Planning Play

As all the mums and dads out there will know, it's tricky to plan things with toddlers. They have their own minds, after all, and don't always what to do what we think they will enjoy or what we think they should do.

However, each week after reading what Harry does with the childminder on a Thursday morning I have found myself feeling a bit wistful that we don't manage to complete that much when we are at home. So I am planning a little experiment. By no means am I going to be removing Harry's 'free play' time, but I am going to try to make an activity open to him each afternoon that we might not otherwise have done. For example, Harry almost never instigates creative/messy play - by which I mean he is very unlikely to ever ask to do colouring, painting, play dough etc. However, as much as he loves his cars, by the end of the afternoon he does sometimes seem to reach saturation and ask for the TV on.

So, this week I am going to just think a little ahead and make sure I am prepared for a good play session straight after nap time. We are going to go for a dinosaur theme as Harry has really been into his 'Harry and the Dinosaurs' books recently:

Monday -  am: Daddy is on holiday - Soft play. pm: Track-making with cars and paint (or Daddy's choice).
Tuesday - am: Cousin Isla coming to play. pm: Playdough and dinosaurs.
Wednesday - am: Toddler group at Children's Centre. pm: Dinosaur sticking/colouring activity.
Thursday - am: Childminder. pm: Dinosaur swamp cakes (with green colouring!)
Friday - am: Messy Play Group. pm: Active play - stomp like a dinosaur! I plan to make a cushion fort/forest/swamp in his bedroom with all the blankets and pillows in the house.

Do you plan your child's play? Does it work? What do you think of my ideas? I hope to feed back to you next week how we got on!

Learning Through Play - the holiday edition

I just found this post hanging around in my draft folder, and thought I would share it with you all anyway! I think I was waiting for a picture, but haven't got around to it!

It is amazing how much toddlers can learn just from playing and experiencing the world around them. This doesn't have to be a planned, scheduled activity -although we do try to fit in a few of those each week. Most of the time we just go with whatever we are doing and I fit in whatever we are working towards.

Harry is just learning to count, so that it something we spend a lot of time on at the moment. Most frequently, of course, we count the vehicles we see as that is Harry's favourite thing! At the moment we re also working on Harry's sensory play as he has always been extremely reluctant to get wet or dirty. It has been a little disappointing on holiday to be met with firm rebuttals whenever we suggest a dip in the pool or sea (although he does like sandcastles, so that is progress!)

Yesterday we bought a cheap paddling pool and I filled it and left it in the sun to warm up during nap time. I was hoping to entice Harry in, but no such luck. However, I did manage to get him to splash his hands and by fetching a plastic mug and a bucket we had a great time learning about weight and volume, as well as practising our counting! We learned that 11 cups is lots and lots of water - nearly filling the bucket- and that Harry can carry 6 cups of water in the bucket, even though it was much heavier that 2!

We had a lot of fun, and it really did remind me that 2 year olds really do learn so much every single day!

Super Tasty Healthy Muffins!

After my exertions for our Hallow'een party I was rather butter-creamed out (I know, I can hardly believe it myself!) and my usual sweet vanilla cupcakes were not really inspiring me to bake - I also had a friend around who recently commented that her little girl was 'getting a sweet tooth', which left me thinking about how my baking habits might be affecting my lovely little man, who is always extremely appreciative of my efforts (unless they are savoury - see Pizza Pinwheels as an example!). So this week I decided to go for something a little more healthy. I had some bargain bananas bought for us by my sister when she was visiting that needed using up, so I adjusted a recipe for banana and white chocolate muffins that I found in my trusty Baking Magic cookbook - I really recommend this book for anyone wanting to bake cakes and cookies!

Here is my recipe:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal flour (you can just use 2 cups plain if you prefer)
1 tbsp baking powder (yes, tablespoon!)
2/3 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sunflower oil
3 small ripe bananas
handful of fresh berries - I used raspberries and blueberries

Preheat oven to 200 centigrade. Grease/line muffin tray.

Combine the flour and baking powder and sift. This is really important!

In a separate bowl (I did this in the KitchenAid) combine sugar, milk, egg, oil and bananas. Mix in the berries.

Stir together until just combined. DO NOT OVER MIX! A rubber spatula is best for folding in econmically and quickly. You need to keep in the sifted air from your flour.

Spoon big dollops into the pan. Don't worry about being tidy, these aren't delicate little cupcakes, they are big, floury, airy muffins.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Yum. Great for breakfast!

Cakes

Another of our favourite activities is to make cakes - this is a dual purpose activity - we can make them AND eat them! Harry particularly likes using the new 'cement mixer' - KitchenAid. Let's hope he doesn't try to make actual cement in it :-/

First there is the measuring. I like to use recipes in cups because I think it's a little easier to understand. Harry can read all of his numbers up to 12 so he can help to read the recipe now which is lovely. He's not that dextrous at getting things into the bowl though, as you can see from the picture...

 

I did have a picture here of Harry licking the paddle (another key part of cake baking, I'm sure you all agree) but being the camera novice I am I couldn't figure out how to rotate it!

Once the cakes are in the oven, it's time to do some washing up...

...and to clean down the side. I'll be honest, I had to do it again after he'd finished, but he did a good job for a 2 year old and it kept him busy for the 10 minutes they were cooking!

Finally time to scoff a cake (and gloat at the baby who isn't allowed one...)