Playing with the wind

For the past few weeks we have been playing with the early Autumn wind, enjoying the lovely sunshine and (sometimes)balmy days.

The children loved story time - based loosely on "The Story of the Wind Children" by Sibylle von Olfers. As the windsprite blew (and the children helped) the little boat sail past kites, bubbles (this was the childrens favourite part), and parachutes.

And we have been very busy making lots of wonderful toys to play with outside in the breeze.

Bark Boats

You will need a sturdy piece of bark, a small stick, some modelling beeswax, sand paper and polishing beeswax.

Lightly sand your bark and stick (mast).

Warm up the modelling beeswax in your hands. Use this to hold the stick in place on the bark. This is the mast.

Cut a leaf shaped sail out of a piece of green felt.

Here is a finished boat.

And a flotilla of little boats just waiting for a wind sprite to set them sailing!

Parachutes

You will need a square of muslin (around 30cmx30cm), 4 pieces of string each 30cm, a little bead (ours were pieces of wood cut off a tree branch with a hole drilled through) and a small piece of modelling beeswax. The children first got to choose which colour their parachute would be.

Tie a piece of string to each corner of the muslin.

Thread each piece of string through the bead and tie a knot at the bottom. Then wrap the beeswax around the knot (this both stops the knot from sliding through the hole and gives it a bit of extra weight)..

Then take your parachutes out to fly!

(Tip - make sure all of your threads are untangled, and the higher up you are the better)

Autumn Sun Balls
Finally we made Autumn Sun Balls/Comets

You will need 2 circles of thick fabric around 8-10cm in diameter, ribbon (ours was cut around 70cm long), rice, needle and thred. We use lovely Autumn colours. Sew your 2 circles together leaving a small gap, then turn inside out.

Fill your 'bag' with rice until quite full. The kids loved this bit.

Or just have loads of fun playing with the rice and funnels!

Tie your ribbon (we used 2 pieces) together and insert into the bag opening. Stitch it closed.

Your sunball should look something like this.

Now go outside and THROW!!!

Our Sun Balls went hizzing through the air, tails streaming - narrowly missing tree tops(although we did lose one up there), chickens and children! They went amazingly high and far!What fantastic fun!