DAY 100 OF LOCKDOWN -SPECIAL!

We had a special day of activities today to 'celebrate' 100 days of being in lockdown. As Skype and Zoom have become such common features in people's lives during lockdown, we started the day with a Skype call to Grandma Jeanette and Grandad Harry...

The kids had a great time doing a scavenger hunt which Grandma Jeanette had organised

Finding shoes as quickly as they could

Zachary had a long document to read all about the events leading up to and during the lockdown, then he answered some questions

Jory chose the viruses to colour in, whilst Tahlia chose the rainbow

A typical lockdown colouring activity

A lockdown must is doing PE with Joe live - we have done every single PE with Joe workout since it began on the first day of lockdown (but we've never had a shoutout!)

Showing off his PE with Joe t-shirt whilst doing the exercises; the money raised (£500,000+) from the t-shirt sales went to the NHS

It wouldn't be lockdown without a rainbow walk!

Looking at the decorated breeze blocks again

You can't miss the various guidance posters

We suspect they will be opening the local playground soon - they have finally mowed the footlong grass!

Tahlia loves these flowers the most; Daddy thinks they look like liquorice alsorts

Some of her other favourites to photograph

Showing off their 'lockdown' t-shirts, which they painted during lockdown (related to Joseph's coat of many colours)

We Skyped Uncle Bar to wish him happy birthday today (although it was hard to make much conversation with so many of them talking at the same time!)

Lots of people have enjoyed doing quite a bit more baking during lockdown (including us). This meant it became hard to find baking essentials such as flour and yeast in the supermarkets. So, for lockdown day, we decided to make some rocky road, which doesn't use any flour.

Adding the essential ingredients

The finished rocky road

We spent three separate sessions looking through all of the lockdown blog posts on the TV, starting with day one; although we only reached Day 33!

They loved looking at photos of themselves and remembering what they've been doing

Trying out their new curly 'lockdown' straws

Zachary spent a while calculating the percentage of each of our lives we've spent in lockdown. For Mummy, this was a mere 0.8%, but for Ptolemy it was 8.32%. We even did it for our friend, baby Elizabeth, who is about 9 months old. She has spent almost 35% of her life in lockdown!

Next, as a way to demonstrate that 100 is a big number, we played a tombola game using numbered balls

Whenever they drew a number, Zachary would mark it off on the grid. If the number was in the 5 times table, they would win a smartie. We only managed to get through almost half of the numbers before we'd decided that was enough. We might play again tomorrow.

Lockdown has been associated with hoarding of various items, particularly toilet rolls. Since the hoarding saga has now passed, we thought it was time to do our own hoarding and see what we could build with our hoarded toilet rolls!

They each took a turn to build the best tower they could; here's Jory's.

Ptolemy's tower

And he knocked it down!

Tahlia's pyramid towers

Zachary went for the tallest

Daddy's cool pyramid

Mummy's tower wins on height

We did a supermarket role play in which you had to keep your social distance and avoid Daddy's 'distancing' pool noodles, whilst trying to gather your shopping

They all enjoyed having a turn with the pool noodle distancer

Dr Octopus wanted to flout social distancing rules!

We played a game called 'Open or Closed', in which we showed them photos of places and they had to say whether they were open or closed during lockdown

Daddy had made it come up with the sounds from the Family Fortunes machine whenever it said 'open' or 'closed'

Jory particularly loved the sounds

A photo of Butlins; sadly it was in the closed category (our family holiday this year is cancelled)

Day Ninety Nine of LOCKDOWN!

Working on a new city

Sorting the countries of the world according to their shape

We worked on a different topic today, with a space themed day. As Zachary already knows lots about space (more than Mummy and Daddy!), we had a look at constellations, which is something he hasn't yet covered in depth.

Working on a constellations comprehension

Tahlia's finished solar system

Making space pictures

We looked at how constellations are named - mostly after Ancient Greek myths, although some other cultures around the world thought they looked like different things, for example, the Chinese thought Leo looked more like a horse than a lion.

We had a go at making up our own constellations; this one, Tahlia named 'the prison' (perhaps in reference to lockdown!).

Ptolemy's were like star lollipops

We watched some videos about the constellations

We looked at how our view of the constellations is different to how they would look from a different point in space; to demonstrate this, we made a mobile of the Big Dipper.

We looked at the names of each and measured string for each star according to its distance from Earth (to scale)

The finished mobile; this is how the stars in the Big Dipper would look from the side

When you look from underneath it, you can see the view from Earth

Spot the Big Dipper

This afternoon, we looked at the solar system. First, we had a closer look at Zachary's poster with facts about the planets.

We used props to demonstrate the movement of the Earth around the sun (red space hopper) and the moon around the Earth (golf ball); Tahlia span the Earth to show the days

We headed outside to mark the distance of the planets from the sun to scale; here, Tahlia draws the sun (size not to scale)

Finding our place on the Earth

Working out the next distance; marks have now been drawn for Mercury, Venus and Earth

Marking the last planet (top); we discovered that the outer planets have much bigger gaps between them than the inner ones

Colouring the planets to incorporate into a space themed board game

Putting it together, including question spaces

Playing his new board game with Daddy

Spin and win

Playing a space themed online game

We made some 'cookie dough' using peanut butter, honey, ground sunflower seeds and nuts, then coloured it to shape into the planets

We also decorated with sprinkles, according to the colour/texture we needed

Squashing them into a line

Ptolemy's finished creations (with a little help)

They sat down to watch a few episodes of CBeebies Stargazing

Enjoying their snack creations while they watched