to create this word search for A and R to do - I think that I had shapes on my mind since now B has colours off pat shapes are next on my list.

As always here is the download link for the pdf file.

cutting and gluing for kids-under water fabric picture

This is R.  Here is a picture I made using felt and glue.