Briars and Quills

The latest edition of A Year and a Day landed on our doorstep last week (gifted) after we successfully applied to be brand reps for the magazine. And it didn’t disappoint. With Autumnal crafts and stories, recipes and movement activities, it is just a pleasure to delve into.

This year already I’ve made Elderflower cordial and Elderberry syrup, alongside a jelly, which I just can’t remember what foraged fruit I used! So rather than make the rosehip syrup, which did sound delicious, we focused on the Hedgehog ideas. My 5 year old loved the movement – curling up, stretching out, and even learnt a new word – sploot – which hedgehog enthusiasts use to describe the behaviour of the hedgehog when it lies on its front with legs splayed if it’s too hot or uncomfortable!

Acrostic Poem

The Brothers Grimm story, Hans My Hedgehog, provided a lovely opportunity to discuss new vocabulary, such as swine, but it was a little wordy and long-winded for her to keep up with! My 10 year old, however, loved it! We found leaves and animals on them, using them to represent the hedgehog’s food with drawings of slugs, snails and worms then made a plasticine hedgehog using a conker shell as quills, to re-enact him foraging through the leaves to find the food! I was even inspired to try my hand at a watercolour of a hedgehog – it didn’t turn out too badly although there’s lots of room for improvement. A simple Acrostic poem was also very achievable and encouraged my reluctant writer to have a go!

Rather than hunt for rosehips, we collected hundreds of Horse Chestnuts and introduced the girls to the game of Conkers. We used a beautiful mushroom shaped clamp to hold the conker and stop little palms being stabbed when using small hand drills to bore a small hole through the centre. Some conkers we threaded onto an old wire coat-hanger to make a door garland, and others we strung to play conkers.

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There are still lots of ideas inside we haven’t tried and are hoping to make some blackberry ink before they finally disappear for winter and a shadow puppet box to retell the Briar Rose fairytale.

If you’d like to order your own copy and buy some of the gorgeous back copies of A Year and a Day, then pop my code in at checkout for a sneaky discount! Just use AYBON21 for 5% off.

Disclaimer: The magazine I received was complimentary for review purposes. All opinions given are my own, honest and truthful.

A Year and a Day

If you’re a regular reader of the blog…not that its been particularly regular over the last year…you’ll know we love cooking and making. My eldest is always inventing something from paper, the youngest loves to help bake cakes, mainly, I’m sure, so she can lick the spoon, and I enjoy cooking and crafting. We also love to be outside, walking, foraging for berries, using them to make syrups and jellies, finding huge caterpillars and keeping them until they turn into hawk moths, identifying the garden birds, etc. So when I came across this magazine, A Year and a Day, it seemed to be the most lovely seasonal blend of our family’s favourites. And I think it’s really lovely to do with older children as well as the littlies too. Have a look at the video below to see the sorts of things included.

With one issue a quarter, it begins with a story, maybe a traditional tale, story from another culture or tradition, and imitates the seasonal changes, focussing on learning activities for you and your children to do together, from using nature to create artworks and storytelling, to cooking ideas and mindfulness activities. It promotes a slower, more conscious way of learning and creating, and can be dipped into or used as a theme for home schooling activities. Here’s what the Year and a Day team have to say about it:

“…a seasonal magazine that aims to guide children into the inner world of traditional stories and out into the natural world around them…encourages both children and adults to use their natural capacity for imagination, creativity and invention through storytelling, painting, number work, drawing, crafting and writing.” 

The most exciting thing is, I, along with several other people, have been asked to be brand rep’s for the magazine. They are very kindly gifting us 4 magazines during the next year and me and my girls will be trying out the activities from each one and letting you know how we get on. Those who know me also know I’m not very good at hiding my feelings, so you’ll get an honest review of our favourite ideas, what we felt worked well for our age range and how much we enjoyed the stories and activities. F and Cc may even do their own little reviews as we go along!

So, head on over to Instagram and follow our new team to find out more… Elderberry Wellness & Craft, Hector’s Home, Sunshine & Our Adventures, The Orchard, Exeter, Stars at Play, Kith Homestead, Play with Mrs J, Little Robin Red and Thrive Nature Adventures.

Spooktacular Halloween Party

Since we are away this year for the first time during Halloween, I promised the girls a little party before we went. And by little, I mean little. My girls plus 3 others. It was a Friday night, before half term, I’d worked all week and had to sort grandparents to look after a poorly Cc with a chest infection, plus all the usual racing around between clubs, music lessons, parents’ evening etc. So, on Monday I tried to get everything prepared. That would be my number 1 tip!

Prepare

Decide on which activities you would like to do with the children. I like the idea of keeping them occupied (so they don’t run riot) whilst also giving them the chance to make a few things to take home in their party bag at the end of the evening.

So, this year’s activities were:

Make an egg box monster / spider

Paint a wooden ‘pumpkin’ person

Decorate gingerbread pumpkins / ghosts

Make a ‘chocolate’ toffee apple

Leaf printing the ‘going home’ paper goody bags

Apple bobbing

Eating doughnuts off a string

Stick the smile on the skeleton

All quite quick and easy to prepare. I simply gathered the items needed for each activity together and popped them on separate tray or lid. The Skeleton smile game was bought from Tesco and the decorate the gingerbread was from Co-op…with little time I was keeping it simple.

Below are the things used and needed for the other activities:

Make an egg box monster / spider … egg boxes cut into individual ‘holes’. Paint. Selection of pipe-cleaners, pom-poms, pva glue, paintbrushes, googly eyes. (I topped up our supplies with Halloween coloured things from Hobbycraft)

Paint a wooden ‘pumpkin’ person…wooden people blanks (I bought from amazon) orange and green paint, black Sharpie

Make a ‘chocolate’ toffee apple… wooden lolly sticks, apples, melted chocolate, sprinkles

Apple bobbing…apples, washing up bowl, water

Doughnuts off a String…doughnuts, string

Goodie bags…paper bags (again, from Hobbycraft), leaves, autumn colour paints, paintbrushes.

It was so easy that on the day itself, I just put each activity out at a ‘station’ and guided the girls round each one. I strung the doughnuts, ready to hang, melted the chocolate just before they arrived as that was one of the first activities so the apples would dry and prepped the carrot/cucumber sticks. We had pizza to keep it easy, raw veg sticks, watermelon and shop-bought Halloween cakes. The girls watched a Halloween film whilst eating and came to finish any activities before leaving. They all left with a goody bag full of handmade items and a tub of Halloween slime, a couple of Halloween chocolates and a sticker.

Job done!