Our Little Adventures Challenge

We received an e-mail a while ago to see if we wanted to sample some new cake bars called Barny and join in with a challenge, the challenge was  to take part in the Little Adventures Linky challenge, celebrating your child’s curiosity and the little things that capture their imagination, eg exploring bugs or flowers in your garden or local park. Bob loves hunting bugs so we said yes please. This post is an entry for BritMums ‘Little Adventures Challenge’ in partnership with Barny, the bear-shaped snack providing a little discovery in every bite. Find out more about Barny here. 

Bob can't eat these due to his allergies but Fifi likes them for school.

individually wrapped, great for school

each box has puzzles on

Individually wrapped bear-shaped sponges with a hidden filling that your kids will love

I was one of the first fifty people to apply for this challenge and last week a bug hunting set turned up to use to help out. This consisted of a Discovery Bug Barn and a DK First Facts bugs book.

So as OH and I were going over to the cottage today we phoned Bob to see if he wanted to come with us. He loves going over to the cottage, its his favourite place to hunt The Gruffalo, though daughter did tell us if we found one we were to feed Bob to it as his behaviour has been a bit deplorable lately and not to worry about taking him back. There are lots of log piles and plant pots to look under as well as piles of leaves and normal autumnal foliage to look under. 

So we picked Bob up and I gave him the book to read in the car. So while we were driving along I kept getting "grandma do you know what" and he would read out some facts that amazed/intrigued/disgusted him.  That dung beetles eat poo, spiders wrap flies up in silk and drink their blood and that millipedes have over 750 legs. We decided we would not like to take a millipede to the shoe shop and buy it shoes.  



We found;

 millipedes, which was brilliant after he had just read about them in the book, 

centipede which looked brilliant  in the magnifying tub

loads and loads of wood lice, here is one in the magnifying jar

and on our hand under the magnifying glass

slugs with slimy trails

patterned snails

and plain snails

They looked under rocks

in the dry leaves

as well as the wet leaf mulch

and in a pile of old fence posts with Grandma, we also found a mouse in amongst these

we looked at autumnal berries up the trees

and strange purple mushrooms just pushing through the ground

We found pine cones

 and lots of acorns, some of them half eaten by the squirrel

Here is Bob looking at the millipede in his jar and comparing it to what was in the book.

 Bob with his book and his bug hunting set.

 Lastly we took some video footage of our morning.

We loved the magnifying lid on the clear glass jar it really did bring out the details in the creatures, especialy the millipede. You have to be gentle with the tweezers as some of the little creatures squash quite easily. We also found that the beasties could get into the gaps and edges of the holding cage and we could not see them very easily.

Bob had fun and found out lots of interesting facts about bugs he did not know. Thank you Brit Mums and Barny