Adventure Friday 2 - Hawksworth Woods

So... If you go down to the woods today.... you're sure for a big surprise...
LOADS OF FUN that's what!!! 

If you have a look on the  Woodland Trust website
You can search for woodlands near you. I am aiming to go to most of the woods around leeds so will update all here.

WHERE:  Hawksworth Woods - Horsforth, Kirkstall  - 3 miles from leeds town hall.
WHO: 6 mommas, 7 2-and-3-year-olds, 2 9-month-olds

HOW MUCH WAS IT: FREEEEEEEE!!!
PARKING: You can park free on Hawksworth Road, there are entrances to the woods on both new road side and butcher hill.
Buses go passed both sides of the woods - 50, 33

The woods are long and narrow but really kid friendly. They're about a mile long so an easy one for walking and the paths are compact so you can take pushchairs in if you have really little ones. we like to go off piste a little so there was a lot of log and stone climbing.
Finding a den

Which way?

So... there was loads to do in the woods, we jumped in muddy puddles, I took empty plastic pots from the recycling with spoons and we scooped and emptied and scooped and emptied! 

It's difficult as a parent taking when you have good ideas that you want to share with your children, to step back and allow the journey that they need to have happen. So, armed with my massive folder of ideas I had to file them all away for this outing and played hide and seek and pretend cafes - pretending to eat steaks and pizzas. It was awesome!
 


 OK so... round up if we're giving stars:

Accessibility - 3 stars, FREE roadside parking, train about a mile and a half walk, loads of busses. Accessibility in the woods - great! pathways can travel with buggy.
Suitability for under 5s - 5 stars - obviously! It's nature!!!
Staff  - that'd be me... so I'm going 5 stars :-)

Happy adventuring!!!

Adventure Friday 1 - Eureka

So... I'm hugely behind on adventure Fridays reports and I've only just started but this was our first adventure Friday this year a few weeks back.

WHERE: Eureka -National Children's Museum - Halifax - 17 miles from Leeds Town Hall.

WHO:  About 6 mums with their respective 2 / 3 year-olds and a 9 month old.

HOW MUCH WAS IT: 
£10.95 an adult and children over 3. 
£3.75 for under 3s. 
You can then come back as many times within a year on the old ticket.
PARKING: £3 for 4 hours

Not really much to say on this one, their website is really clear and obviously being a children's museum it is perfect! Spacious and great to explore.

The staff are super friendly and overall a great feel to the whole museum.

Outside there is a fantastic outdoor play area with sand pit, and fun sensory path at the back of the museum.

Indoors for under 2s there are 2 small soft play areas and an under 5s creative play room which looks like a small early years classroom, so I quite like it there. There are fancy dress clothes, a reading corner,  water tray, light box and generally a craft going on on the main table.

Otherwise there are fantastic exhibitions both up and downstairs. 'A' loved the 'Our body' area and especially a robot tucked away in the corner very unassumingly (if that's a word?!).... IT talks! who knew! At one point there were 5 2 and 3 year olds singing baa baa black sheep to the robot. Definitely look out for that one. 

The cafe / restaurant does really good food. About £2.50 for a coffee, £4.50 for a kids lunch box, £5 for a sandwich, £6 for soup and a sandwich. As there are picnic areas here we tend to stick to that otherwise adventure days become quite expensive!!

I think if we were coming back - which we definitely will now that it's free entry for the next year, I won't try and rush round for 'A' to see different bits and just let her go wherever, she could quite happily have stayed in the pretend M&S store for an hour.

H driving a HGV!

 A doing her shopping for the week

OK so... round up if we're giving stars:

Accessibility - 4 stars, parking right outside, train to the front door.
Suitability for under 5s - 5 stars - obviously! It's a kids museum!
Staff  - 4 stars, super friendly, helpful, could be found relatively easily.

Don't quite know what else to include? If anyone ever reads this maybe they could suggest what else would be helpful to know about these places.

Any done!
xxx

FELTING

So, my mum has loads of alpaca fleece which I have accumulated in the craft room.
Saw this on pinterest which inspired me...
http://kleas.typepad.com/kleas/2007/05/tutorialfelting.html

 
We used just natural colours and some coloured thread. 

For the 1st felt square A just grabbed as much fleece as she wanted and crammed it in to an Ikea freezer bag. She then put in some coloured thread.
We then filled the bag with warm soapy water until the fleece was completely soaked. We let out excess water then rolled the bag up as tight as possible to squeeze all remaining water. A then jumped and squeezed and rubbed at the bag for as long as she wanted, about 6 minutes, which I thought was impressive!

Then we took it out and dried it on the radiator. Eh Voila...

We made another one, but we used a roll of fleece as a background, like a piece of paper then put patches of other coloured fleece on top with some thread. It was easier to design that way, then slip in to the freezer bag.
Voila...

Because we just did it for as long as she could be bothered the felt isn't as 'felty' as it might with longer bashing and rolling. After speaking to my mum about it, she recommended rewetting and then rolling the bag with a rolling pin 200 times either side. I reckon A would like to roll with a rolling pin so we will do that another time. Also mum is sending some white fleece which we might try and dye then do a piece a bit more colourful , they might then make a nice gift. Also I thought about doing the squares in a triangle instead and making felt bunting! 

Cheerio!

So far in January:

SatARTday at Leeds Art Gallery - Free activity - 11 - 4pm on Saturdays in the ARTspace at the back of Leeds ART Gallery. 
http://www.leeds.gov.uk/Events/Pages/satartday-club.aspx 
This was from a couple of weeks ago,they were painting plastic bottles and writing messages to go inside then hanging the bottles up. The theme I think was 'the sea'. Generally, really good activity, staff really friendly and happy to help little ones as well as the older children. A participated more than she normally would. Sat for a good while painting her bottle blue. Then her hands and her arms. Washing her hands made the acrylic paint stick and she was a smurf for about 5 days! Hahaha.
H was more than happy to sit in the middle of the bottles and try to catch them.

We then played for ages in ARTspace whicgh is a terrific resource. Every few months the theme is changed and is linked in to the current themes of the exhibition. When we went though the exhibit was a bit tired, I think it's due to be changed imminently. There was plasticine modelling but plasticine had run out, paper flower making, water colour painting and theyan area with boats made out of cardboard boxes which A loved pretending to sail in.

I would definitely replicate this activity at home if I had more space. You could make the bottles in to discovery bottles and fill with different coloured liquids etc. This would be fun to crawl around in and explore from below.

OK so from the craft room... USING PLASTIC CONTAINERS:

I have so many number 5 plastic pots that aren't recyclable in the home recycling bins so I keep them in the 'craft' room. I will find at least 20 things to do with these bad boys!  So use No. 1 for plastic pots and containers... CONSTRUCTION!!! A enjoyed seeing how high a tower she could make but after about 20 minutes she preferred taking the pots to her toys and filling them full of pretend food and basically anything that would fit .

From the craft room...STICKY BACK PLASTIC / Contact Paper

So, we just did big dollops of paint on to half a sheet of contact paper then loosely folded it over so there were air bubbles. Then A pushed the paint around making worms that worked their way into around. It was a good mixing activity because the colours slowly mixed together. Also a good activity to really get her pressing down hard and moving her fingers round pushing the paint. Good for prewriting skills. Makes a nice window light catcher piece.

Lovely! So that's that for now. 

Mumaboutleeds
x

what's on in Leeds for children

This blog has come about from my 2 most frequent google searches...... what's on in leeds for children...and... what to do with (insert random craft material).

I have lived here a couple of years now and go to the old faithfuls museums and places in Leeds. My eldest is 2 and a half now and always up for an adventure so I think we need to stretch our wings especially as there are no more afternoon naps.

My aim is to explore and report on as many things on for kids in leeds as possible within 20 miles. I have called these our Adventure Fridays and will update regularly.

New Years resolution 2 - use all the random bits and pieces I have accumulated in the craft room.

Enough said!

Mumaboutleeds