Last Wednesday, a bitterly cold, miserable day here in Norfolk, I went through my usual initial weekday routine – alarm goes off, drag myself out of bed, go through the usual ablutions, get dressed and head for the kitchen to have breakfast, feed the cats and then feed the wild birds.  The ground was solid, the grass was white with the sharp frost and, needless to say, I wasn’t feeling particularly joyous,  particularly as I had to work.

I climbed the stairs to my office to check my emails and see if any work had come in overnight and saw that I had an email from Hillside.  I instantly thought it was going to be horrible news – that they had some more poor animals that they wished to take in due to torture, abuse or abandonment, but was gladdened by the news that the dogs mentioned in my previous article http://socyberty.com/society/romanian-dog-rescue along with some others were now on their way to a new, more friendly home at the Sanctuary.

The dogs, at the time of the email, were just passing through Austria and Hillside understood that about 10 had been considered strong enough for the very long journey to foreign shores.  Among them were Sanni

Brick

and Petronel

These three little refugees were to arrive with a couple of new found buddies;

Lord

and Yura.

Hillside had sent a representative across to Romania the previous week to assess the situation out there and they had reported that, due to the extraordinary sub-zero temperatures currently affecting Eastern Europe, the rescuers who had been working hard to set up temporary shelters to house the dogs, were trying to compete with the ice and snow which had reached the top of the dogs 6 ft pens. 

On Friday morning I received another email from Hillside.  Apparently 14 dogs had arrived safely at the sanctuary the previous night.  I’ve attached some photographs of the dogs, looking a little bemused and wary, as they were “unloaded” and settled down in for the night.  Ten of them were to remain at Hillside for the time being but the other four were collected by local  foster carers.

Here’s a picture of the dogs as they arrived.

and a picture of a couple of the dogs as they were about to spend their first night on Norfolk soil in safe, warm and cosy beds!

Petronel has now been adopted and the adopters had waited for hours in the icy cold at the sanctuary to collect their little waif and stray and take him to a new safe, stable, non abusive life.  Here’s a picture of the now fit and healthy Petronel with his adopter.

A couple of the sanctuary workers are still out in Romania and are hoping to be able to organise another “shipment of refugees” to UK soil in the not too distant future.

It is important that EYFS preschool practitioners and teachers always have snow themed topic planning ideas to hand and are able to abandon other plans to put it in to action when snowy conditions prevail.

In a temperate climate, the weather changes rapidly and busy teachers do not have the luxury of time to prepare to respond to snow and ice in their planning unless they have pre-planned and organised their resources. Planning learning opportunities for snow and ice topics need to be done in advance and be on hand with immediate effect when the weather permits a change in direction to this area of learning.

All areas of preschool and early years learning can be covered as part of a topic on snow and ice. You can create skeleton plans for a weather topic ahead of time and annotate them as you put them into action. This makes your practice and curriculum very responsive and child initiated as young children show a natural interest and curiosity in snow, ice and cold weather.

Preparation for cold weather is vital in early years education. Adults should be prepared to spend periods of time outdoors and give children the choice to experience the cold conditions. Teachers and practitioners should have boots, gloves, scarves and hats available throughout the winter period and it is wise to prepare a slip that goes home to parents and carers of young preschool and early years children with a checklist of appropriate clothing that they should send in for their child to change into and out of during periods of cold weather. Ask parents of the young children in your preschool or setting to provide gloves, hats, scarves and boots for the winter term – and of course encourage them to label all items of children’s clothing with the child’s name!

The best place for children to learn about wintery weather conditions is right out there in the snow. Be prepared to abandon all other planning when you have a snowfall as the children understandably will show very little interest in anything else!

Resist the temptation to start a snow themed topic with a related story. Save this until after the children have been outdoors to explore and bring their very own first hand experience back into story time when books about wintery weather will resonate with them and they can relate it to their own experience.

When the children are wrapped up warm with boots, coats, gloves and hats – let them explore the outdoor space in their own time and at their own pace. Use this time very carefully to make observations of how children interact with their outdoor environment. Listen to what they say about the snow and ice and watch closely at how they play in and with it.

The first experiences of snowfall at preschool, school and kindergarten is a magical experience for young children – do not be over zealous in trying to control children’s play at this stage – let them unfold their learning and take the lead from your preschoolers.

Have the resources on hand to respond to what they want to do and scaffold their learning through sensitive interactions, responses and extensions.

Snow day resources for outside play in the early years should include

·         buckets, spades and small shovels

·         wheeled toys – large and small

·         crates and blocks for building

·         planks for making slopes and bridges

·         magnifying glasses and binoculars

·         natural objects like twigs, logs and pebbles to make tracks and pictures

·         props to dress snowmen and winter princesses

·         squeezing bottles filled with coloured water for markmaking

·         powder paint and paintbrushes for painting the snow

·         objects to bury and dig up – you can have a lot of fun with this as children can play hide and seek with objects in the snow

·         silver, white and transparent material for dressing up as snow heroes, snow kings and queens

·         rope, string and other snow rescue materials

·         high visibility jackets for emergency services role play

Some children will decide when they have had enough outdoor play and go indoors independently. Keep an eye on those children who are not able to make this decision for themselves and encourage them to notice when they are feeling too cold and shivery to stay outside.

For children who return inside there are a wealth of follow up activities you can do. I will be covering these in another article on snow theme planning ideas in the early years.

For general weather planning see this article planning a weather topic for 3-5 year olds

is cleared every morning. The weather forecast is calling for more snow or the temp. going

down even further.  Your local schools are closed because of sever weather dangers.

Your furnace can’t keep up.   Making sure your car still runs during the winter.

Maintaining the car during the hardest of winter/snow, frost,. 

Can’t forget those delicious crock-pot soups.. vegetable, stew, chicken and vegetable,..

Lots of Hot coco,.  Warm gloves,  Warm flavored oatmeal,. 

Motivational music in the background, humor as well.  Bonding with family and friends

while having a snow party in your neighborhood,. 

If you get snow bound. How to avoid your front door from getting covered from the snow

or jams from the ice,.  If it gets too cold from (-20 or lower) can home windows shatter?

Or can lawns die if the snow last longer than quoted.

Its always good to make a neighborhood meet for times like this.  Everybody watches

out for each other.  Specially when the cold or flu hits. 

Lots of insulated thick clothes on hand.  Well maintained snow trackers,. 

Snow boots, hooded lined coats.  Low cost insulation on hand in-case. 

Other ways of keeping your home warm without turning on your heater to warm each room.

Consider:  ideas from www.lowes.com or www.home-depot.com.  Google search for suggestions

as well.  Also, keep in mind the weather can change moods as well.  Beings its not as warm and

the sun does not come out as much.  Possibly winter blues can occur.  Keeping a positive out look

is recommended, possibly consider attending your local church a great way of community outreach.

And your local food bank, etc.  http://www.walmart.com and possibly www.amazon.com can

possibly help.  Ex-specially in the clearance department.  Suggestion:  free shipping programs,.

And, making sure the refund or exchange programs,.  Always keep your receipts after any purchase 

Thank you for check’n out my blog.. feedback please.

I have long been familiar with this rather odd saying, and it actually dates back to the early 18th century.

It is a cutting remark with which to reply to someone who is stating the obvious and trying to educate you in something you know already. How many times have you seen the snow through the window and then had someone telling you to wrap up warm because it is snowing outside, even as you are already reaching for your winter coat, scarf, gloves, etc? Apparently, telling them to teach their Granny how to suck eggs is supposed to stop such nonsense. In reality they would probably thump you or never talk to you again for being so sarcastic.

I never understood the phrase anyway, and with both grand-mothers long since deceased I had to get a Spiritualist egg-spert to contact my Gran on the other side to try to advise her in posthumous egg sucking. This was her reply to me through Doris Yolk’s spirit guide Great Chicken Squawk of the Capon-chero tribe, who died of Rooster Pox in 1786.

“Welcome son of my daughter. I am pleased by your wishes for me to suck eggs at my age. Sadly I didn’t bring my teeth to Paradise with me so biting egg is difficult. Tell me; is the egg to be shelled first? It may take some time to suck through the outer shell of an egg?

Am I to take it that the egg is from a hen? Ostrich eggs are rather heavy to lift in my arthritic condition and may take some time to go soft on a dead pensioner’s saliva and ectoplasm. 

Thirdly, may I take the egg hard boiled, as scrambled and fried may get a little messy? Thank you.

How long should the sucking process be endured? Eroding the egg away to mush might take some time, and even though here for an eternity, I have no desire to dally, and I trust the eggs are not past their sell by dates?

Once sucked to a satisfactory condition, what becomes of the egg? Do I chew it? Swallow it? Put it back into the fridge? Bake it into a cake for offering to one of the other souls sharing my cloud?

Oh, son, by the way, it looks like it’s snowing out. You’d best wrap up warm, eh. Bye bye. “

Arthur Chappell

Polar bear?  What do you think?

This one is very imaginative.  I think I will do this for a laugh … I can see me doing it on a neighbour’s taxi when he is asleep and just leave it for him to find in the morning.  Ha ha.  I bet you my windows are the first ones he looks at to see if I’m watching out to see his reaction.  Me mischievous… never!  Ha ha!

A fantastic use of the summer garden furniture and one my cousin had a lot of laughs out of last year when I showed it to her.

The trick with this one is to get a child in gloves to crouch behind it and hold the tour brochure while you are taking the photo.  Taking a photo with a lot of giggling going on will be the trickiest bit though … for sure!

Of course some snow people make their own sun… or at least think positive!  Ha ha!

Start of a snow cat.

A good snow cat. 

I’ll be thinking about a new snowman stunt or two and I don’t mean the one with the snowballs (naughty imaginations needed here) as I don’t want to offend people or corrupt children.

Of course there are naughty tricks that people can get up to with snow and the following photo is of a trick which someone I know did on a neighbour who is nicknamed “Stirsy” where the young man’s front door was snowed over and a message left for him on a garden wall while he was out visiting a neighbour.  It is a good thing he has a sense of humour and laughed it all off.  Some wouldn’t. 

P.S.  I’m not putting any bad ideas into your head unless you do happen to have snow fall on 1st of April and think it would be a good April Fool’s Day joke on someone who could see the lighter side of it all. 

An alternative to building snowmen is also to go out mountain biking in the snow. Not for me… but maybe for you?

Survival of the human race.

I had a discussion with a friend on twitter last night about how many people might survive should the economy/world structure as we know it end. I had a much grimmer outlook and thought maybe 2% of the world would be able to make it more than a couple days without their coffees or shopping malls. @LianaBrooks on the other hand figured that number might be a touch higher. Turns out she lives in Gator/Snake land and they are both good eating with the right recipes. (Yes she has those too)
My wife and I might not be what you would call survivalists, but we are in touch with what would be necessary to survive in the wild for an indefinite time. I have my own small solar system for back up power, I can build a generator station from a creek or river and could build a home in the woods given some basic tools.
This summer past, my wife and I decided to try and light a fire in the back yard without anything other than a few sticks. It did take quite some time, but in the end we had a small flame going on.

We live up here in the frozen north, aka : Canada, and it does get mighty cold up here. Today we were out on a walk through the snow with kids in tow, and I asked my wife if she brought her flint. (Yes, she has a flint striker, was a Christmas present from last year.) She answered in the positive. (of course)
With a little scavenging around for grasses, and something to use as a decent tinder, (harder to find than you might think sometimes) we had a small blaze going in about 15 minutes. It wasn’t much and it did take a little time to find the right material to get the fire going. In the end however we had a small blaze capable of being more. We didn’t need the fire for any reason other than the practice so with a few kicks of snow it was all but out.
It was a nice little feeling to know that should the need be there, and the easier methods of making fire be unavailable for any reason, we could have a fire for the night, cooking, safety or whatever else we might want it for.

I do know this, should everything in society go in the dumps, my family will at least have a fighting chance of survival.
So what do you think your chances would be to survive if you were given only the barest of essentials?
The clothes you could carry, a basic knife and whatever you could drum up from around you…

Oddly enough it is this same thought that often starts the stories in my head, and on that note…back to my writing!

Oh, in case you didn’t notice dear readers. If you look up on the left and right of this window, you will see a new link for my latest short story as well as a new progress bar for the next one. It is already going way faster than the last! Bad guys (and girls) can be very fun to write.

Merry Christmas all and see you after the holiday!

A few months ago and right before Halloween arrived New York saw it’s first snow of the season.  Quite a bit early but it was gone almost as quickly as it came.  However, here we are a few months later and winter doesn’t seem to be coming at all.  Needless to say I don’t think we should be expecting a “White Christmas”.  However, this lack of winter coming has me worried.

Should we be concerned about when winter will actually hit us? Does winter coming later than usual mean that when it does come it will hit us hard? Is this all because of global warming?  So many questions in my mind at the moment.  Yet, even though winter doesn’t seem to be on it’s way one never knows if it will just “show up” so we must be prepared.  I have a check list going through my mind of things my family will need to protect us from winter’s cold and have purchased most of the items months ago in preparation.  Hats, gloves, scarves, boots? Check!

I don’t know about you but wondering when winter will finally hit us has me more than a little concerned.  I truly believe (yet hope I am wrong) that winter is going to be very tough this year.  For all you East Coaster’s I hope that when winter does hit you will be prepared.  For now though all we can do is wait and wonder, “Where is winter”?

A few more days, we will get a long weekend which usually starts from Christmas vacation until theend of year holidays. Even for school children, there is already a holiday from now on, but different from the employees. Christmas holidays for employees and others just get a day off, but in a day a lot of fun that we can get together with family. Christmas Day is identical with the color red, we often see the red color around us when Christmas comes. Usually the red color in the costume of Santa Claus, Christmas gifts, house walls, and other Christmas tree ornaments.

Why always the color red for Christmas?

Actually, not always the color red is used for Christmas, there are also other colors, like green and white colors. The green color too often we meet at Christmas, for example for the Christmas tree. While the colors white, we can seein the costumes and Santa Claus beard. Moreover, if the country is experiencing winter at Christmas, then the white color is more often found, namely in the snow.

Identical red for Christmas is because red is the color of encouragement, especially in welcoming the birth of a savior. The red color can have meaning warm, love and affection. If the red color combined with the white color on the Santa costume, then the meaning of happiness. Various reasons like the above that makes the color red is always used in the Christmas day.

Maybe in Indonesia, the color red and white are also always we find it, namely the Indonesian national flag. So it has meaning brave, warm, giving spirit and is believed to bring happiness and affection. Hopefully these expectations can be realized for all people in this world. Let us together to love each other and love one another.

“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year”

I know children enjoy playing in the frozen soft serve ice.  However, they are just children and don’t know better.  I understand that they don’t quite know that 80 degrees and up is so much better.  

Even snowmen don’t turn me on.  Singing ‘Let it Snow’ just isn’t in my repertoire of Christmas songs.   But, I might break out with a little ‘Frosty the Snowman.’  Isn’t he adorable?

Well, if it Snows a lot where you are or not, just remember to have yourself a great and wonderful Merry Christmas. 

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Follow me on Twitter @mphsglo; also, enjoy reading:

Enjoying Christmas and Holidays as a Single Person

Christmas Eve Activities for Children

Easy Snacks Children Can Make for Santa

There’s nothing better than sitting by the fire on a cold winter day, with a nice mug of hot cocoa in your hands. Sit back, relax, and enjoy peace.

Reminders of Quiet

Remember to remind your kids to be calm, relaxed, quiet, and good during the Christmas season, or Santa won’t bring them presents! A household of quiet always helps the holiday nerves.

Christmas Music

Listening to Christmas will get you to enjoy the holidays. The music may be nice at first, but make sure you don’t listen to it too much, or it may start to annoy you.

Family Activities

Enjoy yourself by setting up some family activities or events during the Christmas time. This may be something like helping make breakfast, setting up the Christmas tree, or maybe something exciting like ice skating. Be creative and make your kids love the season!

Comment

Be sure to comment and include your thoughts and ideas. How do you relax during the holidays, so that you don’t become stressed out over everything? What are some fun activities you and your family do?