Making water play fun

When washing up after painting we came across this wonderful surprise! I thought it would be fantastic for water play. All you need to do is mix metallic acrylic paint with warm water and washing up liquid ( Little Boo has never reacted to the paint that we use or washing up liquid so I knew this would be safe to use)  

The water then looks amazing! It develops a shimmery effect that moves as you touch the water and is wonderful to play with.

 Little Boo was fascinated at watching the colours. We added sequins to make the water more interesting it also gave her an opportunity to filter something out the water when playing.

This water could also be filled in a bottle and then object added to make a eye spy bottle.

The household objects that we use for water play are

• old plastic bottles cut off to make funnels for pouring (I did go round the top of these with masking tape as they can be sharp),
• drink bottles
• cup measures of different sizes
• tea strainer,
• different sized containers
• hand whisk
• wooden spoon

This activity is fantastic for floating and sinking play and is made more interesting by the water looking nice. The activity also allowed us an opportunity to practise counting at Little Boo counted how many cups were needed to fill certain containers.

The colours looked amazing whilst Little Boo was doing this.

More ways to display children's art work

I am really pleased to see how many people have viewed the page about "Displaying children's artwork" so decided to share this with you.  Below are images of canvas that Little Boo completed a few months ago. It was only when going round a local shop (The Works) that I realised how cheap the small canvas were and thought it would be great for Little Boo to do painting on.  We were also in the process of moving home so I asked Little Boo to make them for me with Nannies help (who also loves crafts) for me to put up in my new study.  It was lovely as I knew what they were doing but had no idea what they would turn out like so it was like a moving in present from Little Boo.

Apparently Little Boo loved doing this, squeezing out the paint and choosing what to use to decorate them.  It is wonderful that each of them is completely different.  They were completed over a few weeks as Little Boo would put a bit of paint on then revisit it to put on decorations.  This also gave the thick paint opportunity to dry.

Sorry there are no images of Little Boo actually doing the paintings maybe next time as I plan to change these every year it will be lovely to watch how she progresses.

Would you think of displaying your children's art work in this way? Go for it they look amazing and will always make you smile.

The masterpieces displayed in Mommy study

Who enjoys splashing more Mommy or Little Boo?

I opened the curtains this morning to a miserable day rain, rain, rain! Then I thought why is it that we can not appreciate the sun as much as the rain.  So therefore I set to work we were going to enjoy the rain as much as the sunshine! Instead of the suncream and sun hat we had our wellies and coats on and were ready to splash!

Little Boo she was very pleased with her umbrella

There was plenty of splashing

Proof that Mommy was splashing as well it was actually great fun but I got some weird looks from passers by,  just because I am a grown up does not mean I can not enjoy splashing in puddles.  It is worth the funny looks to see Little Boos face when I was jumping like her she loved it!  



When we got  in and dried off Mommy even had a pretend cup of tea made, fantastic!



It has really made me think differently about rainy days.  We sat down later and looked through some poems to find one suitable and came across this Puddles by Brenda Williams I have uploaded our picture and used Skitch (app on ipad) to write the poem I hope you like it. We are going to do this for a few of our favourite poems and make a scrapbook.  I think that it makes the poems more personal for Little Boo as she can remember doing the activities.



Making our butterfly mobile

Here come those bottle tops again! This idea came from sitting down with Boo and watching how she played with the bottle tops.

Luckily, the bottle tops were open so Little Boo started by pushing pipe cleaners into them.  I then thought these look like antenna! We could make a butterfly.

After looking at our bottle top collection I knew we could thread the bottle tops to make the body.  This is when I asked my better half to get busy making holes in the bottle tops (which is pretty easy to do) Whilst we got to making the wings. The sequins had to come out.

The wings were created on fun foam  

The bottle caps were then threaded to a pipe cleaner (just looped the
 bottom to stop them falling out)

We then picked out two googly eyes and left it to dry.

 After this I glued it all together using a hot glue gun then used fishing wire as a method of hanging it up.  I hope that you like this idea.  We are making a few more so a mobile can be made.

Shared on

Sparkly letters

I feel that the best activities are those that your children just do naturally.  This is an activity that came purely from Little Boo herself (after the pig creation). There were loads of sequins in the boxes which she just started grabbing and moving from one box to the other.

Moving them one box to the other

Pouring them

First making a circle

Then a letter e

Then making marks with a lolly pop stick

When pouring apparently the sequins "look pretty" and "make a nice noise" Then with the ones that had spilt she started drawing. I realise this can get messy but she loved it! We put down a sheet of foam so she could easily see what letter or shape she was making. I would write something in the sequins then she would copy. It started a brilliant conversation about letters as Little Boo suggested what the letter b looked like.

The upcycle pig

Little Boo loved the up cycling activity, so much so that we had to do some more today (think she likes playing with the sequins).  Yesterday it was very funny as there was a lid on the table and she put one of the milk bottle lids inside then some eyes and said "it is a piggy mommy".  How amazing I thought it definitely could be a pig (she always comes up with the best ideas).  So the pig creation started...

Glue was put into the lid.  Little Boo enjoyed squeezing this in.

Sequins and googly eyes added.  There is also a milk bottle top

I drew some ears and Little Boo wanted to cut them out.  She can not cut on the lines yet but it is all good practise!

Double sided sticky tape was placed on the back of the foam paper.  Little Boo loves peeling this off.

And then the completed piggy!

I am actually considering using this as a magnetic memo pad as I will put some paper to the back of it with a few magnets. 

Upcycle bottle tops into magnets

As part of our up-cycle challenge me and Little Boo have made use of the bottle tops and made them into magnets! This is a very simple idea and the possibilities are endless.  We decided to put sequins and glitter inside the bottle tops to decorate them.  However, many items can be used such as photographs or small old toys.

Here is how it went

First, we had to give the bottle tops a "bath" very funny that Little Boo said that herself and enjoyed cleaning them.  This led to discussion on how the bottle tops were "floating in the water".  Little Boo then counted them onto the towel to dry and dried them by hand.  The bottle tops could be left overnight to dry if needed.  I was thinking of doing this bit myself but I am glad that I decided not to as little Boo has so much fun.


Once dry we started making

First squeezing out the glue

Then adding the sequins

Little Boo also wanted to cut up some straws to use

Leave them to dry for a day and add a magnet on the back. We decided  to add a feather to this one.  As you can see once they are dry you can not see the glue

You could chose to add a magnet on the back, use them as counters or for matching games. This was very simple to do we have loads of bottle tops so watch this space I am looking at more things to make. 

Engaging children in reading

Some people have requested that I detail more about the Handa's Hens Story sack which is fantastic! I am really pleased that people have liked this post and that they feel inspired to make their own. I am very passionate about how we can get children more engaged in reading books and feel this works with my daughter. The reason why I chose this book is because it came recommended by a friend who mentioned that it is used a lot in early years setting.  As well as the book teaching children about different cultures it also cleverly embeds number recognition.

First of all I will detail what is in the sack many of the resources were from Twinkl.  You do have to pay a subscription to get some of the resources however this is very reasonable and there are loads of good resources on there.

Firstly contained in the sack (pillow case with a T-shirt transfer)

• The book Handa's Hen by Eileen Browne
• Sequencing cards
• Colouring sheets
• Handa and Akeyo face masks
• Pictures of the animals in the book for example two butterflies, 4 lizards, all cut out individually.
• word mat
• 10 Easter chicks and plastic eggs
• Jigsaw (picture printed from Google laminated then cut up)
• Handa and Akeyo stick puppets
• 3 toy mice

Then the fun began...

First we played with the main characters and saying their names.

As we went through the story little Boo decided that she wanted to count the cut up animals onto the page by placing them on top of the book.  This was something I did not even think of!

When we came to the end of the story I used 10 plastic eggs to put chicks in!

The sequencing cards were then used to recall the story and to practise counting.

Little Boo then wanted to match the pictures to the word mat .

Then do the jigsaw

Then it was time to pack up so one chick had to be counted into the egg and the correct colours matched together to close the egg.

I think it is important that children are allowed to explore the story how they want to. I have seen how Little Boo has started to explore more and more with this story sack as we have used it. She has even started to make up her own stories with Handa and Akeyo. Next story sack will be The Hungary Caterpillar.

Displaying childrens art work

Now that I have got so many wonderful masterpieces.  I have been looking at ways of displaying them.  There are loads of ideas out there but I liked this the best and it is only from Ikea! even better.  It is the best item I have brought from there.  Little Boo was so excited to see her art work displayed.  All I have got to do now is decide on a quote which I can get as a sticker to stick above.

Do not throw away your old camera

Little Boo liked the claws!

The floor was not missed
as it had "triangles"

We also saw circles on the
floor.

We have been to a local art gallery. Little Boo's Auntie was kind enough to give her an old digital camera. It has been brilliant to use as Little Boo took pictures around the gallery of what she liked.  The activity sparked loads of conversation around the gallery and it was funny as one of Little Boos toys was posing in a few of them. Hope you like some of the pictures that were taken.  How many of you have tried this with your children I would love to hear about the results. We intend to stick all the pictures in her scrapbook.