football pinata

Small boys and sticks, what is it about them, there seems to be a magnetic force drawing the two together. When ever we have a playgroup picnic in the park there is always at least one of the boys who suddenly has a new attachment that is destined to take someone's eye out. So, with that in mind, I decided when we went camping  I'd make pinata to kick about instead of hit with a large stick. 

What you need:

• beach ball
  
• newspaper
  
• wallpaper paste or similar  (I used the stuff you use on shoji doors and watered it down)
  
• origami paper or other bright paper
  
• gifts for inside

Blow up your beach ball and find some way to suspend it. I tied some string between the fence and the drainpipe and hung it on there. I hung it low so that Ebi-kun could help  but ended up giving myself rotten back!

Mix up your paste then tear up the newspaper, dunk into the paste then stick to the ball, remember to leave a hole at the top. We put 2-3 layers of newspaper on the ball. Leave to dry.
Once it is dry fill the ball with presents. I knew how many kids were coming to the camp so I filled party bags, one for each child and tipped a couple of bags of candy in there too for good measure. Each bag had a glo-stick, mini frisbee or ball, whizzie balloon and candy. I wanted the kids to have equal presents and to reduce the chance of tears, which is why I used the bags.

So, when you have filled up your ball, patch over the hole with more newspaper.
Then, to make it look nicer we did a final layer but used origami paper - as it is really cheap and comes in lots of colours. I suppose you could recycle wrapping paper or tear up colour magazines instead.
Sadly, I don't have a picture of the finished ball or the kids kicking it to death, it did go down well, I explained before we started that there was a bag per child. Our group was mixed ages and I should have taken that into account since the big boys kind of took over leaving the little ones in the dust. Next time I will come up with some 'rules' that make it fairer to the little ones.

We haven't been doing so much Montessori stuff the last couple of weeks, it is too hot to work upstairs, so we bring things down to work with. This last week though he has been too interested in his new toys and books to want to do any work. yesterday was actually a bit cooler so we 'rode' down to the park on his new bike, he hasn't yet got the hang of steering and pedaling at the same time yet but he is getting there - slowly. It looks like it is going to be another hot one today -urgh, roll on the autumn!