Tots 100 Learning Through Play

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Zu3D – Learning Through Play in the Early Years

For this month’s Tots 100 Blog Hop I am submitting the post above. It tells how animation and Zu3D software in particular can be used throughout the early years curriculum to encourage and enhance learning through play. Animation can be seen as digital role play for children of all ages and is a great way of using technology with small children. It is easy to do at home as well as at school. It fosters sharing, team work, speaking and listening skills.

This month’s Tots 100 Blog Hop is being sponsored by MEGA Bloks. These kits would make great animation models providing children with characters and props for their stories and even plot ideas.

To find more ideas to help children learn through play, hop on over to Tots 100 to read the other entries in this month’s Blog Hop.

And please don’t forget to read the post I have chosen to submit this month:

Zu3D – Learning Through Play in the Early Years

Answers on a Postcard Please!

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Well, this is a new one for me.

It is 4.30am and I have given up trying to get any sleep and come downstairs with Esther.

I went to bed nice and early last night as I know that sleep deprivation is really starting to take its toll on me. I am becoming very grumpy and emotional and I am worried that when my Mum leaves this time next week I am going to struggle to cope on my own again.

Not sure why Esther can’t sleep?

But here we are, 4.30am, in the lounge. Esther playing on her gym and me tapping on my laptop, waiting for the kettle so that I can have a cup of tea. Herbal. I have given up the good stuff for Lent! Bad idea! And biscuits. Supposedly on a diet but needs must!

So anyway, after having this early night I was woken for feeds at 11pm, 12am, 2,40am and I have not been back to sleep since!

I think my total sleep is somewhere in the region of two hours!

William and David are now sleeping soundly. And I just do not know what to do with my wired little girl, or with this problem long term.

Esther and William are 7.5 months old and I am still up every 90 minutes on average at night feeding one or both of them. I feel like I am never going to ever sleep for longer than this again.

They are being weaned now and eat 3 meals, albeit small meals, a day on top of their considerable milk intake.

I don’t think that it is hunger keeping them up at night.

So comfort, or habit?

What do we do to break the cycle? If that is what it is.

David wants me to go away and stay in a hotel for a night, leaving him to feed both babies for a night, even though William has always refused a bottle. He says he will manage with a cup or a syringe.

I am sure that cannot be the answer, short or long term.

Answers on a postcard please. Or in the comments below will do.

Kettle’s boiled.

A Wonderful Week of Cheer!

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I have had a lovely week this week and have much to cheer about. So here I am to share it with you and Michelle at Mummy from the Heart who always inspires and encourages so many of us to share our positivity and cheer. Thank you.

Reasons to be Cheerful at Mummy From the Heart

Esther and William have finally met all of their cousins!
On Sunday it was David’s Mum’s birthday and to celebrate her special day she really wanted to have all six of her grandchildren together for the first time. This had not happened before as one is only a couple of weeks old and we have been out of circulation through the winter. But on Sunday we were all together for a few hours and it really was rather special. Seeing Esther and William begin to interact with their extended family was quite emotional. Their almost 5 year old cousin kept stroking them which was very sweet. William in particular was avidly watching the boys playing and seemed keen to get involved and have a go. The Henley family are a very close family so Esther and William will grow up with these cousins around them. They are very lucky and I think their first meeting bodes well for adventures in the future.

I have had a great week out and about with my Mum
I was rather apprehensive about having my Mother here for any length of time but it is the end of the second week and things seem to be going well. We are enjoying each other’s company, she is looking after David and I, and the house, so that David can focus on work and I can focus on Esther and William. She is being great. Mum is also getting to know her grandchildren better and watching their enjoyment of her is a wonderful reason to be cheerful. As she lives in Spain she will not see her grandchildren all the time so periods such as this are extra special. Love you Mum x

Weaning is going well and the babies are enjoying lots of different foods
Esther and William are loving exploring new foods and this week have even been negotiating lumps!! They love mango and papaya and all fruits. Esther sucks slivers of mango from my fingers as she cannot quite grip them herself. They have eaten broccoli, cauliflower, lentils, sweet potato, cucumber. They are having lots of first tastes and seem to welcome them all. Feeding them is such fun and they get so messy as they try to help with the spoon or the pots. What a great stage of babyhood this is. Makes me smile.

To see what is making others smile this week, hop on over to Mummy from the Heart and perhaps share your reasons to be cheerful too x

Sweets for my Sweet

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For this week’s Listography we are creating a selection box of treats. We have been asked to pick and mix and share our favourite retro sweets.

Sweets make me think of England. As a young child I lived with my parents in Cyprus and as an older child in Germany. In these countries sweets were just not the same!! Every time my Grandparents visited us in our homes abroad they would come laden with penny sweets. They did not want us to be deprived of such wonders as flying saucers, sherbert dips, fruit salads and black jacks. I loved it when they came to stay bringing their multi coloured, sugar coated booty with them.

What I looked forward to even more than that though was returning home to England and visiting the corner shop where I could select certain treasures by myself. How wonderful it felt to walk to the shop, gipping my pennies to exhange for such wonders as gobstoppers and bons bons, toffees and chocs. I loved taking the small white paper bag and filling it to bursting with sticky, sugary delights. And such marvellous things sweets were, you could almost make a whole meal from shrimps and mushrooms and eggs. You could even buy sugary false teeth to eat them with, and a sherbert drink to be sipped through a liquorice straw. Pure heaven!

How I have so few fillings I will never know! As a child of the 70s and 80s the penny sweets were a highlight of my younger, so much more innocent days.

Here are my top 5 childhood sugar fixes:

Fizzy cola bottles and Kola Kubes
These would always be my first choice. I loved to suck all the sugar and fizz from them before beginning to chew.

Milk bottles
These I loved! Chewy milky treats!

White chocolate mice
How I used to love these. Little white chocolate rodents. Yum yum!

Liquorice wheels
I used to unravel these before sucking them up like spaghetti.

Candy peanuts and peanut brittle
More of my favourite naughty treats. So full of sugar, so bad bad bad for your teeth but good good good for your soul!

What a wonderful listography this is! I can actually taste each sweet as I write about them. My mouth is watering and I want to be 7 years old again, when making decisions and choices meant what sweet to eat and nothing more sinister or serious than that. Not a care in the world except perhaps tooth decay! Wonderful memories, the sweetest of reminisces!

Very recently when I think of sweets they immediately make me think of Stephen Fry. I have been listening to his autobiography on CD in the car and his voice is such a delight to listen to. He has such a wonderful way with words and a voice I could listen to forever, soothing and just a little naughty, or perhaps that’s just me!

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/stephen-frys-sweet-tooth-15034087.html

http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/little_crackers/episodes/1/5/

If you have not yet read Stephen Fry’s The Fry Chronicles I can really recommend it as a great read. Perhaps you could grab a bag of your favourite sweets to suck and chew whilst you peruse the pages. If you need inspiration for which sweet treats to choose then hop on over to Kate Takes 5 and feast your eyes on the lists to be found there.

Flashback Friday – Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage!

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This Friday I have chosen to reflect on my acting career – amateur dramatics that is.

I started performing when I was 6 years old in school nativities and local pantomimes and I continued into my thirties playing lots of fantastic roles, mostly in musicals and one act plays.

I studied drama at school to GCSE level and also completed A-Level Theatre Studies.

I share my love of theatre and acting with many of my friends and my fiance David.

I really do love acting and singing and directing and hope that at least one of my children will inherit the theatre bug from me.

Today I have been remembering good times and good friends made in theatres across Europe.

I have been recalling Little Shop of Horrors and playing Audrey, Dulcie in The Boyfriend, Mrs Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank, many principle boy and girl parts in panto and much more.

I have been reliving my roles and singing all the songs for I still know all the words.

There is no business like show business even when the show is an amateur one!

Weekend Rewind – September

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Rewind to September 2010


September is a great month for us. It is my birthday, my sister’s birthday and will also be our wedding anniversary after our wedding this September!! It is also the month in which Esther and William finally came home from NICU last year.

The post I have chosen to share for this week’s Rewind was written in September 2010 whilst the babies were still in hospital.

It is a letter to them from me.

Dear Esther and William

Great Big Ants in Your Pants!

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After what can only be described as a horrible morning and early afternoon, our late afternoon was saved by reading books.

Part of my over tired, over emotional state led to me feeling a little jealous of my Mum. Stupid, I know! She is staying with us at the moment to help with the babies. Because she always gets a good night’s sleep she is so full of energy to play with Esther and William while I can barely speak out loud I am so shattered. I pathetically got to thinking that Esther and William might prefer being with her than with me! She is just so loud and so much fun!

Anyway, William was playing with my Mum when I sat down with Esther to read a book. As I started reading aloud William stopped playing and with the saddest face looked over to where we were and listened to the story too. That tiny moment, that one loving look just melted my heart. He continued to listen to the story, never not watching, from the other side of the room. When I finished reading to Esther I read to William too, the same story and one other. It was such a special time, reading with my son and daughter, that it totally made up for the rest of the day. It also made me realise that no matter what, only I will ever be their Mummy, and that counts for a LOT!!

I would like to share with you now, the books that made it all better.

Tell Me What It’s Like To Be Big by Joyce Dunbar
This is a lovely story about a little girl who wants to be bigger. When her brother tells her of all the things she might do when she is grown the little girl realises that perhaps she would rather stay small after all. A lovely tale about growing up with a subtle message of not growing up too fast. This was beautiful to read as a mother snuggled up to a son and daughter who are growing and changing every day.

Ants in Your Pants by Julia Jarman and Guy Parker-Rees
This is a fun book for reading out loud. It is written with great rhythm and rhyme. The characters are very funny and the pictures are bright and colourful. This is one that can be shared over and over again and every time you will notice something new. A great funny book full of knickers to make you giggle!