Our Lockdown Activities
We’re sure most of you will agree that coming up with fresh ways of keeping the kids entertained during the last 6 weeks of lockdown has been tough at times… With the boys some of the activities we have been doing include; baking, art, phonics and counting practice, teaching them new signalong signs, building towers, water painting, Easter egg hunts and playing in the garden.
We even turned the living room into a hair salon, when Nikki decided to attempt her very first ever haircut! Luckily Cody was an eager client… it may have taken an hour but it didn’t turn out to be a complete disaster!
Before.....
After.....
With the weather turning wetter, we thought it would be fun to do something a little bit different and attempt to take the boys hand prints for one of our “Me & My Brother” hand print frames. This frame, along with the “Me & My Sister” hand print frame, fly off our shelves, so we couldn’t resist trying one out!
When we unboxed the frame there was everything we needed included; the paper for printing, black ink pad and instructions.
Top Tip - Use a pencil and the mount to mark a small line on the four sides of the paper, before you print your children’s hand prints on the paper… then you know exactly where you need to place the hand prints on the paper for it to be framed correctly!
So, how did we find it?
Cody was so excited to get his hands all inky and make hand prints. Jasper however, being a headstrong 18 month old, wasn’t quite so thrilled with putting his hand down in a specific place! We actually had to take Jasper’s on a different day to Cody… as he was not in the mood when we tried to attempt it the first time!
We had a practice on some plain paper before printing their hand prints on the paper included with the frame. Both boys had great fun and by the end of it, they looked like they had been up the chimney due to all the ink on their faces, as you will see in the photos below!
Top Tip - Take your younger child’s hand print first, as theirs tends to be slightly trickier to get in the right place, then do your older child’s second.
We did Cody’s hand print first, as we thought that would be the better way to do it, but in hindsight we think it would have been easier to do Jasper’s first. Why? Cody understood that he needed to put his hand down flat, we could ask him to move his fingers closer together or further apart and it was easier to position his hand where we wanted it…this isn’t such a simple task with a toddler or baby.
We were worried that the ink would be a pain to remove, but there was no need to be concerned as the ink washes off so easily! We used a wet wipe to get off the majority of the ink and then used some soap & water to remove any remaining ink… we were so impressed!
As you can see from our final framed prints above, Cody’s hand print could have been moved over slightly to the left more, this would have given us more space to take Jasper’s hand print, so it isn’t completely perfect… but we think it has turned out pretty well and are very happy with the results!
Top Tip - If you get a little bit of extra ink around the edge of the paper, we found if you were careful you could remove this with a wet wipe! Also remember to rub out the little pencil marks you made for your guidelines before you put the print into the frame.
Their hand prints have both come out really clearly and up close you can see all the little lines and patterns, which is just lovely! Jasper has just turned 18 months and Cody is 3 years 10 months. We were surprised to see just how similar in size their hands are! Cody is small for his age so maybe this is why (he still wears size 18mth-24mth clothes and is just going into some 2-3 years)
