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! :)