Summer is here!

The last few months seemed to have passed us by a little, but thankfully summer is in full swing. We have been in the process of a complicated house move where everything possible seems to have gone wrong. However life goes on and after a few stressful weeks we are back on track, despite still living in our tiny flat, we are making the most of it.

Building sandcastles with his friend

I am thankful for where we live, having the option to up and just go and sit on the beach has saved us many times from fed up children. We appreciate the beach is not for everyone, as we have not always enjoyed it. A turning point for us was learning each persons tolerance, for example we know mum dislikes having sand on her hands. To combat mums intolerance we take out wipes a small towel and a spare bottle of water. Eagle really really ‘hates’ having mud on his hands (you know the kind of mud he has to go out of his way to get there. The kind of mud that without the sea is a nightmare to get off) … well we learnt to read a tide timetable for this reason. Now of course he absolutley loves swimming in the sea and his fearlessness is inspiring. Dove gets upset and grumpy when it is too hot, so we do try our best to go during cooler times and Dad just wants to get a tan but of course we live in England!

Despite some of these quirky stressors we always have a great time, we are great believers in the more you do something the easier it becomes and now we would not want to live any where else, (except if you ask Dad, he would say we are moving to Canada).

Happy beach days to all and may we all increase our tolerance for things! ⛱️

Mud Fun!

Who doesn’t love getting super messy?

The kids just had so much fun with a messy day at the beach …

Mud Beach Fun

We originally went to see the sunset after having a lazy day inside. After about half an hour talking about the sunset and taking some beautiful photographs they walked out onto the mud. They were having the best time mud skating and falling over and I managed to get some beautiful and fun photography of them with big messy smiles.


Beautiful April Sunset


April brings some amazing opportunities and we always have the best time. It’s just warm enough to go for evening outings and not too hot to appreciate the afternoon beach and high tides make for awesome paddling.

I feel like there is so much around us to learn from, today we watched some young Sand Piper’s playing together in the evacuating tide.

Happy April!

LSF 🌅

Can you count? – Counting Nature

At first I found it took a lot of thinking to come up with small tasks to encourage and develop learning particularly maths. Then it occurred to me that numbers are everywhere.

We go for a walk almost every day, usually this is a short round the corner to the park, but we do try and get out for at least 30 minutes. Last week we came across a really big conifer tree right around the corner. Eagle began picking them up and I decided we should make it into a counting game, so we collected all the pinecones we could see and made a big pile.

Counting Pinecones

There are 15 pinecones here, although if you ask Eagle he will tell you there are 7. Seven seems to be his go to number, maybe his lucky number?

It is wonderful to watch him count and he can confidently count in order up to ten so maybe next time I wont overload him and keep it simple.

He enjoyed collecting and ordering the physical material and I really think this helped him to focus on the counting. We now try to find things we can count every time we are outside.


Counting Daffodils in Spring

We are very lucky to be surrounded with parks. Eagle is so gentle with the flowers and now he enjoys counting them too!

To extend this activity further we have been to the beach to collect rocks. I plan on presenting them as Montessori inspired shelf activities, counting, sorting, cleaning, ect. I think that bringing nature indoors can work wonderfully especially on days when it may be more difficult to get out.

Happy Counting guys!

LSF 🌱

In a galaxy far, far away …

Aren’t galaxies just stunning, I think they promote a feeling of wonder and for us they always lead to more questions than answers.

Dove is a child who just has all these ideas, that spring from the most unlikely places. However, this galaxy painting was inspired by a visit to an Astronomy evening and although it was cloudy we had a very exciting talk about how to get started with Astronomy.

She came home and insisted on painting …

Galactic painting session


She really comes up with these stunning ideas and I want to guide this creative love she has.

The painting was created with acrylics on watercolor paper, for the tiny white stars she added a small amount of water to white acrylic and used a fan brush which she flicked off the ends of her fingers.

I think it turned out to be a super effective galaxy painting so I framed it …

Framed!


LSF 👩‍🎨

Lego Carry-Along

When we need to go do boring adult things I often worry about how Eagle will cope. We have made loads of take-out activities but my favourite is this Lego one.

Lego carry-along


As he is just learning about regular sized Lego we opted to only use a small amount to not frustrate him but also so we don’t lose pieces.

The case was from a local shop but you could use any type of container, from a cleaned out butter tub to a food bag. The little cards are a work in progress and I plan to write a post about them in the near future. If your child is not ready for small pieces you could also create a Duplo style one.

It’s open ended take-out play at its best …

You can play matching and counting games, make patterns or just play with it like good old Lego. It was a hit when we went out to dinner and entertained him for the majority of the meal.


LSF ⏳

We love the sea!

Last week the weather was a bit wild here and we just love to spend time with the sea crashing and spraying all around us.

The fresh sea air always helps to focus the mind, and tire out the toddler.

Here is a photograph of the two of them embracing everything around them …

Wild sea days rock


I love that they look so free it was a super cold day but we layered up, even bringing the bucket and spades along. It was fun watching the tide come in, we ended up being there for two hours.

We took the opportunity to collect some drift wood and seaglass, which was later turned into a beautiful Narwhal by Dove.

Narwhal on drift wood


Needless to say we all tasted very salty when we returned home and everyone was tired out, the sea air always helps with difficult times and if you need to fill a day the beach has endless opportunities from digging holes to beachcombing.


LSF 🏖️