Family farm holidays in Cornwall magical for children, toddlers and babies.
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Coombe Mill Blog
"Tales from the farmers wife" shares the funny and interesting happenings on our lovely holiday farm with Farmer Nick and our 6 children. A behind the scenes look on balancing family, farming, the holiday business and cooking for all.
Garden Croquet Set for Summer Days
The Garden Croquet Set from big Game Hunters gives everyone the chance to enjoy this competitive skilled game in the garden or park thanks t... Read More
Balmy summer beach evenings
Balmy summer beach evenings in Cornwall have a great relaxed holiday vibe. Capture the moment on camera and remember them on the shorter win... Read More
Country Kids 14th July 2018
Country Kids is a blog link up for all family outdoor fun running Saturday - Wednesday. Come and join the fun and gain inspiration for enjoy... Read More
Learning Shapes with books, nature and paint
Learning shapes using educational books, potato printing, a fairy garden hunt, making sticky weed nature shapes and more fun activities. ... Read More
Eggnogg Colour-In Back Pack and Pencil Case
Eggnogg colour-in range is great for creative kids. We've been checking out the backpack and pencil case. Perfect for back to school and day... Read More
Country Kids is the original outdoor family fun linky designed to:
“Encourage family fun outdoors, in an age where technology and screens are such a draw to a sedentary indoor life”
Welcome back if you are a regular to Country Kids and if you are new please join in. You will find plenty of inspiration for enjoying outdoor space and please do share your own adventures. We support the National Trust #50 things along with all other ideas for family fun outside.
End of term draws near.
It’s nearly the end of term and it feels like it in our house. With exams over for my eldest boys they are already working over the summer while the younger ones are doing precious little in lessons with under a week to the end of term. I’m already looking forward to no more school runs and a few weeks chill out time with some family fun. Until then we are making the most of the summer sun, light evenings and weekends. Whatever your plans for the week ahead I hope it includes some outdoor fun and as always please come and join me with your adventures on the link up below.
Guidelines for Joining in:
Post must be predominantly outdoors such as in the garden, the park, the woods or the beach with crafting, learning, exploring or playing.
Despite the title, both countryside and urban outdoor adventures are welcome.
Unheated covered areas like a barn or tent count as outdoors.
Please comment on my host post and a minimum of 3 others of your choice.
If you use #CountryKids when commenting the post owner will know where your found them and hopefully come back to visit your post.
Please take my badge, without it you won’t be considered for winning the lovely Rockfish Wellies.
Linked posts should be written and made live within the last 2 months.
I understand sometimes you need to do catch up posts and write about something from a couple of months ago but the publish date should be within 2 months.
There is no restriction on the number of posts that can be linked up, however please be sensible, if you have more than 3 consider linking over a few weeks.
Thanks to all of you who joined in last week and for the comments you took time to leave, we had a week with no link dumpers so a pat on the back to you all!
Rockfish kindly sponsor Country Kids
Win a pair of wellies from Rockfish Monthly
I am delighted to have Rockfish as the sponsor for Country Kids. Rockfish are a local Cornish company specializing in stylish quality wellingtons for all the family. We have been offering their country wellies in our borrow room here on the farm for over a year and they are always popular for their style, comfort and durability.
Each week my favourite #CountryKids posts, which include my badge or a link back here, will be considered for a free pair of Rockfish Wellies at the end of the month; the perfect way to enjoy the outdoors whatever the weather throws your way. Keep your posts coming, it could be you winning next!
For more more information on the Rockfish Wellies on offer with us and terms and conditions to win see here.
Favourite posts from last week added to the shortlist for winning the July Rockfish Wellies:
Top commenter: Kim from Northumberland Mam
Mum turned Mom went on a last minute vacation to Ireland and had a wonderful time discovering Kinsale.
A beautiful day at Cotswold Lavender, Over 40 and a Mum to One discovered the beautiful sights and smells.
Country Kids Communities
I’d love you to join me:
Pin on the Pinterest Board Just ask for an invite to pin and include Country Kids on your pins for me to stop by on your boards too.
Join the growing Country Kids Instagram Community with #CountryKidsFun.
I'll like and comment on all and share my favourites from the week with a tag on a Friday on Instagram and Twitter. We crossed the 10.000 post mark with outdoor fun in this community today which I find really exciting. Thank you to all who join in.
I love to build on an educational theme for our activity hour on the farm. This week was all about shapes with a group of children age 2 to 5. I had some fun ideas prepared to make learning shapes fun. After all, the children were on holiday and coming along for some creative fun and not to feel like they had started school.
Learning shapes and counting
I had a beautiful book on counting, colours and shapes from Phaidon I had reviewed on my Facebook Page and dug it out of our library collection. As we all sat down on my colour in picnic rug I began the book. The children were instantly drawn to the quirky opening of the book and soon they were all helping me turn the pages to identify and count the shapes revealed.
Printing shapes
It was clear the children had a good grasp on basic shapes and only a couple of the higher sided shapes were new to them. Everyone loves a little painting fun and while I read the book Clio was setting up paint at the craft table. We gathered round and used potato stamp shapes to print onto corresponding shape worksheets. (These can be found on the education pages of my website).
Circle Rolls
Re-gathering on the rug the children settled down to listen to a fun story of a circle who took on a life like character and rolled into his fellow shapes creating quite a commotion. This light-hearted tale had the children laughing and totally engaged. It is another gem from Phaidon I can totally recommend.
Identifying shapes in the fairy garden
After sitting so well, the children were more than happy to be on the move for our next task. We were off to the fairy gardens to identify shapes on the fairies new dancing carousel. This was one I had been making in Farmer Nick’s shed from an old chain real painted and wrapped at the middle with Duck Tape Colours to avoid any splinters. I had chosen to decorate it with different coloured painted shapes so it was perfect for today’s theme. The children spotted it as soon as they ran into the gardens and began shouting out all the shapes they could recognise.
Creating Shapes with Nature
While we were in the gardens I showed the children the magic sticking property of sticky weed. They each collected and piece and hunted for colourful flowers for our shapes craft.
Back at the table and rug I handed out cereal boxes cut to size and invited the children to choose some fabric to cover their boxes. We simply cut and stapled the material around the boxes to make a base for the sticky weed.
Then came the fun part; the children created their chosen shape from stickweed and stuck it to the board. If it didn’t work the first time, the stickweed just peeled off and could be stuck down again. We used double sided tape to fill the shapes with the collected colourful flowers. The children loved making them and seeing their shapes take form. The results were colourful and pretty and the shapes clear.
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Extra time and extra activities
That was the end of my organised learning shapes activities but the children took things further rolling down the bank like the circle in Circle Rolls. Then they asked for long rectangular strips of material to add to the wishing tree. They made their wish as they hung them and enjoyed a play with the wishing well before feeding the ponies that had come to watch us.
I don’t think anyone left thinking they had been learning anything, but they certainly had!
Country Kids is the original outdoor family fun linky designed to:
“Encourage family fun outdoors, in an age where technology and screens are such a draw to a sedentary indoor life”
Welcome back if you are a regular to Country Kids and if you are new please join in. You will find plenty of inspiration for enjoying outdoor space and please do share your own adventures. We support the National Trust #50 things along with all other ideas for family fun outside.
Hello July
The summer heatwave continues here in Cornwall, and I believe across the country. The farm is looking very dry and not at all like Cornwall in summer. However while the animals are sitting it out in the shade of the trees and shelters, our guests are loving it with long days at the beach and full evenings eating and playing outdoors. We have been joining them with BBQs and sitting out till late, I will think of these glorious summer days in the middle of winter. As always please come and share your summer fun on the link up below.
Guidelines for Joining in:
Post must be predominantly outdoors such as in the garden, the park, the woods or the beach with crafting, learning, exploring or playing.
Despite the title, both countryside and urban outdoor adventures are welcome.
Unheated covered areas like a barn or tent count as outdoors.
Please comment on my host post and a minimum of 3 others of your choice.
If you use #CountryKids when commenting the post owner will know where your found them and hopefully come back to visit your post.
Please take my badge, without it you won’t be considered for winning the lovely Rockfish Wellies.
Linked posts should be written and made live within the last 2 months.
I understand sometimes you need to do catch up posts and write about something from a couple of months ago but the publish date should be within 2 months.
There is no restriction on the number of posts that can be linked up, however please be sensible, if you have more than 3 consider linking over a few weeks.
Thanks to all of you who joined in last week and for the comments you took time to leave, we had a week with no link dumpers so a pat on the back to you all!
Rockfish kindly sponsor Country Kids
Win a pair of wellies from Rockfish Monthly
I am delighted to have Rockfish as the sponsor for Country Kids. Rockfish are a local Cornish company specializing in stylish quality wellingtons for all the family. We have been offering their country wellies in our borrow room here on the farm for over a year and they are always popular for their style, comfort and durability.
Each week my favourite #CountryKids posts, which include my badge or a link back here, will be considered for a free pair of Rockfish Wellies at the end of the month; the perfect way to enjoy the outdoors whatever the weather throws your way. Keep your posts coming, it could be you winning next!
For more more information on the Rockfish Wellies on offer with us and terms and conditions to win see here.
June Welly Winner
Congratulations to Joy from Pink Oddy who is our June winner of the lovely Rockfish Wellies. Joy has been sharing her homeschooling journey this year and recent trip to Germany which looked educational and fun. Joy, do DM or email ([email protected]) your choice of wellies from the Rockfish range including size and colour as shown in stock.
Favourite posts from last week added to the shortlist for winning the June Rockfish Wellies:
Top Commenter: Louise from Little Hearts Big Love
Dear Mummy had a great few days exploring the Jurassic Coast around Lyme Regis
Watching a caterpillar develop into a butterfly and realising them into the wild is both educational and fascinating as shown by Kids of the Wild
Country Kids Communities
I’d love you to join me:
Pin on the Pinterest Board Just ask for an invite to pin and include Country Kids on your pins for me to stop by on your boards too.
Join the growing Country Kids Instagram Community with #CountryKidsFun.
I'll like and comment on all and share my favourites from the week with a tag on a Friday on Instagram and Twitter. With over 10,000 posts this community is flourishing with outdoors photos.
Back over the Easter Holidays we started our Kindness trail. The children had a lovely time spotting all my giant painted stones and plaques and helping to start a wishing tree. As summer arrived the stones became buried in lush new growth and Farmer Nick had to rescue them and hammer them onto batons in the ground for me. I also added a wishing well next to the wishing tree and the trail took on a new lease of life. I was keen to use the newly refurbished trail to build on our Easter activities around trust and friendship. This time instead of stones we created kindness bunting, played some games centred on trust and finished off with rainbow friendship bracelets.
As it was half term I had a huge variation in age from 2 – 11. I wasn’t sure quite how it would work and at first I only had the younger children as the older girls were busy playing with the ponies up in the field.
Kindness bunting
However as I set to work in the afternoon sun with the younger children a couple of the older girls came down to join us. Cutting the material was always going to be a challenge for the younger children but the older girls were able to work independently. We choose colourful material from my scrap collection and stapled while sheet over the top to create a mounted piece of bunting. The children all chose their own kindness message to add in pen.
Kindness hunt
While the older girls finished their bunting pieces I took the younger ones off across the fairy gardens to hunt for kindness rocks to tick off on their sheets.
We attached all the bunting shapes along string to create our kindness bunting adding the older girl’s pieces at the end as they finished carefully writing. Then we set off up the kindness trail in search of the plaques with messages. I was very impressed with how well the 5 year old’s read and identified each plaque to mark off on their sheets and their enthusiasm running from one to another as they saw them approaching .
Make a wish
The little well was an instant distraction. The children added grass and flowers to the bucket and wound it up and down.
It turns out we were missing one plaque, it must be buried deep in the summer growth on the slopes and I’m now determined to take a long stick and have a good look for it. We hung our bunting between two trees on the trail and watched it flutter in the breeze.
Trust games.
Back down on the grass we began our trust games; I had a set of games I thought everyone could manage. Many involved a blindfold and instructions demonstrating the need to trust the instructions given.
Friendship bracelets
Finally we settled back down and made kindness bracelets with little animal trinkets. I taught the children how to finger knit the wool which gave it both stretch and width. They were delighted with the results.
As always it was an action packed afternoon with a little gentle learning and a lot of friendship fun.
Kindness bunting trust games and friendship bracelets
Country Kids is the original outdoor family fun linky designed to:
“Encourage family fun outdoors, in an age where technology and screens are such a draw to a sedentary indoor life”
Welcome back if you are a regular to Country Kids and if you are new please join in. You will find plenty of inspiration for enjoying outdoor space and please do share your own adventures. We support the National Trust #50 things along with all other ideas for family fun outside.
Heatwaves are great if you are on holiday!
Well it isn’t often I’m handing out sun safety advice and suggestions for staying cool with kids in Cornwall. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I love this weather, but for our holiday makers with little ones it has been quite tough keeping them cool and equally the animals are feeling the heat and seeking shady spots to lounge around in after the morning visit from us. Having our own stretch of river to paddle in and the beautiful beaches nearby has been ideal. Whatever your plans for the week ahead I hope it includes some outdoor fun and as always please come and join me with your adventures on the link up below.
Guidelines for Joining in:
Post must be predominantly outdoors such as in the garden, the park, the woods or the beach with crafting, learning, exploring or playing.
Despite the title, both countryside and urban outdoor adventures are welcome.
Unheated covered areas like a barn or tent count as outdoors.
Please comment on my host post and a minimum of 3 others of your choice.
If you use #CountryKids when commenting the post owner will know where your found them and hopefully come back to visit your post.
Please take my badge, without it you won’t be considered for winning the lovely Rockfish Wellies.
Linked posts should be written and made live within the last 2 months.
I understand sometimes you need to do catch up posts and write about something from a couple of months ago but the publish date should be within 2 months.
There is no restriction on the number of posts that can be linked up, however please be sensible, if you have more than 3 consider linking over a few weeks.
My top commenters from last week:
Elaine from Fun as a Gran who commented on 16 posts.
Thanks to all of you who joined in last week and for the comments you took time to leave, we had a week with no link dumpers so a pat on the back to you all!
Rockfish kindly sponsor Country Kids
Win a pair of wellies from Rockfish Monthly
I am delighted to have Rockfish as the sponsor for Country Kids. Rockfish are a local Cornish company specializing in stylish quality wellingtons for all the family. We have been offering their country wellies in our borrow room here on the farm for over a year and they are always popular for their style, comfort and durability.
Each week my favourite #CountryKids posts, which include my badge or a link back here, will be considered for a free pair of Rockfish Wellies at the end of the month; the perfect way to enjoy the outdoors whatever the weather throws your way. Keep your posts coming, it could be you winning next!
For more more information on the Rockfish Wellies on offer with us and terms and conditions to win see here.
Favourite posts from last week added to the shortlist for winning the June Rockfish Wellies:
Top commenter: Elaine from Fun as a Gran
Yorkshire is a long way from us here in Cornwall but I’d love to visit some of the places Mummy Melton did
I’ve never been to Austria but Pink Oddy makes it look very beautiful
Country Kids Communities
I’d love you to join me:
Pin on the Pinterest Board Just ask for an invite to pin and include Country Kids on your pins for me to stop by on your boards too.
Join the growing Country Kids Instagram Community with #CountryKidsFun.
I'll like and comment on all and share my favourites from the week with a tag on a Friday on Instagram and Twitter. We crossed the 10.000 post mark with outdoor fun in this community today which I find really exciting. Thank you to all who join in.
“Tales from the farmers wife” shares the funny and interesting happenings on our lovely holiday farm with Farmer Nick and our 6 children. A behind the scenes look on balancing family, farming, the holiday business and cooking for all.
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