Easter Messy Play & Crafting

We have been having a great Easter holidays so far, its been so nice having the nice dry weather. We have held 2 group messy play sessions, been catching up with friends and attended a Gromit model making session. The boys had great fun learning to make a Gromit, with George from Ardman animations. I was hoping that Joseph (5) would be able to make his own but he did need lots of help, so I ended up making most of both!

On Monday we held an Easter themed group messy play session, where we made bunny grass cups, and Easter bonnets/hats. To make the hats cut a strip of card to fit your child's head then cut out and staple on some bunny ears on top.

I didn't get chance to share the Easter bonnets I made the boys last year, I was inspired to make Joseph's angry bird hat by this chick hat I found on pintrest.

Back to the messy play session.... We had an easter sensory box with rainbow rice in the base, & in the other box I used cooked seed pearl tapioca. I was hoping the tapioca would be like water beads but its more sticky, but still lots of fun.

In one of our pools we had cornflakes and fake flowers. In the other pool we had lots of pom poms and we painted and labeled egg boxes so the children could match the colours, they also had the option to use child's chopsticks for some fine motor practice.

We also had a table set out with Easter colouring sheets (lots on my easter pintrest board) and play dough and laminated play dough mats.The kids had lots of my funky crayon miss-shapes to colour with...

On the floor we had a large sheet of paper for painting, using brushes & stamps. We also used a potato masher as i'd seen on pinteset it maks a great egg shape! The other tip I found on pintrest is to use a sponge in the bowl it applies an even coat of paint to the stamp to make it easier to get a good print.

It was a very busy and fun session, so much so I didn't get chance to take many pictures!

If your looking for more Easter fun take a look at these posts from last year...

E is for Easter... Last years Easter round up!

Easter Chick Farm Sensory Box

Paper Plate Lamb/Sheep (pic is right at the bottom of the post)

The second messy play session we held was Lego Movie themed & I promise to share all the details soon. We are going away for the second week of the holidays, down in Dorset, fossil hunting. So I will apologise now if I go AWOL until after The Easter weekend & hope you all have a lovely Easter whatever your up to. 

x Jo x

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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.

Beach Fun, Driftwood & A Dinosaur Small World.

While Nanny was up staying with us we decided to check out another small local beach. I really love that on a small quite beach like this Joseph(5) and Daniel (3.5) are now old enough to explore a bit on their own.  We had lots of fun finding sea glass, interesting rocks and driftwood. There was still quite a bit of water draining off the land so there were a few streams under the rocks. Daniel found one that went between some larger rocks that he was using to sail some driftwood.

Lego Junior - Review

The boys were thrilled when they found out that they had been selected to be Lego Junior product testers. When I say the boys I mean all 3 of them... Joseph (5), Daniel (3.5), & Daddy! We were sent the Police Station set (10675) to test out. It has an age range of 4-7, which is a little lower than most standard Lego sets, as its been designed to be easier to build.

Shells - Rock Pool Small World

I decided to swap around our sensory box the week before half term, we decided that a beach theme would be good, but as I'd just cleaned I didn't want anything as messy as our last beach small world! So we got out all of our shells. Most of our shells we have collected during various beach trips. But I bought the big 2 at a car boot sale a few weeks back for 50p! Then we used a blue ice cream tub filled with some water to make a rock pool. We decided that our Playmobil people, that came with the swimming pool that Joseph got from Santa for Christmas, would be perfect as they have their costumes on ready for paddling!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Couple of weeks ago, before I was having to be 100% on plan with slimming world & possibly (at least part) of the reason I put 4lbs on, I decided it was about time I made the boys a pineapple upside down cake. I last baked this when we were at our old 1 bed house before the boys were born, at least 7 years ago. It an old recipe that I cooked in food technology class at school, so credit goes to my teacher (sorry I cant remember your name) & my mum for keeping the recipe.

Rice & Tubes - Adding another dimension to the sensory box

So when I saw an amazing sensory box from Frugal Fun For Boys on my Facebook feed I pinned it immediately. While I was pinning it the boys caught sight and wanted one of their own. A couple of hours later I decided to have a look around to see if we had enough bits to make a more basic quick DIY version.