Skip to main content

Theme: Body

I didn't plan this to be a theme week, but Toby's new refrain has become, "I want to do something else" (how does he know it's the school holidays?)  Something else turned into my digging out my body-themed activities and roll of cheap wallpaper.  So here we go!

First thing to do is draw a body, and fortunately I had a handy template.  Lie down, Toby!

Just ignore the face.  And lack of neck.  I know it's not a great likeness, but he really is that tall.  How on earth did that happen?


He knew pretty much all the body labels already, so I can't really claim it as a learning opportunity.  Still, revision is good, right?  And everyone enjoys colouring on a huge sheet of paper.




Another sheet of wallpaper became a blank canvas for hand and foot painting.  Fortunately it's been great weather, as outside is always the best place to do this.  Even with a strategically placed tub of water for washing off in.

I've gone green!
Time for a different colour
Splat!
Who needs green fingers when you can have green toes?


And we've managed quite a few activities that are good for our bodies.  Swimming (or in Toby's case sitting on the edge of the pool - he's still a bit nervous), a version of Simon Says, and today we went cycling!  First Toby wanted to cycle, so he rode his balance bike to the playground.


Then I coaxed (OK, bribed) him into the child seat on the back of my bike, and we zoomed - er, wobbled - away.  It's only the second time I've used it, and it certainly takes a while to get used to the top-heaviness.  I realised again the paradox of cycling, where the faster you go the safer you feel, even though everything in you is screaming to slow down and be careful!  Fortunately there's a lovely flat cyclepath just near our house, so we didn't have to contend with traffic.  We pedalled to the Trent  & Mersey Canal to watch a couple of narrowboats go through the lock, then turned around and made our way to Alvaston Park, where we rewarded ourselves with an ice lolly, lunch, and the second playground visit of the morning.

Am I really safe in here?

 And in a throwback to the planets theme: Alvaston Park has models of the four innermost planets, and we walked around to see them all.  Here's Toby cosying up to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.  The cycle helmet was for protection from passing asteroids, I guess - he liked it so much he didn't want to take it off!

Mercury

Venus
Earth: You are here.
Mars
 
And a human sundial brings us neatly back to the body theme.  Toby's stood on June so it's a bit off, but when I stood on July it said just about 12:30 BST, which it was.
Labels:

Comments

Kristal Dawn Evens said…
I love reading about your adventures. You're such a great mom! Looking forward to seeing yall in just a couple weeks.
And that looks like a great park. Cool sundial - I've never seen one that accounted for the months!
28 July 2013 at 12:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...
Post a Comment
Read more

Laid-back Lille and Bustling Brussels

After a night in a tiny AirBnB in Canterbury , where there were chocolates on the table and artwork on every inch of the walls, we boarded a ferry with an absolute minimum of fuss, enjoyed a smooth crossing of the channel, and were deposited in the decidedly unscenic surroundings of the port of Dunkirk two hours later. Once we got past the cranes and shipping containers, though, the countryside was flat but pleasant. We stopped at a small town called Cassel, reached by cobbled roads winding up a hill. On the summit was an old windmill and a topograph telling you the distances to various improbable places; St Omer may have been visible in the haze, but Manchester was surely over the horizon.  In Lille, we found our apartment, unpacked the luggage (one rucksack apiece), and set out to find food. Our first choice was fully booked, so we embarked on that kind of aimless wandering where everyone is hungry and no one wants to actually choose a restaurant. We reached a Lebanese place call...
Post a Comment
Read more

Canterbury Cathedral

We were booking a trip to France, and I persuaded the family that it was madness to drive four hours to Dover and get straight on the ferry. "We should definitely stay overnight somewhere," I said. "Oh look, Canterbury is very handy - just twenty minutes from Dover." Of course, my suggestion was not influenced in the slightest by the fact that Canterbury contains England's most famous cathedral. On the way down, we stretched our legs on Dunstable Downs, an area of chalk grassland owned by the National Trust. I was pleased to spot a scarlet pimpernel for my 100 Plants Challenge . We also enjoyed watching gliders ascending and descending. We turned onto the M25 and made our way through busy traffic to the Dartford Crossing. This is one of those mythical points on the UK road network, like Scotch Corner and Watford Gap: the name familiar from traffic reports on the radio; the reality - for someone who grew up west of London - a hazy blur of imagination. It turns ou...
Post a Comment
Read more