Great South Run

On Saturday 29th October 2011, I'm running the Great South Run 5k and my two children are running the Mini Great South Run which is 1.5k, and we're running in aid of charity.

We're really looking forward to doing the run, and we've set up fundraising pages. The children are running for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, and I'm running for the Alzheimer's Society. If you would like to support our charities and us, here are the details.

Just Giving Page for the Children - Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research

My Just Giving Page - Alzheimer's Society

A long time ago I used to run, I used to sprint in my teens, and I ran the Nottingham half marathon in my 20s, and in between these times I've had periods of not doing much at all! Since having my last child I've started and stopped running several times, due to illness, injury and time factors. Every time I've started again, I've used the C25K plan, and this is what I've been doing again this time, training following the couch to 5k plan, I started off using the podcasts by Robert Ullrey. Then I fancied a change of music so found these podcasts by OhSuzannah.

 I originally entered the run as I wanted something to aim for, an achievement. I thought if I was running for something it would help keep me motivated. Now it's nearly upon me, and it has helped, but I've also not trained quite as much as I would have liked, and in truth I'm a little bit nervous! However I'm quite a driven person, and I've entered now, and showed support to the charity, so there is no question I will be there on Saturday to start and finish the run!

About  a week ago for the first time I did a 30 minute run, and it was ok, maybe not as quick as I would like, but I managed it. Then a few days ago I thought I'd better try the actual 5k distance, and I managed it in 33 minutes. I know it could be faster, and I'm still quite unfit but I've run out of time considering the run is in 3 days..... 

The children naturally run around lots, are very active, and have good stamina, the only thing they could do with practising is running the actual distance at least once so they know not to go off too fast! I have very different children in their approach to the run, one said "I'm going to try my best to win"  and the other said "mum there's a medal for everyone who finishes so it doesn't matter how fast I go". They're both in the same wave of runners which is nice that they're together, but I wonder how they will decide to run, will they both run the whole way together, or will one get competitive and decide to run their own race? It will be interesting to see what they do on the day, they've never been in a running event before. 

We're all really looking forward to it, roll on Saturday. Anyone else or their children running this weekend? 

Shield Bug

Today we found a lovely shield bug. We'd never seen one quite like it before, others we have seen have been all green, or all brown. This one however was both green and brown, in a very distinct pattern. Apologies for the poor photo quality, it was taken with my phone. I was out without my camera, I will remember next time, as you never know what you might see!

Hawthorn Shield Bug

It was in fact a Hawthorn shield bug, which are apparently quite common here in the UK. My son was very excited, he loves discovering new bugs he's not seen before. He gently carried it around showing his friends in the playground. 

The shield bug hibernates over winter as an adult, and then emerges and mates in the Spring. The female lays eggs and then between May and October they have a nymph stage and can be found feeding on a range of trees, and shrubs, but mainly on hawthorn, where they get their name from. By Autumn time they have become adults and can darken in colour as they get ready for hibernation. They hibernate in sheltered areas near the plants they eat, until they emerge in early spring when the cycle begins again. 

They are such amazing bugs to look at. Have you seen any around recently? At some point soon it will be time to hibernate. I wonder if the glorious sunshine and warmth we had last weekend will confuse them and delay the hibernation, or is their hibernation based on daylight hours? Anyone know? 

5 Ways To Learn Key and High Frequency Words - Literacy Recources

Whether your child has just started, or gone back to school, or you are home educating/schooling, we have a variety of literacy resources that you might find useful.

Some schools are still sending out word lists to be learnt, either 45 reception keywords, Dfes high frequency words, or some schools simply have their own lists. Don't panic if the school hasn't given you any either, as some schools aren't using this method at all. We thought we would provide some resources and ideas to help those that wanted them.

So here are our 5 ways to help your child learn these words.

1) Play games with the words - like snap, pairs, and ask a question. We have printable sets of flashcards so you can play these games.

2) Finding the words in a book - this helps to not see the words in isolation, but as a part of reading. Read a book together, and the child has one or more keywords to spot and read in the text. 

3) Put words around the house - Now some people won't want words all around the house, but it's ideal to have a few, opposite the toilet is a good place! We have printable individual words for this purpose for reception keywords and high frequency words. Just scroll a little down the page and you will see them.

4) Combine with physical activities - For those who learn more actively, try using the words as part of a modified hopscotch, or involved with play, driving cars to the word, or scooter to words and back as a race. 

5) Sentences and pictures - Once you have a few keywords, you can start to join them together to start simple sentences, ideal so the words aren't seen in isolation. If you want to, combine with drawing a picture to match the sentence and play a guessing game.

If you want more details, here is the original article which also contains the printable resources, including the flash cards to play the games. 

Not based on keywords but based on different topics, including dinosaurs, and fairies, we also have printable word games, which includes word searches and word matches. 

Also if you're child's reading is progressing, they're heading towards reading chapter books, and you're not sure where to start, we have suggestions and reviews about a variety of different books, including  First chapter books for boys, and Fairy chapter books.

We hope these ideas and resources are useful to you. If there are any other resources you would like to see on the website please get in touch. Leave us a comment below, or contact us.

Movies For Kids - Summer 2011

So this summer we have been to the cinema a few times, and have seen Cars 2, Mr. Poppers Penguins and most recently The Smurfs.

The children enjoyed all of them, but the overall favourite was .......... The Smurfs!

Cars 2, the children were a little disappointed with it, I'm not exactly sure why? Maybe because it's been so long since the first and they've outgrown it? My son loved the first one, and collected a few of the cars, but we are going back a few years now! This one failed to engage them fully, and dare I say it, they got a little bored!

Mr. Poppers Penguins was quite light entertainment, a reasonable watch, not at either end of the scale of good or bad! Although Jim Carrey was a lot better than I've found him in other films, thankfully!

The Smurfs, now I might be biased, I've always loved the Smurfs, and this film didn't disappoint. We all loved it, including the male that came to watch it too. It's funny, bordering on cheese, but I like cheese, so beware if you don't. It's happy, light, entertaining, with a slightly sinister character, faintly resembling in physical appearance to the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Although not quite as scary because the character in the smurfs was quite funny too, so there was a good balance.

If you're not sure whether a particular film is appropriate for your child, says it's a PG or 12A and you want to know a bit more. There is a great website to check out a film before you take your child to the cinema, or watch it on DVD -  Kids in Mind,  it reviews the films on things us parents are interested in! Each film gets a nudity, violence, and profanity rating, and a review of the film.

So the summer holidays are coming to an end, and the films I've mentioned above seem to be on limited showings or have finished now. However if you still want to see them at the cinema look out for a cheap weekend showing.

Most cinemas do a Sat, or Sun showing of films a second time, at a much cheaper price, aimed at attracting kids. So Cineworld for instance has Movies for Juniors, Saturday mornings, normally around 10am. When it's £1 a ticket for each person, so a lot more reasonable than normal cinema prices. The Odeon do similar too - Odeon Kids. It's definitely a good way to see films at the cinema, at a more reasonable price, as long as you don't mind seeing the films a bit longer after release, and giving up your Saturday mornings!

What films have you been to see this summer? Anyone else agree that The Smurfs was the bestest? 

Reverse Lens Macro Photography

This post was written by the other half of Great Little Minds, as he wanted to share his discovery about reverse lens macro photography. 

Owning a DSLR camera is a wonderful experience, it opens up so many opportunities for creative photography. However, the hobby can get even more expensive once you realise the potential of buying dedicated lenses for different situations where your kit lens that came with the camera doesn't quite cut it.

One area I have always been fascinated by is macro photography, seeing minute details in the tiniest of plants and insects. You can buy wonderful macro lenses dedicated to the task which produce amazing results, but they are expensive as always. There is a cheap alternative which can still produce amazing results.

All you need to do is take your kit lens or any other lens you own and mount it on the camera back to front. What this does is reverse the angle of light, so that the wider the angle of the original lens, the more the magnification when reversed. The only expense is a ring to fit on the filter side which has the mount mechanics for your camera on the other side. This is the one I used to fit my Canon 300D with a standard 58mm kit lens...

There are several points you need to remember when taking photos with your lens reversed...

Nothing is auto – You need to manually set your exposure and the only way to focus is by moving closer. With a zoom lens, you have some flexibility being able to zoom in and out. Check each image histogram after the first few shots to guage your settings are correct.

Shallow DOF – As your subject is so small, the depth of field is tiny, so getting those eyes on an insect only 5mm long in focus is very tricky. Take lots of photos and review on the computer later.

Use a flash – As the subjects are so small and you need high shutter speeds to avoid camera shake, the use of a flash helps a lot. You need to bounce and diffuse the light down in front of the lens, so try using shiny card or paper plates cut to size and stuck over your flash. It doesn't need to be anything fancy, just enough to bounce the light.

Be careful – All the electrical bits for your lens are on the outside and the glass is exposed to dust and scratches which are magnified even more when reversed, so take extra care.

Worker and Queen Ant

I was inspired to try this out after watching this video by Thomas Shahan on YouTube

Our son has enjoyed getting involved, as he loves insects etc. and has enjoyed trying to take some photos himself, with a little guidance.

Whilst not interested in the actual taking of the photos, our daughter has been fascinated by the photos themselves. It's a great opportunity to see things in great detail, that you normally wouldn't see. Particularly when you see something in real life, like a bee, and then see it super detailed in a photo and can relate the two to each other practically because you've been there and seen it with your own eyes. The children have also loved hunting around the garden for insects, plants, flowers anything they thought would make good close up photos. So whilst this post is written in quite a detailed way, with specifics, that would be more suited to an adult or older child, don't over look that a subject such as macro photography may also be interesting and fascinating to younger children too. It's all about giving them the opportunities. 

Clematis

Yellow Ladybird

As you might have gathered from previous posts we like wildlife, both the adults and the children in the family. The other day we discovered something new about ladybirds and we thought we would share it with you.  

We get quite a few ladybirds in our garden, lots of different colours, and various numbers of spots. They come to feed on the aphids in the garden, as we don't spray, but let nature balance the food chain out.

Ladybird feeding on aphid

We love spotting which ladybirds we've got, and we also look for the ladybird larvae, which if you didn't know, you may not realise are ladybird larva. They are little black creatures with orange markings, they kind of look like spiky beetles, (typically when I want to take a photo I can't find any!) If you have a look at the life cycle picture at the end of this post you will see what they look like.

While in the garden the children found a ladybird pupa, and they very excitedly came to tell me that something was actually coming out of the casing.

New Ladybird Emerging

We watched with interest, and out came what looked like a ladybird, but it was bright yellow with no spots! Now this mystified us, we thought it might be a different type. However after some research we discovered that this is how ladybirds emerge, they emerge yellow. Then over about 24 hours they develop their spots and change colour.

Newly Emerged Yellow Ladybird

So we had all learnt something new, including me! I never knew, until then, that newly emerged ladybirds were yellow, did you? Have you seen one before? 

If you're interested in the  ladybird life cycle we have this printable picture diagram over on the Great Little Minds main site.

Fishbourne Roman Palace – Gladiators

It all started a couple of weeks ago, when my son received a great poster with a picture of a gladiator on the front, I think it was distributed at school? Wherever we got it from, it was a good piece of advertising, as it had my son requesting to go. The poster has been stuck on the front of the fridge, and a count down to the day of the Gladiator event at Fishbourne Roman Palace has ensued!

Today was the day, although the event was actually on all weekend, but we went today. The children have never been before despite us living fairly locally, and I vaguely remember visiting on a school trip, which will have been back in the 80s!

As you approach you have to wonder whether you are in the right place as you drive in to a housing estate, and then past a school. All the while you're wondering if you're heading the right way, and then you see the sign. It was well organised with people organising the parking, and admission. We paid for a family ticket, and did the gift aid, which entitled us to a season ticket and therefore free admission for the whole year. A couple of dates are exempt, when the other special events are on, but for nothing extra we can go back and visit again, which actually seems a bargain.

There was lots extra going on today, as well as the regular palace things to see. We arrived just before 11am and left at about 4pm,after we had got enticed by a cup of tea and hill rolling at the end!

Our day included, gladiator cut outs, like you get by the seaside, or on piers, but with gladiator scenes. The children loved sticking their heads in these and being different characters, a grown up might have enjoyed it too!

There was a stall were you could have wounds applied, my two chose spear wounds, very realistic they looked too!  It didn't take long to do either, the lady was very skilled. This was a first for my children, and they loved them.

About an hour after we arrived there was a gladiator display which was great, the guy on the PA was interesting and got the crowd booing, and cheering the two sides along. It was a very good show.

After this, very gender stereotypically my children went their separate ways! My daughter found the hair tent, and my son the gladiator school. Although this stereotyping was only imposed by themselves, either child could have done the other activity if they had chosen.

My daughter had her hair plaited in a roman style by a very skilled lady, and there always seemed to be a queue at this tent, she was in demand. My daughter loved it, and it really suited her.

There was also a gladiator school, which was a great idea, with lots of different stations for the children to work through. Running races, catching wild (cuddly) animals with nets. My son loved all this. The main thing he enjoyed was he got to wear a helmet, shield and sword and practise fighting! All be it against a filled hessian sack, twas fun nonetheless! 

We also enjoyed a look around the small garden area, and the tents where various Roman times were re enacted and son got to try on a helmet, and also had a  look at shields and swords.

There was still more to do, see I told you there was plenty! We had a look around the mosaics, the children liked looking through the glass floors in places to get a closer view. My daughter also had a favourite mosaic, which was actually the most complete, this is her looking at it. I'm not going to show you too much, you will have to come and see it for yourself.

In this building there were also lots of other activities for children, coin, and artefact rubbing, colouring in, building a Roman arch. All of which the children enjoyed.

Overall we had a great day. Fishbourne Roman Palace is definitely worth a visit whether you're local, or visiting the area. As we have children we particularly liked the special event day, as it helped bring the history to life. There are further special event dates throughout the year, you can check here to see when they're on. I recommend you get yourself along to the next one, there is lots to see and do.