Real Life Reading

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Bud has been learning to read for a little while, but enthusiasm is starting to slide so when he showed interest in something I was reading I was delighted!  This gave us an opportunity to read something 'real'.

Simple Circuits for Kids

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Recently the boys have been showing an interest in how things work so I thought we'd test out making some simple circuits with them and whilst we were at it learn a bit about what materials conduct electricity.  This is what we did....

Crafting while learning phonics

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Champ is starting to learn his alphabet or more specifically we've started to look a bit at phonics.  Knowing Champ's great love of crafting a Speech Therapist recommended that we make a 'sounds book', here's what we did...

3 ways to play: Cotton Balls & Muffin Tin

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I recently baked some cotton balls like we did here, which makes them hard on the outside and soft in the centre, perfect for some muffin tin fun.  We played with them in a couple of different ways suitable for the boys different capabilities.

Cat in the Hat Story Sack & World Book Day Blog Hop

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We've recently got into reading Dr Seuss books and with World Book Day today I thought now is a great time to write about our Cat In The Hat Story Sack.  A story sack contains activities to help you read and engage with a story and I'm really pleased with the way our Cat In The Hat story sack has turned out.

Plus, if you've got your own book related craft, game or activity why not link up below in the World Book Day Blog Hop

Money Counting - A Fun Math Activity

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This fun maths activity was entirely Granny's idea so she has to take all the credit, although I have seen something similar at Kids Activities Blog.  

First of all Granny gave Bud a box of loose change, mostly one and two piece coins.  I gave Bud a piece of paper for each and we started to sort them.

Soon we had two heaped piles of coins.

So, next up we counted the coins.  We started counting the coins, but as Bud can't get too far beyond 20 we started to pile them into groups of 5 and then counted the piles.  We did the same for the two pence pieces and then I added them up.

I think Bud enjoyed this activity as he's since told me he wants to be a banker!

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Frost Writing

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I've been a bit jealous recently when I've seen lots of snow play from around the world, no snow here for us in our part of the UK - just the same old rain!! But, a few weeks ago we did get frost and made use of it with a bit of outdoor writing practise!

Yes frost writing is exactly that - writing in the frost.  

This is Champ testing out his writing skills on the frost of our car!  Novelty fun for him as it's not been frosty for ages and using your finger in frost is super chilly - little did he know he was practising his writing skills!

Yep, the whole car got covered, well at least the bits the boys could reach!

Just time for Hubby to get in on the action and make his mark too!  More secret sight word practise for Bud - oooh we are sneaky!

If you're enjoying winter weather I hope you're having fun, we will go back to splashing in puddles!!

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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! 

 

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Happy New Year!



Things to do with wrapping paper and kids

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If your house is anything like ours there is an abundance of wrapping paper about at the moment!  Once all the present wrapping is done this is a great crafting resource, here are a few ideas of things to do with kids and wrapping paper....

1 - Collage

I snipped up a small piece of wrapping paper and gave Champ a sheet of paper and glue stick and this is what he came up with.

2 - Create Patterns

Our wrapping paper had large and small snowflakes on it so I snipped a few up and created some simple patterns with blanks at the end.  Champ finished off the patterns with some more snowflakes.

3 - Giant Paper Drawings

This time we turned the paper over and got out the crayons for some drawing.  Aided now by Little Dude who's just starting to scribble.

Things then went a little crazy as when they got bored they tag teamed me and tore up the paper!

4 - Counting

Again using the patterns on the wrapping paper I cut out the paper in groups so that Champ could identify how many snowflakes there were on the different pieces and match them to the number.

5 - Paper Chains

A classic!  Looping strips of paper together we made paper chains, not very many as Champ got a bit bored as he found this a bit tricky doing it on his own, one to try again next year!

6 - Laminate

I laminated some different wrapping paper and we used it for a playdough mat.  You could also use this with dry erase pens.

7 - Contact Paper Collage

We used cut up cards for this contact paper collage, but you could use wrapping paper bits instead.

8 - Free Creation!

Champ has a bit of a thing for scissors and junk creations so why not add wrapping paper into the mix!  I gave him scissors, pens, scellotape, yarn, junk and let him get on with it.  This is what he created a kind of crane thing that he wound backwards and forwards to get the wrapping paper to go up and down - pretty clever I thought! 

9 - Wrap presents

If stuck for more things to do, you could always get the kids to work and wrap some presents!

I hope you've enjoyed this post, still looking for more things to do then check out my wrapping paper and baubles Pinterest board.  Or, keep up to date with posts by subscribing, liking facebook or hooking up on Google+ or Twitter.

Alphabet Rice

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I saw a great post on Nuturestore recently where they put sight words in Zingy rice (check it out to see what made it zing!).  We've done rice play before, but this time I added some alphabet letters and shape pictures to make it more interesting.

 

The rainbow rice is just dried rice coloured in a bag with food colouring, the letters I wrote onto paper and then laminated.  I set it up in a small tub with spoons and another container.

 

Champ got stuck in digging out the letters and shapes and I told him what they were as he fished them out.

 

Then I left him to it.  Scooping and pouring kept him busy for a good twenty minutes!

 

Then it progressively got messier!  Then he lost interest and a whole heap went on the floor!  Oh well, it was good while it lasted!

 

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Alphabet bowling

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With Bud now at school we have ventured into the world of slightly more learning orientated play!  Bud is learning his phonics and is doing great, but gets a few muddled up sometimes (d,b,p etc) so we've been doing a few alphabet games.

 

We had a load of squash bottles in the recycling so I taped letters to each, one on the front and one on the back.  Here they are lined up on the table.

 

 

Then I gave Bud a ball and asked him to roll the ball at each letter - 'find me an m?' etc

 

Once he'd got those letters sussed we turned the bottles round and worked on the ones on the other side.

 

We enjoyed this and have kept the bottles so we can do it again another day.

 

 

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