Sun and Rain

Spring has turned to summer.  The weather throughout Spring was extreme at times – periods of blistering heat followed by long stretches of cold, wet weather.  Some days it was difficult to choose appropriate outdoor clothing.  This weekend the forecast is warm and sunny — I hope it continues next week too.

The past week we returned to our mix of indoor and outdoor play.  Indoor  nap times have been shorter.  The children would like to have more meals outdoors — I’ll have to work that into our schedule more often.  It will be easier once school is out and we have fewer time restraints.

We continue to spend the majority of our playtime outdoors.  One of the changes I made to the back yard this year was adding the sun shade;

Unlike the tarp I used last year, this sun shade is made from mesh so I can leave it up even when it is windy or raining;

The children have discovered that although the sunshade does not provide a dry area to play it does slow the rain down — allowing the water to pool together and then form streams which make collecting rain drops so much easier;

In light drizzle it took about 15 minutes of cooperation under the sunshade for them to collect this container full of rain.

It is a multipurpose sunshade/raincollector – perfect for our unpredictable weather.

Indoors or Out

We’ve had some crazy weather recently.  Some days the temperature has been above zero but within days it is back to a frigid -30C. We’ve even had days where my sheltered back yard has been whipped by wind.

This weather has resulted in the daily dilemma — ‘Should we stay indoors or go out to play?’  Actually, the question really is how long we should stay out since only once have I decided we should not go out at all.  Some days we’ve only been outside for 10 or 15 minutes but usually it is much longer.

The cats seem to think they’d like to go out;

But that’s really only because they want the neighbours ‘pets’;

When the children and I are inside we work on projects like these sun catchers;

Outdoors we’ve made cakes;

I love the ‘fire’ that the children make — they sit here to ‘warm up’

Their biggest complaint is the lack of snow.  They spend a great deal of time relocating the little snow we do have to the area of the yard they want to play in;

Indoors or out — working together and having fun.