Pinterest Weekly Challenge: Messy Foam Play

Little Man loves the bath, a bit too much, in that we can’t get him out of it!!

He also loves painting and anything messy really.

I have to admit I don’t do enough of it. It might be the control freak in me coming out to play; the idea of the potential mess makes me nervous.

But I am going to do more with him. That’s my plan.

So for our first messy play activity, I got out two tubes of “crazy soap” foam bought from Tesco’s after hearing they had used this in crèche and Little Man loved it. This was about a year ago. And we played with it at the time and boy was it messy. But actually clean messy, as it doesn’t spill everywhere it just sticks to everything, but it is dry, so easier to clean up. And washes off clothes, etc.

So this time I was a bit more prepared. I have a plastic box I use for Sensory Play, filled with containers, lids, brushes, sticks, etc. so I put a blanket on the floor, then a large plastic box lid on the blanket, and the plastic box on top. So lots of areas to catch spills/ mess. Little Man was very good at keeping the foam in the box. I find he is very open to instructions. Good for showing them limitations.

We then proceeded to squirt the foam. It was great fun, Little Man loved it. He found it tricky enough to squirt it himself, so I helped him, or squirted it for him.

He enjoyed squashing it between his fingers, imagining he was washing his hands with it, rubbing it up his arms, mixing it around the box, putting it into the little containers.

I made a snow man, which was then squashed. I then made a big ball of “clouds” as we called them. It took a while to convince Little Man to try holding it before squishing it, when he did and rolled it around his hands he enjoyed the feeling. It feels so light and delicate. Then he squished it!

Such fun.

Then to clean up we took the box up to the bath and Little Man used the shower head to rinse it all.

What next now??? Will have to do a search on my to-do Pinterest Weekly Challenge for mess play activities.

Sticker "Resist" Painting

Saw this great post,


Peaceful Parenting: Sticker "Resist" Painting

and decided to attempt same with LM. On a recent trip to the library, we got a nice book "Moonhorse".

Moon Horse

"Out of the night the shimmering Moonhorse appears, and a young girl leaves her father napping on the front porch to join the silver-winged horse on a wondrous adventure among the constellations. They gallop past stars and comets, past the Dipper and the Ram, then lasso the crescent moon and pull it across the clear night sky. At last the sleepy rider returns home safely and the Moonhorse disappears into the dark"

So LM has been all talk of flying horses and had learnt the proper name- Pegasus.

So I rolled out the sticker books and we picked out some relevant stickers- no flying horses, so we stuck a horse sticker on and some make shift wings, using sticky paper.

We then had some nice messy time, painting over the stickers, using paint brushes, pasta, plastic sticks- whatever was around. Then LMs attention turned to water play using the paint water, so we moved our play to the sink. Lots of fun.

messy play

As the paint was still wet, we decided to add some glitter to the page, to add to the magical feel.
The painting was left to dry while we made the necessary changes of wet clothes!

Nothing exciting to look at

but wait for it.....
Our magical Moonhorse painting.

Sticker Resist Painting

LM was chuffed! Job done. Might do again tomorrow with another book theme.

Lacing / Threading Fun

LM is due to move up to the next room in his creche shortly, and they were mentioning they would be doing more activities that involve concentration and sitting still, one mentioned was lacing.
So I thought we could do some lacing activity at home. Here is what we did- very basic, and simple, but fun and kept LM entertained for a good while preparing and lots of hours fun playingwith Lacing game after.

Note this is a good activity to make with the babas, not prepare ahead yourself.

So here is what I used:

• Laces- I got theses laces from Choice for €1.99, but they were on special 2 for 3, so really only €1.50.

Laces

• 1 small cereal box
• some coloured card
• hole punch
• lots of stickers- animals, cartoons, numbers, could also use letters
• double sided tape

So firstly I let LM get on with whatever he was doing, and I cut the cereal box at one edge and folder it over on itself so back and front were plane cardboard. Stuck together using double sided tape.

I then stuck on some coloured card to brightn things up a bit.

 

Then I got LM involved, we punched holes all along the edges of the rectangular card, as see below. I then gave him a load of sheets of stickers from our craft box, mainly old ones, he usually gets very excited about stickers for a while, but then novelty wears off and I put them asides. So many good activities you can use stickers for.

Aside this was such a good buy- 1000 stickers, we got this one and the 1000 animal stickers aswell. sheets can be taken out as individua sheets or as book.

Great buy- lots of uses

So LM, with my prompting picked out a load of stickers. the ideas of the game is to match one sticker to another using questions. So something like:

• How many legs does a Shetland Pony have? and then the lace would need to be connected between the pony and the number 4. So many possibilities.

some you can see below:

• how many hooves do the 2 baby zebras have?
• find the baby zebras Dada.
• who is Donald Duck's best friend
• how many sea horses are there?
• how many lions are there in the pride?
• how many ice cream cones are there?
• what else has lion in it's name?
• together how many feet do the crocodile and the cow?

... you get the idea, endless options.

The laces are threaded through through the top or side holes and stuck with sellotape.

 All the laces are then threaded through and the game can begin.

 I stuck an envelope on the back to store laces when not in use, and also wrote some Qs on back for ideas.

Anyone any other good activities using laces and threading, or other good ideas for teaching fine motor skills???

Sorting Activity

So I have been doing some pinteresting (http://www.pinterest.com/ if you haven’t tried this- do!) and have come across loads of amazing kid/toddler activities. A lot of sorting activities.

So thought I’d add one we did last week that was fun and kept LM busy for 45mins of so- which for a 2.5 year old is no mean feat.

You will need:

Cardboard tubes- we used an empty tin foil tube, an empty wrapping paper tube and an empty kitchen paper tube and a large poster tube. So 4 different diameter tubes. That’s the key with this activity, different diameter tubes.

• Toys- we used LM’s Zoo box- he has a load of animals of different sizes and brands. Also includes a zoo keeper and a family who regularly go to the zoo. But cars/ Lego/ or other small toys.



• 5 areas for sorting

So now LM just had to sort the animals by which fit where. By trying to slide them through the tubes.

Was good fun and good for discussing body parts of animals- as in reindeer's antlers won’t fit through, or donkeys ears are too long to fit, or giraffes neck is too long, so won’t fit. So obviously if the animal won’t fit in the smallest tube we try next size up and so on. And if it won’t fit in any tube, it is put in a separate area for large or tall animals.

Also good for developing fine motor skills/ dexterity*, learning animals names, body part names, animal specific body parts (hooves, paws, tail, horns, tusks, strikes, spots, snout, etc), descriptive language (small, large, tight, long, short, tall, etc), colours, and many more depending how complicated the game.

Anyone else got good sorting game ideas?

* Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur e.g., in the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. In application to motor skills of hands (and fingers) the term dexterity is commonly used. When applied to the theory of human aptitude this is called manual dexterity.

Blog Link: Toddler Activity- Tactile learning

Great idea from Tutus and Turtles- will definitely be trying with my little man.

http://tutusandturtles.blogspot.com/2009/08/tactile-matching-game.html

DIY Play Kitchen

LM had been enjoying playing with the play Kitchen in his creche, and for Christmas I wanted to get him one, or make him one.

The one I loved was this wooden ikea kitchen.

But space and money said no. So I decided to try make one.

I had seen a load of amazing DIY play kitchens on various blogs and Pinterest and wanted to attempt my own.
Some amazing DIY Play Kitchens I came accross:

from my favourite http://www.younghouselove.com/



Fun itchen Ideas: the-new-home-ec Blog



As you can see some absolutely amazing ones, better than real kitchens, but again money and space (and time and skill!).

So I looked at what we had. When we moved into our new house we decided to open up the kitchen and the next room (a small 2^nd living room) into one large family room come kitchen. So that we could eat, cook, socialise while LM could play away, and down the line do homework, read, listen & play music, relax. So we lined one wall of the family room with IKEA children's STUVA units, as seen below.



  

Our Ikea STUVA units

So my plan was to use some desktop space we already had in our family/play room (rearrange toys and put kitchen where penguin is above).

So my ingredients:

IKEA SAMLA lid for box as base for hob, Small Ridged Knobs (Maplins Store), 4 normal CDs/DVDs, hot glue + hot glue gun, super glue, lid from pesto jar (any nice looking lid works- but make sure it has the safety pop feature- so makes a nice click when pressed), velcro strips.

The idea is that the jar lid is the ON/OFF button and the temperature is then controlled by the knob, which clicks at 6 points. Each CD is a different hob.

My hubby kindly drilled a hole in the plastic lid to fit the knob.

I used a hot glue gun to glue the jar lid and knob on, and super glue to glue the 4 CDs on so they look like a hob. I put a bit too much super glue on, and was a bit smudged around 2 of CDs but I'm not a pefectionist, so looks ok to me...

The control knob clicks in 6 differnt positions, so I added numbered stickers 1-6, so LM can get to know his numbers. I then added an Ikea shelf we had bought ages ago but never found a home for, a plant, a mini retro petrol pump radio, some plastic hooks to hang up utencils. Very happywith results, and LM and friends enjoying making mamas and dadas endless cups of tea, eggs and pancakes.
I also added a blown up printout of a photo of our back garden, and made a foam frame- to make it more personal for LM.

Anyone else made any interesting DIY kitchens??