Cotton pad snowmen

Here's another idea for a snowman-based activity suitable for toddlers/preschoolers. Again, it's really simple and everything is reusable. We used a range of materials for this activity: cotton wool pads, a range of small sticks we collected on a wintery walk, coloured sugar paper, buttons, pom-pom balls, googly eyes and some small pieces of coloured ribbon.

The cotton wool pads obviously function as the heads/bodies of the snowmen and the rest of the materials are used as decoration. I just left Tommy to it and he experimented for a whole hour creating a range of different snowmen. He really did love this activity. To make it more educational, you could put a number on the hats and get children to include that number of buttons on the snowman's body or even write the letters of their name on each of the cotton wool pads. We didn't do either of these, as Tommy is past the stage of recognising numbers to 10 and and being able to write his name.

A Trip to the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve

November sees the return of our annual day trip to the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in Lincolnshire, not far from where we live. The reserve is home to one of only four large colonies of grey seals in the British Isles and because of this it attracts tourists from all over the UK. Usually these animals spend most of the year out at sea but during the months of November and December, they come up onto the sandbanks at Donna Nook to breed and to give birth to their pups. They are only around for a short while and they are a must see if you live in Lincolnshire. The viewing area is open from late October to December but the best time to see the most pups seems to be towards the end of November/beginning of December. It allows you to get close enough to the seals to be able to touch them (although you shouldn't and wouldn't want to!)

We take Tommy every Winter to see the seals at Donna Nook and this year we had our newborn in tow too. The walkways at the reserve are relatively flat, so suitable for buggies but there is quite a climb up over the sandbanks before you get there and it can get extremely busy so do bear this in mind. We opted to use a baby carrier instead and Isla was more than happy to watch the seals from there.

The reserve itself is very low key, as it should be. It consists of two little huts, one at each end, that gives visitors information about the seal colony and allows visitors to make donations or buy a small selection of gifts. Information plaques along the way are fun, children-friendly and encourage you to find out more about grey seals and the work that the nature reserve conducts. It has two car parks at either end of the walkway and is £2 to park for however long you want to be there.

We visited the reserve on a rather mild day and we spent quite a while there. It does get very cold and windy on this part of the coast, as it's very exposed to the elements and there is little shelter so if you do go, be sure to wrap up warm! If you do need warming up, there is a handy hot food and drinks van where you can get a Lincolnshire sausage in a bap or a hot chocolate. This we found to be very welcome indeed!

I would really recommend a trip to the Donna Nook Nature Reserve if you haven't been already. There aren't many places in the UK where you can observe wild animals as closely as you can do here, and rare ones at that. It's a super place to visit if you are interested in these animals or you enjoy wildlife photography. It really is a spectacle that both of my children enjoyed. It's cheap, educational and a great place to visit if you don't mind getting a little chilly in the process!