Winter Solstice 2023

 Friday 22nd December

Normally on the solstice and equinox dates, my aim is to spend as much time outside as possible where we take a picnic, read a winter story, and explore the seasonal changes... however, we had multiple things planned for this date, so it was a mish-mash of winter-themed fun all day.

It started with the changeover of books from autumn to winter, I have several collections that are based across the seasons that I keep away from Bear's accessible bookshelf so that only the current season is out. These are kept together on the living room bookshelf so that we can use them throughout the season.

First up was a trip to Grimm & Co (link for their website) for their final Curiouser & Curiouser session of the year, their winter party! The boys got to explore the winter tuff tray (of which I'm always jealous and always wish that I could recreate but never manage!) they played with winter/Christmas-themed materials, made jingle sticks, and cut paper snowflakes, listened to a story and watched it snow with the parachute and some white snowball pom poms! They both had a blast and I cannot wait for Grimm & Co (link for their social media) to be up and running again full-time when they reopen their new apothecary on the 29th of February!

After all the fun with the girls from Grimm & Co, we headed round the corner to Clifton Park to get some fresh air. I'd packed a picnic, and as it started to rain as we got there, we headed for the bandstand for a little shelter to sit and eat our dinner. Bear and I chatted about how it was winter now, what that meant for the seasonal changes, and what it brought with it, mainly Christmas, and then his birthday. The Cub wasn't into sitting still, and went roaming, splashing in puddles, which is one of his favourite things to do right now :)

After a walk around the park and a play in the playground, we headed home for the little one to take a nap, and Bear and I opened our Adventure Gang winter box from Moon Child. We subscribed back in autumn, and that box was beautiful, I was looking forward to this one, and it did not disappoint! A beautiful t-shirt for Bear, fact cards with gorgeous illustrations on for the full moons of the year, the materials to make a moon from clay, some drawings to colour in, a poster of the moon cycle, a moonstone bracelet, and some chocolate. I cannot recommend the subscription enough!

The rest of the day passed in a blur of games and activities, a Christmas movie, and ended with us lighting our yule log candles, reading our newest winter story, and eating beef stew for tea (the only acceptable meal to kick off winter with!) before cuddles and more winter stories before bed. 

It wasn't what I had planned when I'd thought about the solstice, but the boys had fun and that's what's important :)

Enjoy Winter x

Christmas Time

Well, it's been a minute... My apologies for the silence, life happened... what with going back to work, The Cub's first birthday, Home Ed life, Halloween and Bonfire Night, and then the festive season descending on us (which, when you work in retail had been gradually building since August) time has just run away from me.

We have been up to all sorts of things since the last time I posted, but I'm going to just highlight a few things and then attempt to keep up a little more from now on! 

As for Bear's learning, he is coming on in leaps and bounds. We kept up with number and letter recognition, and he now knows numbers 1 - 5 by sight, and the others when in order, but not always when out of context. We have done a letter a week, both the capital and lower case letter, and have worked on their name and their phonetical sound, as well as being able to match them together. We have made it to 'Ii' in the alphabet, and have been making a handprint alphabet as we've gone along. 

We have magnetic letters on the fridge, which has the new letter added to it each week, and Bear can confidently match the upper and lower cases together. The past letters stay up so the repetition of the start of the alphabet is only cementing his knowledge. He's always so proud of himself when he's matched them all up :)

Since the start of December, I have eased back on the intentional learning we'd been doing with numbers and letters in favour of more crafts and lots of Christmas reading and outings!

We read two longer picture books than normal too, the intention was to read them over multiple sittings, the idea being to see how he would take to a read aloud of chapter books, but he was happy to sit and listen to the whole story. We then wrote book reviews for them, as this is something I would like him to do for chapter books as it is a great way to judge how much of it he took in and understood.

Bear has discovered a love of colouring that he didn't have before, going from scribbling across the page one minute, to beautifully neat and in the lines the next (literally, from one page to the next in the colouring book while I was cooking tea one night) - and since then has regularly chosen colouring when before he would actively avoid it...

We will pick up the intentional learning again in January, but until then, his number and letter recognition is coming from real life situation, like being out and about, writing Christmas cards and his letter to Santa, which he wrote his name for, and in play, which is more than enough.

Momma Bear x