Author Archives: TodayWeDid

Unknown's avatar

About TodayWeDid

I spend my time sharing my love of reading, arts and crafts with my four children. I also review children's and YA books.
Nov9

The Snake Who Came To Stay by Julia Donaldson

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3649The Snake Who Came To Stay by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Hannah Snow, paperback, 77 pages, published by Scholastic in 2013.

This is a chapter book written by the author of one of our favourite books, The Gruffalo. The summer holidays are coming up and Polly has advertised her home as a holiday place for pets. After she has accepted responsibility for Bill and Ben the guinea pigs, Charlie the Mynah bird, Doris the snake and a pondful of fish next door, Polly’s mum says that is enough. The guinea pigs make lots of noise, Charlie keeps loudly imitating everything, and Doris hisses quietly in her tank in the kitchen. It’s a rather noisy holiday home for pets, but everything is going well until Polly leaves Doris’ tank lid open. Her mum is not impressed, but surely Doris will turn up somewhere soon.

This is an easy chapter book with black and white illustrations throughout. It was a nice story with likeable characters and some funny bits. Suitable for lower primary school children, I read this to my preschooler, and she enjoyed it. My first grader read this and it was an easy read for her, but she liked the story.

Nov9

Change the Locks by Simon French

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3406Change the Locks by Simon French, paperback, 103 pages, published by Ashton Scholastic Pty Limited in 1991.

Steven, an eleven year old boy living with his Mum and baby brother, Dylan, doesn’t remember much about his early life, and any questions he asks are deflected by his mother. Her life is in tatters, as she tries to cope with her abusive ex, no job and living out of town without a car. There isn’t much left over for Steven and Dylan, and most of Dylan’s care is left to Steven, a big responsibility for a boy. When Steven’s teacher starts a pen pal program with a class from another school, Steven’s pen pal’s name sparks a memory. He is sure that he has heard that name before, but he can’t quite place it. He is puzzling over this when he and his best friend, Patrick, discover an old newspaper under the flooring while they are helping his parents with some renovations. The newspaper has an article that just might be about Steven and his Mum, but it leads to more questions than answers for Steven, and he really wants to find out the truth. He feels that he is old enough now to know how and where his life began, and why he’s never been told about it before, but his mother may not be ready to tell her story.

This book is fairly short for a novel, but it is still a good read. Steven has to cope with things that many kids will have no exposure to, such as not knowing his father or grandparents, caring for his younger brother, even during the night, which makes him very tired, and being scared of his mum’s ex-boyfriend. These things make Steven different to other kids, and children can often be mean to those that are different, making his school life harder, just as his home life is also difficult. These are great burdens for a boy of that age. The subject matter is handled well, and the story is compelling. I remember reading this for the first time in about year four, and handling it well, though we also discussed it in class, which allowed for more understanding of the themes and issues presented in the story. This is especially important for younger readers so that they get the most out of the book. It’s probably best for middle and upper primary age children.

Nov8

Crown Door Sign

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3608This was another craft kit that was given to L for her birthday this year. There were a few bits to glue together, but most of it was painting and decorating.

The paints that came with the kit were pinks and purples, but unfortunately they had dried out so much that I was unable to revive them. So I grabbed out some paint from our paint supplies,

Painting.

Painting.

and let L pick whatever colours she wanted. L has recently decided that her favourite colour is no longer pink, so she chose blue, white, yellow and orange to paint with instead. She did get a little paint on the whiteboard section, but it was easy to wipe off with a damp cloth.

 

Adding shapes to the crown.

Adding shapes to the crown.

The hardest part for L to do was getting the little sliding panel on. It required the small panel to be placed between the runners just so, for it to be able to slide and not fall out of the grooves. Under the panel she could place stickers from the kit, one says ‘I don’t want to be bothered now’ and the other says ‘Come in and visit me’. L can slide the panel across to display only the one she wants to show.

Decorating.

Decorating.

There were some little wooden shapes in the kit for decoration. L painted these and glued them on. Then she added some glitter glue, rhinestones and stickers to finish the crown off. The kit came with a pink feathery string to add to the crown’s points (you can see it on the box), but L decided it didn’t suit her blue and orange crown, so she saved it for another day.

It had a little whiteboard piece in the centre of the crown to write something on. L wrote her name on this bit before hanging it on her door.

Ready for L to write her name on and hang it up.

Ready for L to write her name on and hang it up.

Nov7

Paper Plate Fish

Posted on by
Standard

I love crafting with paper plates, they have so many uses 🙂 This time we used them to make fish. A whole plate for its body, and a quarter plate for its tail. I cut a triangle out of L’s for a mouth, but A decided to draw a mouth on for herself. The kids used collage materials and paint pens to decorate their fish. Once they were dry I punched a hole in the top of them so that we could attach some string and hang them up.

Gluing.

Gluing.

Adding pom poms.

Adding pom poms.

Sticking on tissue paper.

Sticking on tissue paper.

A's fish hanging up.

A’s fish hanging up.

L's fish.

L’s fish.

Nov4

The 39-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3581The 39-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, paperback, 344 pages, published by Pan Macmillan in 2013.

Following on from The 26-Storey Treehouse, Andy and Terry have added another 13 storeys to their amazing treehouse. There is a bowling alley, a tank of man-eating sharks and an active non-erupting volcano, but the 39th level is still under construction.  The boys are writing their next book when they get a call on their 3D telephone from Mr. Big Nose, who imposes a ridiculous deadline of the following afternoon for the new book. How can Andy and Terry write and illustrate a long book in such a short time, as long books take longer to write than short books, which take a shorter time to write than long books…. Well, Terry has the answer, on the 39th level his new invention will do the writing and illustrating for them. But when the machine thinks it can do a better job at writing books than Andy and Terry, things get out of hand. They have to regain control of their treehouse and their book, and what better way to do that than invite Professor Stupido, the greatest un-inventor ever to live, to un-invent Terry’s machine, but what if Professor Stupido doesn’t want to stop there?

This book is a crazy ride of the imagination, where anything and everything is possible, and will probably happen! A very amusing book for lower to middle primary aged students and above, it really does have laugh out loud moments, and my first grader thought it was hilarious. She read it several times over the weekend, as it is a pretty easy read, despite its length. The text is simple, large and heavily interspersed with amusing black and white illustrations. I think this would be a good book for a reluctant reader.

 

Nov3

Jewellery Boxes

Posted on by
Standard
A's jewellery box kit.

A’s jewellery box kit.

All our friends and family know how much we love doing craft, so the kids are often given craft kits as presents. This year for their birthdays the kids were both given a kit for making a jewellery box. L’s kit contained the box, along with some gel pens and stickers for decorating it. A’s kit was much more complicated, and involved actually building the box prior to painting and decorating it with glitter glue, rhinestones and stickers.

L's jewellery box kit.

L’s jewellery box kit.

 

 

 

 

 

L's finished box.

L’s finished box.

L got to work on hers, adding some stickers, and drawing on it. She decided that she would give the finished box to me, as she already has a lovely jewellery box, so she used alphabet stickers to put my name on it. She wrote some things on it like ‘I love you’ and ‘smiles on a rainy day’. She finished hers quite quickly.

There was no way A would have been able to glue her box together. It had almost thirty pieces, and it was a bit fiddly to get it together. The kit came with glue, but it wasn’t very good, and there wasn’t nearly enough of it, so I used PVA instead. I eventually finished gluing it (with much glue all over me too), and then we had to let it dry. A was quite impatient for it to dry. While we waited we checked out the paint pots that had come with the kit. The paint had dried out a lot, but I managed to revive it by adding some water to it. It was still a bit lumpy, but it was good enough to use. A got to painting the outside in different colours, and then painted the drawers as well. She did most of the painting, just asking me to smooth out the edges for her, and she seemed happy with the result.

Drying....

Drying….

Painting.

Painting.

Painting.

Painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the paint dried, A glued on some rhinestones to the drawer handles, and then put stickers on it. Lastly she added some glitter glue… and by some, I really mean a lot, all in one big blob on the top. We managed to spread it out, but it still took quite a while to dry. She was happy though. Now she is going to keep some of her play jewellery in it.

The glitter glue blob.

The glitter glue blob.

Adding stickers.

Adding stickers.

A's finished box.

A’s finished box.

Nov2

Egg Carton Caterpillars

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3595This is a craft that gets done a lot at pre-schools and playgroups, but never seems to lose its appeal. In the past we have decorated these caterpillars with paint, textas, stickers, and gluing on bits of paper, cellophane and fabric. Sometimes they are short caterpillars and sometimes long, but always fun!

Painting a caterpillar.

Painting a caterpillar.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for them to dry.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for them to dry.

We had half an egg carton left over from some other craft, so I cut this in half to make two caterpillars for A. She chose to paint one green and one red. She put so much paint on them that it took all day to dry… Eventually we got back to them and A decorated them. I punched two holes with my awl in the head of each caterpillar so that A could add pipe-cleaner antennae. She also glued on some googly eyes, and then used pompoms to decorate their bodies. She gave the red one a pompom nose. They are very cute!

Bending the antennae into shape.

Bending the antennae into shape.

Decorating a caterpillar.

Decorating a caterpillar.

Nov2

Threading Wall Decoration

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3578

Threading a patty-pan case.

Threading a patty-pan case.

Today we gathered together some dry pasta, cut-up straws, patty pan cases in two sizes, cotton balls and some string and set to work making a wall decoration for A’s room. I had some large plastic needles that A could safely use to thread her items onto the string. A cut quite a long piece of string so that it would stretch across her wall. I tied it off at the end so that the threaded items wouldn’t fall off the end, and then she got started. She used the point of the needle to push through the patty-pan cases and the cotton wool balls. The latter were reasonably hard to get the needle through, and she required some help with this, but she liked the way they looked once they were on the string.

IMG_3570She found that the straw pieces disappeared into the pasta if they were put together, so they were best separated by the patty-pan cases or the cotton wool. She had fun counting the straw pieces and pasta as she threaded them on too.

Once she was finished, I tied the string off, and we hung it up in her room. It was too heavy for blu-tack alone, so we tied one end to the curtain rod, and the opposite end to a hook that was already on the wall, with the centre section held up with bits of blu-tack at various intervals to give it a scalloped look. It brightened up her wall, and she had fun making it.

IMG_3577

 

Nov1

Spider Drinks

Posted on by
Standard

We made another type of spider on Halloween too, this time an edible variety. When I told L there would be spiders for desert she became a bit worried, and told me she didn’t want any red-backs because they are poisonous. That gave me a bit of a chuckle.

Ingredients.

Ingredients.

The kids had never had soft drink spiders before, so they were fascinated when Big L put ice-cream and lime soft drink on the bench. Big L placed a scoop of ice-ceam in the bottom of some plastic cups, and then slowly added the lime soft drink. The kids loved watching the combination fizz up. Both kids were keen to try them, L really enjoyed it, while A thought it was icky. Not a big surprise though, since she doesn’t like soft drinks either, but we were happy she tried a new food.

IMG_3552IMG_3553IMG_3554

 

 

 

 

 

We used straws to drink the spiders, and we all had fun trying to create enough suction on the lump of ice-cream with the straw to lift it out of the soft drink. Lots of laughs when Big L dropped his ball of ice-cream and it splashed back into the drink spraying his face with green speckles.

Nov1

Egg Carton Spiders

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_3561

We don’t normally do anything for Halloween, it’s not something we’ve really gotten into, but seeing all the decorations available in the shops put me in the mood for making some egg carton spiders. Luckily we have a large supply of egg cartons at the moment, so I pulled one out and cut it up into the individual cups.

Painting the egg carton cups.

Painting the egg carton cups.

The kids painted the egg cups inside and out with black paint (getting a lot on themselves in the process). We left these to dry for a while and then came back to add pipe-cleaner legs and googly eyes. I used an awl to punch the holes for the pipe-cleaner legs, making it easier for the kids to push the legs through. My awl is very sharp, and I didn’t allow the girls to touch it. A still had a lot of trouble putting legs on her spiders, so I helped her put them in and then shape them to give them knees and feet. L was able to put legs on her spiders and make them into a shape that she wanted.

 

Adding legs.

Adding legs.

Adding a mouth.

Adding a mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A added some red paint to two of her spiders and told me they were red-backs, and one got a big red mouth. L preferred hers just black. I punched a hole into the top of each spider and added some string and then attached them to the ceiling with blu-tack.

IMG_3582

Spiders hanging from the ceiling.

Spiders hanging from the ceiling.