A White Weekend

For once the snow was perfectly timed.  It started after 9.00am on Friday and continued throughout the day.  Those of you with school age children will know the significance of 9 o 'clock. It meant that the school was open on Friday.  The school did, in fact, ask for children to be picked up early so that those staff with long journeys could arrive home safely.  So the weekend started early for my son and many others.  Fantastic -  we were able to spend it in the local playground sampling the delights of the first snow of the year. 

Snow ball fights and sledging were on the agenda.  Yesterday there was a BBC programme highlighting the 60th anniversary of the great winter of 1963.  It included footage of children sledging and snowballing.  Really good to see that some things have not changes in the all that time.

On Friday we also attempted to build a snowman, but for some reason the snow was not sticky enough. Perhaps it needs a night on the ground to settle in. Usually when it snows in London it very quickly does a disappearing trick - often it simply does not live up to expectations.  So the pressure is on to get and and enjoy as quick as possible.  This weekend knowing that more snow was forecast meant we could wander out, as and when, we wanted.  No pressure.

 

Saturday turned out to be a snowman day.  Actually it is a snow penguin.  Now comes my admission of parent fail. My son has just turned eight and we had never built a snowman with him.  OK I have an excuse for the first couple of years of his life as there was no snow.  Not sure how this happened, but it is all now rectified.  Snowman with organic carrot duly built in the  local park on Saturday.

 

 

Sunday we had light snow all day.  We all trotted off to Richmond Park with the sledge, or shield if you are using it to protect yourself in a snowball fight.  The runs near the entrances to the Park were busy.  However if you, like we did, wandered into the Park just a little the people thinned out and you had you own winter wonderland. Perfection.  I even managed to take some shots of the deer.

If ever there was a winter weekend to get outside and play it was this weekend.

Snow and Ice Activities: Making Ice Sculptures with Children

The cold weather has provided us with a great opportunity to make some lovely ice sculptures this week. We were reminded about them when one formed naturally from water left a sand mould in my son’s sand and water table. I photographed the result above.

So the next evening the remaining moulds were washed and the craft box delved into. We also took a few flowers from the garden and used some fir cones and acorns. The resulting tray of sculptures were then placed outside. Alas that night it didn’t freeze, but this morning we the jackpot with five beautiful sculptures. It is very cold today so hoping that some of them will survive.

We did learn a few things along the way, which I hope will help you if you try them.

• We placed string and ribbon in two of them which meant they could be tied onto a line. This really helps them to catch the light and they can easily be seen from the house. So I would recommend you do that with all your sculptures. The ribbon sculpture stayed on the line longer than the string one.

• Make your moulds close to an outside door as they are not the easiest to transport. We had placed ours outside we had to top them up with water.

• Place them close to the house because your children are likely to want to keep popping out to check on them. They are more likely to freeze if just placed a little away from walls and other frost protection.

• Do not fill them with too many objects, as the transparency is one of the best things about them.

You don’t have to use moulds. Tonight we are going to experiment with plastic cups, saucers, food dye, and also try and make our own icicles.

Spiders' Webs, Hoar Frost and a Festive Walk

Spiders’ webs are great structures for children to look at, copy the patterns and to view spiders.  Back in September the spiders were hard at work in the garden weaving away.  It was impossible for me to pass through my archway without getting threads tangled in my hair.  However by the time I got my act together to photograph some of the webs the spiders seemed to have all miraculously disappeared. 

So at Christmas I was delighted to find some webs sparkling with hoar frost.  The frost shows off the patterns perfectly.  Apparently an orb web is the one we most commonly see and link with spiders in the UK.  The spider anchors silk lines that radiate from a centre, to grass, stems and other structures. It then weaves a sticky spiral of silk around the centre.  Threads are then woven round to strengthen the outside of the web.  It is the stickiness of those threads that attracts water from the air so making water droplets.  There is more information on spiders and some activities for kids by The British Council.

That same day the hoar frost was so amazing that the camera was a must for a walk around the garden and then further afield.  This was certainly a snowy glittery Christmas for us.

Its Back Again

Well I got it wrong in my last post. We have over an inch of snow today. The garden looks lovely with a fantastic frozen washing line. One of my best Christmas presents, a ladybird house, although not being used yet, also looks great. Has anyone got any ideas where would be the best place to hang it in the garden? I thought in a tree or against a fence.