Easter Bunny Grass Cup

I'm busy getting ready for another couple of group messy play sessions I'm holding this Easter holidays. One of the crafts we will be making is these cute Bunny Cups that are great on their own but even better with grass hair!

Daniel (3.5) helped me make this test/example bunny, if you'd like to make one too here are the instructions.

Zoo Small World - In a Cardboard Box

 

A couple of weeks ago our oven decided to break & keep tripping our electric. We ended up having McDonald's for tea that night & I started to panic about how i was going to cook the cakes & food for Joseph's party!

After a quote of at least £100 to fix it & with it being about 6-7 years old we opted to replace it. I can recommend AO.com for a very quick service ordering on the Saturday & having it delivered on the Sunday for only £9.99 extra! 

Anyway getting to the point... the oven came packed with a box top & bottom. One of which was got ripped when we opened it, but the other one was perfect. So I asked Daddy to keep it, que rolling of eyes & 'what do you wan that for'. He is of the opinion that my box & other junk collecting is getting out of hand! So  knew that I needed to use this one ASAP!

Daniel (3.5) & I decided that it would make a good Zoo, as we haven't had our animals out for a while now. Daniel decided that the water animals needed a pond in the middle & then we discussed what other animals would like to live together. I quickly drew the layout with a black permanent marker & used a green & blue to quickly colour it in. We then decided that it needed a entrance door so that people can visit. 

I've discovered that using a pumpkin carving knife like a saw works really well on cardboard & as ours isn't sharp I don't need to worry so much about doing it while the boys are around. It does however make more of a mess than scissors but is so much easier. 

Both boys have had lots of fun playing with this, though after being on the floor for a while its starting to get a bit battered. So it may well be in the recycle box this week, much to my husbands delight!

x Jo x

Hungry Caterpillar Week @ Messy Play

Oops... just realised that I haven't finished posting about the group messy play sessions I ran in the summer. The next theme I chose was The Very Hungry Caterpillar so that we could cover food, leaves, caterpillars & butterfly's. In the sensory box I popped lots of popcorn, we do have a popcorn maker which made this quite easy, I think I ended up using approx 300g of corn. I then raided our toy kitchen to find all the plastic food that is mentioned in the book & added some scoops & spoons. 

This box was very popular with all the kids, we kept it made up at home the popcorn kept well & still smelt delicious 2  weeks later (though I wouldn't recommend eating any that old, it was OK to play with). 

This week instead painting on the floor I moved it up on to a table so that they could create individual paintings. I was aiming for symmetry butterfly's & sponge circles to make caterpillars. Well the kids had their own ideas and were happy to paint freely, the glitter went down well :-) Joseph (4.5) wanted to make a butterfly so I drew out the shape on half the paper to help him (bottom left pic).

For some floor art I taped some black paper down for chalking. I did have more paper to hand in case they filled it up, but the chalk rubbed away by hand so their was no need. I must remember to do this in the kitchen for the boys on a rainy day!

Using left over coloured pasta from the previous week we made some caterpillars, with pipe cleaners & eyes. This is great for little ones that struggle to thread on to string.

 For the other areas we had:

• Ball pool
• Leaf pool - Selection of leaves and pine cones. I used lots of different leaves including bay & mint to add some scent.
• Button & cotton real threading - which created some nice caterpillars

As usual we had a baby / quiet area, which included the book & a butterfly toy.

At the end of the session I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

x Jo x

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Animal Week At Messy Play

Well last week saw my 1st proper messy play session, with real paying customers who weren't friends or anything! I'm running sessions at my local hall for 5 weeks in the summer holidays initially. 

I was going to have a farm week & a zoo week but being limited to 5 themes, & having so many ideas I decided to combine them in to 1 week. 

Farm small world using porridge oats

Small world zoo with dry pasta, & sweet tin lid as sea.

Blue gloop frog pond, with craft foam lily pads.

Daniel (3) & his friends helping out on in the farm!

Joseph (4.5) really enjoyed the play dough with our animal cutters.

He also made this creation with the rollers!

Vegetable printing & hands & feet!

A bit of body art!

The finished master piece.

 Well the most popular animal around here at the moment is Gromit. So animal week wouldn't be complete without him & Shaun the sheep at the craft table.

My Gromit 'Patch'

My Shaun the sheep.

Joseph & Daniels Gromits

Joseph & Daniels Sheep

I'm looking forward to next weeks theme Artic!

x Jo x

Wildlife Jack (review)

We were asked to watch the taster episode of Wildlife Jack. Jack is a young boy who goes on an adventure through his wildlife book. I love how all the animals are British & so are the voices. It is a very engaging concept combining real filmed animals with a cartoon Jack to engage the young audience.

So both Joseph (4.5) & Daniel (3) sat up on my knee to watch the 5 minute episode, & they loved it. They hardly moved and only spoke to point out animals etc. As soon as it had finished they were wanting more.

The creators Ed & Abi are planning to make 5 more episodes to release on DVD (or download) but need funding to do so, if you love the taster & want to support them you can by the DVD in advance on Kick Starter.

We have not been paid in anyway to write this review & all opinions our our own.

x Jo x

Outside Fun

 We have really been enjoying the spring weather & have been taking the opportunity to get out and about to our local parks, feed the duck's & even had the chance to play in a school playground. Its been great for them to get the chance to work on their gross motor skills especially balance. 

It was actually the first time that i have taken them to feed the ducks on my own, I'm normally too scared that they will fall in, so make sure that Daddy is with us to perform rescues!

 x Jo x

P.S. don't forget our giveaway is still active.

F is for...

This week fortnight we have been looking at the letter F. We had so much Fun with Fish in our Small World Aquarium. We also had a go at painting magic fish which wasn't so successful!

 We pulled out our FP Little People Farm, which hadn't been out in a while so got lots of attention, it was even left out for a few days so they could revisit it. It worked well having our Ikea car mat out as well to add to the play. 

I really love seeing the boys play together. Its happening more & more these days and it really makes me realise that a small age gap was a good idea, its only taken 3 years to see that!

We did a few colouring sheets, however as the weather has been nice we have been outside more.

 

We also got our frog figures out - I came downstairs in to the lounge to find that Joseph (4.5) had lined them all up on Daddy's desk. These frogs might make an appearance in a sensory box soon...

x Jo x

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Arctic Sensory & Small World Box

Since we haven't had any more real snow, we decided to turn our sensory box in to an Arctic zone for some small world & sensory play. We used shaving foam to make our snow, this is the first time we have played with this at home, all though both boys have experienced it at nursery.  We gathered all or snow loving animals, we had several polar bears, a killer whale, penguin, wolf & a seal. The animals are from several places including Lego Duplo, Fisher Price Little People, Schelich, & one was even from a kinder egg! We used 2 white containers as caves & 2 old CD's as icy water.

 The boys enjoyed playing with the animals but after a couple of minutes decided that the shaving foam was to sticky & covered the animals too much. I left the box out all day but neither Joseph (4) or Daniel (2.5), wanted to play again. We have got this DK Fliptastic Animals board book out from the library at the moment (not really sure why as we don't often get board books now they are older) and it has this page about animals that live in the snow. Joseph was disappointed that we didn't have a reindeer to add to our box, but they are in the loft with the Christmas bits.

The next day after washing out the box we made up this magic snow that I bought before Christmas but never got around to using... I was hoping for fine powdery snow, however it was more of a fine gel consistency.

 The boys enjoyed adding the water & watching it grow however once again didn't like the texture (neither did I) it was very sticky & didn't brush off our hands easily. So again after a few minutes the boys were done.

On our list of things to try next is shredded paper, cotton wool balls, & ice also if we get any more real snow I will bring some in.

x Jo x