It's Spring - let's go out

For me, a welcome sign of Spring's arrival is when I can say to my children 'let's go out' without any particular plan. This is what we did on Saturday afternoon - and we stayed out too; just in our neighbourhood, for over four hours. 

As we strolled towards our local green space we passed cherry-blossomed trees, saw new light-green growth on the shrubs in front gardens and listened to snatches of beautiful birdsong as chaffinches and blackbirds went about their nest-making business. It really felt like Spring had sprung.

Once we reached Butterfield Green we were rewarded with more blossom-branched trees, and with the stunning colours of crocuses and daffodils poking their cheery heads up above the grass.

I got to relax for over an hour in the warm sunshine, overhearing snippets of my children playing a brilliant let's pretend game involving exploration of strange lands and a wedding party. They checked in with me every now and again, bringing me a few more of the hundreds of funny, fuzzy, highly collectible catkins strewn all over the paths. I also received a few daisies along the way.

Later on we went to SWAPA - an adventure playground adjacent to the green. There they climbed up trees and ropes, swung on tyres, dug in the sand and rolled down ramps on unruly wheel-boards. We eventually made our way home when the sun was pale orange and low in the sky, my children wonderfully tired from all the exercise and fresh air, and brilliantly dirty with the stuff of nature and outside adventure.

Back at home I made them both a toy caterpillar each by securing pieces of cotton thread to the end of  two catkins. They trained their new pets and came up with The Captain Caterpillar Show which consisted of a mini-obstacle race on our dining table. A recorder fanfare hailed the beginning of each caterpillar's turn to complete the course - it was hilarious.

I look forward to our next impromptu outing. Where will we go? What will they come up with to amuse me? We shall see.

Spring things for a Mothers' Day picture

Yesterday when I was spring cleaning the kitchen I collected a pile of things destined for the recycling box. However they were just too good not to be used for something with the children first. Today I knew exactly how to use this salvaged stash of stuff - a printmaking activity.

The inspiration...

This morning on my cycle ride to work through the elegant residential streets of De Beauvoir Town, I passed a spectacular display of beautiful trees in full blossom. Those gorgeous gardens (and the image above - a newspaper cutting) were the inspiration for our printing.

The motivation...

Mothers' Day is coming up and with a wonderful Nana and Nan to celebrate, I knew I could motivate my children with the idea of making some spring pictures for them.

The materials...

I spent a pleasurable 10 minutes mixing up the paint colours - I just love all those pastel shades - and before school pick-up I temptingly set out the materials. Our printmaking tools were kitchen roll rollers, corrugated cardboard strips, bubble wrap pieces, plastic bottles and lids, a rubber pastry brush and a wooden butter spreader.

The process...

Then followed our usual free-for-all plunge with Buddy and Daisy thoroughly enjoying trying out the unusual printing tools, hearing the paint squelch and using those soothing pastel colours. Unusually, I suggested the order in which they created their spring scenes: printing the sky and ground before the tree(s), and the branches of the tree(s) before the blossom. Surprisingly they went along with this and we got some great pictures as a result.

The picture...

A rather lovely soft Monet-like effect, don't you think? But with a cotton-wool spring lamb and giant yellow sun of course.