The Week the Snow Came ...

Shake those maracas! The kids making music - or just plain noise - while it's too cold to play outside. Though having just seen a programme about a Swedish pre-school nursery where the babies sleep in prams outside at up to -10 degrees, I'm now wondering whether I'm too soft with my three. "Go on, get outside for some lovely fresh air ... just watch out for that ice floe!"



The Play Shed: excellent for rainy days, the playshed provides a tiny but okay-to-mess-up space for the kids which belongs to them alone and is decorated with their own pictures and posters.





These are the Plate People, apparently, from an alien planet. Don't ask.


Before these alien beings were created, however, there was a slight hiccup which had me seething. M. had one of his 'moments' - the ones which remind me he has special needs, something that it's possible to forget on his better days. Having watched me tidy up the playshed after a winter of being locked up against the elements, with many forgotten toys strewn about the floor, he took about fifteen seconds to empty the gigantic toybox onto the floor again.

And why did he do that? Well, who knows?

I made him tidy them all up, of course. But it took a l-o-n-g time, with M. looking up at me with a sulky face throughout. Silly sausage!



Whist may be beyond their capabilities, but a game of Underground Ernie snap - from one of this month's crop of children's comics, presumably connected in some way to CBeebies - provides hours of fun. You cut out the rows of identical piccies provided, clue them to some card, leave to dry and then cut into individual pictures. Hey presto, a game of snap! I expect older kids could make their own set of snap cards in the same way, using home-drawn photocopied pictures or maybe even family snaps printed off the computer.



The Joy of Mini Whiteboards: where bog-standard paper worksheets may bore at times, the thrill of one's own individual whiteboard, complete with marker pens in various colours and a rubbing-out cloth (i.e. one of mum's old tea-towels), cannot be overstated. Just look at this relaxed body language ... and it's a literacy task! Go on, invest in one today.



And to round off the week - snow! Just right for teenagers who don't appear to mind the freezing temperatures.


Arctic Explorer returns from the Play Shed.