Thursday 9 May 2013

Treasure Hunting

 On Sunday we ended up with a few hours free unexpectedly, we decided to go to Swithland Woods for a walk. Halfway there I decided I would look to see if there was any geocaches there. During the journey not only did I find the geocache information I also downloaded a GPS app.

Beth wanted to take her zebra for a ride in her pushchair I didn't really think it was a good idea, but we let her bring it anyway and she did mange to get quite far before she got fed up of the roots and bumps making her hands "feel fuzzy".

The woods are often used for den building by the scouts and along the way we found several and Beth tried them out for size and comfort
             


When we first arrived there were several signs for the bluebell service so we had a look for some. I think the cold winter and late spring meant that there weren't actually any about but Beth did find some blue flowers (forget-me-knots)











Beth started a gymnastic class around her birthday, and she's loving it! She loves showing off her "shapes" and a tree stump gave her a good excuse to practice her landing shape. 









Beth and Daddy found some really big sticks and proceeded to have a sword fight (they've been practicing with light sabers). Beth even let Daniel hold her stick; he was a lot more grateful than he looks in the picture. I tried to have a go at fighting with sticks but I broke the stick. 












Beth found a Fairy tree 


We'd been pretty rubbish at finding the geocaches, I'd found one location using my GPS app, but I think the cache must have been removed, because there was no sign of it. The drain on my battery was pretty heavy and we decided to to give it up as a bad job and just take a walk to the old quarry and back. On the way Dave spotted something nestled in the tree trunk and it turned out to be one of the caches. Beth and Daniel we're very excited. This cache had a take something leave something policy and Beth picked up a walking Brussel sprout (after a lot of persuasion to leave the manky sweet or the dog biscuit and we left a packet of vinegar.  I also left the address of this blog in the log book so if you've found us through that please speak up. 



 



Saturday 4 May 2013

Money Money Money




Beth is getting to an awkward age with money. Either that or I still don't get money. 
I’m not overly sure which values we want to instil and whilst I’d like her to be frugal and manage her money properly, I would like her to value experience over possession as well. As a child , I was always the one saving my pocket money for something, or if I was given money to budget I would spend it all on one big thing, and because I'd put effort into acquiring it, it would stay with me far longer than it needed to. (for example when we went to France when I was 7 I spent all my money on a crayon/pen stand, all the crayons and pens were lost with in weeks but the hunk of plastic stayed till I had my room redecorated when I was 14...) I've spoken briefly before about how I'm petrified of our family turning in to hoarders, so you know this isn't really a path I want to go down with my children.
Another problem I have to balance is being a responsive parent and encouraging gratitude over and above enforced thank-yous. I want my children to be able to look after themselves and to be helpful to others. I believe that part of training them to do this involves encouraging them to help out around the house, but what incentives should that include? If you look on Pinterest you'll find hundreds of blogs on raising a grateful child and 99% of these read like they're straight out of the Bible belt. One Ritual we have started though, is saying grace before our main meal. Despite being raised in a Catholic house its not something we did as children. The prayer we say is below.
Dear God 
Thank you for our food today 
Thank you for all the people who have made it 
and we pray that everyone who has made or grown
 something for our dinner to day has enough to eat
Amen  


        
Its a gentle reminder that not everyone has enough to eat. We give thanks for those who produce what we eat, and we (the adults) remind ourselves that the food production system isn't fair and that we can influence this through our spending choices. 
 I also want my children to be ethical shoppers, and realise that their purchasing power can make a difference. Beth already understands a little about why we boycott Nestle, and if she asks for confectionary and I say no her first question is “Is it Nestle or have I had enough bad food?”
But back to Money...I must admit I don't always have a plan or strategy in place for trying to manage her attitude to money, I often make the decision based on my mood, her behaviour, what else she has had in the previous day or two and what she is asking for and I'm not sure this always gives the consistency that is needed for her to learn those values.

Beth has received at least a portion of her birthday and/or Christmas money for a while now. Not only does she enjoy the idea of a trip to a toy shop where she can actually buy a toy of her own choosing, but it gives us an opportunity to discuss shopping choices. We talk about the value of the toy, if she has enough money, whether it is age appropriate, if there are any reasons why I don't think it is a good thing to play with and the idea of co-operatively pooling money with her brother so the can get a bigger toy to share, but ultimately the choice is hers. Last Christmas she broke my heart by buying a set of bottles to feed her dolls with.
These opportunities are pretty few and far between though, and most of her toys come from overly indulgent grandparents (all right it's just one or two) and are often bought with a little pester power and good dose of guilt for me if I even suggest that the toy isn't durable / value / needed, which is why we saw the need for some kind of pocket money system. 

I wasn't happy with the idea of just giving her money, I don't want her to feel that having money is a right, but I don't want to pay her to do things that she needs to do anyway. Again I have compromised. At the minute she has a reward chart where she gets ticks for some self care jobs, helping with the housework and other bits. The chart was from the 99p shop and has some tasks which are slightly too old for her (do my homework) and some that I think are a bit silly (drink enough water) so we've been using those boxes for when she's extra helpful. At the end of the week we add up all the ticks and when we think she has a useful amount, she gets a penny for every tick.
Do I think this is the perfect answer, no. Please leave a comment about how these things work in your house, and maybe we can start a discussion about how best to teach the next generation about money. 

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Fun on the Farm


On Easter Monday, we had the great pleasure of a visit from the kid's Godmother Marie who lives in Manchester. When Marie comes down we often go out for the day, partly because her visits tend to co-incide with important events and partly because having her around means an extra pair of hands to attempt more adventurous trips. This time we decided to go to Manor Farm in East Leake. 




At the moment Daniel is very keen on ducks; Sarah and Duck is almost constantly on, his favourite bed time story is Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack even as I'm writing this he is sat on my knee pointing at the above picture and quacking. So you can imagine his delight as we arrived to find six ducks swimming in a circle. Despite the bitterly cold temperature we all stood with him for a good ten minutes enjoying him quack and shout "dack" repeatedly. Before we could make it indoors Beth spotted the donkey rides and decided to spend some of her Easter money on a ride. 

 We briefly made it into the play barn and next to a heater, before realising there was an owl talk on. The farm also acts as a rescue centre for owls and birds of prey. I was incredible impressed by the variety and number of birds they care for. The gentleman who did the talk was very good with the kids and as tends to happen Beth was very chatty, and answered all his questions, even when he asked someone else, and for the most part when she didn't know the answers. After the talk there was a chance to hold the owl and Beth was very proud. 


 The Farm has an amazing play barn, with a castle and a pirate ship. There is also an area for smaller kids to play, a football area and some kind of pedal karts for older kids. There is also a cafe in the barn and we settled down to a warm drink whilst Beth did some Easter crafts. While they were drying it was time for the Easter egg hunt. I was incredibly proud of Beth during this as not only did she stick with her little brother when he was slowing her down, but when he found a rabbit token, she was very honest with the man about how she was only getting the chocolate for her little brother because she hadn't found a rabbit. (The rules had been laid down that children who didn't find a rabbit would still get chocolate, so I'm not sure if it was all out competition whether she would feel so gracious).





We had a bit more time in the barn Beth played on the rock climbing wall and in the ship and castle again. We took a walk round the other animals then it was bed time for the Animals. This was probably the highlight of Daniel’s day as he actually got to stroke a duck. In fact the reason we don't have a photo of this is because he was so excited we need several pairs of hands to restrain his affection for the poor duck. After the birds were put to bed the children were lined up with carrot sticks and the llamas, horses and goats came down the line to say good night and get a carrot stick. 


























Tuesday 23 April 2013

Busy-ness


Some of you may have noticed it’s been a little longer between posts over the last few weeks. I'm sorry if you've missed me but I've had a lot of very exciting things happening.

It all started before this blog was born; at the beginning of March I signed up to an online challenge I'd just happen to see on a Facebook page. It was a post by mum and business-woman, Victoria, asking for people to look at ways they could baby proof their income.

Initially I felt a bit like I was coming at the challenge from the wrong direction as many of the mums were working. Since Beth was born I’ve not needed to work and I feel very privileged to have been able to spend 4 years doing nothing but playing, teaching and generally avoiding the house work. It's not been easy, there are times when unexpected bills have really impacted our lifestyle, and there have been times when our families have been incredible generous and helped us out when we've found ourselves in a tight-spot. When we have been in those situations it has been very easy to imagine that me working would be the end to all our problems, but a normal 9-5 with the kids in nursery wouldn't end up paying much and would make me and the kids unhappy. Last year I thought the only possible solution would be to start a childminding business, but I'd been struggling to get my head round all the changes we would need to make to our home and routine since Christmas, and progress had really stalled.

The 30 day challenge has opened my eyes to many things but the real change is to the way I think. It all comes down to being able to believe in yourself, and turning the problem upside down, what do you like to do and how can it make you money. One of my biggest stumbling blocks used to be that tended to blow problems up out of proportion and discount something I could do 99.9% of just because of one thing I didn’t think I could do. Now I start with what I want to do, fill in the details of what I can do then anything left is in the learn to do pile. Victoria and the other ladies who have done this challenge with me have really helped me to take the plunge forward and because of their help and encouragement I have become a barefoot book ambassador. 

I have always loved barefoot book ever since my mother in law bought Beth a copy of We all went on Safari. The main body of the story is a simple counting story about African animals, but it is coupled with the most elegant illustrations and at the back there is loads of information about Tanzania and the east coast of Africa. I just loved the fact that the same book would be entertaining to a 2 year old and informative all the way through primary school ages. The next time I came across the books was at the school Christmas fete. This was the first time I’d really seen a collection of these beautiful books and it was the first time I really took any notice of the Barefoot name.  I went home and had a look at the website and discovered there was an ambassador programme.

The best thing for me about the Barefoot ambassador programme is how open it is; you can sell Barefoot books in many different ways (through parties, online, stalls and special events) and build your business to suit you and your life. You can adapt and change your business with your changing lifestyle, it can be done part time, on its own or with a job and you can invest the time when you have it and you can scale it back when you are busy with other things. The other thing I love is it’s never a hard sell; the product is so good and unique that simple by introducing it to people they get engaged with the product and want to buy.

I've been an ambassador for less than a month and I've already achieved my first two goals, and won a bundle of prizes. I've held an event and have started to book parties. I've found a really brilliant team and team leader which has really smoothed the way, and I’m already looking to help others start their own barefoot business, which is where I shamelessly plug the fact that we have a special offer on the starter kits right now (save £30 normally ) 
  

Friday 12 April 2013

Preparing for change...



Hi! My name is Kelly and I don’t usually blog of the subject of parenting, my blog
 is about my journey of losing weight over the last 18 months. However, I am very excited to have been invited to write a guest blog post for Laura’s page.

I have some knowledge of parenting and working with children. I am a mum to Megan and Alex who are 4 and 3 years old. I have child-minded for children for the last 3 years and before that I was the manager of a day nursery caring for children under 5 years of age for 7 years. I have a foundation degree in children and young people’s services and various other qualifications in childcare and family support. So I guess you can say, that writing a post about parenting isn’t completely alien for me!



(Us!, Megan, Alex, my husband Chris and me!)


So this brings me to my chosen topic for today... change!


A big, big thing is happening in our house this year. Megan is going to school to in September and next week we find out which school she will be attending. This is going to be an emotional rollercoaster.... for us and them!
Preparing your child for school is just as important for you as it is for your child. I know that in my head anyway, I have lots and lots of mad thoughts going on. Will she fit in? Will she be happy? What will they be doing? What do they need? How can I make this easier for her?
Preparing this post is as helpful for me, as I hope it will be for you reading it. Whether or not your child is going to school, you may be moving, starting nursery or playgroup for example, any change for children can be a scary and anxious time..  but you can ease things for them by helping them prepare!
Helping them prepare for change, explore, ask questions and setting up experiences to adjust to the change is an incredibly important emotional skill that children need to become well rounded, resilient adults, but how can we best do this?
The practical side of things...
Of course, preparing our children for change, letting them explore their emotions is really important, in fact, I personally believe it’s the MOST important thing we can do. Teachers, nursery nurses and teaching assistants are there to teach our children how to read, do their sums and learn about the history of the world. They are not there to parent our children for us or teach them how to survive in the world. Yes, they do, by nature, do an element of that, purely in the contact that they have and what is purely human nature but it is not the job of teachers to develop emotional resilient children with the day to day practical skills we take for granted such as toileting, putting shoes on etc.

So there are some practical skills we need to build on first such as:

·         Toileting – can your child confidently undo/do up the clothes they are wearing? Can they wipe their bottoms confidently themselves? Do they know and can they wash their hands after using the toilet?
·         Shoes/Coats – Are they aware of how the different weather  conditions mean they need to look after themselves and wear their coats/do them up when they go out to play?
·         Pack lunches/dinner – Does your child know and can they wash their hands before lunch? Can they cut their food up by themselves? Open their yogurt pots, drinks cups etc?

Of course, the teachers and staff at the school will be there to help.. but imagine how much more empowered your child will be if they can do these for themselves? It will take away quite a bit of the anxiety and stress that comes with having new adults in a new setting if children are more able to do the practical things. Not to mention that it frees up the staff and teachers to get one with the important stuff!
Of course when you are encouraging them to learn the practical things it’s important that you continue to develop their emotional abilities, so do not put too much pressure on them to learn these. Make them apart of everyday routines and slowly they will learn to cope by themselves!
For more information about teaching them the essentials... check out:


More practical things.. in the run up to starting!

So once you have found out what school your child is going to, it’s important to know what happens at the school. Find out who the teachers are and regularly use their names in conversation so that it becomes natural to both you and your child.

From experience of settling children into school, it’s important for you and your child to visit. Schools will arrange a time for you to go into the classroom and most schools will also arrange times for them to visit you at home.

Before the visits happen, it’s a good idea to create a little booklet with all the information in that your child would like their teacher to know. I created one last year with a little boy in his learning journey which contained lots of pictures of what we had been doing and told his teacher all about what he wanted her to know.
A few of the photo’s shared with the class teacher from last year...







It’s really important to keep the lines of communication open with school, so make sure you are aware of the procedures and methods they use to communicate with parents. How do they accept letters into school, do they use social media for example. Write a list of questions down ready to ask when the visits do take place.

Be confident! If you approach the visits and contact with the school confidently, your child is more likely to follow your lead. Remember, asking lots of questions demonstrates to your child that they can ask questions too! Keep a positive tone to your voice when talking about school (I’m terrible for this at the moment as I am so nervous about not having her around, not her actually going!) so that the thought of school in your child’s head carries that positive ring to it.

Here’s a few questions which I’ll be asking come the visits:

  •  What uniform do they need and where do you buy it?
  •   How does the school do pack lunches/dinners? Are there any policies we need to know about them?
  •   PE Kits? What is it, where is it kept and how often do we change them?
  •   Reading books/homework?
  •   School trips? Will they be going on any this year?
  •   How does the school year start for them? Do they start full days? Just mornings?
  •   What will the routine be when they go into school in the mornings?
  •  How can we communicate with you if we have any concerns throughout the year?
  •   How often are the parent’s evenings? Are there any other ways we can seek feedback about our child?
  •   How can I get involved with the school? Can I volunteer ?


Developing emotional resilience

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks, difficult times or new challenges. If your child is able to effectively deal with the anxiety and stress that changes such as starting school can present, then you have done a great job parenting already!

Consider these points to continue to help your child build on these skills:
·         Listen to how they are feeling: Really listen to and give opportunities for your child to talk through any worries and concerns they may have. If like, most children under 5, your child finds it hard to put their emotions into words to express their feelings, set up opportunities for them to do it in other ways. Playing schools for example with their teddies are a good opportunity for them to talk through role-play, if it’s teddy’s first day at school and he’s scared, demonstrate how they could make them feel better or how the teacher should react to make them feel secure. This is you really         listening to what your child is feeling and seeing things from their point of view.

·          Observe your child: Watch your child (or children!) and really observe WHO they are. I only know this too well, with the Easter holidays just behind us, 2 weeks with them means that we very quickly got into the routine of taking each other for granted. You co-exist for a while and every now and then in between we look at them and (depending on the day!) can really be bowled over by just WHO they are. These little people we have created and shaped.. are just that, people! They have their own personalities, their own ways of doing things and sometimes we just have to stand back and see this properly!
Observe what their strengths are and use this to really positively give them a platform in which they can take into the classroom and wow their peers and teachers, just like they do with you! You can develop these strengths by basing the things you do with your child at home around these.. for example, Megan is keen helper. She loves to feel that she is needed and when we do tend to do things together, we do jobs where she ask to help. I am always encouraging her to ask for things, including helping, as I know this is a real strength of hers and will help a lot when she goes to school! This can be painful at times, don’t get me wrong, especially when it’s the washing up and I spend more time mopping the kitchen back up after she’s done!

·         Mistakes are not bad, being responsible is great!: Encourage your children to learn from mistakes. When something happens, just reprimanding them and leaving it at that will teach them only that mistakes = punishment. Use everything that they do wrong as a learning curve to pave the way for when they do right.Go through the sequence of events, help them identify what they could have done different and encourage them to make amends for the mistake that they did. Teach them to be responsible for their own actions through the way in you speak with them. A perfect example of this happened just this morning! Megan and Alex were standing at the front room window anxiously waiting for the childminded children to arrive. First Alex pushed Megan a bit, so Megan pushed him harder back, resulting in him falling off the foot stool they were standing on. Cue, tears from Alex. I asked Megan to get down from the foot stool, much to her resentment and complaining and the first thing she said was ‘but Alex pushed me first’ . I explained to her that, I understood that, but that didn’t give her reason to push him back. We talked about whether pushing was nice and what she should have done instead of pushing him back. I asked her what she thought she could do now to make the situation better and she said that she would say sorry. I feel it’s also important to point out here that, children need to learn, just saying sorry isn’t always the answer for everything! They need to be aware of how they can prevent it happening again. I asked Megan if she got back on the foot stool with Alex, did she think there was enough room and would there be pushing again? She thought about it for a moment, but then came up with the solution of fetching the other foot stool so she could stand to the side creating more room.

·         Don’t apply pressure.. only love: Lastly, I strongly believe anyway, that the most important thing a child needs is love. You can never love a child too much. Ever. Some people may say that you can spoil them, but I am yet to see a child who is spoiled by love.



It’s important that you don’t feel under pressure to make sure they can do everything I listed above. It’s just something to aim for.
It’s important you do not compare your child against anyone else’s child. They are not YOUR child.
Love them, cherish them and I promise you will not go wrong.

So when the time is nearly here, have a go at trying these....

·         Establish those routines!
Nothing makes children feel more secure than knowing what’s going to happen. So once you’ve had your school visits. You’re on track for them feeling practically prepared.. uniform, check, lunch box, check, PE Kits, check etc etc you need to make sure that on that first, important day, you and your child can get up, have breakfast, get ready and out in a most stress free and calm way possible.
It’s important to start a morning routine at least 1 week before that big day so that you can tweek and change what you need to, in order to get out on time.
Make sure that they get plenty of time the night before (early to bed!) and give yourself time to prepare a special breakfast for them so that they are well fed and have the energy to see them through what is going to be a massive physical and mental task for them.

·         Make time for each other!
It’s important that on the last few days before your child feels like they become ‘really grown up’, that you plan time for them to really enjoy being the centre of attention for a little while. A trip out of their choosing will give them something lovely to share with the teacher and peers when they do go to school and create a happy memory of those last few weeks before school!


·         Plan something for you to do on the day!
On the day, plan something for yourself to do, which will keep your mind and worrying off your child. Something extra especially nice, after all you have been planning and thinking about this day for a while. Coffee and cake out with a friend, a shopping trip or visiting something you can do either by yourself, or have younger children to keep you occupied! Remember that if you do have younger children, it will be a change for them too... and a chance to give them some of the attention which may have been focused on the older child for a while!

·         At the end of the day....
When the big day is over, try not to overwhelm your child with too many questions! They are going to be overwhelmed as it is! Plan a nice quiet sit down meal together and give them chance to get the order of events straight in their heads. Some quiet time after school will be important for them to gather their thoughts together and process what they experienced.



I hope this post has given you some food for thought and a little insight to what I will be doing to prepare Megan for ‘big’ school! However, I hope the main thing, if anything you get from this post is just to value the time we have with our little people whilst they are still little.
The last few years have gone so quickly, just like everyone told me it was going too! I am really looking forward to going on a whole new journey with my children now though, one which will only continue to enrich and make life so much more interesting!
Thanks for reading and bye from us!

K!
References for
further tips and reading:

Friday 5 April 2013

Art huh! What is it Good For?

I want my actions to follow the style of parenting I strive for, but there are plenty of times when decisions I make are affected by wanting to instill opposing values. The best example of this is Art.

If you have a preschool child you know that they churn out enormous amounts of Art*. Art is fantastic for lots of developmental reasons, the most obvious is developing creativity, but the muscles a child develops in their hands whilst drawing help them gain the strength and co-ordination they need to write at school. Knowing this means that at home we have an art shelf, which the kids have free access to. Beth also goes to pre-school and almost every day comes home with some art. Any group or play session we attend has an art space and even play dates can have you coming home with an arm full of A3 sugar paper with an almost microscopic scribble in the corner. We all have plenty of art!

our art problem....

The problem I have is trying to balance giving that art some value whilst trying to manage our family's predisposition to hoard. It is not as simple as picking out the best bits; creativity to a child can look quite abstract to us, and only rewarding a child when the picture looks like it is supposed to sends the message "you need to think like the world thinks". Equally I don't want my children to value possession more than the experience. I'd quite like it if they could be the type of people that could live their lives out of a suitcase if necessary and not worry about where their 1,500 childhood teddies are going to live, but with me and Dave as parents I'm not sure how likely this is.

These are a few of the solutions I've heard people use:


The Daddy's Work Office Solution

A colleague of Dave's suggested that art could be taken to work with daddy and then disposed of without hurting a child's feelings.  If we skip over the obvious sexism and presumption of family dynamics, this has some real merits; the art is out of the way, it has been praised and it has been valued. But there is a level of deception, it can create a false image of where daddy works which could unravel if your child visits.

The Conversion Theory
There are lots of companies that will now immortalise your child's art as a mug, mouse mat, piece of jewelry or even make stuffed toys from your children's drawings. The upside is that the art is now useful, and robust, so you don't end up hanging on to a scrap of dog-eared paper. However the items will be probably be bigger and the process is expensive, this will usually mean that the parent will pick the most impressive and classically "good" pieces, which takes away from enjoying the process.

The Wait and See Tactic
This is the is the most common one used in our house when Beth is particularly proud of a picture it goes on our wall, and stays there, forever, and ever, and ever, or at least till the blue tack falls off or I knock it down when dusting, the record is 3 years. Some of her art doesn't make it to the wall, unless its very important to her, the art she makes at school can be put in the nappy bag on the way home and forgotten about. By the time its rediscovered Beth's more able to let it go.

The Photobook Fix
This is one of the best ideas I've seen, the concept is to take a photo or a scan of your child's art and print out a year book of what the child has created, there are even apps that you can use to do it on your phone. I love this idea because you take photos of everything and shrink or crop them to fit multiple images on a page. Your child can also have creative input into selecting their favourites and putting them together and can even create a narrative for the photos if they want. The only downside I can see is that no matter what I do with the copies, will I ever be able to throw the originals away?

The Gifting Plan
As with most things prevention is better than a cure, and if you find yourself wanting to give your child opportunity to explore a new medium, its always good to let them know in advance that you're making this to pass it on. The perfect example is making wrapping paper, this can be done with sponge painting, potato printing, leaf art and finger paints; all you need is some art roll or lining paper and your chosen medium. You can also make cards and gifts for others; grandparents, neighbours and old ladies at church love these things, by pushing art on them your doing them a service really... honest ... Just don't be the parent that gets your kids to send me their art.... unless they are really good and it will make me millions, but you should probably get that independently verified.

The all art is temporary method

Another good prevention solution, is to encourage mediums that are by their very nature temporary, the best example of these are bath crayons and pavement chalks.


Bath Crayons.



*Please note that I decided not to use quotation marks, because that's good parenting....


Thursday 28 March 2013

What a Difference a Week Makes

Not overly springy but I thought it was pretty good for a 4 year old 

This time last week, the temperatures were lifting and the sun was shining. We were (and still are) car less and Daddy was working from home. So in order to give him some peace, and to indulge Daniels new found love of ducks, I took the kids to Charnwood Water. I had the vaguest sense of hope that we might be seeing a turn in the weather, so I suggested to beth that we look for signs of Spring. I gave Beth my phone and asked her to take pictures of anything she saw that was springy.

We got lots of photos of new leaves and buds, but I had to try and hurry her along from taking a photo of every flower in every garden, as we were starting to get some funny looks.

Some of the pictures Beth took



When we arrived we were set upon by the ducks, geese and swans. There is a sign up asking people not to feed the birds bread because it is essentially just sugar - basically duck McDonalds. Now from what I can tell the birds have been on a diet all Winter and I rock up with a bag of duck crack, the ensuing madness was not pretty but we were prepared*. We slipped past the main way in where the swans and geese hang out and found some high ground to throw from. Daniel loved it! He has started to make some animal noises and was quacking and shouting "look duck!" His quack and oink are very similar though so I'm only guessing it was a quack.   

Look Ducks Quack! 
Swans from a defensible position

On the way into the park Beth saw some furry buds, but we couldn't reach them. However we found some later on the bank and Beth felt them, she said they felt furry, warm and soft. She asked if she could help Daniel touch them so we took the pushchair off road and let Daniel have a go.



We then carried on round and found the part of the park where the fairies live. Beth went for an explore to see if she could find any fairies out and about...


...and came back with a "fairy bedroom".




We decided to play "sink or float" and Beth collected some bits to drop in the water as we finished walking round and I picked some bits for Daniel, its a pretty simple concept you throw bits of nature and see if they sink or float.

Some of the things Daniel threw



               

* in the autumn we had gone to feed the ducks and I was bitten on the bottom by a swan whilst trying to move the one that had stuck its head in the pushchair and Beth was chased by a goose.