#CountryKids Fell Running Challenge no 3: The Helm in Snow

When snow fell yesterday we took the chance to do our first snowy fell running film. It was also a chance to try out my new Action Camera. I had discovered the day before that if it was clipped to a bum bag it only really recorded the ground in front of you! So my mum suggested clipping it to a head torch band instead. We discovered this worked alright so set off to a snow coated Helm:

My 11 year old had a quick lesson in starting and stopping filming before stripping down to his running kit and making the film. It turned out that in the cold with gloves he didn't always get the switch so we had a few sections of film that weren't of running (but you really don't want to watch my rear view walking up a hill!). There was an occasion when he had pushed the band back up and forgotten to push it down again so we had a few sky shots too! Luckily a couple of the head cam films were OK enough to put into this film alongside the ones shot on the main camera:

Film number 4 will probably be the first Kendal Winter League at Scout Scar next weekend... Here are the links to the series so far:

Challenge 1: The Helm

Challenge 2: Kendal Castle

Reasons to be Cheerful: Festive Fun #R2BC

We have reached that point of the Festive celebrations when you can't remember what day of the week it is! So can I blame that for not posting on the Thursday but waiting until the Friday? Any way it has allowed for an extra bit of festive fun to creep in. I hope that you have all had lots of happy moments to share with our other linkers? Next week hosting goes back to Michelle for January so thank you all for putting up with me in December. Meanwhile here are my festive reasons to be cheerful:
1) Festive parkrun
For the first time since 2014 we actually had our Fell Foot Christmas parkrun. Plenty of Santas, elves, reindeer and other Christmas characters running or walking round the 5 km. I have already posted a link to a video of the event.  

2) Christmas part one

We had an early Christmas meal with my parents to kick start the celebrations. It was lovely to have a properly laid out table with candles and decorations:

After dinner we then played board games and had a chilled out evening.

3) The Last Jedi

Merry Christmas with Baileys Cheesecake Recipe

Before I sign off for Christmas here are a couple of festive things to share with my lovely readers! First up our Christmas parkrun at Fell Foot yesterday:

The photos can be seen here but here are a few of the best:

And as final festive gift here is how I made Bailey's Cheesecake:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family & Friends #R2BC

I do need to cheer myself up after a stressful morning so here are the many reasons that made me cheerful this week. 

1) Fun with family

We had a lovely few hours in London with my sister and brother in law at the RAF Museum. All of us had smiles from seeing these wonderful machines:

2) Fun with friends

There were 17 of us for Sunday lunch at my friends' house in Berkshire. Plenty of smiles and laughs to be had:

3) Duvet day

#CountryKids in London and Berkshire

This weekend was our annual pre-Christmas trip down to London and Berkshire. We took the 6:21 AM train from Oxenholme to allow for time in the city before heading out to Ascot. My son's aunt and uncle met us from the Northern Line and took us to the RAF Museum at Hendon. He will be studying World War 2 this year at school so this was an ideal location. 

Here are a few of our favourite airplanes:

Lancaster Bomber

He was amazed at the size of the plane but also at how small the places for the crew were.

Spitfire

Of course this is the iconic British fighter from World War Two. We have seen the Dunkirk film which highlighted the vital role this plane played in saving Britain from Nazi invasion.

Vulcan Bomber

Reasons to be Cheerful: A week of cheer! #R2BC

Are we really almost half way through December already? I can't believe in less than a fortnight it will be Christmas Day! At least there are plenty of festive frolics to make me cheerful now. I am also watching season 2 of the Crown as I type which I am thoroughly enjoying! Here are my 7 main reasons to be cheerful this week:
1) Community Coffee Morning 

We had a Christmas coffee morning as a community as we had Big Lottery fund money left over from our playground opening in the summer. One of our residents is a professional cook and she made all these wonderful goodies for us to enjoy:

2) Magical Kendal

Whilst out to scope out shots for our latest Fell running video I saw how magical Fletcher Park was looking in the wintry light:

3) Fabulous Frost

Fractions made simple

As a teacher and a parent I become aware of which areas of mathematics children are most likely to struggle with. I am starting a mini series of videos on how to work on some of these areas and make them simpler to understand. 

First up it is fractions. The video looks at:

• equivalent fractions
• common denominators
• simplifying fractions
• adding fractions
• subtracting fractions
• multiplying fractions
• dividing fractions
• improper fractions

What areas of maths would you like to have explained simply?

Recipe Monday: Roasted Vegetable Soup

I know full well that I am not eating enough vegetables so I seized the chance today to remedy that as I had a colourful array of vegetables waiting to be eaten:

I chopped up some of each colour carrot, a few parsnips and the red onion and tossed them in olive oil with some of my flavoured salt:

Fell Running Challenge #2 Kendal Castle

My son was very pleased to have had over 100 views of the two versions of his first fell running film in a week! So we headed down the road to Kendal Castle to film our second one. It was bitterly cold but no snow except in the distance as he ran up, around and down at the castle:

#CountryKids Using our senses to find signs of Winter #ForestSchool

It was quite a relief that the snow flurries last night didn't cause me any problem getting to work this morning or stop us having Forest School! There was plenty of snow on the mountains that we can see from the school grounds though:

As it was bitterly cold we had to be both well wrapped up and active whilst outside. So I explained our mission inside before we even went out into our forest area. We were going to use four of our senses to find signs of winter:

• hearing
• seeing
• touching 
• smelling

We omitted taste for obvious reasons!

The first thing we noticed was that the birds had eaten most of the food we had left out the previous week. We had to collect in the pipe cleaners to make more to put out next week.

The children sat quietly for a short while so that we could see if we could hear anything... There was very little bird song and mostly just the sound of the wind! Then the children set off to use their senses to find something for all four:

Seeing

The youngest children had to climb trees to see the snow on the mountains high up and far away. They could also see that the leaves had fallen off the trees.

Hearing

As well as the wind they heard the sound of leaves crunching.

Touching

For a brief time they took off their gloves to feel things. Most of which were very cold or even freezing.

Smelling

There wasn't much to smell, although one local farmer had obviously fertilised his field! With a lot of snotty noses it probably wasn't the easiest sense to use..

We then took a tub of fallen leaves into school for a project to be done after lunch.

Reasons to be Cheerful: School, Views, Sofa and more! #R2BC

It's December so that means I am back to hosting the linky to give Michelle a well earned rest! Please join in to share your happy moments from the last week. Then visit the other linkers and comment on their blogs. Let us all share the love!

1) Forest Fun

I had a great first day teaching forest school and its a real mood boost to be out in the great outdoors with enthusiastic children:

2) Filming on the Helm

We had a fabulous afternoon up on this hill to create our first Fell Running film. How could this view not make you smile:

3) Free Sofa

We were very lucky to be given a free preloved sofa that fits in our limited space. I have had to rearrange a lot of furniture but its worth it to have a place that we can be cosy whilst watching TV:

Fell Running Challenge #1 Helm

My son has been inspired by Kendal Mountain Festival to make some fell running films and then create a short film to enter into the competition next year! Today we headed up onto the Helm which is the home of his fell running club. Under his direction I filmed him running along this beautiful hill and performing many drills:

We are looking forward to making more films and including some other club members to make them more interesting. If anyone can suggest a great location for making another episode we would love to hear from you!

I am also open to suggestions on how to improve our videos...

Review: Prestige Flowers Christmas Bouquet

Sponsored Post

I arrived home on Saturday to find this beautiful box had been delivered from Prestige Flowers:

Inside it was this wonderful Noel bouquet from https://www.prestigeflowers.co.uk/christmas-flowers:

The bouquet was delivered with its own vase:

#CountryKids Simple Bird Feeders for Forest School

This week I had my first day leading Forest School with young children. I needed to have a simple activity that we could all do from age 3 to 6. So we first of all made simple bird feeders by threading cereal. Obviously I could only film myself making one but the ones in the trees were made by the children:

Then out in the forest we took bread, spread peanut butter on and dipped them into bird seed:

All the children really enjoyed making the feeders and we just have to hope that when we go out next week we can see whether they have eaten them all!