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

Ten non-carve mess free pumpkin ideas

1. Pumpkin hat parade

2.Googley eyed pumpkin

3. Beaded pumpkin

4. musical pumpkin

5. Chalky pumpkins

6. Bandage and plaster removal

7. Pumpkin plaster 

8. Poorly pumpkin 

9. Polishing pumpkins

10. Pumpkin foam name peel

Pumpkin mad hatter!

This was a totally off the cuff activity inspired by my sons hat on the dining room table as we did other activities

I think we needed a bigger pumpkin but it was still very funny trying on hats ourselves and making the pumpkin into different people.

This has sparked a new idea to do other dress up items like glasses, moustaches, scarves and ties.

This encourages imaginative play and role playing characters. Great fun and very easy to do. Give it a try.

Dylan 2.11

Disney Planes craft: peg planes

My son loves Disney cars and when they released the spinoff movie planes we we delighted to take him to the cinema to see the film. I'm not sure he enjoyed it as much as Cars but he soon started rein acting parts of the movie with the planes relatives had bought for him while I was in hospital giving birth. However they are metal , quite heavy and sharp so I won't let him throw them. So I looked for a craft activity.

Glue free peg and lollipop stick planes

What do you need?

An old style clothes pin

Two large lollipop sticks

Two small lollipop sticks 

Felts (optional)

How do you do it?

Basically slot the sticks into place and decorate.

My son loves dusty so I copied him and he just coloured how he liked and it often changed from skipper to ripslinker.

The only problem not using glue is it often comes loose when you throw it. Which my son got frustrated with but soon worked out he can fix it.

You could use glue to stick googled eyes on an propellers. You could also use double sided tape to secure it a little more. 

Dylan used a cotton bud to attach between the sticks as a gun. Clever boy! Loved it!

We had races throwing them and rescue missions as well as copying parts of the film.

Create fun looking forward to making more designs. Please let us know how you get on.

Dylan 2.10

Salt dough boulder construction site

I made my first batch of salt dough using flour, salt, water, oil and food colouring.

I then made different sized boulders. I encouraged Dylan to help but he likes making sausages and hasn't mastered balls.

He then loaded the boulders into the trucks.

He ordered them by size.

He counted them .

Then of course destroyed them and decided to 'hide' the trucks.

So much fun and learning and best of all easy to do. Of course playdoh is an even easier option.the salt dough kept in my fridge for a few weeks. I wrapped it in cling film to stop it drying out.

Quick and Easy Car Play

This was an off the cuff activity, while I was washing up my son wanted to play in the utility that has a step. I opened up the cupboard and saw my plastic tub lids and ice cube trays. I gave them to him for ramps but as we played with a

DIY Road. (http://littlebrightsparks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/diy-road-activity.html) 

previously he decided to use them to make a road.

His favourite was the ice cube trays as they made a bumpy road.

Dylan 2.7 years 

DIY Road activity

My son has become obsessed with cars and has reinstated his interest in his toot toot garage.  You can buy extension parts but I decided to make some extra road and tunnels to encourage imaginative play.

Materials needed

Old cardboard boxes such as cereal boxes

Scissors

Black tape or marker

Toilet and kitchen rolls - for tunnels

Dylan liked turning the road over to see the cereal advertising, he needed help to construct the road to get a complete circuit at first then he successfully modelled what I had shown him. He did get a little frustrated when the road moved so I encouraged him to overlap the pieces and place the garage on top of the pieces.

This was mainly an imaginative play session but we did talk about directions like left and right , forward and reverse.  I also encouraged him to count the pieces and the black stripes. 

I now have this in a bag ready to whip out when I'm looking for a quick activity.

We do have a car mat, this could be used to extend that or to take in the garden.

I have seen another blog make a road out of playdoh. We might try this next.

To make the tunnel I cut a tab out of the kitchen roll and taped it to the two toilet rolls.

E 

Dylan 2.7 years

Sandpit fun: small world dino land

My husband has built my son a brilliant sand pit and  I have been trying out new ways to get him to use it.  He enjoys playing with his dinosaurs and one of the previous times was also using playdoh and pasta.  So I decided to make him a small world  dino land with twigs, leaves and stones.  He is only 21/2 so he wouldn't be able to make one on his own.  I then had to model and explain what it was and how to play .

He started burying body parts. 

He made and identified foot prints by counting the number of toes/ claws.

We talked about carnivores eating meat and herbivores eating plants and role played this.

I was impressed how quickly he understood.

Then we lined them up in order of size.

Then he wanted to knock them off using a ball.

There are lots of activities to do with sand and dinosaurs.

The ones we covered today :-

Dino prints: make and match

Feeding habits 

Imaginative play

Sequencing- size

Sorting by colour

Describing body parts/ counting body parts

Balancing 

Target practise

I think he enjoyed to role play and burying the most.

Dylan 2.7

It was a lovely day, enjoyed the weather. Another easy activity for my son to enjoy the fantastic sandpit my husband made.