May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

Yesterday I should have been at the last session of the family learning at the  school where we were meant to be finishing our story sacks and talking about them with the group.  But due to lil man being in hospital I wasn't there, but my story sack is now finished.

Pirates Love Underpants Story Sack was made by me, if you follow my blog you will have seen bits over the past 5weeks that I was making to go in it.  Here is a picture of the finished thing with everything and I will add pics and descriptions of other bits below.

First off was the sack, we were given plain canvas sacks and told we could decorate them how we liked.  A lot of the people in the group did them to the book they were putting in it, I decided to do it as a general sack so we could change the contents.  More info on my sack can be found here and here

My main story book for the sack was of the "pirates love underpants", my son already had dinosaurs and aliens and likes them and he likes pirates so this seemed a good choice.  As part of a story sack we were told that the sack has to have a "fiction/fact" book, so I bought the 100 facts on pirates shown above, this was much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

I  made a little "work book" linked to the story and laminated the pages so that they can be used again and again.  I have included white board pens and hi-lighter pens that rub off and a board rubber in a pencil case.

My son  asked if we could have a monkey like in the book, and brought me his toy one from upstairs.  This was ok but the monkey in the book had pants on, I asked my friend to make me a pair of knitted pants for him.  Her first attempt didn't work and we ended up with a monkey "mooning" us, which was quite funny.

My friend had them back (after I embarrssed her on facebook with the "mooning monkey") and re-made them so they fit him better.  I was very grateful as I can't knit. They did look good once done.  I added a gold earing to his right ear, and made him a banana to go in his hand.  (Banana instructions are here.)

I made a Pirate and a Parrot hand puppet to go in it.  The parrot was a "wash mit/flannel" bought off ebay, but was green.  The parrot in the book was red, so I glued red feathers all over its back and wings and made it a tail.  I also made it a pair of underpants like in the book.  My boys didn't know about the parrot as I didn't make a post or tell them I had bought it.

I made a Golden Pants Trophy  like the pirates are hunting for in the book.  My boys thought it was really good.

I bought the dvd "So you want to be a Pirate" and added it to the bag, it's only 18minutes long but tells you things you need to do to be a pirate etc.  I didn't realise it was so short I thought it was a proper film.

I bought a travel version of the traditional game pop up pirate and I made a set of  matching pairs underpants cards.  When they were printed you could see the pants through the paper so I made a sheet the same size as the cards using the cover of the book, cut them out and put on the back of pictures of pants and then laminated and cut out.  Now you can't see which pants are which.  I printed out a mini instruction card and placed them all in a small drawstring bag.

Last week at the family learning I was given a small wooden treasure chest which I decorated and added gems and coins to.  This was also meant to be a suprise for the bag, but I forgot to put it up before the boys came home from school so they saw it.

Lastly I added a (brand new) pair of boxer shorts (Aldi had packs of 3 reduced to £1.49 and they are next size up for my eldest son but now only has 2 pairs) and an eye patch so that my son(s) can dress as a pirate in underpants when we read and re-tell the story with the props.

Here's my lil man as a pirate in underpants with the parrot puppet.

I really enjoyed this course at the school it has been good fun and my kids like their story sack.  Hopefully I will be able to make a different one (or 2) so that we can change them round from time to time.  They want to put it in the car.

May 15th 2015 - Making a banana

May 15th 2015 - making a banana

In my story sack for family learning I have a monkey.  In the book the monkey is eating a banana, so my son said that his monkey needs 1, so I found an idea to make a banana.  The 1 I found is made from felt, of which I don't have have the right colours, so I decided to make 1 from fabric.

I pinned yellow and white material together and cut out a sort of banana shape, I am stitching the 2 pieces of material together to make both the inside and outside of banana skin.  I have also made a white dome from 3 pieces of material to be the actual banana.  I am going to stuff it and stitch it all together.

May 14th 2015 - Pirate Treasure Chest

May 14th 2015 - Pirate Treasure Chest

Yesterday at family learning at the school I was given a wooden treasure chest to use as part of my story sack.  It was plain wood and not decorated.  I did the edges in a grey felt tip and coloured the box in brown.  When I got home I went over the grey with a silver sharpie pen and added "plank lines" with a darker brown sharpie.

I covered it all in clear nail varnish.  (maybe I should do a post 1 day of my many uses of nail varnish!!!)

I painted the inside of the box with a pale gold nail varnish and then added a gold glitter nail varnish over the top.

 I then added glitter/sparkle nail varnish to some gems left over from last years pirate party, and added them, a ring and various pirate coins to the treasure chest.

May 4th 2015 - Matching pairs game

May 4th 2015 - Matching pairs game

As part of my Story Sack for family learning I have made an Underpants matching pairs game.  The idea was from the link which is linked to the Aliens love underpants book.

Rather than using that 1 I went on the net and found loads of bright, colourful,patterned underpants and put them in a grid so that I can cut them out and laminate them.  I then realised that the images could be seen through the A4 white paper so I printed out the image from the cover of the book in the same size grid and stuck them to the back of the pants - making them non-visable.

There are a total of 24 pairs of underpants that I have made for the game, and they will be going in a mini bag to keep them safe and together.

May 2nd 2015 - Royal Baby and pirate hand hand puppet

May 2nd 2015 - Royal baby and pirate hand puppet

CONGRATULATIONS

I send my congratulations to Kate & William (and all their family) on the arrival of their baby daughter today, the new Princess.  I hope that all is well with Mum and baby.


Pirate Hand Puppet

As part of my story sack with the family learning we were told we had to make a puppet to go in the sack.  We were all given a plain white hand puppet like this:

which we could decorate how we liked as long as linked to our book.  Well as my book is about pirates in underpants I decided I would make the puppet as a pirate in underpants.  This was all well and good saying so but not as easy in practise.  I could have drawn the design in fabric pens but me being me this wasn't going to look good enough!  So I got material out of the cupboard and started cutting and stitching.

Here is the start of the pirate with his top on:

From here I made a bandana for his head and gave him some hair (flash hit the face part making him look yellow):

I then added denim from an old pair of jeans to make his trousers - this are at the side of where the pants are visible in 1st pic.  I didn't get a pic of this stage.  From here I made a pair of pants from grey skull material and stitched them over the top of his "jeans" so they look like pants are over top of them. 

I think he's pretty good and i'm really pleased with him so far.  Obviously he's not quite finished as still need to add his face and his eye patch.  Only thing i'm not happy with is his hands - they were a very pale peach pen but they have come out quite orange but nothing I can do about it sadly.

April 29th 2015 - Book Quotes

April 29th 2015 - Book Quotes

As part of the story sack for family learning I decided that I would add a Dr Seuss quote to the bag, which has been printed on t-shirt transfer paper for me to iron and and then the small book from felt with Book quotes on each page.

I hunted the net for ages trying to find some quotes that the kids would understand.  I choose the ones that are in the link (I made the pin of them).  Each quote has been written out in pencil on a small piece of material and I am back stitching the letters on each one.  This is taking longer than I thought it would but never mind, will look good when it's done and they are fixed to the felt book.

Here is 2 of the quotes - 1 drawn in pencil and the other that has been sewn

April 22nd 2015 - Family Learning Story sacks

April 22nd 2015 - Family Learning Story sacks

Family Learning at the school has started a new course today - Story sacks.  This envolves us parents making a story sack based on a book.

We sat and discussed ideas that we could put in 1 based on a story about night pirates and included things like a pirate hat and eye patch, treasure chest and treasure, story book, fact book, map, material for the sea, moon and stars, a boat or ship, pirate puppets/finger puppets, pirate toys etc.

By next wednesday we need to have a story book and some ideas of what we are going to include in it.  Having 2 children at the school that did the last course with me I have got to decide if i'm making 1 between them (but as different ages this could be hard), or if i'm going to make 2 which means that they may not be as good as just 1.

I think this course could turn out to be really good.

April 15th 2015 - Family Learning trip out

April 15th 2015 - Family Learning trip out

Today was the last day of the family learning and literacy course, and this meant we went on a day trip!  We all decided early on the course that we would go to Walby Farm Park which is just over an hour away from us.

The trip had been arranged and we had the full use of the school room there - this morning the kids all had some worksheets to fill out linked to the farm and stuff, we then went on a tour where the member of staff assigned to us told the kids all about the animals and their foods etc.  They all got to stroke a baby goat - was only 2 weeks old and made loads of noise when taken out of pen away from mum!  After this we went out to see the hens and ducks, the kids all got to stroke a hen and help collect the eggs from the pen, the member of staff went through all the different types of eggs we had collected and how long eggs take to hatch - 21days (I didn't know this).  We then carried on the tour and the kids all got to bottle feed a lamb - the farm has got over 25baby lambs so far and still some not born.  My boys thought this was great.  We washed hands, had dinner and then the kids were allowed to go and play (Walby has a huge indoor play area with slides and ball pools etc).  We went and stroked the rabbits and guinea pigs and watched the sheep racing (none of us backed the winning sheep).  Sadly we then had to head back to the coach to come home.

I did take loads of photos of the day, including the feeding of the lambs, but when I got home and went to upload them it told me the memory card was corrupted and needed to be formatted.  I'm really annoyed about this, hubby has even tried to see if he can salvage the pics but the programme he uses isn't even picking them up.

This was my 2nd visit to Walby and it is a great place, has things for everyone of all ages and stuff both inside and out.  Well worth a visit if your in the area.