Skip to main content

Theme Week: Fire

Hey, we made it through the holidays!  Toby is now back at preschool in the mornings which theoretically means I have more time to do stuff.  Actually it means I wrote a list long enough to take me the whole year, and then tried to do it all in one week.  So I am writing about the final theme a week after it happened.  The topic may have been apt, as it felt like we were fanning dying embers by this point.

Activities


1. Making a "campfire"
Here's Toby in best boy scout mode, rubbing two twigs together to make a fire.  Peppa Pig obviously is educational really, because he knew to set up the sticks in a pyramid.  Fortunately his efforts didn't produce any sparks.

And where there's a campfire, there must be a tent:


2. The candle trick
With all due cautions about not playing with fire, etc, etc, we lit a candle and I showed him how it goes out when you put a jar over it.  We repeated the experiment several times, and he was able to tell Dad, later, about the candle needing oxygen, so I guess he absorbed some of my explanation.



Outings

1. Playing fireman
We were running errands in Burton, and stopped at a playground which happened to have a structure with a steering wheel at one end and a fireman's pole at the other.  Toby spent quite a long time getting me to call the fire brigade, whereupon he would slide down the pole, drive the fire engine to the emergency, and save the day.  Sadly we didn't manage to visit a real fire station.

2. Barbeque at Calke Abbey
(see Food)

Food

Barbeque
Probably the last one of the season.  We had the burgers and marshmallows, of course, and I tried out tandoori vegetables, for something a bit different.  I forgot to take a photo of them, so here's the obligatory marshmallow-toasting pose.


Can you tell I've been writing this post half asleep?  No captions, no recipe, and some of those photos really needed cropping.  Next one'll be better, promise.  Good night.

Comments

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...

Portway: Down to the Derwent and back up again

I've never been to Holbrook before. It's a small village on a hill, just south of Belper, and I instantly like it. Look at the view! And interesting buildings too. I leave my car to enjoy the scenery and head down Stony Lane. Good thing I didn't bring a vehicle for this bit - there are several signs warning me that This Is Not A Road. I pass a few farms and the back of Holbrook School for Autism and come out on Port Way, just where I left it last time . A short distance up the road is St Michael's Church, which has a semi-circular window, a secret tunnel, and a sprawling graveyard. The church is closed today. I'm now back in the centre of Holbrook. I take a left on Mellors Lane and soon leave the houses behind. There's a good playground. I still find myself rating play equipment, even though my boys are far too old for it now! I cross a couple of fields, then the ground starts to slope downhill, with a fantastic view across the Derwent Valley. There's a squa...

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu...