Here’s a roundup of my best educational content from 2021. It's filled with activities and observations to make learning fun for your child or grandchild... I’ve been reflecting on the many blogs that I’ve written during 2021. A lot has changed in the past year. My granddaughter Daisy started the year in a Nursery class… Continue reading Best of the Blog 2021: raising a confident, curious grandchild
Tag: Gardening
Buried treasure: harvesting potatoes with your grandchild
Most parents and grandparents will understand that spending a healthy amount of time outdoors brings huge benefits for children – sometimes the trick is to find those activities which enable children to enjoy the natural world with ease. Planting and harvesting fruits and vegetables is a great way to do this in your own back garden.… Continue reading Buried treasure: harvesting potatoes with your grandchild
A child’s eye view of life cycles in springtime
Here in the UK, our gardens and parks are starting to fill with new growth on plants and colourful flowers have begun to appear. It is an ideal time to take young children out to have a look and to talk about spring and what happens in springtime The world is changing around them –… Continue reading A child’s eye view of life cycles in springtime
The National Children’s Gardening Week: gardening with pre-school children
"What doing Grandpa?" "I'm going to put some plants in the garden." "My help?" (Daisy's preferred personal pronoun is 'my', as in "my do it") Daisy squatted down next to her Grandpa and while he sorted out the small geranium plants; Daisy grabbed Grandpa's trowel and started to randomly dig in the soil. It didn't… Continue reading The National Children’s Gardening Week: gardening with pre-school children
Learning in the Garden: Load, Lift and Push a wheelbarrow
When Daisy comes to stay she loves to spend time in our garden and she's now developed an interest in our garden tools and equipment. So when we recently spotted a child's metal wheelbarrow in a charity shop, we knew that it would be perfect for Daisy. Daisy has a toy buggy at home and… Continue reading Learning in the Garden: Load, Lift and Push a wheelbarrow
Taking the messy play outside
Like most children, Daisy loves messy water play. One afternoon, during a recent visit, the sun was shining and so it was the perfect opportunity for us to set up water play outside. You don't need any special equipment to cater for water play activities at Daisy's age. We quickly set up a water play… Continue reading Taking the messy play outside
Fifty Blogs Later
It's a year since I wrote my first Granny Smith blog! Fifty blogs later, those warm elephant socks that I wrote about are now worn by Teddy and Daisy only uses baby signing when she's really tired. We continue to use the local library regularly but now Daisy enjoys looking through the story boxes to… Continue reading Fifty Blogs Later
What to look for in Autumn; a guest blog by Grandpa Smith
Autumn is Grandpa's favourite season so I've invited him to write this - Daisy may be too young to understand the turning of the seasons but she’s not too young to savour the assault on the senses presented by the arrival of Autumn. It is the most sensory of the seasons providing stimulation colour and… Continue reading What to look for in Autumn; a guest blog by Grandpa Smith
More about the value of your local library
I’m continuing to use our local libraries to find a variety of books to share with Daisy. I’m selecting different types of books; board books, interactive books, books with flaps as well books with traditional pages. Where possible I also try to include a book that links with Daisy's current interests. So given Daisy's interest in… Continue reading More about the value of your local library
Child-led Play: Outdoor Exploration
Daisy found her shoes and stood by the door to the garden, gesturing to me that she wanted go outside. It was time to go out into the garden for some 'child-led' play so I needed to put my shoes on too. Stirring and Chattering In the garden, Daisy first found a long bamboo cane… Continue reading Child-led Play: Outdoor Exploration
Granny Smith's Diary 