Repurposed school clothes-hair clips and slides

R has grown out of last summers school uniform dresses.  Being in the UK the dresses themselves had not seen an awful lot of wear (though not as little as this year!) but the school does not have a "swap-shop" where items like these can be passed onto others.  Instead of sending them to the charity shop I decided to reuse the fabric and my newly learned crochet skills to make some hair clips for R.

These caused such a stir at school that I used all the fabric making a batch to sell at the school summer fair next week.  Normally something like this sells for about £2-2.50 in the shops; I'm going to charge just £1 and we'll see if they go, as a bonus R gets to earn a number skills Brownie badge if she helps with the change.  All we need now is good weather!






Update - all we needed was parents of children at the school to volunteer to man the stalls ready for the crowds; unfortunately this did not happen, only 3 people volunteered (of which I was one) and so it has been cancelled.  The cynic in me says that the first people who will complain that school trips and swimming are too expensive this coming school year are going to be those who wouldn't donate even half an hour of their time to help with what is for the school the biggest fundraiser of the year.  Here's hoping we can recoup the loss somehow!

Jubilee Weekend - Kings and Queens Song

As part of the Queens Diamond Jubilee we have been having/preparing for all kinds of parties.  The kids have also been singing this ad infinitum!

(from the BBC's Horrible History series)

The Olympic Torch Comes To Yeovil!

This morning we got up at the crack of dawn and together with what seemed like half the population of Somerset we took the kids to see this once in a lifetime spectacle.

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If you look very carefully at the photos (taken by the kids) you can see a lady in white carrying the Olympic Torch in the first photo.  She then touches her lit torch to the unlit torch of the man in white and transfers the flame to him before he runs off holding it aloft. Not something that we will get a chance to see again and we were in just the right place for the official transfer so we got to see the torch up close for about a couple of minutes.  Happy kids after seeing the "Limpet" torch as B calls it!

How to Crochet a Flower - Tutorial

Just followed this to make some lovely flowers. I have to admit that I stopped after 1 row of petals for one; too many little people suddenly going "What are you doing?" and getting their heads in the way;) The second I stopped after the second row of petals.  Easy to follow and good results - everything a tutorial should be even for a complete beginner like me!

More Resources on Free For Kids

We have now past 50 posts on the Free For Kids sister blog. Some are new links; some are old favourites already listed here.  As always all are FREE (cheapskate that I am) so if you are looking for new resources click on the link above.

Gardening with Kids

Spring is definitely sprung in this corner of Somerset.  Despite a proven black thumb we have decided to give growing some of our own food a go again this year.  This is not as easy as it sounds since although we do have a garden it is all planted with shrubs and so any "kids plants" end up in patio pots.  All is well for the first few weeks when everyone wants to join in but once the novelty has worn off all the watering is down to muggins here!  Add to this journeys to the Continent to visit Daddy during the school holidays and we usually end up with pots full of dead plants before the summer is through.
However, totally undaunted all three kids decided that they would like to plant some seeds (even "not putting my hands in that!"B), so I did something different this year and got a little plastic greenhouse to start the seeds off in. At £10 from Wilko it is not too much of an investment.

Whether it will work or not this year remains to be seen.  Never mind if it doesn't we still had fun planting everything and playing in the sunshine anyway...
As well as playing with the seeds and soil we found this flower pinwheel to make and play with.

New Blog

No I am not abandoning Blogger but I have had some comments that it is getting so the only things I post these days are resources links!
This is for several reasons.
The first is that B is at Nursery every morning and so the time I spend with him has been substantially cut.  The second reason is that I actually find lots more (good and free!) activities than I actually use - I think it is only far to share these finds.
The third reason is that even when we do present the resources to the kids they may not like to do them and a post stating the fact is not worth posting.
In order to balance the situation I have started a sister blog where I can list just the resource links.

http://tummymummy-freeforkids.blogspot.com/ 

Whilst it is empty at the moment I plan to populate it with resources that are free/sorted by theme/ sorted by activity and with a wide age range just as we have always done here; and of course it will get more frequent posts than this blog because it is easy to grab screen shots but not so easy to grab photos of kids actually doing the activity.

I will post updates here as and when I use resources as well so if your looking for printables come and visit the new blog.