This month we were lucky enough to be sent some lovely products from stonegift.com. The first is an amazing giant colouring poster from OMY Design and Play. These could be hung on the wall or used as tablecloths and will keep the little people entertained for hours at a time. We were sent the Cosmos design which is covered in really cute robots, spaceships, planets and aliens. I have to be honest and state that I haven't let the kids loose on it yet as it is just so cute and their colouring skills are not quite ready for this yet so I am saving it. It is just too ...
Painting Flowers: Center Parcs March Challenge
I love that all of the Center Parcs' challenges I have taken part in so far have been really seasonal. For March the challenge is painting flowers which has led to some lovely discussions between myself and the boy about Spring. I really think the challenges so far have helped him to begin to grasp a bit about the different seasons and what they entail. It may be a little over-simplified but he has certainly got to grips with the fact that in Autumn the leaves fall from the trees, that Winter is cold and there may be snow and, now, that in Spring the flowers come back out. We spent ...
Toddler Craft: Super Simple St Patrick’s Day Cards
With St Patrick's Day approaching I thought it might be nice for the boy to make a simple St Patrick's Day card for his Irish Grandparents. It had been a while since we got out the paints so we decided to go back to one of our favourite, and simple, toddler crafts: cotton wool painting. To make this card all you will need is: White card Green paint Googley eyes Green pen One keen toddler Once you have all your materials ready help your toddler to splodge out four green shapes with the cotton wool, roughly the shape of a clover leaf. Once dry, with a green ...
Painty Toddler Fun: Cotton-bud painting
The toddler is finally over his fear of paints and we are now having lots of painty toddler fun. It has taken a while for us to get here and it has been achieved by painting with lots of different materials from around the house. So far we have painted with pom poms, potatoes, marshmallows, toilet rolls and cotton wool. This week we tried painting with cotton-buds. W really enjoyed himself and got stuck straight in! First he used the buds like a brush making sweeping strokes, and then discovered he could make lots of lovely spots by simply dabbing them. For more crafty ...
Painty Toddler Fun: Cotton Wool Painting
Painting with your toddler can be such a lot of fun and W and I have enjoyed experimenting using lots of bits and pieces from around the house to paint with. So far we have tried painting with potatoes, toilet rolls and even pom poms. It had been a while since we had done any painting so this week we had fun painting with cotton wool balls. We found that we could make lots of nice splodgy shapes and prints. For more fun and crafty ideas of things to do with your toddler why not check out my page and pinterest board? ...
Toddler Craft: Paper Bag Puppets
This toddler craft of paper bag puppets is something any toddler will enjoy and is so simple to do. This week was the first time I had been on my own with both the toddler and the baby and this was a great activity that allowed me to have a bit of indoor fun with W while the baby slept. I actually bought the supplies as a boxed set from my local Aldi but they could easily be assembled from odd bits and pieces left over from other craft projects. To make these paper bag puppets you will need: Paper Bags Craft Glue Glue spreaders A selection of materials to decorate which ...
A is for Apple: Learning Letters with Marshmallow Painting!
This week we have continued our painting fun and also combined this with becoming more familiar with letters. We are starting with the letter A. Firsty I printed out a sheet of paper showing a large capital letter A, a lower case A and a picture of an apple. I placed this together with other examples of the letter A, magnets and sponges etc, that I found around the house. W and I then spent a few minutes looking at these before getting on with the painting. I then put out a couple of blobs of red and green paint in an old food tray, and a few marshmallows. We have had ...
Shape Recognition With Potato Printing
We have started to have some fun with paints recently and the boy is really beginning to enjoy himself now that he has realised he doesn't HAVE to get his hands really messy. So far we have had fun painting with empty toilet rolls and pom poms, and this week we had some fun with potatoes too. I had a few new potatoes in the vegetable basket that had started to go a bit sprouty so, using a small sharp kitchen knife, I cut these in half and carved out shapes into the surface to use as stamps. I managed a square, a triangle, a rectangle, an oval and a crescent. I'm afraid my attempt ...
Pom Pom Painting!
I have been trying to help the boy to get over his fear of painting and we had some success last week using toilet rolls to do some printing. After posting this I received a lovely comment from Shaunna on Google Plus who has the most wonderful blog, Fantastic Fun and Learning. Her site is full of fantastic ideas for children ranging in age from babies right through to kindergarten kids. If you are ever stuck for inspiration I highly recommend that you pop over and have a look. She suggested, since W does not like to get his hands dirty, to try painting with clothes pegs and pom poms as ...
Toilet Roll Craft: Printing Fun!
W is not a fan of messy play. I fear this may be my fault, perhaps being a little over zealous with the hand-wiping when he was smaller, as now he really does not like to get his hands dirty. Because of this he has not been a huge fan of painting at home as at nursery finger-painting is very much encouraged and he hates it. I am trying to get him over this gradually so this week we had some fun with paints but used empty toilet rolls instead of fingers or brushes. It actually worked really well. We just took an empty roll, squished it a bit, dipped in a tray of paints and stamped ...