Leaf Play (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've been playing outdoors with kids this week then don't forget to link up your ideas below.  This week we've been playing with leaves!

Blackberry Splat Painting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome back!  It's another exciting Outdoor Play Party, if you've been outside with kids then please do link up your activity ideas below.  This week we've been taking advantage of the last few wild blackberries around and have done some berry splat painting!

Dragon Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've been outside playing with your kids this week then please do link up below.

This week we've been Dragon Hunting!  This activity was all Hubby's idea and involved catapults and colouring, this is what we got up to.....

Dinosaur Golf Tee Pick Up

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We've played with golf tees before (like when we bashed them into melons and then again into pumpkins), but the very first time we did this was almost a year ago and my son created his own special dinosaur twist on things.....

... I'd found an old box and pierced a few holes in it, added the golf tees and a plastic hammer.

Champ soon got to work pushing them in, hammering them, pulling them out and matching up the different colours.

Bud also got in on the action.

Then Bud had an idea, he got the dinosaur grabber (this one on Amazon is similar to ours if you don't know what I mean, it's got a long handle and pulling the handle opens and shuts the dinosaurs mouth) and started to pull the tees out with his mouth.

This kept him busy for ages, then we had races to see who could pull out the tees the quickest.  Not got a dinosaur?  I reckon tongs would work great too.

I hope you've enjoyed this post, make sure you don't miss a thing from Making Boys Men by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

Truffles - Easy no bake kids recipe

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I cook with the boys quite regularly, but don't often post about it.  Two reasons - how often do you really want to see my kids make cupcakes?  And, normally when cooking with little ones photos are very far from my mind!  But, this recipe is so kid friendly and so easy I thought it was worth sharing!

A friend shared this recipe with me after doing it with lots of kids at a camp, but I also found a similar recipe on Best Recipes.

First you crush 250g of biscuits (we used digestives).  I gave half a packet to each boys, put it in a zip lock and let them bash away with a rolling pin.

Then when the biscuits are like breadcrumbs I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder.  Then you pour in a tin of sweetened condensed milk (395g) and mix.  

The original recipe also mixed in desiccated coconut I skipped this as the boys don't really like it, but it does mean its worth adding a little less condensed milk than the whole tin else the truffles will be too sticky.

Then take a heaped teaspoonful of the mixture roll it into a ball then roll in more cocoa powder.  The cocoa was a bit too bitter for the boys so next time I'd swap this for icing sugar.

Here's the finished product, I put them into mini cake cases and cooled them in the fridge.  The boys who normally happily stick their hands in mud and goo found the mixture too messy and I ended up making most of the truffles!

But, they happily ate them!

I hope you enjoyed this post, make sure you don't miss another by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

Top 10 Posts of 2012

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Making Boys Men began in April 2012 with my very first post Fun with Jelly.  Nearly 100 posts later and it's 2013!  I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing with you the fun that the boys and I get up to so here's a reminder of our most popular posts in 2012 in reverse order.....

 

 

 

10 - Things to do with acorns and kids.  Some very cute and colourful ideas in this post and lots of glitter!

 

9 - Magnetic advent Christmas tree.  A lot of cutting in front of the TV to make this magnetic advent tree for the kids, but I had fun!

 

8 - Things to do with pinecones and kids.  A little bit of craft, a bit of learning, quite a bit of outdoors and a bit nature - that's quite a lot for a few pinecones!

 

7 - Spaghetti painting.  A personal fave, but very messy and the reason this posts has a three splat rating - be warned!!

 

6 - Using Kids Art for Christmas Cards.  I venture into the adult world of craft and manage to find a use for all those splatty paintings that only a mother can love!

 

5 - Outdoor number hunt.  A great get outside activity and a way to learn your numbers at the same time.

 

4 - 3 Craft stick busy bags.  Oh how we love busy bags!  I just cleared some out today so expect some new ideas in 2013.

 

3 - Things to do with foil and kids.  Obviously I'm biased, but there's 11 things to do with foil in this post, which I think means there's something for every kid whatever their interests!

 

2 - 3 busy bags with clothes pegs (pins).  Some fun learning ones in this set of busy bag ideas.

 

And finally the post that out runs them all thanks to A LOT of repins on Pinterest...... Bashing baked cotton balls!

 

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed reading Making Boys Men in 2012 and are looking forward to more fun in 2013, expect lots more crafts, outdoor play, busy bags and more 'things to do with' ideas! 

 

Make sure you don't miss a thing by subscribing or checking us out on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and of course Pinterest.

 

Happy New Year!



Hammering and Weaving Christmas Shapes

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With family visiting we took advantage of my Dad's building skills by teaching the boys a bit of hammering and to make it Christmassy a little festive weaving too.

I started by stacking up six pieces of squarish cardboard.

 

 

To keep the cardboard in place I wrapped it up with brown paper and marked out a Christmas tree on one stack and a star on the other.  Then I added a bowl of nails, a toy hammer and some yarn.

 

Then we hammered the nails into place with a bit of practice with the real hammer too.

 

Once all the nails were hammered in we set about winding the yarn around the nails to create the festive shapes.

 

This is what the Christmas tree looked like.

 

And, here's the star.

I hope you've enjoyed this post, if you have why not check out our Pinterest board. Or, keep up to date with posts by subscribing, liking facebook or hooking up on Google+ or Twitter.  Hope to see you again soon!

Things to do with foil and kids

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We are still really enjoying our 'Things to do with' series, this week..... foil!

1 - Foil Painting
There's lots of painting on foil posts out there my favourite being from Picklebums.  Foil painting is exactly that - you paint on foil, not rocket science, but something a bit different and it creates a nice effect that's different to paper.

Here are the results:

2 - Cutting

Yep, you guessed it we got the scissors out and snipped up the foil!  Again a bit different from paper, so a twist on a classic!

3 - Wrap up your toys

I'm not sure why this appealed so much, but the boys thought this was awesome.  We literally wrapped them up, but you could do some secretly and get kids to guess what's underneath as well.

4 - Shoot hoops

Left over from a mask making craft I had a paper plate with the centre cut out so we covered it in foil....

... we scrunched up some foil and started using the hoop for target practise.

5 - Foil Boats

We did this a while ago using a foil container, but you could make your own out of foil like they did at Mama Smiles

6 - Superhero escape

This is a terrible picture, but was awesome fun!  Basically I wrapped the boys in foil so their arms were tucked in and then we'd count down and they'd explode out!!  A waste of foil, but great, great fun!

7 - Treasure hunt

Nice and shiny, balls of foil make for an excellent treasure hunt - perfect for some outdoor play

8 - Karate chopping

Reusing the foil from our superhero escapes we then started karate chopping.  The boys thought this was amazing, it made a huge mess with bits of foil everywhere, but was worth it.  Basically we held bits of foil for each other then karate chopped it - what's not to love!

9 - Paint mark making

Another way to paint check out our mark making on foil

10 - Solar Oven

I don't think we'd manage this one now as I don't think I've seen the sun for days!  But, if you do have sunshine you could make a solar oven

11 - Glue gun art

This was my favourite of all our activities and definitely gave me some 'cool Mum' points with my boys!  First, under strict supervision I let the boys use the glue gun to create patterns on card.

When the glue was dry I used a glue stick on the foil then stuck this down to the glued card.  I folded the edges so you end up with your raised glue from the glue gun under the foil.  Then take a shoe brush and brush the foil down around the raised glue.

This creates an awesome effect!  Check out my foil Pinterest board to see really gorgeous results others have created.  Plus, come back tomorrow to see how we used this effect to make some super easy Christmas decorations.

Liked this?  Then why not like our Facebook page or check out some of our other 'Things to do with posts' - pumpkins, acorns, more acorns,  odd socks, pinecones, chestnuts, more chestnuts and carrots.