Christmas crafts anyone can make

Posted on January 11th, 2019 - Fiona

So here we are in January and I’m only just finding the time to write up Christmas! We were so busy with holiday guests and then family visiting that the time ran away. Finally I have one safely delivered  back to  Uni, one back at work one back at collage, 4 back at school, extended family and festive holiday guests left and time to reflect on some of the fun we had. I’m beginning with a post about our Christmas crafts. Ever since I did our Halloween Log craft I knew that it would be perfect to adapt for our Christmas guests. I added a few bits and pieces and before long I had an afternoon of action packed fun waiting for a group of excited pre Christmas children.  

Scavenger Hunt to make Christmas Crafts

Having explained to an eager gathering what the afternoon would entail we set off on a special Christmas scavenger hunt. The children had sheets of all the things they needed to find and collect. This was going to form the basis of our Christmas Log Decoration and Christmas bauble.  

Making Christmas logs with Father Christmas

Having put quite a time into preparing my example Christmas Log table decoration I was a little worried about how long it might take in a big group. To speed things up I had pre cut some of the more intricate bits. Just as well I did as it still took longer than I anticipated with sharing scissors and paint. The children took real care over their coke bottle Santa’s and decorated the rest of the log in their own style from the bits we collected and resources I provided.   

Toasting marshmallows

I still had two activities to run but I know Guy had a roaring fire pit waiting for us to toast marshmallows ahead of running the train for the evening so we agreed to return to the games room and finish our crafts after dark.

I may have ruined tea time for a few but the children had a great time dipping their marshmallows in the fire. Succumbing to the excitement of the moment the adults joined in too, after all who can resist a toasted marshmallow?

Coombe  Mill Festive Train

Thankfully Guy was not just in charge of the fire but also our train driver for the evening, a few were worried about missing the train but when I pointed out that our train driver was still cooking they stopped worrying. Finally we ran a late train through the Christmas filled tunnel as the daylight fell away.

 

Reindeer food & Christmas baubles

For those still keen to continue crafting we returned to the games room where the bottom of our coke bottles became a container for reindeer food. OK so we have fallow deer, but let’s not be too picky, our Rudolph was still on standby for Santa and needed some special food with magic sprinkle for breakfast the following day (Christmas Eve). Christmas paper and colourful ribbon finished the packaging and the children promised to bring them along the following day for the morning feed run to feed to Rudolph. 

Finally the left over tinsel, ivy, holly and chosen Christmas card pictures were filled into hollow baubles to make take home tree decorations.

 

There was certainly enough to keep the most active and creative children occupied for the afternoon. With just 2 sleeps left to Christmas the energy levels were riding high and here on the farm the children were thoroughly enjoying the festive build up with us. Join me next week to see the fun we had on Christmas Eve and don’t forget if you fancy leaving the Christmas organisation to us next year and sitting back enjoying a fun festive holiday we are taking bookings now.  

 

   

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Seasonal Peg Fairy and Nature Wand Craft

Posted on November 2nd, 2018 - Fiona

I’m on a bit of a roll with my crafts at the moment. One idea morphs into another and a whole new activity emerges. My latest crafts are all born out of the amazing stickabilty of flour and water. First I used nature on pebbles and then on logs to make a dinosaur log and a Halloween Log. This week I worked on my nature log and came up with a Peg fairy with magic wand and fairy dust.

Nature Hunt

The first thing we needed was to go off in search of a log, a stick and some autumn nature.

Building a fairy garden

I had some new additions for the fairy garden I was keen to add so the children helped me decide where these should go.

Autumn flower fairies

Anyone remember the flower fairy books from their childhood? They captivated my imagination and stuck in my mind creating the autumn habitat on the logs . We piled on acorns, flowers, leaves and more with flour glue before making the peg fairies.

Magic Fairy wand

Winding some colourful wool around twig made a simple magic wand to add to our log.

Making a Peg Fairy

We pushed two thick leaves through the peg holes to simultaneously create wings and arms. Then the children chose some material for a skirt. Bingo our easy peg fairy was ready.

Magic Fairy Dust

All that was left was to sprinkle some fairy dust. For this I just added a few drops of food colour to sugar. To keep things really natural you could use blackberry juice or any other berry juice instead. The children sprinkled a little dust over their fairy logs placing the bulk in milk bottle tops secured with the flour glue. they were only too happy to pose for a photo with their fairy landscapes.

The children were all quite young and I knew they would need a little help to pull this one off but they managed really well thanks to some great parental support and a concept that captured their imaginations.

Create a Peg Fairy Log and wand at home

This would be a fun and educational activity to recreate from a family woodland walk.

What you’ll Need	Seasonal nature gathered from a walk to include things like leaves, berries, acorns, conkers, pine cones, twigs, feathers A small log with one stable side as a base. A small twig for a wand dolly peg Two evergreen leaves with structure for wings and arms Flour and water paste sugar and food colour for fairy dust Colourful wool or ribbon for wand. A rectangle of material with small cut at the centre for a fairy skirt
Educational Benefits	Creativity Imaginative play Dexterity The opportunity to explore changes in nature with the seasons
Suitable For	Age 4 – 12

 

 

   

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Halloween Fun Day 2018

Posted on October 26th, 2018 - Fiona

Here at Coombe Mill we love to make the most of big occasions in the calendar. Halloween is one of those and each year we have a day dedicated to Halloween activities during the October half term. Traditionally half term and Halloween collided, however over time the two have become separated. Such was the popularity of our Halloween Fun day with guests we began running Halloween in half term, wherever that fell. For the first time this year the country is split for half term. Half the country had half term last week and the other this week. The answer was simple, 2 fun days! These are the highlights from the first, though I will be repeating the fun all over again this coming week on the 31st October so no one misses out.

 

Itinerary for the day

Forewarned is forearmed as the saying goes. When the guests arrive I hand them an itinerary for the Halloween Fun Day as part of their welcome talk. This way everyone who wants to join in can be fully prepared.

Fancy Dress Feed Run

The day begins with our daily feed run, all spooked up with a decorated trailer and fancy dress. We have a games room packed with fancy dress costumes so there is no need for anyone to splash out beforehand.

 

The fancy dress really sets the scene and the children love the look of the trailer drawing up at 9am. Each year I buy a few new things and add to the disguise. Even Farmer Nick had a new outfit which lasted the whole feed run. Usually he has abandoned whatever I have given him half way round!

Halloween Spooky farm eggs

Without question, the highlight of the morning for the children was running up to the egg box, peering inside to collect the morning eggs only to discover Cadbury crème eggs in spooky Halloween wrapping! We do this at Easter, but when I saw the Halloween eggs for sale I had to buy the lot for our Halloween fun day!  

 

 

There is then a break till mid afternoon that allows the guests to go out for a couple of hours, often to get some lunch for everyone ahead of the sweeties of the afternoon. This gives me a chance to de-robe the trailer and kit out the train tunnel for the ghost train later and prepare the crafts.

Pumpkin carving

In the past I have left guests to sort out their own pumpkins, this year I bought a load and invited the guests to come and join me for a session of pumpkin carving. With knives, spoons, a white board marker for designing we set to work. I had Theo as my ‘wing man’ to help anyone who needed it and the results were commendable. The children designed the pumpkin faces while the parents and older children carved them.

Halloween decorations

As the pumpkins finished the children moved to my craft table. Taking inspiration from the past few weeks of log crafts, we made Halloween logs. This time I added green food colouring to the glue paste for a slime landscape. To this the children added spider webs from card and wool, haunted houses from toilet rolls and monsters from painted rocks with googly eyes. I had a tub with left over bits and bobs that the children used to embellish their decoration.

 

Halloween Fun Day Games

No Halloween is complete without a few games. We were lucky to make the most of the lovely mild weather and set up Broom racing on the lawn. The children ran in teams to complete the broom races.

We then retreated into the games room for some traditional musical statues to Halloween Party music.

 

Ghost Train

Time was running away and I wanted to give the guests a clear hour ahead of the evening activities to sort the children out with tea. We met again at 6.30 at Coombe Halt ready for the Ghost train. I’m not sure how many times the train ran round it’s track, but we were there the best part of half an hour. Our fearsome driver slowed down to go through the ghost tunnel which was full of spooky delights. I was careful to manage the balance between scary and fun as I didn’t want to frighten the younger ones. Apparently I may have made it too much fun as one little girl thought it was Christmas and asked if Santa was calling later, she was having so much fun!

 

Trick or Treat

There was only one event left. After a quick five minutes for everyone to have a comfort break and light their pumpkins, we met back at the train station. Some of the children had never been trick or treating before and listening to them chatting about how great it was made my heart melt. We took an organised procession from property to property. I had Theo at 6ft 3 as a natural leader with torch and camera capturing the magic of the evening. At 16, he is still a sweetie addict and finished the night with pockets bulging himself!   

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Halloween will go down as a really fun event with all our guests.  I’m already looking forward to doing it all again this coming Wednesday, may be with a few changes depending on the age of the children. If you fancy joining us next year be sure to book for October half term.

Halloween Extravaganza with the Coombe Mill 2018 Fun Day

 

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Dinoscape crafted from nature, a log and a dinosaur

Posted on October 19th, 2018 - Fiona

I have really been enjoying using nature with the children staying here this autumn. There are so many windfalls hitting the farm giving countless possibilities for learning made fun in our outdoor classroom. With a very young team signed up to join me I knew I had to make things fun and easy this week. Two year olds are very discerning and will vote with their feet if the learning goes over their heads. I remembered how popular dinosaur world creation was last winter but was concerned it would be too fiddly for this group. A little adaption based on my pile of leaves craft and I had a simple dinoscape ready to impress with a dinosaur hunt to finish it off.

 

Atlas of dinosaur adventures

We began with a little look at the lovely ‘Atlas of Dinosaur Adventures‘ book from Quarto Kids. It is huge with beautiful visuals for each continent. We focused on the Europe page which perfectly depicts all the children could see around them at Coombe Mill from trees and nature to rivers and rocks. Meandering through the landscape were the dinosaurs. Two of the boys were wearing a dinosaur top which was a great start. We talked about the landscape and how it must have looked rather like Coombe Mill back when the dinosaurs were alive.

Collecting Nature for a dinoscape

I didn’t want to keep the children sat still for too long so we headed straight on out in search of fallen leaves, acorns, petals and more to create their own dinoscapes. When the tubs were filled we ventured into the log store to choose a log each as the base to their dinosaur landscape.

Creating a dinoscape

Back at my craft table the children began to spread my flower and water paste on to their log and arrange all their collected nature on top. The dinoscapes came together perfectly as the paste is very forgiving allowing the children to pull things off and re-paste until they were happy.

 

Dinosaur hunt

They were so engrossed in creating their dinosaur landscape they almost forgot it needed a dinosaur on it. They all knew dinosaurs were extinct do I explained we would have to go digging for a buried dinosaur. After a couple of clues they raced off to the sand diggers in the sand pit and began to dig. Oh the excitement as a dinosaur came to life!

 

A little free play

The temptation to stay and play was too much, and we had no real time limit so we were all happy to let them run around and chase up and down the slide for a few minutes to wear themselves out.

Dinosaurs complete the dinoscape

Finally we reminded them of their dinosaurs and the dinoscapes waiting for them. They ran back to the craft table with dinosaurs in hand and with a little more paste fixed them into their chosen place.

I was so pleased; the activity suited these little ones perfectly with just the right amount of learning and fun.

Recreate a Dinoscape at home

This would be such a simple activity to recreate from a walk in the woods or the park.

What you’ll Need	Nature collected from a walk A small toy dinosaur to hide (ours came in a pack of 6 for £1.99) A small log Flower mixed with water to form a stiff paste.
Educational Benefits	Creativity Imagination Dexterity The opportunity to explore animal diets and habitats
Suitable For	Age 2 – 4

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Confidence comes from trying new things.

Posted on October 12th, 2018 - Fiona

It was the first day out on the farm for this young lad. He had the feed run to himself as our other guests had made an early get away for a day out in Cornwall in the sunshine. Everything was new and it showed in his 2 year old face, his emotions and reactions to the farm. That said Farmer Nick is very used to this and took the morning duties at this little man’s pace.  You can see fear, wonder and then a growing confidence just in one morning.

Tailored to you

It is easy for us to forget how much there is to learn on a first day, from how to handle the eggs, to which animals are safe to feed from your hand. However the feed run is tailored to the visitors we have. In the school holidays the children and animals are highly interactive and for the safety of everyone we have to hold back the over brave. On mornings like this everything is much more gentle. Animal feeding is largely through the fence and very carefully supervised.  This way confidence grows and with it the quest to do more. There is something for every child to take away from a farm holiday.

Looking unsure entering the farm

Finding a real chicken egg with a feather still on it

Oops, discovering what happens to eggs dropped into the bucket! 

Excitement over the goats

Feeling confident to feed the goats through the fence

 

Give your kids farm confidence with us

With the beautiful autumn scenery, quieter feed runs with younger children, autumn is a lovely time to visit us. Check out our availability if you are temped for a family break. We are open all year and the animals love to see the children over the quieter months, I promise they will grow in confidence with just a few days here.  

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