If You Go Down to the Woods Today... You'll Find The Happy Book Club!
Tonight I'm going to tell you about what we found in the woods. Was it Goldilocks? Or the Three Bears? Was it the Gruffalo? Or perhaps even Hansel and Gretel?
Close. But I'll stop you there before you have any more guesses. It was in fact our daughter. Having a smoothie.
Or rather, it was our daughter, having a smoothie, ready for a sensory exploration. A noise discovery. An acoustic venture!
We went to Holt Country Park (but any old woods will do) with the aim to expose Esme to interesting sounds (as part of this week's theme, Noise!). This comprised of two major activities. First up, we simply went on the hunt for bird sounds we didn't immediately recognise and got Esme to try and engage with them. You will find a lovely montage of sounds we recorded from our walkabouts on our Facebook page! You can even hear Esme asking questions and attempting to identify the animals. Although she wrongly mistakes a distant steam train for an owl. Sweet. But proper wrong, love.
As with all the other activities we try, the experience was enriching for all of us. We even saw a cool dog named Abe.
Anyway, the other thing we tried, besides the immediate and primary sound exploration was the subsequent, secondary sound creation. As we walked, plodded, ran and fell, we collected woodland debris along the way. It was a great opportunity to teach Esme new or infrequently used words (acorn, cones, bark etc) but, better, were the sounds we made with them afterwards.
When we got home, we encouraged Esme to make her own, autumnal sensory bottles by using the items we encountered earlier on in the day. Here she is with an excellent concentration face.
Again, check our Facebook page to see it in action!
If it's not too patronising, tupperware boxes also work!
To summarise, I hope there's an idea in here that others could take away. At The Happy Book Club, we believe in promoting family activities that are cheap or free so that anyone can access them. As you know, the things we talk about usually revolves around the month's theme and the month's theme always revolve around beautiful books.
For what it's worth, obliging readers, next month's package is really exciting. So if you're not already a member, now's the time. With amazing books, activity suggestions and 15% off to all new subscribers, you won't regret it.
Look - here's the latest Happy Book Club member, reading one of this month's books, Trixie Ten.
Until next time (probably tomorrow) #happyreading
