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 20th 2015 - Sleep (or lack of)

May 20th 2015 - Sleep (or lack of)

Sleep is for the WEAK, but maybe it should be sleep for a WEEK!  This 1st pin for today about sums things up - sleep catch up at the weekend, for all that I missed during week.  And the 2nd pin for today sums up why I have had no sleep - Mothers and sleep.

I have spent the past 2 nights at the hospital with my youngest son.  He has slept ok, apart from waking in pain few times (which woke me).  Monday night the boy in the next bed kept crying he was in pain and woke me (his mum slept through it).  And last night the new boy in the ward and his dad were watching tv (very loudly) until nearly 11pm (had paid for movies), the dad then spent most of the night snoring (very loudly) and the boy had the tv on from just gone 5am again very loudly!  Add to this all the machines and bells going off all night, nurses coming and going to do temperature and pulse etc (with not much room between my fold out bed and sons bed) i kept getting woken up!

I am safely saying I will sleep tonight!

May 19th 2015 - Cumberland Infirmary

May 19th 2015 - Cumberland Infirmary

Although Cumberland Infirmary has been added to my board of places to visit this wasn't actually somewhere I wanted to visit but ended up visiting!!!

My youngest son was taken by ambulance with "blues n twos" from where we live to the Cumberland Infirmary on Monday night due to suspected major problem and possible urgent surgery.  He thought this was a great adventure!  We spent from Monday evening through to Wednesday lunchtime at the hospital.  He had various tests done and all came back clear, which confused the staff as they have no idea of the cause of the swelling or what they were treating.  All they know is the swelling and pain wasn't normal and have been given him high anti-biotics and pain killers.

He has got to go for more tests on friday and hopefully these may give us an answer.  He has charmed all the nurses and has had fun except for the pain and being prodded n poked by staff (during examinations as they do!)  He has even started to make a "Story Sack" of his hospital trip and has put his wrist band, stickers, syringe, pulse ox etc in a bag and is going to make his own little story to go in it.  He has even taken a toy ambulance from our car and put in it!

I can't fault any of the staff, they were all very polite, friendly and helpful and made our stay as nice as they could.

May 18th 2015 - Bird book

May 18th 2015 - Bird book

Today has spent at the computer and printer!  I have made little Bird books similar to this pin but with extra pages for the Badgers to do on Wednesday as we are talking about birds as part of their Wild badge. 

I have included a garden bird survey, a colouring page, a wordseaarch, a missing letter in bird names sheet and some draw and write about the birds you have seen.

I thought I had got all the sheets in the right order for when printed to make a book - errrr no!  So me and hubby sat and cut the pages and stuck them to other folder bits of A4 paper to get them as they should be, I then opened out each page and moved my cut n paste worksheets to the right place.  Once this was done and re-printed they were as I hoped they should be.

I also printed off some news paper articles on animals and pets for the Cadets to use on Wednesday as part of their Animal Welfare badge.  At least this part was very easy to do!

May 17th 2015 - Plastic tub boat

May 17th 2015 - Plastic tub boat

Lil man has a plastic box outside (bigger than A4  and about 10cm deep) that he keeps all of his sand pit toys in, but it has no lid!  This means that the rain can get in it, this isn't a big problem as the sand pit toys are all plastic.

It has rained a fair bit over the past few days so there is loads of water in it.  Lil man has decided today to remove all the sand pit toys so that he has a boating lake for his toy boats (bath ones) and those for his toy soldiers. 

He had 1 toy soldier in each boat as thats all he could fit in.  I saw 1 of my small plastic tupperware tubs (margerine tub size) near the sand pit (no idea what its doing in the garden but never mind!)  So I got it and put it in the water, lil man was impressed it floats!  So I told him to put his soldiers in it and he said "but it will sink Mummy".  I told him to try it.  He puts 1 in and was happy it still floated, so I told him to put another in.  Again he was happy it still floated.

Anyway he turns round and says " I bet it would sink if I put 10 soldiers in it".  So I told him to try.  He ran indoors and fetched more soldiers and started putting them in the tub.  All I hear is "Mummy, it still floats with 10 soldiers in it, i'm going to add more" as he runs past me and upstairs.  He comes down with even more soldiers and goes back to his tub of water.

I go outside and see what he's up to and he now has 15 soldiers in the tub and it still floats!  The tub is full and he can't get anymore soldiers in it as they are pilled on top of each other.  He says "I know how to  make it sink......" and proceeds to fill the "boat" with water to make it sink. lol!

What he didn't realise was that his innocent playing was actually learning and numbers and science of floatation.  Play to learning and all through a tub of water,some boats and soldiers. All was good until he decided to see if his shoe would float and he took it off and put in the water - it didnt float and he now has a wet shoe!  BOYS will be BOYS!!!

May 16th 2015 - Whitehaven Home & Garden show

May 16th 2015 - Whitehaven Home & Garden show

Today we went up town to get son some new shoes as he keeps pulling his to bits and to go to the Home & Garden show at the harbour.

I know alot of work has gone into organising it, but there seemed to be more food stalls than anything sadly.  And of the stalls selling garden bits none of them were that cheap.  My youngest son had taken the money from his piggy bank in the hope of getting something for his fairy garden.  He saw some wooden "plant pot men" and asked if he had enough to get one, he didn't and he had £15! Plus some of the stalls were not open when we got there at 9:30am.

There was no money spent by me or my family today, but we did go for a walk around to try and support the local events.

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.