One year on...

As it was Valentine's Day yesterday we played our game of hunt for hearts and made sweetheart art with our findings. It was very interesting to see how, one year on, my children's treasure hunt tactics and arty endeavours have developed.

Once all the hearts had been collected they counted and sorted them enthusiastically. Buddy casually scattered his hearts on the card (as pictured above) to make sure every single one could be seen and therefore counted. And this year he even applied glue to each one - all 21 of them. Daisy on the other hand, went for a more extreme interpretation of the rules this year; piling the hearts on top of one another (pictured below) so that they could still - according to her - definitely be seen.

I love them both!

They each received some mini baked pretzels and a ribbon as a prize. We used these to make some edible heart necklaces which vanished during the next 20 minutes during an extensive (and crunchy) game of hide-and-seek.

Happy heart art

Here's a lovely Valentine's themed activity for younger children. It starts with a high energy party game - a twist on the classic treasure hunt, and ends with lots of making and sticking to win prizes.

Treasure hunt for hearts

A little bit of preparation is needed before starting the game.

You will need to:

1) Collect scraps of decorative paper to make the hearts for the hunt - I stuck to a theme of gold and red, as pictured above. Include newspaper and wrapping paper if you like.

2) To make lots of different sized hearts quickly, cut the paper into squares of various sizes; you'll need at least 30. Put a few similarly sized squares together and fold in half. Then draw half a heart on one side - the centre of the heart towards the fold. Cut along the drawn heart outline and then separate the satisfyingly symmetrical heart shapes.

3) Now hide - well, put - the hearts all around your home (use sticky tac if you want them on vertical surfaces).

How to play:

1)Provide everyone with a basket or box and send them off to find and collect the hearts.

2) When all the hearts have been found, provide each player with a large piece of card. This could be covered in foil or plain wrapping paper, whatever you have to hand to make an attractive background.

Create heart art:

3) Now to count up those hearts. To do this, get them to stick their collected hearts over their background card. We used a glue stick rather than gloopy PVA to avoid too much mess.

4) They can do this just how they like, but the hearts should be arranged so that every heart can be seen and so counted. If they put a heart on top of another that's OK but it should be a smaller heart so both can be seen.

5) Lots of prizes can be given; for the most hearts collected, for finding a shiny heart, or a patterned heart etc.

We played this last year and my children - three and four at the time - really loved it. I knew they'd like the treasure hunt part, but it was great to see them so enthusiastic about selecting, comparing, counting and arranging their hearts before sticking them to the card.

We'll be playing it again tomorrow of course. Happy Valentine's Day.

The summer collection

These delightful treasure boxes were decorated by my children at the beginning of the summer holidays. We used the technique of decoupage; lots of ripping and cutting and sticking of paper onto plain cardboard boxes. Then we covered everything in PVA glue to give a varnished hard-wearing exterior.

Over the holidays we filled the boxes with special things, items found when we were out and about. A wonderfully eclectic mix of treasure has accumulated, from shiny beads and broken crockery to finds straight from nature like acorns and crab apples (though these are looking rather wizened now).

Today, we investigated their boxes. Here's a display of some of their treasure - quite an insight into what a four and five year old consider worth collecting.

I am fascinated by the museological process of our summer's treasure box project, from the collecting itself to the storing, sorting and displaying of our finds - albeit in miniature form. And without any of a museum's responsibilities of long term storage and expensive care of artefacts, we were able to enjoy it in its most unhindered form. As Lola (of Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola) would have it, we've been collecting a collection, just for the fun of it.

Jumble Tale

There's nothing like the simultaneous change of season and a growth-spurt to suddenly render 70% of a child's wardrobe useless. We've recently encountered this very phenomenon - and have finally got round to having a bit of a sort out. This has got me thinking about the clothes sorting sessions of the baby and toddler years. I remember it always resulted in three ever-optimistic piles; clothes too small - to give away, those too big - to store away, and those items just right - always, frustratingly and mysteriously, the smallest pile.

I think we still have this three-pile system (in theory, anyway) but the necessity for those sorting sessions has thankfully diminished; our children's clothes are now sized in years rather than months, which means Buddy and Daisy actually wear out clothes now, not just grow out of them.

If I'm honest, the real incentive for today's sort out is this Saturday's jumble sale at my children's school; there's nothing like a conveniently close event to get me participating. And so, after nursery and school today, we tumbled the contents of their drawers onto the bedroom floor. And the three-pile sort began.

Buddy and Daisy dipped into this game intermittently. Daisy tried on some jeans for the first time since being out of nappies, and she modelled the lovely John Deere tractor sweatshirt pictured above, saying she would definitely wear it now it was too small for Buddy. And Buddy suddenly got a bit sentimental over a long forgotten pair of too-small grey tracksuit bottoms - insisting they still fit him, insisting he'd wear them (I sneakily put them in the jumble pile when he wasn't looking, of course). And together, somehow, we managed it; a great big pile for the jumble sale, a medium sized pile for children of friends and family (you know who you are), and a smallish sort of pile of clothes that fit them at present.

But the sweetest thing about today's sort out was unearthing two little boxes from the bottom of one of the drawers. These boxes contain Buddy and Daisy's first shoes; their first bootee-style shoes and their first walking shoes. If I'd come across these on my own, I imagine I would have had a bit of a cry - tearful, sentimental soul that I am. But as Buddy and Daisy were there it was a far more jolly discovery. They examined the shoes lovingly, they coo'd and ahh'd over their baby selves and their baby toes, and they put the shoes next to their feet to see how much bigger they were now.

When they had finished with them, they made sure I put the little shoes back in their little boxes and back in the drawer from whence they came, 'Not in the giving away pile, mummy. We want to keep them forever.'

And for these outgrown items, there was no sneaky putting them in the jumble pile when they weren't looking. Of course, I want to keep those shoes forever, too.