"Almost all creativity involves purposeful play."

Day 38:

Our style of home-ed has gone completely out of the window since all this began, It was never really structured to start with but I always had a plan in my head each morning of the work we were probably going to be doing. These days I think it's far more important to be focusing on the mental health of our kids. All this is so much for them to deal with emotionally. So with that In mind our days have been all about the creative side of learning, we do what ever makes Opeie feel happiest. Today we made a dinosaur mask for his LEGO Boost and he did some coding. It's always a fun educational activity that never disappoints. 

This whole thing is hard enough without having to worry about academic learning while the schools are closed. get playing with your kids, that's where the real magic is.

"True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."

Day 24:

Im really struggling to sleep at the moment, Ive got so much racing around in my head since all this madness started and I really don't know how to process it sometimes. The thought of being out there and catching this virus is terrifying and its seriously playing havoc with my mental health (as I'm sure it is with many of us). I was going to take a picture from our day today but all I can think about is the sea. I need to be on the coast at the moment with my feet in the water so that I can feel centred again. 

So today I have used one of my happiest moments of the beach, just me, my favourite person and some wooden dinosaur feet.

"A museum is a place where one should lose one's head."

When I was young if someone had have mentioned the word 'museum' I'd have been filled with dread. Museums from what I remember, were 'the worst!'. I assumed that this was the norm and most people felt the same way but as it turns out I was very wrong. As I spent a lovely evening with Mrs M's family over Christmas, I got chatting to her auntie Jo (who is a lovely woman) about something completely unrelated to museums but during our conversation it clicked why I had those feelings and why I was negative about a lot of things during my childhood.

When I think about it now and as I type this out it makes me feel a little sad that until I met Mrs M (29 years into my life) I had never been inspired by ANYONE! school had given me nothing along those lines and my work life was pretty much the same. Sadly I lacked inspiring parents too so I just bumbled along not aiming for anything. That all changed when I met Mrs M though and she inspired me from day one with her contagious energy and love of life. When she first met me she had her reservations as she thought I was a bit of a joker and didn't take anything seriously, she soon changed that though and set me on a path that continues to make a better person.

Anyway back to museums... I've never wanted the boys to feel the way that I did growing up and I like to think that the way we bring them both up is really inspiring for them. Last week me and Opeie ended up in London and when asked what he wanted to do he replied "can we go to the museums". I love that he is genuinely interested in museums and I think its because myself and Mrs M are so interactive with him when it comes to learning.

Our day of going to 'the museums' ended up with us visiting four back to back and having a pretty amazing day out together, despite the drizzly weather.

First on our list was more for me, but while looking at the images online Opeie had showed quite a lot of interest in visiting a museum that had a brain in a jar of formaldehyde (strange I know but he loves learning about the body). When looking at a '100 things to do in London for free' article  early last year I had stumbled up on the Hunterian museum. Situated in the Royal college of surgeons, the Hunterian museum houses an amazing collection of the macabre. Animals, body parts and oddities. I could have stayed in there for hours but Opeie made his feelings clear early on when he said "daddy, can we go to another museum now please?" "It's a bit scary, I want to look at things with pretty colours". I think that museum may be for when he is a little older.

five minutes walk and we were at our second museum. The British museum is in a very grand building and is full off really interesting items and exhibitions. There was a lot more for Opeie to ask questions about and we spent a lot of our visit chatting about greek mythology, mummification and knights. I was so busy yapping to Opeie that I missed the name of one of the exhibitions that was on but part of it was based around the day of the dead celebrations and all of the pieces were very colourful and interesting, which was exactly what Opeie was looking for after museum number 1.

Time to jump back on the tube and make our way to museum number 3. The V&A museum of childhood is one of our favourite museums to visit in London after our friend Sam took us there a year or so ago. I love seeing many of the toys I had growing up and the boys are always interested in the things that kept me entertained as a child. Its also interesting to see how things have changed when it comes to childrens play things. With games to play and an enormous amount of items for your visual entertainment it really is the perfect place to take your inquisitive little ones.

Museum number 4 and it was clear that Opeie was getting tired (his little legs had done a lot of walking, bless them) he was desperate though to squeeze in his favourite museum before we headed back to the hotel. Usually when we visit the Museum of Natural History it is all about the Dinosaurs but this time round it was the birds taking centre stage. Every time we visit we seem to find another part that we have not seen before and even though we have been quite a few times I could still happily spend an entire day just pottering around there. I find it fascinating and I can see why it is always on the top of Opeie's London to do list.

As sad as it is that I felt the way I did when I was younger, in some ways I am kind of glad. I appreciate this kind of thing a lot more because of it and visiting now as a home schooling parent and learning with Opeie is the most amazing experience and something I will never take for granted.

Ok so he might have had a sneak peek at the dinosaurs!

"If you can dream it, you can do it."

I love a good family game night. When I was younger it was a game of frustration or mousetrap and although we all still love to sit and play board games of some sort we are definitely products of our era and most of our family game time is console based. The game keeping me and Opeie entertained the most recently is Disney Infinity 3.0 Play without limits. I did that stupid thing years back where I listened to what another parent told me about the earlier games and decided to give it a miss, I never usually do that and I am kicking myself now as the game is amazing.

With an ENORMOUS amount of characters to play with, levels to unlock along the way and a huge free roaming world to play in, I can't see us ever getting bored. Opeie, like many 4 year olds is a big Disney fan and the thing that is so amazing about this game is that pretty much every Disney movie you can think of has been covered character wise over the release of the Disney Infinity games, from the classics like Sorcerer Mickey and Aladdin all the way through to the new releases like Spot from The Good Dinosaur and Inside Out. As far as I am aware all of the characters from the previous Disney Infinity games work with the 3.0 edition but it is important to know that the level packs do not, as we found out recently when Opeie asked if he could get the Guardian of the galaxy pack.

Aside from all the classic characters available, for in game play, 3.0 for me screams "Come and play with me dad" being Star Wars, so me and Opeie have been having so much fun playing together. I am hoping to pick up some more of the Star Wars Characters for the game over the next few weeks and Opeie is working on a 'Good sleep Sticker chart' to hopefully get the Inside Out level pack.

Obviously with 3.0 being Star Wars themed there is plenty of brawling which is great as it is not something I would have expected for this kind of Disney game, parts of the game play remind me of the Kingdom hearts games, which I have loved since playing them many years ago first on the PS2. The game isn't all brawling though and if you are the kind of gamer that is into creating and design then you can let your creative juices run wild in the toy box and create an entire world using your imagination which you can then destroy and rebuild. there really are no limits.

fancy trying out other peoples toy boxes? then there are plenty of downloadable worlds created by people all over the world meaning there are endless ways to play.

If all of this hadn't been exciting enough, Opeie had the little girl round from next door to play last week and it turns out she has the Disney Infinity 2.0 which means we now have Elsa, Repunzel and loads of other fun characters to be playing with for the next few weeks. I would have loved this sort of game as a child myself as I was really into swapping and sharing. Disney Infinity 3.0 is a never ending fountain of fun which will be keeping us entertained as a family over the festive period and for many months to come.

UPDATE!!!

Its been a few weeks since I wrote this post but since then Opeie has been sleeping excellently so as a reward we got him the Inside out level pack which we have been playing over the last few days. The level see's Anger and Joy set out on a mission to bring peace back to imagination land. The gameplay is completely different to Twilight of the republic on this level pack which was a really nice surprise and Opeie is now eager to get hold of the three other characters from the movie (Fear, Disgust and my favourite Sadness).

"I've got a job for you. Keep on the dodge and saddle up the law dolly past them horned hens."

So.... We've seen the film and as parents we all know, that if they like a film they want to see the great products that accompany it. The Disney store understandably have a great selection and Opeie has been taking full advantage of all the fun things available. Firstly after watching the movie there was a lot of questions about the characters and what was going on so DK Books The Good Dinosaur: The Essential Guide has been perfect for answering all those dino related questions. You can find out about all of the characters and the impact they have on the movie.

Opeie loves role playing with his toys and this six piece figurine playset has been awesome for stomping around the house, fighting with the Raptor and the Pterodactyl while finding places to camouflage Forrest woodbush.

Opeie loves a a good soft toy and has been loving carrying the two main characters around with him.  Arlo and Spot are a great addition to Opeie's play time and have attended many tea parties and lots of car trips.

My favourite product was The Good Dinosaur Tin Art Case Set as it gave Opeie the chance to make the most of his artistic side and get creative. With literally everything an artistic child could need included in this cute carry case it has been perfect for taking about with us on all of our home schooling adventures. As soon as the case arrived we sat down together for some drawing and painting fun and Opeie drew an awesome dinosaur from his imagination.

The finished piece turned out to be amazing...

There are lots of other great products at the Disney store that tie in with the movie, my favourite being the Butch hoodie and the Pyjamas.

Its nice to see that the Disney store has thought about us adult fans too, so now its time for me to have a big cup of coffee in my Dinosaur Mug.

"You have to get through your fear to see the beauty on the other side."

There has been a huge build up to the release of The Good Dinosaur in our house. Our mini dinosaur enthusiast has been so excited about seeing the film ever since he saw the trailer a while back and this week we finally got a chance to go and see the film. The four of us headed out for a family night out but then seperated at the cinema. Mrs M and Seth went off to see Spectre and thinking at the time I may have drawn the short straw, me and my boy made our way to screen 9 to embrace our inner dinosaur.

Opeie had decided that he was going to watch the movie as Arlo himself and wore his Good Dinosaur mask all the way to the cinema. He did inform me that it would be cool if I was to dress as Spot too but I had no intention of heading out in the cold wearing nothing but leaves to cover up my modesty. I really wanted to get a lovely picture of Opeie in front a big cardboard cut out for the movie but sadly there wasn't one in the cinema.

The movie was amazing and I may have had a little tear in my eye at the end, Disney really know how to pull on your heart strings. When we exited the screening we had an hour to kill before the rest of the humans joined us. Luckily it was late night shopping so we gave Opeie's Arlo mask a tour of the shopping centre. My own little Good Dinosaur was getting thumbs ups and smiles from everyone.

After a good hour of stomping about, me and my dinosaur made our way back to the cinema to pick up the other humans and make our way home. We would definitely recommend the film, if you are heading out to see it, why not take a mini dinosaur too, they'll love it.

"Friendship is a sheltering tree."

A few days back me and Opeie were sitting on the sofa ploughing through a pile of books and we started to read a book about plants that were found during the jurassic time period that were eaten by Herbivores. We soon came to the Araucaria, a tree that still grows today and can be found in South America, Which got us talking about our awesome friends Sam and Jamie who are backpacking in South America at the moment. Opeie asked me if I thought they could get a picture of them standing next to one while they were there and as we had been chatting to them on and off while away we set them a challenge. 7 hours later we received "Challenge accepted....and done... We can see one from our window", which they sent us a picture of.

But by Opeie's challenge rules we needed to see them standing next to one. We had told them about why we wanted a picture and how the challenge had come about and being the amazing friends that they are they fully embraced our request and we received a few more pictures which Opeie loved.

 I cant even begin to tell you how awesome these guys are, I feel really lucky to have them as friends. Being able to chat to them and exchange photos and videos while they are away is going to be a great bit of home education for Opeie (and Seth), learning about different cultures from books we're going looking for in the library and being able to see things from them as well as setting them more challenges. Seth has sent the next challenge, to come up with a food that we don't have in this country, should be interesting.

Seth's challenge got me thinking about a game we could play while they away which I'm going to mention to them when we talk next.

 The South American fun didn't end there though and we were soon sent another fun dinosaur related picture, Amazing! I know which direction I would be going after seeing this sign!!!

I know you will be reading this soon so thank you guys, the pictures have really been entertaining us over the last few months, enjoy your trip x

"Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it."

Its been a few weeks since our post about our interesting find in the woods . We did finally get round to painting the other side of our dinosaur feet and on Friday night before heading out on our weekend of camping fun I spent the evening drilling holes and sewing the elastic straps on to our creations, ready for some dino stomping along the beach. Earlier that day we popped out to get some last minute provisions for the trip and Opeie spotted a dinosaur costume in a shop that just had to come along for the journey too.

 The dino costume had to of course go on as soon as we hit the beach and as Opeie galloped along the rocks with a huge smile on his face I found myself falling in love with him all over again. We were after soft wet sand though, so that we could give our dinosaur feet a good stomp but as we couldn't see past the rocks in the distance, the dino rider and his trusty steed inevitably ended up on my shoulders.

 We finally reached the wet sand and sat down to attach those gloriously painted Theropod feet. Opeie looked so pleased with himself and what he had created as we stamped our feet along the shore line splashing in the water and squelching our colourful toes in to the soft wet sand.

 Being a dinosaur is hard work! so after an hour of stamp, STAMP, STAMPING, We sat down for a bite to eat (there were no smaller dinosaurs about so its still the herbivore lifestyle for us). It was a little overcast but the beach was calm and peaceful (after the stomping had stopped anyway).

 Our homemade Dinosaur feet were everything we expected, as we sat on the beach Opeie said "Daddy, I'm having the best day today, I love you.", I could have cried. Being a dinosaur for the afternoon is AMAZING! but it will never beat that awesome feeling I get from being a dad.