Julia Donaldson is one of our favourite authors. The way she writes is engaging, repetitive and full of vocabulary builders- perfect for our children! ‘A Squash and a Squeeze‘ certainly lived up to expectations set by previous titles we have visited. We meet an old woman who seems to feel like her home is uncomfortably…
The school holidays have began and one of my goals is to up the science play. Mr 10 loves science and is like a sponge for intel around the subject. With the two girl around, I needed to come up with an interesting experiment that was also safe for them to be involved in. Bicarbonate…
Use pasta in sensory play, small world play, craft activities and to create masterpieces! Chunky varieties are perfect for developing hands to practise threading, smaller types make for the perfect substrate for sensory bottles and the long varieties make for popular additions to sensory bins. How can we take such a great resource to the…
Scrolling through social media, I often get caught up in the hype of elaborate activities and play ideas for the kids. While they are still on the cards, today I thought we would bring our play down a notch and ground ourselves with some simplicity. I love offering different experiences for my children and following…
Children are attracted to bright colours. When you think about it, it’s the brightly coloured fruits that are often the sweetest, most ripe and packed with nutrition. While I love natural tones of our environment, these bright colours have been really fun to work with! After colouring our Rainbow Nuts the other day, we have…
Today’s Story Tray was inspired by this week play theme. For the last six days we have been exploring Rainbows! I asked Miss 18m which story she would like us to read. After scanning the shelf, she selected ‘Rainbow Fairy’ by Lee Krutop. This is one of three little Fairy books we found at a…
Create sculptures, press the dough into shapes, letters, and numbers, run toy cars over the play dough to see the tire prints, roll it out to make snakes, bake it to make beads, hide dinosaurs in it pretending they are fossils, press flowers into it to make potion stones, build landscapes that have never seen…
“I wrote to the zoo and they sent me a…” This mornings story was aimed towards Miss 18m. She has been enjoying all things animals so I thought a visit to the zoo would tie in nicely with her current interests. ‘Dear Zoo‘ by Rod Campbell has been a favourite of ours since we got…
Getting dinner ready has become a fine art at our place. Gone are the days when cooking dinner meant just that. It now means, preparing a meal, helping with spelling, after school reading, avoiding the toys scattered across the floor, keeping the toddler out of the pantry (especially the tub that holds the rice- probably…
We had a beautiful spring day yesterday. After a long week of illness, it was lovely to get the girls out in the sunshine at the park while their brother practised riding his bike along the path. We had bought a ball with us however it was quickly neglected in exchange for some nature exploration….
One thing I am trying to instil in my children is gratitude. Gratitude for what we have and what we have access too. Yes, it’s nice to dream, have goals and most definitely important to work hard towards reaching their ambitions but I also feel it is paramount to be grateful for what we have…
Dinosaurs and kids pretty much go hand in hand. I haven’t met many who aren’t keen to start roaring and stomping their feet while showing off a toothy grin. After laminating these dinosaur printables, I thought what better way to introduce them to the kids than by having them create a lovely home for our…
Painting is always a welcomed activity. This quick and easy homemade puff paint recipe can take your arts and crafts to a whole new level with a dash of science- literally! Using ingredients in the kitchen, you can have your very own homemade puff paint made and ready to play in minutes. Puff paint that…
Scanning and searching for patterns, symbols and objects are known as a great pre-reading exercise. These Discovery Bags make learning so interesting and fun! While I feel Miss 18m is well and truly not ready to pick up a book and interpret the words on its pages, there are some pre-literacy skills that I feel…
A fun, taste safe activity using only 2 ingredients you probably have at home!
We use at least a carton of eggs each week – even more on the weeks we are restocking the snack / lunchbox stash in the freezer! We use the empty cartons for all sorts of activities! They are great for craft activities sorting, counting, hiding objects in and using to store our pretend eggs…
We keep a fair number of our toys on rotation. Every couple of weeks or so, I’ll go through and take some out of our play space and pop them away. These are then replaced with some that had been stored away. Its fun watching the kids explore the toys with fresh eyes. Miss 16m…
We love playing with water beads at our place however they can be very dangerous if consumed. Miss 4 is old enough to understand the risk and will happily keep them away from her mouth. The same cannot be said for Miss 16m – understandably. The water beads turned into an activity that really only…
Welcome to a quick and easy rainy day activity. Patience is a skill that needs to be practised and what better way to encourage it than with glue. I haven’t met many kids who haven’t loved glueing. Miss 4 loved slathering on the sticky goop so when I came across this pineapple craft activity we…
Learning the true value of a number is so very important. This vital skill will give a solid foundation for other life lessons stemming to understanding money, fractions, time and distance to just think of a few. When Letter Basics released their new Watermelon Counting Game, I had it downloaded, printed, cut out and laminated…
