Play, story starters and decorating

Harry and Peter played Lego together for an hour this morning, without any bickering! This is unusual and very nice so I let them carry on without interrupting and I researched some WW1 activities and started thinking about Christmas ideas. If we don't have anywhere to be, or anything urgent to do, I do try to let them get on with self-directed activities if they are doing them well. I think this skill is just as important as the activities I prepare for them.

I brought some big cardboard tubes home from Scouts this week and we had a great play with these for an hour as well. We started just rolling marbles and balls down them, then we taped a starting line to the carpet to test which ball rolled the furthest.

We also built small towers to knock over by rolling things down the tube and an arch for them to roll through.

Harry built a 'city defence' for one of his towers and was pleased that this couldn't be knocked over! This was a great use of engineering skills: he knew that the building needed a wider base to be more sturdy and eventually it became a city wall to protect his tower.

We have been using this online story starter resource from Scholastic. The boys love spinning the wheels to create their story starter and the finished pieces can be printed to keep. 

We had been waiting for a delivery today, so when it came we went out to get Christmas cake supplies and paint testers. We didn't make a cake today, as I needed the oven to cook pizza for tea, but we will soon. We also talked to my dad on the phone and he is coming to help us decorate our hall this weekend so we spent the rest of the afternoon pulling wallpaper off! Harry really enjoyed getting involved with this and they will enjoy seeing their Granddad at the weekend.