Christmas snow cloud dough

This week we had some cloud dough as an invitation to play (it was actually left by our christmas elf, Jingles). It was peppermint scented and glittery, and it was almost like it had snowed inside by the time it had been sprinkled all over the floor! And the best part was that Grapie could join in and play too!

What you need
7 parts flour
1 part vegetable oil
Peppermint food flavour
Glitter (optional)

Put the flour in a bowl and stir in the oil and a few drops of the peppermint. I found it was best to start off using a spoon to stir then use my fingers to break up any lumps. Then mix in the glitter if using. I took a batch out for Grapie first before adfing glitter so it was safe for her.

I laid it out on a Christmas tray along with some Christmas shaped cookie cutters and some Christmas craft shapes. Princess was amazed when she saw it (especially as Jingles the elf made it herself!) Grapie was very pleased to be allowed to play with it too! We put the tray on the floor and let them get on with it.

Princess scooped the cloud dough out onto the floor, squashed it down and made shapes with the cookie cutters and decorated them first, then she discovered thst the cloud dough can be moulded into shape and made snowballs. That's when things got very messy as she started throwing them in the kitchen!

This was the state of the kitchen when they had finished, which of course Princess insisted on trying to clean up herself!

Grapie did exactly what I thought she would do to start, which was to put it in her mouth! (That's why hers had no glitter!) But she soon got the hang of it and tried making shapes and decorating it just like her sister!

Once we were finished playing, I scooped up most of the cloud dough and put it in a box to play with again, the rest just swept up easily (as soon as I was back in control of the broom!)

Squirty bug alphabet game

This is a game that I made up to play with Princess, to help her with her letter recognition.Ii drew some bugs on the floor with chalk, just  rcles with legs or wings, and write a different letter in the middle of each one.

Then Princess uses a water sprayer to squirt each bug as I call out each letter. Simple but great fun, this is a game that is requested often! Sometimes we use numbers instead of letters, especially the teen numbers that Princess is less good at recognizing. As a variation, sometimes I draw cars instead of bugs, or clouds, but bugs is definitely most popular! And as an added bonus, all thst squirting is strengthening her hands resdy for lesrning to write!

#BEDN

Alphabet catch and match

We have been playing lots of letter games recently to help Princess with her letter recognition in a fun way, without her even realising she is learning.

We recently bought some kids chopsticks for Princess after she showed an interest in our adult chopsticks, and they were perfect for this game. They are also great for developing strength in hand muscles, which she will need when she learns to write.

I put some rice into a box, along with some alphabet beads, one of each letter. I printed her off an alphabet scavenger hunt list, in lower case as the beads were upper case. The game is to catch a letter bead and match it to the letter on the sheet.

This requires her to match the upper and lower case letters, and also involves a fair amount of fine motor skills as the beads are small and fiddly. Princess enjoyed playing this game, although it didn't hold her attention for the whole alphabet. When she was finished, I put the rice and beads into an empty jam jar for next time.

Mr Potato Head- Felt travel game

We are huge Toy Story fans in our house. We love the films, and we also have lots of the toys. And as much as we love Woody, Buzz and Jessie, the toy that is the most fun to play with has to be Mr Potato head!  So as we are going on holiday in a few weeks, I thought I would have a go at making a game we could bring with us for the plane, and Mr Potato head (and Mrs of course) was the perfect choice.

I started with the potato shapes out of brown felt, and once they were cut out ,I started drawing the features on paper before cutting them out of the felt. The picture above shows the features I started with from copying the actual toys. Then I had some fun by giving them different accessories, moustaches, and expressions.

These are my favourites, I was going for Mr Angry Eyes, like in the film as Princess find this hilarious in the outtakes, but he just looks a bit melancholy. And I love this moustache!

Here is the complete set, I put some bright green felt in for a background, and used a baby wipes container to keep them in (a dvd case would also work well).  It's a lot of fun to play (I quite like having a turn too) and a big hit with Princess! The felt pieces stick to each other really well, and I think it will easily and quietly pass a bit of time on the plane and beyond!

Quick no cook play dough-A lifesaver!

So, we were having a bit of a grumpy day, everyone was tired due to Grapie's nocturnal antics. Everything I suggested was met with a sulky NO, until I suggested play doh. That got a great response.

Until we got it out and discovered it had gone all yucky. Mini tantrum. No problem, we will make some, hooray! Look up recipie and get out ingredients to discover weare missing one. Cream of Tatar. Not sure what it does and have only ever used it in play dough, but it must have sat in the cupboard long enough to get thrown out. Cue another tantrum and an emergency search on Pintrest for an alternative. Luckily Squidoo had one. So this is what we did.

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup hot water
food colouring

Mix the salt and the flour in a bowl. Mix the food colouring with the hot water so the colour disperses better.

Put the liquid into the bowl and mix with a spoon.

Once it is all mixed well, take it out and give it a good knead. Ours was a bit sticky at this point, think my measuring of the water was a bit out, but in my defence I did have a second helper, Grapie, who I was wearing in a sling trying to grab everything! Anyway, we just put some extra flour down on the mat and princess kneaded it for me. Apparently this is good for developing her hand muscles in preparation for writing.

That is it, job done. No cooking needed, a couple of minutes to make and I had a happy girl. Well 2 happy girls, Grapie had fallen asleep in the sling so was happy too! 

Elfwatch week 1

We have a guest for the summer. She is an elf from Santa's workshop, on her summer holidays. This is what she has been up to during her first week.

She has been very generous this week and has brought Princess lots of little presents in, all with an alphabet theme to help Princess with her summer challenge of learning the letters in her name. She left some sensory glitter letters for princess to trace, set up lots of ways of writing letters using different materials and senses, and an ice cream creamletter matching game.

She also took Daddy's car out for a drive (she was found in the drivers seat), she got out all Grapie's toys one night, then had a sleep in Grapie's baby sling. She went for a sleepover at Grandma's house with Princess and stayed up late looking at baby pictures of Princess, as she wanted to get to know her.

She used balloons (and magic) to float up to the celing and today she set up a reading nook in Princesses room while we were all out at a playgroup.

Having a summer elf has been a big hit so far, princess looks forward to finding Sunshine the elf every morning and I love seeing the look of amazement on Princess's face, as well as the complete complete belief in the magic of the elf.

Bottle top pictures

A fun and simple way to make a picture, which is also great for developing creativity and fine motor skills.

We have been collecting plastic bottle tops so that princess could use them for making pictures, we had a variety of sizes and colours. Princess tipped them out onto the table and first she sorted them into colour groups. Then she chose a piece of card to stick them to.

 I showed her that she could use the different tops to make a picture (this my attempt at boat sailing in the sea and a palm tree, in case you didn't guess!) But she preferred a more more feestyle approach and laid them out in her own pattern patternand glued each one down carefully.  The thing that impressed me during this activity was to concentration she used in remembering which were glued and which weren't.

I think the end result looks pretty cool, what do you think?