Baby sensory: m is for mega blocks

Look at the concentration. I finally let my son loose on the mega bloks. They are perfect for sensory play. There are different shapes and sizes plus different colours .

What to do with them?

1. Build- show them how to build

2. Chew on them :)

3. Bang them together: maybe to music or whilst singing .

4. Balance, then knock them over

5.play catch

6. Paint with them

7. Paint on them

8. Full them with jelly

9. Sort them by shape/size/colour

10. Make shapes/objects

We didn't do any my craft this time but will have ago soon. 

Science to Art: Daffodil 3d craft picture

After our nature walk and observing daffodils we made a daffodil card for Mother's Day .

All you need is:-

yellow baby pouch lids of other yellow bottle tops

Yellow paper/ post-it notes

Green straws

Backing card

Double sided foam tape ( for extr 3D effect) or glue

Patterned tape or paper (optional)

To make it easier I attached the double sided foam to the items and all he had to do was stick them in the right place.

Ours kept falling off so you made need to glue them too after the task.

This is a good Science -> Art project where we linked a nature walk to a piece of art.

Sarah and Dylan. 3.5)

St Patricks day gold coin garden activities

The treasure was hidden in the garden and each gold coin found he had to bring back to the pot and tick off on the chart.

Then he counted all the gold.

After the treasure hunt we used rackets to play running games and tossing games.

Then he had to toss the coin into the pot. This is actually quite hard.

Dylan then wanted to push them down the slide so I put the pot there to see if any land in there .

Most didn't. 

We carried out a mini science investigation to see how the size of the slide affects the movement and accuracy of the coin going in.

Dylan noticed the bigger the slide the faster it travelled and more likely to bounce off the pot than go in.

You could calculate the speed by working out distance over time for older children.

Great fun

Sarah and Dylan 3.5

Story time in the bath

Most kids love bath time and I usually use this time to sing songs and nursery rhymes, I had never thought about reading. I have read a story to my son whilst I was in the bath but that a different story.

So my three year old started telling his brother what was in the bath book that he was chewing and it was so cute. Zac was concentrating and fixated on the book. 

So I'm on the look out for more bath books and maybe ways to do story telling without a book.

I came up with these ideas 

Bath crayons

Bath paint

Foam objects

Gel objects

Here is the Easter gel bath we used to tell stories.

To view the post visit

http://littlebrightsparks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/easter-sensory-bath.html

I would love to here of the ways that yo would encourage story telling in this way.

Sarah

Baby Sensory: M is for Marshmallows

This was a quick activity that we will extend. But marshmallows are great fun to play with, eat, touch and good art & craft materials.

Both boys eat them mostly. I am looking at more ways to have fun with marshmallows.

TMNT Shadow puppets

Today was baby sensory club and I try and develop the experience with my three year old. 

The themed today was light, we had a light box and transparent blocks, containers and lids. We also had torches which is what we used for the shadow puppet show.

So my son loves TMNT and I thought this would be a good theme for his puppets .

Method

1. Draw around object

2. Paint (so can be used as general puppets)

3. Let it dry 

4. Cut them out 

5. Attach a stick

6. Dim the lights, find a good wall and position the torch to get good shadow puppets. 

(Close enough and if it's in line with the puppets the shape will be very similar to the design. Too high or low will change the shape.)

Learning ideas

Talk about transparent and opaque objects and how the puppets are opaque so the create shadows. 

Role play- heroism

If more children a puppet show could encourage team work.

Teach them about puppet shows.

Dylan loved this and I have kept them for a rainy day .

Dylan 3.4

Baby Sensory : S is for Spaghetti

I found this post in my drafts folder. My son is about 8 months old and this was his first experience with spaghetti like this.

I encouraged him to pick it up, showed him what it looked like by lifting it myself. He tried to eat it as he did most things.

Many other bloggers have dyed the spaghetti with food dye to increase the sensory experience. 

You could add smell to the sensory experience maybe add lemon juice to the pasta when cooking . You could mix a sauce in too (chocolate, tomato)

The next step for us would be to use the spaghetti to make a piece of art to treasure.

A-Z Science: O for Observation: Daffodil nature walk

This post is part of the A-Z series that we follow from Inspiration Laboritories 

http://inspirationlaboratories.com/o-is-for-observation-skills/

O is for Obsrvation.

We went for a walk to the shops and then the park and on the way I showed Dylan my three year old what a daffodil was and he wanted to pick one. I don't usually but I thought to build on his excitement and curiosity we will. 

Sowhen we got back we put them in a vase and  observed how it changed over the next couple of days until it opened. 

I told him we need to put them in water and we need to make sure they have sunlight. 

I asked him to predict was was going to happen. He said its hoinv to open up into a yellow flower.

I might get him to draw a before and after picture but he is still a little reluctant to draw objects and just likes to doodle.

After a few days we noticed they had opened and we observed them and he did draw a beautifu Picture .

He also made 3D daffodil cards for his two nannies for Mother's Day.

To find out how we did this visit

http://littlebrightsparks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/science-to-art-daffodil-3d-craft-picture.html

Sarah and Dylan (3.5)