Alien Cups

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A story book inspired craft. My boys love this book and had fun making these cup aliens.

My eldest even drew underpants on.

We could made paper pants to stick on

My two year old drew his face on. He also placed the forks and spoons in. I just pierced holes and sellotaped them inside.

We role played with the Aliens when we read the book. The eldest named him

Four eyed spike and Bubba Bob Bob was the name of my two year olds alien.

Dylan 5.7

Zac 2.11

Dragon Sock puppets

Not great pics for this activity. Needed a more hands on role making and my battery was low.

But basically socks, glue, scissors and foam.

We made them for St George's day.

The boys were impressed with them and wanted to take them out.

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

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

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. 

Chalking Mad

The other day we visited our local Sima warehouse and came across a pack of huge chalk . So today I thought lets blog hop and find ideas. 

I've just remembered brick dominoes 

So we started off just free styling on the drive and Dylan drew a maze , Zac scribbled over the shapes we drew.

Dylan's maze (zac called a ladder)

Then I drew a hopscotch grid and we played that. ( not neat on the blocks but was ok)

Then I got them to squirt trace the numbers .

Then the paint brushes came out.

And next the scrubbing brush.

We tried a maze but it was too bumpy. 

So we made a brick road.

So we drew a few white lines to look like a road.

Then came brick vehicles

A bus.

I made a rainbow brick but Dylan was still hooked on the road .

Zac started to match up colours then he rubbed it and coloured over it .

The easel wasn't a huge hit.

The chalk bodies on the shed was though.

I drew the outline and they added features.

Could get one together but the shed now looks like this ,,,

Finally the trampoline . I wrote nimbers and drew shapes and they had to Boyce on the one I said.

Then the drawing and name writing .

Then we had lunch . Not sure if we will be doing anymore today!