Ten Minute Shake up: Disney

After a day of rain and stuck in the house it was time to get outside. Dylan loves playing with his toys indoors and often needs persuading to go outside. 

I have noticed adverts about the 10 minute shake up on TV and thought we could do that.

So we made a game up that we called Disney Dice Races. We got two objects to represent start/finish and turn around point. We also had a dice and then came up with 6 possible actions to do for the run. 

1. Planes- arms out like a plane

2. Cars- steering like a car

3. Toystory- Woody riding on a horse

4. Toystory- Buzz shooting his laser

5. Monsters inc- roaring and moving like a monster

6. Tigger- bouncing 

I didn't manage to get many photos as my battery died but I know we will do it again and the actions are fairly simple plus your child may adapt them .

I would love to here of anyone else's ideas for ten minute shake up!

Sarah , Dylan (4.9 )and Zac (2.1)

Superhero Lego Memory Game

This is a very simple memory game involving my son's favourite toys at the moment Lego!

We used the tub with separate compartments and a lid. so that he could visualise where they were and I could put the lid down when I removed a figure to avoid him seeing by accident.

Coloured Peg and Pipe Cleaner Match up

I was desperate for new pegs and saw these in the shop they are multi-coloured ones.I knew that they wouldn't end up on my washing line as the kids loved them.

This morning we had the pipe cleaners out doing a threading activity. Then I saw that we had a few colours that matched to the pegs and here we have the next activity.

I was quite impressed how quickly Zac (2.1) matched the colours and that he said the right colours.

Then I thought how can I extend this for a four year old....

He had to make a chain with the pipe cleaners using pegs to hold them together. (I had to twist the pipe cleaners in the end).

He made a big chain that he used to show shapes like a circle. We didn't manage to mage letters or numbers but this is a possibility for next time.




Dylan 4.9
Zac 2.1

Super Colander Man

This activity was aimed at getting my 2 year old to practise his fine motors skills and replicate an activity that I did with my now four year old. However Dylan my four year old took over after Zac lost interest and used his own imagination to invent a hat with lasers that a super hero would use. He threaded pipe cleaners through the colander and then added the beads (lasers) to them.

This is his angry face.

He told me that the blue was water, the red was fire and black was mud.

He then wore it out in the garden to play with but I didn't get a pic of that. He was very protective over it too.

Dylan 4.9

Pipe cleaners and beads play

Looking back at when I tried this activity with my four year old he was a little older than my 2.1 year old.
Dylan (4) at the time was very focused and vocal during the activity telling me what colours he was using. Zac just got on with it but told me the colours he wanted when probed.

 

 

I didn't manage to get any pics of Zac with the colander as Dylan started using it to make a super hero hat with lasers.

Zac is more prone to putting things in his mouth than Dylan so I had to watch his very closely. He quickly got fed up and threw the beads.

What will I try next...?
Linking in patterns
Get him to match one I have done
Count them
Match colour bead to the pipe cleaner



Zac 2.1


Here is the blog from when I did it in 2013 with Dylan.

http://littlebrightsparks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/threading-pipe-cleaners-and-beads.html

Brown Bear Story Telling Bracelet

We follow the Virtual book club and have adapted Mama Miss' Storytelling beads http://www.mamamiss.com/2015/08/13/story-telling-beads/

for Bill Martin, Jr's book Brown bear.

 

We made a bracelet with the some beads and my son used it to tell the story.

Please excuse the PJs he likes to do activities like this in the morning.

 

The bead jars was a brilliant idea the only reason we did it this way was that we had to work with the equipment that we had at home.

 

Dylan 4.9

Days Out in Birmingham: Cannon Hill Park

The summer holidays this year have been 7 weeks long and this can get very expensive when you are trying to entertain the children even though there are loads of free activities and places to go. Although the days trips to places that charge are 'usually' worth the money for the experience.

 

Cannon Hill in Birmingham have once again put on a beach/ fair and entertainment. The entertainment  and sand play is free but the fair charges.

 

We visited today and these are the FREE activities we did. Played in the sand and watched the entertainment on stage.

Played in the multiple parks on climbing frames, swings, slides etc.

We took our bikes and cycled around to find our picnic spot.

 

Had a picnic and saved the crusts for the ducks, geese and swans.

 

Played hide and seek in the bushes

Climbed up the small trees.

We went with friends and there were a range of ages and all enjoyed the variety of activities.
Dylan had another 4 year old to cycle with as he much faster than Me a Zac on his bike. Although Zac is very fast and I have to jog to keep up if he is at full speed. He went down a few hills and he lifted his legs up to roll, getting very confident on there. Dylan's friend had no stabilisers and I think this has helped me to convince him to try his without any. We will be going there to try this! Scary thought but a vital learning curve.

Well recommended for day trip or shorter visit. There is a brilliant path that is very wide, flat and safe for small children with bikes.

Other free activities - some of they may need forward planning.

1. Bug collecting
2. Wild life tracking
3. Leaf identification/ match to tree- collect leaves as you go around and ask them match to another tree.
4. Leaf wax rubbings
5. Nature collage
6. Create a journey stick- find a stick and pick up items of your journey and attach the to your stick.
7. Scavenger hunt
8. Park watch- tally the number of red bikes, dog etc.
9. Sketch/ paint- you can take material to draw the scenery.
10. Photography- to give them a camera to take their own picks (obviously not expensive ones)
11. Sports/physical games like football, cricket or tig.
12. Sound safari- monitor sounds
13. Role play- act out favourite stories
14. Flower safari- search flowers
15. Sensory walk- blindfold them and get the to feel and smell objects
16. Bark rubbing
17. Create an outdoor sculpture
18. Twig shapes
19. Whistle the grass
20. Make a mud pie

Paid activities also include golf , boat rides and I think tennis.


Sarah
Dylan 4.9 and Zac 2.1

Board Game TOTB: Guess Who

 
 
 
 
 



This is the first of the Board Game Thinking Outside Of The Box series.
The inspiration for this is that both my son and I like to invent new games to play and using games that we already had is loads of fun.

This game was one of my favourite and most played game of my childhood. The age indicates 6+ but I brought it for my son when he first turned 4. I would say he soon learned what questions to ask and steered away from copying the questions. The only problem is that he needs another person who isn't playing to read the names to him.










Here are TEN TOTB ideas for Guess Who

1. We could do a scientific observation of the people. Link it to variation of the population and use numeracy skills to track the characteristics that are the most popular in the sample of people from the population. Two people could do it and then compare results and discuss reliability.
2. Also he could use oracy skills to describe the individuals and the other person can guess.
3. You could use drawing skills to copy the individual for the other person to guess.
4. You could draw your own Guess Who character maybe a self portrait.
5. With the animal sheet you can also do a scientific survey and tally according to group of vertebrate.
6. You could use the names for the people and animals and get them to write them on a piece of paper
7. You could do a literacy content analysis of how many names start with each letter of the alphabet.
8. This same idea could be used to analyse the colours of the rainbow.
9. Math coordinates could be used to signal the target i.e 2 across and 2 up starting from the bottom left.
10. Story telling we could use the characters as characters in a story that we are going to make up. We could also combine story telling dice to help derive the rest of the plot.


I will post how we get on doing these activities ASAP!
This is not a sponsored post!

Moon landscape Small world play

I have been collecting the empty egg cartons for this activity for a while. I already made the 'moon dust' for the space sensory tub we did last year.

Make your own moon dust!
6 cups fine salt
large squirt of liquid black food colouring (or 1/2 tsp gel colouring mixed with few drops water)
2-4 tbsp baby powder or flour
generous sprinkle of silver glitter

A bid to reduce clearing up time I layed out some black bin liners then I placed the egg cartons on top and sprinkled the moon dust over them. I had the kids to have a more concentrated area of moondust.

For the back drop I got the fire guard and covered it with a garden weed resist sheet. I then taped on glow in the dark planets and stars (randomly).

Then we  added in some space rockets and two astronaut figures! 

One of the space shuttles we got from the space centre and it is a USA rocket , so we pretended that they were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ( which was amusing as we had buzz light years rocket). We role played landing in the moon and walking on it. We talked about the dry, dusty surface and that there are lots of craters. 

They hid the small stars for each other to find in the moon dust.

Here are 5 more ideas to do with this project!
Letter tracing in the moondust

Crater experiment- dropping marbles into the moon dust at different heights and measure the diameter of the crater.

Build a rocket- out of a toilet roll

Jaffa cake phases of the moon display (also seen an Oreo one)

Moon diary.  Document the monthly changes of the moon. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Fruity Snack

 

Way back in 2012 we had a Summer Bucket list where we did E for Eric Carle.
Part of this we looked at The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we made craft items and role played the book.
This was a snack a made for my son who was 2.4 years and he loved it.



Ingredients
Green apple
Plum
Blueberries
Raisins

Obviously you can change any items.

Yum Yum.

Not sure why this wasn't blogged about it 2012 but the Virtual book club has revisited this Book so I might try this again with my other son too.

Check out Inspiration laboratories to join in.
http://inspirationlaboratories.com/very-hungry-caterpillar-inspired-scavenger-hunts/