Growing as you grow

Harris is an outdoor boy and he's a little worker, so we're loving having an extra pair of little hands helping with all sorts of jobs. I thought this would be the perfect time to blog about what we've learned about gardening with a toddler.

Some useful tools 
To have fun in the garden, you don't need much more than a pair of hands that like getting dirty. 

But if you're in the garden a lot and would like some tools to add to the fun, here are a few that we love.

Harris is a lucky boy and these were all gifts, so I don't know where to buy them from. He has a little trowel that has been brilliant, I'd definitely recommend getting a metal one for serious digging as Harris got a bit frustrated when the plastic ones didn't dig deep enough. There are loads of little wheelbarrow sets that are great value, the one we have came with a spade, rake, bucket and watering can. The watering can is filled and emptied numerous times a day, and the wheelbarrow is used to transport everything from weeds and compost to water and footballs. It's also great to incorporate any toys you already have, dumper trucks are brilliant for moving stones and dirt. And as we love to learn with book, our favourite for the garden is My First Book about things that grow. The book helps explain seeds and how plants grow as well as identifying lots of flowers, fruit, vegetables, trees and leaves - I'm learning too. Plus it comes with stickers! 

Growing vegetables 
We were keen to teach Harris a little bit about growing his own food. He helps in our veggie patch and he's pretty good at knowing where to walk, what to water etc, but supervision is vital. 

There's loads of jobs that toddlers can help with, filling seed trays with compost, digging holes, planting seeds, watering and of course picking the veg.

To encourage creativity and give Harris some autonomy, we made some spaces that he can do whatever he likes in. We've got a big trough where Harris is growing a couple of different mint plants and quite a few weeds. The mint is growing really well and doesn't seem to mind if it gets watered 10 times in a day or is forgotten about for a week. Harris loves picking leaves to smell. And I like making hot drinks with them. 

Pots and containers are great for gardens of all sizes. Harris planted some radish and lettuce seeds in his pots. He waters them and we talk about how much they are growing. We pick lettuce from the garden everyday and have eaten all the radishes. Harris was never keen on salad before, but now he eats the radishes first and gets super excited to see lettuce on his plate - must be connected. 

Planting flowers in unusual containers like these old wellies makes watering even more fun.

And turning jobs into play with our favourite toys meant that Harris happily delivered compost in his dumper truck while we planted out loads of flowers in our garden.

Sometimes we need to do jobs and Harris doesn't want to help, so we've set up lots of fun areas for him to play, make a mess and relax in while we get on. 

Harris' tiny shell garden

Fill containers with water and mud and enjoy hours of play

Paint brush and water - so simple and no mess

A plank of wood is great for balancing

This waterwall was so easy to make, just a few plastic bottles, yogurt pots, an old hand wash container and some plant pots screwed onto a fence - hours of fun! 

My next idea is a noisy wall, but until then we have some tins and old spoons hanging from trees, ready to be hit with a stick.

I sanded some logs to make a little snack area for nice days, Harris likes to sit on what I intended to be the table, but it's all good. 

When we're not gardening or playing, we enjoy getting to know the creatures in the garden, our favourite being wriggly worms...  

Lifting up a big stone can uncover a whole new world of insects, we spend ages watching them crawl around. And of course, there are loads of birds that visit our garden too. We thought we'd try to get a better look by enticing them in with some food and found this really easy bird cake on the RSPB website. 

Give it a good stir 

Add all the ingredients

The cheese was meant for the birds...

Looks great, and the birds loved it!

Whatever you decide to do in the garden, I hope you you enjoy it with all your senses and have lots of fun. 

Really easy animal orchestra

Our favourite book this week is Noisy Orchestra. It's a lovely simple story that introduces instruments and classical music. Harris loves pressing the buttons and unlike many push button books I love the music too. In the book, an animal orchestra is getting ready to play a concert. You can listen to each section, string, woodwind, brass and percussion, practice. Then hear them all play together for the concert. Inspired by the book, we decided to make our own animal orchestra with some bits and bobs we found around the house. Turns out Harris's cuddly toys are quite talented musicians...

Here's how we made our really easy animal orchestra

String section

Get one tub, a used ice cream or take away box will do just fine. And some elastic bands, different sizes will make different sounds.

Put the bands over the tub.

And add a cuddly friend.

Percussion section

Find some containers, we used a couple of little jars and an empty juice bottle. Then fill them with anything that will make a noise. We used red lentils, couscous and pasta, but you could use loads of things, rice, cereal, dried fruit, everything makes a fun new noise. 

Brass section

Sorry, I couldn't think of a way to make a trumpet or any other brass instrument... So instead why not do some banging. I'm sure all your kids have already discovered how to turn a pan and any kitchen utensil they can find into a drum...

Woodwind section

You will need a few straws, we used 6 but you don't need that many, and some sellotape.

Cut the straws into different lengths for different sounds, lay them in a line on top of the sellotape. 

And wrap them up tight

The concert

Find some toys and give them all an instrument each. Then watch your little one get super excited!

And of course the fun part is playing the instruments... They all worked!!

Hope you all have fun making your own animal orchestra! 

Thanks for reading :-) 

Spending a really long time on a plane with a toddler - our top tips

We've just returned from a magical holiday in Australia that nearly didn't happen because we thought that entertaining Harris on a plane for 13 hours would be impossible and really horrible. So, I thought I'd share our top tips for surviving a big trip with an active 18 month old. It's really not that bad!! 

Choose the right airline for you

We flew with Singapore Airlines and they were exceptional. We chose Singapore Airlines because its bassinets are suitable for kids up to 14kg (Harris is just over 11kg I think). Most of the other airlines we looked at only did bassinets for babies under 10 months. Harris was a bit too tall for this one, but as you can see we managed to squeeze him in and he slept very well in there. Harris also got a little toy and blanket to take home, which doubled as a very useful changing mat on holiday. The flight attendants couldn't do enough for us and Harris was treated like a king. 

Talk about it 

Although Harris can only say a few words, it's clear that he understands almost everything. So we were keen to teach him about planes and help him understand and get excited about our holiday. When we found the Going on a Plane Sticker Book we knew it would be a great help as Harris loves books and stickers. We read it to him a few times before our trip and he was quickly able to point to the planes, seatbelts and luggage. It really helped him understand what was happening in the airport and on the plane and the stickers passed loads of time on the flight and on holiday. 

Think about a stopover

We spent 24 hours in Singapore, we booked a room at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Changi airport so we had a place to shower and sleep. We loved exploring the city with the fantastic Gardens by the Bay taking up most of our day followed by an evening play in the hotel pool. I think the stopover helped us adjust to the new time easily, and the 5 1/2 hour flight to Perth the next day was a breeze. 

Pack lots of food

Normal routine can go out the window and we found that Harris was more fussy with what he wanted to eat. He certainly didn't want the jars of baby food kindly provided by the airline. Luckily we'd taken lots of things to keep him going, sandwiches, Ella's fruit and veg pouches, cheesy pasta, raisins, breadsticks and he shared my inflight meals too. Hand held food worked best for us as using cutlery got pretty messy... Remember your wipe clean bib, we have one like this. 

Take a special cup or bottle

Harris has a cup with a straw attached and he just loves it. During the flight, he loved passing it to the flight attendants every time he wanted more milk (quite often). The cup was almost like a comforter to him and it ensured that he drank plenty of water on the flight and on holiday. 

Books, books and more books

We took loads of books and we read them all, more than once. We choose thin books, so we could fit more in, and made sure we took some of Harris's favourites as well as some new exciting ones.

More stuff to entertain

Stickers and magic painting were the best things we took on the plane. Harris spent loads of time painting, quite amazed by all the colours, and the stickers lasted him all four flights - they didn't all make it into the book...

And more stuff to entertain

We took Harris's super cute Califone panda headphones, especially for little toddler ears, his Nerf MP3 player filled with Nick Cope songs and we downloaded a few episodes of Thomas onto our laptop. We also took stacking cups, some small farm animals and Panda. We decided against cars (Harris's favourite thing) because we didn't think we could stop them speeding down the aisle of the plane. 

A mini first aid kit
We took a little bag filled with teething gel, plasters, a small tube of nappy cream,  antiseptic cream, hand sanitizer, sun cream, insect repellent and sachets of Calpol (all under 100ml so fine to take on the plane) most of it went unused, but I'd take it all again just in case. 

Just go with it
We just let Harris eat whenever he wanted, he got more milk than normal, watched more TV than normal and slept whenever he felt like it, and it worked. He loved the flight, especially going faster and faster during take off and looking out the window. He made lots of new peek-a-boo friends as he explored the plane and he didn't seem to notice the time change. Me and Rob missed having hours to sleep, eat and watch movies, but I think flying with a toddler actually makes the journey go faster - you're never bored!