We were given the opportunity to try out a fantastic selection of books by Collins, designed to make our summer staycation amazing. From maps for Mark to find our way across the country to i-Spy books to keep the kids entertained, the books have literally created our fun for the last week and we have so much more to enjoy.
Penny and I decided to start by planning a days adventure using the ‘You can have an outdoor adventure’ book by Alex Gregory. It covers so many plans and adventures from tree climbing to star gazing and camping – it even has a section on adventure cooking! Penny and I decided to focus on the tree section, as we have National Trust woodland near our house and we thought it would be fun to climb some trees and collect some leaves.
Mark absolutely loves maps and so he was especially delighted with the detail of the maps we were sent. In the car we usually use sat nav, but these maps are brilliant for preplanning our adventures. I have been pouring over the one from Ireland as I recently found out what part of Ireland my ancestors on my dads side are from (via ancestry dna) and I’m really keen to take the children there on a trip, especially as you can get the ferry over from Liverpool. The i-Spy books would be invaluable on that journey!
Freddie is currently obsessed with spotting things out of his window on journeys and every trip is accompanied with ‘Look mummy, a BUS!’, ‘Look mummy, a POLICE CAR’. I wouldn’t have picked this book for him as I would have thought it was too grown up, but I would have been wrong because he loved it! He hasn’t quite related looking at the pictures with looking out the window but it didn’t matter at all as it kept him very happy on the whole journey! I also liked the fact that we don’t have to give him an iPad. I don’t mind screen time (when we flew to New Zealand I literally plugged them into their iPads) but it was so nice to see them more animated and interactive.
We are used to planning our days out, as regular readers of the blog will know, but these books gave us all sorts of new ideas, and I’m sure over the six weeks of the summer I’ll need as many new ideas as I can find. One thing we really want to try is the star gazing and night time walks but the kids are a bit little for very late nights, so will need to wait until the autumn when the nights draw in. Penny is already really looking forward to it!
Penny is 7 now and she is really good at reading but she has a very low attention span! The little i-Spy books are perfect for her as she can look for things by herself and tick them off her book when she has found them. She does really struggle to work independently and this gave her the confidence to take control of her own activity. Her favourite book is the beach one which we are going to take with us on a beach trip very soon!
Penny also really liked the bigger activity book which is perfect for after a visit to continue the fun with games and activities based on the countryside, I could barely take a photo of it before she had whipped it away and was busy with her colouring pencils, working away, Maybe mummy’s recent homeschooling hasn’t been a disaster after all!
All of the books were great, but the one I really think is going to shape our summer is the ‘YOU CAN have an outdoor adventure’ book which we started with. There are so many ideas in there and even areas for us to fill in when we have completed certain tasks. I am tempted to set us the task of completely finishing it before the end of the summer (stargazing aside) as we are planning some day trips to North Wales and it seems the perfect companion – there are even some sections on crabbing which is one of our favourite things to do in Conwy.
This book was definitely Penny’s favourite!
I’ve just got to that moment in mothering where, little by little, my time is becoming my own again.
Sometimes the children disappear to play together, or watch a movie and I am able to start rediscovering myself again. One of the things I’ve forever been interested in are stars and constellations – I’ve always had that app on my phone to help me to identify them. As such, I have so enjoyed reading about them in the ‘Stargazing, beginners guide to astrology’ book. When the nights start drawing in at the end of the summer, we are planning a moonlight walk with the children to teach them all about the stars in the night sky.
We are lucky enough to be going to Spain for a couple of weeks, but our other five week travel plans have been cancelled and we have a lot of time to fill over the summer entertaining the kids. As you know, kids entertainment is one of our favourite things and so we can’t wait to spend a summer with these wonderful books.
Over on Instagram I am running a competition to win ALL of these incredible books; click HERE to enter on Instagram and just follow the instructions on the post. Good luck! x
