If you’ve been following my #100DaysNoTV project, you’ll know that I like to try new things and have new experiences. And, I can be pretty flexible about when I have my next ‘Day’. So, I have ultimate respect for my blogger friend, Maria Wylie. As of today she’s managed to try something new for 258 consecutive days. Yes, something new every single day!

Maria also challenges friends to complete a week of new things: a monthly Challenge Week. She offers a theme or two to make it easier to think of something cool to do. I took part in the August challenge: Eco-friendliness & Creativity. On Day 25 of #100DaysNoTV I completed a week of new things!

It coincided with the looong school holiday, and it was actually quite useful to have a week of planned activities, rather than wing it every day. (Which I never do, obviously.)

Here is a summary of what the boys and I got up to:

monday – paper planes (& helicopters)

This was a lot fun. I still have a set of Science Club books from when I was about seven years old, and Ollie (he’s five) is just about old enough to have a go at the experiments and activities. We found instructions for a paper Concorde and a helicopter. It was a sunny day so we made them in the garden.

I took some funny little slo-mo videos of the boys launching the planes in the garden. I will try to edit them together and post on here at some point.

tuesday – victorian thaumatropes

Don’t worry, I had never heard of them either!

We live about 40 minutes from King’s Lynn and, although I’d never been to it, I knew about Lynn Museum – it’s home to a life size replica of Seahenge. They had some Victorian themed events that week, so I thought it’d be fun to go along.

After walking around the museum, a gentleman in a long black coat and top hat showed us to a table where the boys were invited to make a thaumatrope: a disc with a different image on either side – when rotated rapidly the images merge. In this case it was a caged tiger. It was a different age. . .

They enjoyed making them, but I couldn’t convince them that this would have been the best toy ever for a Victorian child. 🙂 The museum is well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

wednesday – upcycled memory boxes

Our local recycling centre is home to an awesome project called the Re-Imagine Resource Centre. They collect all sorts of materials that businesses normally chuck out (no, it isn’t rubbish), and people can buy a stack of goodies for a tiny fee to use for creative activities. They also run workshops and the boys went along to make a memory box each.

It was as simple as cutting up decopatch paper, gluing it on two halves of a cardboard box and attaching the two pieces together with a cardboard hinge. Ta-da! The boxes proved a hit with the boys and they filled them with bits from their summer adventures: train tickets, stickers, shells, postcards, etc.

thursday – shadow puppets

The fabulous Fitzwilliam Museum runs many family events throughout the summer. We got the train to Cambridge with a group of friends and took part in their shadow puppet challenge. The children’s task was to visit one of the exhibitions and choose three creatures to draw: a head of one, the body of another, and the legs or tail of the third.

Ben is only three and he doesn’t draw, he doodles (I’m being kind!), so I had to interpret his squiggles into the creatures he was adamant that they were! 😉 Ollie didn’t do too badly. Can you guess what they are? You won’t guess. Ollie drew a horse head, sheep body and fox tail. Ben ‘drew’ a chicken head, Gruffalo body and snake tail.

They had fun creating puppet shows with their friends and some other children.

saturday – soldiers through the ages

[Did you notice there was no ‘Friday’? We were meant to go for a family cycle ride (Ben got a new seat for the back of my bike), but I ran out of time. (My bad.) We did manage it on Monday though!]

We had a weekend away in North Norfolk, and Castle Rising was on the way. We lucked out because they had a Soldiers Through The Ages event on that day. Not exactly ‘creative’ or ‘eco-friendly’, but it was the first time we’d been to Castle Rising and the first time the boys had seen a soldier re-enactment.

Black Knight Historical ran the event: there were soldiers & villagers from the Iron Age through to the Napoleonic Wars, archery & rifle demonstrations, and authentic ‘villages’ to explore. The boys loved talking to the soldiers and trying on some armour. Lots of gunfire. It was awesome.

sunday – beach party

The reason for our Norfolk weekend was a friend’s birthday. She had a Bollywood themed party on the beach. Such a shame the Bollywood dance teacher couldn’t make it, as that would have been an awesome ‘new thing’, but we did have a play around with some pretty stick-on tattoos. I think that counts as ‘creative’. 🙂

As it started to get dark we collected dried twigs for a campfire (somebody forgot the marshmallows – I’m still bitter). Our friend is a Scout Leader, which I think is basically just his excuse to play with fire.

I didn’t manage to take many photos – plus it was blowing a gale the whole day, so most photos are windswept – but here are a few of the better ones.

Trying something new every day can become a bit addictive; I can totally see why Maria has been having so much fun with it. But, it is a big commitment and even with a one-week challenge I managed only six new things.

It was a lot of fun and I would encourage you to try something similar. You could do a few consecutive days, or once each week/month. Go on, I challenge you. 🙂

Bye for now!