How to draw your dragon

We were back at Screen On The Green's Kids' Club yesterday and thrilled to see what was on - How To Train Your Dragon. This is a firm favourite of both my children. It's a great story about not fitting in, learning to be tolerant of others, being inventive, brave, and succeeding against all odds. Plus it's packed with fire-breathing dragons and edge-of-your-seat adventure. We love it.

Back at home we listened to the film's fantastic soundtrack; Buddy and Daisy were inspired to play with their toy Toothless (a Night Fury) and other soft toys that fancied being dragons. They dramatically re-enacted the film's spectacular flying sequences all round the living room and garden.

I suggested they might like to draw their own dragons - like Hiccup (the hero of the story). Buddy and Daisy were very keen to do this; they thought the drawings could be pages from the film's How to Train Your Dragon manual.

The paper, I was told, would have to look old - so last night we carried out the classic tea-staining technique. We used cream-coloured card, and after a spot of teabag painting we aged it by scrunching it up whilst soggy.

This morning, when it was dry, I singed the paper's edges to make it look even older.

Daisy got stuck in to her drawing straight after breakfast and was finished well before Buddy had even remembered our plans from last night. And what a fabulous dragon she has created (pictured below).

I knew there was a good chance Buddy wouldn't want to draw a dragon at all this morning. So I just left out the paper and pens. Sometimes this is the right thing for him - he often circles an activity and eventually swoops down and joins in in his own time. Sure enough, he took his time today.

But as you can see below Buddy eventually did draw a dragon - two in fact.

So how did I persuade him?

Well, I didn't. Music did. I played the soundtrack once more and suddenly he was all about the dragons again. He came and sat down and began drawing with great gusto. And while he drew he told me all about his dragons with the stirring Celtic music in the background, setting the scene perfectly.

And that - for Buddy, anyway - is how to draw your dragon.

[Buddy dressed up as the heroic Hiccup on World Book Day.]

Alice in Wonderland walk

At the weekend we took a train to Oxford and used the brilliant book Adventure Walks for Families in and around London to give our outing a theme. We've enjoyed a few of its suggested walks now, including one expedition that got us looking for dragons in a Buckinghamshire forest. This particular chapter led us to Port Meadow just outside Oxford - the very place on the river that inspired the stories of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

We took it in turns to wear the White Rabbit's ears, the Queen of Hearts' crown and a cupcake Alice band - as pictured below. To start proceedings we had a Mad Hatter's tea party picnic on the riverbank and then in alternating sunshine and showers we completed the lovely 3.5 mile walk through idyllic countryside - the dreaming spires of Oxford on the horizon. We collected about 20 swan feathers, spectacularly huge and pristinely white, and several fresh-water mussel shells; their glistening mother-of-pearl interiors tempting us to retrieve them despite the extremely muddy bank.

We had a caucus race to dry off after a particularly heavy shower of rain - with prizes of sweets. The children weren't too concerned about the lack of peppermints and thimble (the only things Alice had to hand in the story). Along the west bank of the river we spotted a rabbit warren and, in the distance, its shy inhabitants hopping happily around the meadow. It's easy to see how Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) got his idea for Alice to fall down a rabbit hole to begin her adventure - some of the burrows were enormous.

We meandered back along the River Thames watching and waving at the boats humming contentedly up and down the river. Buddy and Daisy completely charmed the members of one crew and got to help moor their boat - a unique experience they'll not forget in a hurry.

After such adventures - even without falling down rabbit holes or disappearing into a fantastical world - Buddy and Daisy were exhausted. Buddy managed to stay awake and enjoyed a good read of our abridged version of Alice's adventures, but Daisy drifted off to sleep - no doubt dreaming about her very own Wonderland.

I spy a spider...

Spiders and flies

bees in the sky

they flit and they flitter

and some, they crawl by...

Back at the Geffrye Museum today, continuing our theme of things-that-move, we focused on spiders. We made a giant (and I mean room-sized) web using a ball of silvery wool and a huge spider puppet that the children named - guess what? - Incy Wincy, of course. We created a beautiful, angular 2D structure that stretched between us all and lasted as long as everyone held on to their bit of wool. It was wonderfully ephemeral too, collapsing just like a real spider's web when we finally let go.

We investigated how spiders move by looking closely and handling lots of the plastic variety; big, small and hairy, black, brown and colourful. Then they each made their own spider; colouring and cutting it out, trying not to cut off any of its eight legs. These were stuck to wrist-cuffs and immediately worn with pride.

We sang some spidery songs and enjoyed Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider. Finally the children made individual postcard-size cobwebs using black card as background and drippy-droppy PVA glue to create their own unique design. Glitter, snow dust and sequins were scattered over the glue to make their web glisten as if it had been raining.

The weather magically matched the idea behind this artwork; a sharp shower during the session was followed by bright sunshine. The cobwebs in the garden were waiting to be spotted, glimmering and shimmering in the sunlight - it couldn't have worked out better!

The ugly bug ball

What with computer shenanigans and birthday party organisation it's been ages since my last post. The PC is now repaired and Daisy has firmly celebrated being four years old, so here I am again at last.

Today I've been working at the Geffrye Museum running a family creative workshop. I've led this session many times before but it differs greatly depending on who turns up. This morning, with twenty chirpy 2, 3 and 4 year olds and babes-in-arms too, it was a very noisy, musical and fun affair.

We started with action songs and rhymes about things-that-move, including the creepy-crawlies living in the Geffrye Museum gardens. Then we investigated a heap of toy insects and bugs. Drawing round these on paper and adding colour was a fun way to look closely at creepy-crawly physiology and to talk to each other about how the creatures might move about.

More songs using puppets and a story - 10 Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars - helped us focus on the amazing caterpillar to butterfly phenomenon. By this time the children were totally up for becoming beetles and butterflies themselves. Each child decorated a set of neoprene wings with pieces of tissue, foil, sticky circles, stars and lace, taking inspiration from images of colourful butterflies and highly decorated beetles.

These wings are so lightweight they can be easily paper-clipped to children's clothing at the shoulder. When everyone was beautifully be-winged we flitted, fluttered, crawled and wiggled to the music of the Ugly Bug Ball.

And a happy time we'll have there

One and all

At the Ugly Bug Ball.

Dinosaurs for the doubtful

My two children have never caught the dinosaur bug. I know this is quite unusual - they just refuse to get excited about them. Maybe I haven't been that encouraging; other than the unimaginative attack-and-fight-the-other-dinosaur-type game, I struggle to find many superior play scenarios to offer them due to the nature of... well, dinosaurs. Buddy and Daisy do tell me they know some things about dinosaurs though, and that they understand the prehistoric world was a very different place to now - with erupting volcanoes and a changing climate, that kind of thing. Oh.

However, today evolved into a bit of a dinosaur day. It started with Daisy unearthing our set of magnetic dinosaurs. She asked me to guess which was her favourite by her description of it, and then I got to have a turn. This became a very satisfying game that got us all looking closely at the similarities and differences between the twenty or so dinosaurs in the set. When it was time to make food, we sorted the dinosaurs into those that were vegetarian and those that were meat eaters. We offered the grizzly group tidbits as we assembled our pizzas; the ham, sweetcorn, olives and cheese getting snaffled by my two little omnivores. While the pizzas were in the oven we enjoyed the brilliant Julia Donaldson story, Tyrannosaurus Drip.

At dusk, in the garden, we became palaeontologists. Using a dinosaur skeleton excavation kit (found languishing at the bottom of our games cupboard - a forgotten birthday present) we got a taste of the excitement in discovering and digging up dinosaur bones. What a find!

Bedtime reading was Jane Yolen and Mark Teague's charming How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight which draws an amusing parallel between children at bedtime and dinosaurs. Cheeky.

So although I wouldn't have believed we had anything much to do with dinosaurs in our house, I was surprised and pleased to have managed to muster plenty resources for a day of dinosaur adventures. It's amazing what you can dig up when you try.

An Early Start

This morning we had one of those early starts, the ones you get so used to in the first years of having babies. As my children move out of the toddler years, I'm pleased to say these unhappy, uncivilised sessions of parenting are becoming less frequent. However, this does mean that whenever I hear the padding of bare feet into our room at some ungodly hour, it's an almighty struggle not to snap, "It's still night time, go back to bed!" It's also unrealistic now it's getting light before 7 am.

Desperately clinging to the last vestiges of sleep, I usually let them into our bed, cuddle up and pretend to myself they are going to be quiet, peaceful and even still for a while. But of course they squirm and chat at full volume, they unintentionally thrust a car or corner of a book in my eye. Eventually, one or other of us will relent and get up to play downstairs with the wakeful one.

However, I do have a trick up my sleeve which works like magic, quietly occupying my little ones for ages - or at least until it's a more reasonable time to get up. And although I have to join in with this activity eventually, it's a gentle, gradual involvement which actually puts me in a good mood for the day (with the addition of a huge cup of coffee, of course).

To my children, my jewellery boxes are the ultimate treasure trove. I only possess costume jewellery so I have no qualms about allowing my inquisitive pair to rummage through them. They are old enough to know the jewellery is not to be thrown or stretched, but they also know - because they've played this one a few times now - that each piece has a story. And now the museologist in me emerges, as I from sleep, to share their stories upon request.

You've heard of Radio 4's recent series The History of the World in 100 objects? Well, my jewellery collection is a history of mummy in 100 trinkets and baubles!

They are always so interested to hear (again and again) where that ring came from, "An 18th birthday present from my mum and dad, and yes, one of the stones is missing. The 'diamond' choker and bracelet I wore for my wedding - yes, you've seen the photographs, you can see me wearing them. The bracelet of interlocking squares from nana? - that's right, I can't wear it any more - the catch is broken. And that bangle made from cardboard, glitter and glued-on buttons? You made that one for me. On your first day at nursery."

So, although I can't honestly say I wouldn't rather be asleep at 6.00 in the morning, sharing memories about personal and precious objects with my little ones is definitely the next best thing.