Home's

Yesterday I was reading a version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears from my  Seasons of Joy Spring Edition.. One of the suggestions, which I have done before with other books too, was to act the story out with some puppets.
So as I had not made any puppets I found three bears that we have around the house and a doll from the girls collection and used these with a few other small items like silk, a plate and spoon and a small basket to represent a chair.
As it was a beautiful day we went outside on the balcony and I used one of the play stands that Braedon had made years ago for a 'stage'.
The little ones really enjoyed this version of the story and the props were fun to use too.
After the story we grated some nutmeg by hand and added it to a honey milk drink.

I have never grated nutmeg before even though it is one of my favourite spices. I could not get over the beautiful aroma that was wafting around the kitchen.
As we grated we sang the little song that Annette uses
" Grate the nutmeg!
Grate the nutmeg!
Smell the nutmeg sweet.
Grate the nutmeg!
Grate the nutmeg!
Sweet enough to eat.

We made up our own tune as I cannot read music from the sheet. The children loved this activity and adding the fresh ground nutmeg to the top of one of their favourite drinks.

It is a wonderful experience to share the wonder of a story with children and then add that something extra as well.
Every time I do an activity like this ( Frances Lunch) I remind myself to keep doing it. That is until I get caught up in the basics of learning and forget to add the fun stuff.
But it is the fun stuff the kids remember and one of my goals as a mama is to make memories with the children.

What better way to do this!!
Linking with Annette today...

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Family traditions are so important don't you think?
Special occasions that bring a smile to your face!
There are so many opportunities for us to have these in our lives and  they are the ones we have that are to be treasured.

One of these for our family is reading from the books written by Russell Hoban.
Last week I was reading Bread and Jam for Frances to the little children. It was Arwen's choice for the day and when I finished reading it we decided to have a Frances Lunch.

Now we have had "Albert Lunch's" before from another favourite book Best Friends for Frances complete with a red wagon packed with luncheon goodies. We have had this happen so many times and the children have such fond memories of it.

So this day we made a new memory by creating a Frances Lunch. Then main thing in this lunch was the setting up of the  meal like in the book..

First we made paper doilies of which I had a few and as is Winter here I thought we could make some snowflake doilies too. However I really could not get the hang of it, I was so embarrassed. Here was this so simple paper craft and I could not do it. So in the end we went with a couple of my snowflake placemats and the bought doilies.
The next important item to have was the  flowers in the vase, followed by the egg in an egg cup.
As we did not have thermos we simply had milk in a glass.
For the food as we were having a lunch type of meal anyway - Frances has carrot and celery and we just used some leftovers and salad.

The interesting thing with these type of activities is the fact that while it was aimed for our little kids it was not long before we had more takers for our Frances Lunch.

Again I am so thankful to be able to 'enjoy the journey together' with our children, which is one of the most special aspects of living and learning at home.

Blessings to you and your homes,