Summer Solstice 2024

Summer! I live for the warmer weather... I'm waiting on my refund for this year though, because it's been shocking so far!

We started off our morning with our Summer box from The Adventure Gang so that Bear could wear his new shirt for the adventure we had planned! The box was pirate-themed and Bear was all in - he loved the shirt and wanted to have a go with everything despite knowing we were on our way out.

We had plans with our little home-ed toddler group for an adventure in Sherwood Pines to go looking for the Gruffalo! I packed us a picnic, threw in a summer book, and off we went...

The summer weather did us a solid and came out to play, meaning that we actually got to celebrate the solstice with the sunshine! It was lovely to spend some time with other home-ed families at the same stage of their journeys, and in a setting that gave us the opportunity to chat and get to know one another as usually it's somewhere for a paid for activity that keeps us busy.

We met up with our home ed besties, ph, who am I kidding... they're all-round besties now, not just our home ed ones, and a few other families that we either had only met briefly or not met yet at all. The kids all ran riot on the playground and gave us chance to talk for a while, then we headed out on the Gruffalo Trail in search of Mouse and all the other forest friends. 

Bear was happy getting to know the other children as well as spending time with his little bestie, The Cub loved the freedom to explore and meet new people. They both ended up filthy, just as kids should be, and by the time lunchtime came around, were more than ready for the picnic.

We ended up sat on our own for our lunch as Bear wanted to sit on the grass somewhere on our big rainbow blanket, whereas the others headed back for the play area. I had no issues with his choices as I'd rather them concentrate on their lunch without the distraction of the playground.

We had our picnic, read our Summer book, (check out my Book Recommendations page for my go-to books) and had a little time to ourselves before heading back to the playground to find the others.

The kids had loads more time to just play, and slowly, families headed home until there was just us and our besties left. We went for ice cream and stuck it out a little while longer until we all had to leave to head home for some tea. A day well spent, thoroughly enjoyed and plenty of memories made!

We didn't get around to our scavenger hunt like we'd normally do, looking out for signs of the season as I'd made it up with typical 'summer' nature finds before we made plans to be in Sherwood Pines, and once there it became apparent that we weren't going to find most of what was on the list. It wasn't particularly missed as the boys had so many friends to play with and so much to do.

Bear, The Cub and I will do our scavenger hunt another time, somewhere that the flowers etc are more likely to be growing!

What did you do for the Summer Solstice this year?

Momma Bear x

May Focus Title

Colours, Colours Everywhere by Julia Donaldson

A stunning book to encourage creativity, bursting with colourful landscapes to
stimulate the imagination.

Follow a little girl in Colours, Colours Everywhere as she paints her own adventure with her bright blue tree frog companion. With luscious green trees to climb and red hot air balloons to sail away in, young children will delight in the rhyming story and vibrant artwork while learning about different colours.

*Description and image taken from waterstones.com - no copyright intended.*

I chose this one from the display at work - Julia Donaldson is a firm favourite in our house, with the likes of The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and Tabby McTat being regular picks from the bookshelf, along with her lift-the-flap series, Tales from Acorn Wood, which they have at Nannie's house. So, when I saw this, I couldn't resist!

I set it up in our story basket with their coloured play silks, of which, for full disclosure, never made it out of that basket all month! Meh, you win some, you lose some... At least they loved the book!

With a lovely story, beautiful illustrations, and flaps to lift on every page, this one was a hit with both boys and has been picked up by them both on numerous occasions to be read. I've even found Bear sitting looking through it a couple of times on his own.

The Cub is starting to show an interest in more and more every day, so I chose this one to include a topic that he could take part in, and many of his toy rotations over the course of the month have been colour-related, including sorting activities, single colour sensory tubs and toys designed for this purpose. Bear already knows his colours, but loved the exploration of what you could paint, so we cracked out the watercolours one afternoon in the garden and both boys enjoyed exploring the colours in that way.

Bear and I had another go with the paints the following week where I encouraged him to think about what he was painting with the colours like the little girl in the story did, which went great for the first few colours, and then he made a mistake and used the wrong colour and all was lost from there. He started another painting, but didn't want to do it as a story, which was fine. He loves painting and I really need to get them out more - maybe the garden is my way forward; less mess to worry about!

When it came to writing his book review for Colours, Colours Everywhere, he gave it four stars, because, "I liked it a very lot, just not five stars!" And I couldn't argue with that!

Moving forward, the Waterstones store where I work has started doing a picture book of the month, so unless there is one that I don't particularly like, or I don't think I can plan activities around, I will be using this in the future, however, June's book is Colours, Colours Everywhere, so I have chosen something else as we have only just done that one!

All the Things We Carry by Helen Docherty is due out on the 4th of July and can be pre-ordered via this link - however, one of the perks of being a bookseller is that we can get copies of books pre-publication, and I happen to have this one, which is a lovely story with an important message about the love that we carry for one another in our hearts.

Have you read any Julia Donaldson books? Which is your favourite?

Mama Bear x

May Recap

 May in a nutshell...

I struggled to choose which pictures to include for everything this month, we seem to have done so much now that the weather has finally decided to pick up a little!

We made it back to Forest Tots at the start of the month and investigated Spring, took an afternoon walk and a tea time picnic to Rother Valley to see a friend, enjoyed a fantastic day out with home ed friends to celebrate some birthdays and took a trip to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park where we discovered a small corner of the park that we didn't know was there! Both boys went to Grimm & Co's Curiouser & Curiouser session to celebrate World Bee Day, visited Aunty Sammy at her school fair where we got to meet some animals, including a snake which Bear was very brave and held on his knee - The Cub wasn't so sure! We made it out to the caravan where we finally made it down to the beach to do some treasure hunting and found lots of sea glass, including some coloured glass which we don't normally see. Back home we met Michael Rosen and had our books signed, visited the bookshop for Elmer Day and then finished the month off in Scotland for a mini holiday visiting a friend of mine which included a stop at The Angel of the North on the way up and a visit to the Kelpies while there, amongst so much more! I feel there will probably be a separate post incoming for our adventure there...

On top of all those adventures, there was all the time spent outside, in the garden and other places like the skate park and seaside knocking our 1000 hours outside challenge total to over 250 hours this year! 

Both boys love being outside, so spending time in the garden is pretty much a daily event - if the weather is appropriate, they are out there in their pyjamas and bare feet first thing in a morning, they eat out there, they head straight out there when we get back from being out, they go out there after their tea... every opportunity, and I love that once out there, it can be hard to get them back inside. They have multiple "toys" out there, including a mud-kitchen, a tuff tray, bikes/scooters etc, but honestly, the spend most of their time playing with water... water pistols, spray bottles, water on the tuff tray to float things on or play with plastic animals etc. We also have a large area with pebbles on, which are looking a little thin in the ground these days because they're played with so much and moved around.

They are tons easier to occupy when outside than inside, despite the numerous toys they have to play with inside. Their imaginations seem to be much more free when playing outdoors!

Learning during May saw our second This Bear Can Read box arrive, which was based around the theme of shapes. Bear knows several of his 2D shapes already, but learned a few new ones through the books included, and was introduced to 3D shapes which saw us getting out his seldom-used building blocks to investigate. Continuing his recognition of numbers, i chalked them onto the wall outside so that he could squirt them with his water pistol. The first time it was me shouting out the numbers for him to fire at, but since then I have seen him doing it himself and saying the numbers, or doing them in order, and telling his brother which ones to aim for. We also had hopscotch on the drive for a while, which he absolutely loved!

I dug out his alphablock tiles to do some upper and lower case matching and he could do nearly all of them with very little assistance, proving that I am working too slowly for him in some ways as I have been focussing on just the start of the alphabet, and meanwhile, he's learned the rest from his toys! He has a VTech Playtime Bus which he regularly still plays with, but I didn;t realise he was taking in so much from it. We also found a setting on it one day that I had no idea existed which asks him questions and he has to press the right button to answer, looking at phonics, letter names and numbers. He was ace at it!

Whilst looking for toy cars in the charity shop as a reward for good behaviour, we also picked up a bargain - a Chad Valley PlaySmart Phonics Board for just £3 and it is epic! It has so many settings, all geared up for learning the alphabet, phonics, numbers and basic maths skills. There are multiple settings including a question-and-answer one that Bear did amazingly at, showing off just how much he already knows. I was so proud of him!

Our leaning during May also included more investigation into Spring, and we completed our nature journal page after visiting the same tree and taking some photos, talking about what it looked like and how it was different from Autumn and Winter, and used our stickers from our Spring Adventure Gang Box and some washi-tape that I dug out of an old crafting box.

Our focus title for May was Colours, Colours Everywhere by Julia Donaldson, which was a hit with the boys... more on that in a separate post though.

What did you get up to during May?

Mama Bear x