Nativity Fun

Lil A was going to be a Shepherd in her school play and I suddenly realised that she probably didn't quite understand what the nativity was or the characters and the story. I decided to buy a few items to help teach her what it was all about including a book, a little wooden nativity set (a mega cute Christmas decoration!) and I downloaded this fantastic learning pack from 3 Dinosaurs.

Lil A thoroughly enjoyed all the learning aids but most of all she really enjoyed all the activities in the free nativity pack I had downloaded from 3 dinosaurs. There were so many different activities including lots of educational pieces that linked in with the Nativity but also helped her learn, such as helping her with her writing practice and fine motor skills as well as problem solving with puzzles.

I think that the fact that someone goes to all this trouble to make these and to make them free to all is amazing! It allows us parents to help support our children's learning and to help stretch them a little bit further. As it stands Lil A cannot get enough of these packs and I am constantly having to download them to keep her happy and I love the fact that she is learning and she doesn't even know it! Mwuhaha! xx

Quick sensory play for babies using different textiles

This was a very quick thrown together sensory box I made for Lil E using lots of different scraps from my sewing supplies. There was all different types of textures and materials used including ribbons, cotton fabric, felt squares, some wool tied up so it was like a soft ball and some bead clusters that had fallen off some shoes. She loves to touch different surfaces and textures and is a very hands on baby so I thought this would be a wonderful chance for her to just sit and play with lots of different materials.

Lil E absolutely adored this new 'toy' I had made for her, I couldn't believe how something so simple kept her entertained for so long, especially as they were just scraps of whatever I could find to throw together. She just wasn't interested in her flashy, noisy toys when these new mysterious bundles were around. Her definite favourite were the bead clusters, although I made sure to watch her with these just incase any came loose. Also with the ribbons I made sure to watch her so as not to choke herself on them and as she loves to put everything in her mouth I made sure she didn't eat any of it!

Overall this was brilliant fun for Lil E and a huge success and I look forward to getting it out for her and to making lots more sensory experiences for her.

NOTE: Please make sure that any sensory boxes or experiences that you create for babies and young children do not contain any hazardous materials and please supervise at all times.

Christmas Themed Button And Ribbon Sensory Station

I decided to leave this for Lil A to find when she got home from school yesterday. It's a Christmas themed sensory station with buttons, ribbons, heart and star key-rings and small squares of felt. (Yes I did raid my sewing supplies and I hoard a lot more useful bits n bobs than I thought!)

I love that little intake of breath before she goes 'Wow!' and then the questions that come tumbling out after she sees something that's new and has appeared from now where. The adorable little gleam in her eye when she spy's something that looks super fun and she can't wait to get stuck in.

Then she decided she was hungry and wanted to eat first. Ok, maybe play is better on a full tummy. Then she rushed straight back to her new discovery and forgot to wipe her face in the rush and excitement...

Please excuse the state of her face, mummy didn't realise until after the pictures were taken, bad mummy!

I introduced some giant tongs for her to use and also a large jar for her to put the buttons into. Not only did she enjoy picking all the pretty buttons and ribbons but it was also a great activity to help her fine motor skills and a great way for her to enjoy some pretty sensory fun.

She decided that this was her Christmas sweet shop and she would use the tongs to dispense the sweets into the jar and used the muffin tin to make button cakes and ribbon spaghetti. I love how something so simple can really fire their imagination!

Overall this was a very enjoyable role play sensory game and I enjoyed putting in lots of orders for Christmas goodies. If only they were real sweets...xx

Underwater World - Indoor water sensory play in the sink

This was actually so much fun to create and collect all the cute bits I needed to create a little under water world for Lil A and I knew she would love it. She asked for days afterwards if she could play with it again and would be at that sink for ages.

I've seen a few of these around (although for the life of me I cannot find them to show you as they looked so much fun) and thought they were a brilliant idea to contain some sensory fun and also great for hot weather or rainy days. Great for the imagination, sensory play and also ideal to keep away from Lil E who would just try and eat the small blue beads!

I think her face says it all here. Oh and don't you just love her hair she styled herself!?

The coloured beads are decorative beads used in florists to fill up vases of flowers or empty vases for decoration. You can also pick them up at most home stores and I've even found some in the Pound shop before - bargain! I then added her large shells that had been collected from various Cornish beaches by her Grandad on holiday and lots of little shells she had collected herself from Southend beach. Then I added some plastic fish and toys from her bath and it was colourful and complete. There was so much more I could have added but the sink wasn't big enough! I think what fascinates them is not just the water but all the different colours and textures they get to play with, plus the novelty of playing in the sink, of which she has done on occasion without much structure!

Next I want to expand this activity to include the kitchen sink where we can do some water 'cooking' using cooking utensils and things to float in the sink to fish out. I got this idea from the following blog:

http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2012/07/cooking-in-the-sink-sensory-pretend-play.html

And then also expand on this water play to include lots of water experiments to help Lil A learn and understand what materials float and sink and why this might be. As done on the following blog:

 

 

 

http://handsonaswegrow.com/2012/08/water-play-experiment-float-sink/

Aren't they fab ideas!? I would love to see more ideas for some water sensory play :D

Simple, quick and easy fun that isn't watching the TV!

Just a quick post on a quick idea on how to keep the wee one entertained for a while that is very simple and quick to put up. Sometimes the best fun is the most simple things.

Thanks to a recent delivery we had a large cardboard tube lying around that I had stashed away ready to be used for something...

Please excuse the mess under the stairs as this is currently Lil E's play den and Lil A's arts and crafts drawers. All I did was tape it to the stairs high enough so Lil A could reach and gave her a car and a ball to roll down the tube. I also added a smaller tube just to make it super long! This kept her entertained for ages surprisingly and she had great fun racing the items to the end of the tube trying to catch them in time as they came out the other end.

Like the cardboard box and the endless fun you can have the cardboard tube is right up there with it. If it's not a pirates spy telescope it can be a tube ramp, sword, light saber...the possibilities are as endless as our imaginations!

Simple arts and crafts recycling

Just a quick post to share with you where most of our household recycling goes! As Lil A loves arts and crafts so much I have decided to save lots of packaging for her to use to make things with. I have a huge collection of all sorts such as egg boxes, cardboard boxes and tubes etc.

My latest find are these fruit and vegetable packaging that comes with the veg in the plastic tray covered with cling film wrap. I have found these so handy for many different things such as painting trays, glue trays, holding of small items for crafts such as pom poms and also for sorting activities. These are fab especially as in the shops you can pay nearly £2 just for a painting tray!

As you can tell Lil A is very camera shy!

Happy Crafting :)

Halloween Left Over Fun

Every year we buy a pumpkin carving kit to use and every year we have these strange shapes left over that we never use and are not sure what they are even used for!?

So we decided to make these little plastic shapes into some crafty fun and our first way was with play dough. I decided to let Lil A have some free play with them with the play dough and see what happened and allow her to explore different shape combinations, impressions and textures. The ridges on the shapes made some great impressions in the dough and she had lots of fun making all the shapes without having to actually cut any shapes out of the dough.

We then talked about and named the different shapes and talked about the different sizes and how all the triangles fitted together because of their graduating sizes of small, medium and large. She also enjoying fitting different shapes inside each other and making impressions of them. Overall she had great creative fun and it's  a great way to recycle something that would normally have gone in the bin.

Now to find another project for these cute little shapes and stretch out the Halloween fun!

Munchkin Pumpkins are so cute

Just a little post to show you our cute pumpkins which are called munchkin pumpkins, much to the delight of Lil A. Were looking forward to Halloween in this house and can't wait to put out decorations up. Were also hoping to do some printed off Halloween themed activities in the run up to Halloween to help set the theme and sneak in a bit of spooky learning fun.

I also chose to get the ones graduating in colour so we could talk about colour blending and mixing. Always looking for an opportunity to learn me! :)

Sticky fun on a rainy day

I have always wanted to try this with Lil A, I had seen it done on various blogs and thought she would love it as it was a different way for her to be creative with different materials. And one day in my local Tescos I saw that they had reduced their sticky back plastic to 20p - 20p a roll!! So I got excited and grabbed, well lets just say I grabbed till they were gone lol (I am quite aware of how sad my life has become when I get excited over sticky back plastic!). And I'm so glad I did as Lil A loved it so much, if only for the quirky way she could make a pretty picture. She thought it was great fun as you can tell from her face...

It's probably best on a window or against a plain background and when your finished you can put another layer of sticky back plastic over the top to seal it all. Probably a good idea to do it especially as after this picture was taken a lot of glitter was added!

The finished article:

I was really quite impressed with this picture actually. I see a shooting star or a witch on a broomstick, think I have a budding artist on my hands. One day this will be worth thousands! :)

Next step with all this sticky back plastic is to find some more activities to try...

Kids who Cook

My eldest LOVES to bake cakes, I think most children do. Not just fairy cakes, Barbie ones being her favourite, but anything else I decide to make. So far we have made banana cake (mainly due to it being so easy and we always have bananas on hand), blueberry muffins, choc chip cookies and chocolate tartlets. Please excuse the random sparkly headband and various beads, typical girl loves to dress up even for the most messiest of occasions. And goodness knows why I didn't put an apron on her!? Think I was living on the wild side that day...

Cooking is a great activity to do with children and it can be quick and easy or you can use longer more complicated recipes - they just love pouring, sieving and mixing and could probably do it for hours! Even babies enjoy watching all the flour clouds and mess being produced. The best thing is to start with some pre-packaged fairy cakes as these are the most child friendly and easiest, everything is contained in the box and all you have to do is add an egg, butter and water/milk. The children get to pour the mixtures into bowls, add the eggs and butter and whisk away. They can also help spoon the mix into cases and once baked and cooled decorate to their hearts content. A great way to spend time with your child whilst also teaching them about baking.

Another fun activity you can do while the cakes are cooking is a cooking sequencing game. This is where you can print off pictures (best done the night before so may require a bit of prep work) of how to cook a cake and get your child to play a game of sequencing them in the right order. You could also print off two copies and play snap or a turn over matching game with them. This is a great way to fill the gap between the cooking and icing of the cakes and besides who's ever desperate to wash up straight away  :).

Below is an example taken from dltk-teach website which is full of great printable resources for extra learning activities. Their sequencing cards are available in colour or black and white and could be laminated for extra durability and to be used by younger siblings.

They also suggest on their website to read a book relevant to cooking and then play the sequencing card game. For example if you were cooking ginger bread men then reading 'The Gingerbread Man' would be a great way to link reading a book into your activity to help further your child's understanding of how we cook. Instead of buying new books all the time hunt down some children's story cooking books in your local charity shop or at boot sales etc or hire some from the library if you are going to plan ahead your baking activity.

Eventually as your children get older your cooking can be turned into a mini science lesson where they are able to measure out liquids and solids into measuring beakers and learn how to use measurements of weight to make correct mixtures. You could also talk to them about the compounds of the ingredients and how self raising flour works and how the heat in the oven works to cook the mixture etc. The learning never ends!

~ Happy baking ~

Were off on an adventure...outside!

For me outside play is my top activity for the girls, there is nothing better than getting outside in the elements looking for a mini adventure, following a trail to no where and foraging finds for our next craft activity. Exercise, fresh air and fun will always be top of my list - besides it gets me out of the house as I strive to calm my cabin fever!

For us it can be as simple as a walk to the post box, scooter to the shops, bike ride to the park or foraging in the woods for pretty flowers, sticks and leaves. As children my siblings and I grew up in big and small gardens, next to farmers fields (to which we would regularly slip through the fence into the field chasing mice and playing pretend farmers) and next to great parks with lots of fun apparatus. So obviously we grew up with a lot of outdoor play, making dens and had lots of mini adventures, so naturally I want the same for my girls. What better memories are there than of summer holidays filled with lots of healthy fun running around outdoors, besides it's how it's always been?

Unfortunately there seems to be a decline in children playing outside as much as our predecessors. This is probably in part because of parental fear of the unknown and horror stories in the media and a lot more families unable to afford bigger housing with gardens and being stuck in a flat unable to move because of the recession.

A article about a UK study on children playing outside has found that only 25% of children play outside on a frequent basis. View article here. For me this is a tragic statistic and I certainly don't want my children to become part of the 75% even if it means getting outside myself and encouraging imaginative play.

There has even been a study conducted to prove that time spent outside is soothing and calming for young children and allows them to settle their own disputes (I think personally children are just too distracted outside to care about arguing!). View article here.

Whatever way you look at it its clear to see playing outside is good for children, pretty common sense I would have said. To co-incide with these studies published earlier this year Persil teamed up with Bear Grylls to come up with a list of the top 10 things children should do before your 10, which is downloadable for all for free here.

Now after looking at the list myself I have to say that there are a few things on there even I didn't do as a child and as for sledging down sand - down anyone live near a desert by chance as I certainly haven't seen many sand hills. But then maybe I don't get out much? So on inspection I'm wondering how to incorporate many of these into my daughters play outside and wondering if I will struggle just to find a hill as Essex is a pretty flat place!!

1. Perfect the perfect hill roll
2. Become a hide-and-seek champion
3. Go sledging- on sand
4. Build a den- indoors or out
5. Build a rope swing
6. Nurse that sting
7. Try and count the stars
8. Make a mud pie
9. Make a compass
10. Pick your own pudding

I've done 7 1/2 out of 10, not bad in my eyes. How many I can get the girls to do before their 10 is another thing! I think for now we'll just enjoy our nature walks and foraging...

We <3 the outdoors!

Welcome :D

Hello and welcome to my blog, all about cramming in quality time with my girls for a minimum of an hour a day, and passing on ideas of activities we do throughout the week. It's not really about the time scale but taking time to sit down and really listen, interact and learn from your child and hopefully they will learn something in return. And let's face it who wants to do boring housework when we have small little excuses running around tugging at our clothes begging with their puppy dog eyes for us to be their latest victim playmate. How can any dutiful parent resist...!?

Look at the beautiful blue eyed clever little mites I'm up against:

I have no chance :(