Handprint Keepsake - Update

Just a quick update on our Handprint Keepsake it took 5 days to dry! I was very surprised by how long it took although the weather wouldn't have helped it is been quite cold and wet here for the last week. A little tip for those who would like to try it making there own handprint keepsake once the top is dry turn it over it should dry a lot quicker this way (unfortunately i didn't think of this until day 4)

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

What a beautiful day the sun was out and it was perfect weather for Going on a Bear Hunt!
We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen is one of my favourite books to read out loud, it was one of the first books Liam would sit through from start to finish and Neevah pulls a fantastic Oh No! face.
I setup our bear hunt outside with green cardboard grass, a tub of water for the river, white tissue paper and doilies hung from the washing line for the snowstorm and some play equipment with a huge blanket over it was our bear cave.

Grass! Long wavy grass
Swishy Swashy Swishy Swashy

A River, A deep cold river
Splash Splosh Splash Splosh

Mud! Thick oozy mud
Squelch Squerch Squelch Squerch

A Forest! A big dark forest
Stumble Trip Stumble Trip

A Snowstorm! A swirling whirling snowstorm
Hoooo Woooo Hoooo Woooo

A Cave!
Whats That?
It's a Bear!

Quick Back through the .....

Into the House

Under the covers
We're not going on a bear hunt again.

But because the bear was so friendly we went on 5 bear hunts today

Painting with a Pipe Cleaner Brush

With grand inspiration from Teach Preschool who devoted a whole post to different homemade paint brushes we decided to try out the pipe cleaner brush

You Will Need
6 Pipe Cleaners
Craft/Popsicle Stick
Tape
Paint
Paper

To Make
1 .Bend the pipe cleaners in half and firmly attach them to the craft stick with tape
2 .Setup the paint, paper and brush and invite your child to paint

She started out by making dots

Then she tried swirling the paint

Finger Painting and having lots of fun :)

Neevah didn't really like the pipe cleaner paint brush on this occasion and discarded it after about 5 mins but that doesn't mean other kids won't enjoy the experience. We will try this again further down the track who knows she might thoroughly enjoy it next time :)

Dig & Match Game

I actually put this game together for Liam who is just starting to learn his colours but Neevah bet him to it and gave it a go while he was having a nap.

You Will Need
Shallow Container
Sand or similar
Beads
Egg Carton (we cut one in half)
Paint or Coloured Paper
Spoon (optional)

To Make
1. Paint the inside or each egg cup a corresponding colour to the beads you have or you could add a piece of corresponding coloured paper into the bottom of each cup
2 .Put the sand into the shallow container and bury the beads in the sand
3 .Invite your child to dig up the beads and drop them into the right egg cup

Found One

Matching the Colours

Getting her hands into the digging action

Pushing the beads back into the sand so she could play again

Neevah really enjoyed the digging aspect of this game it made a simple colour matching game lots of fun! I would love to try this again as an Alphabet or Number Matching Game I think she would find that a lot more challenging.

Circle Painting

Neevah loves Stamping it is probably her preferred painting style. Sometimes she stamps the object in quick succession and other times she has a very dramatic style of holding the object over her head and pushing it at the paper with great force both ways are lots of fun.

You Will Need
Paint
Paper
Items that will make circles

To Make
1 .Setup the paint, paper and circles - we used a toilet paper roll and a paper cup (both ends) this gave 3 circle sizes
2 .Let your child stamp to their hearts content - Neevah made 4 works of art so make sure you have a few spare pieces of paper on hand

Super simple, not to messy and the finished art work can always be cut up to make cards etc :)

We Play - Handprint Keepsake

Don't forget to stop by Childhood 101 We Play where you can find lots of other great play ideas....

Wahooo we are back after a forced blogging holiday due to a broken camera we also had a crafting break and filled our time with parks and visiting friends :)
Just in time for Fathers Day I stumbled across this great post for a Salt Ceramic Paperweight by Tired, Need Sleep at the bottom of the post was a suggestion to try this with a Handprint which I thought was brilliant!

To Make Salt Ceramic Dough
Mix 1 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of cornstarch (I used white wings cornflour), 2/3 cup of water in a pot and cook/stir over a medium heat until all the liquid has been adsorbed (will look a bit like cooked playdough).
Once cooked place it onto some foil to cool as it is quite hot. Once cool kneed the dough until it is soft and pliable. It will be a little bit sticky so put some wax paper or something similar down before letting the kids loose.

Adding all the ingredients to the pot

Making the Handprint

After she made her handprint I outlined it with Permanent Black Marker and wrote her Name and Age. I then let her pick some beads to put around her handprint she went straight for the brightly coloured stars which she carefully pushed into the dough (silly me forgot to take a photo!)

The Dough takes roughly 48 hours to harden - we only made ours today so I will let you know how it goes :)

Scissor Practice

Neevah loves to use scissors but most of the time she gets highly frustrated and gives up. This is a very easy way for your child to practice their scissor skills.

You will need
Paper
Scissors
Marker Pen
Stickers

To Make
1 .Draw marker lines on the paper for your child to follow
2 .Stick stickers at the top of the lines - I did this for 2 reasons it gave Neevah a point to aim for (Can you cut up to the Koala) and also to make her slow down a little as she didn't want to cut the stickers (In the past she has always tried to cut in a hurry)
3 .Invite your child to practice their scissor skills

Going a bit wobbly because she was cutting in a hurry

Nice and Steady great cutting along the line

The Zig Zag was a huge challenge for Neevah she kept trying to change hands when the line changed direction but with great determination she did it!

Childrens Art Memory Game

Kids are always so proud of every piece of art they create but there is only so much room on the fridge to display it all so let them create repetitive pieces of art and turn them into a Memory Game. This would work great for older children who can draw the same picture more than once but also works for younger children if you use patterns that are easy to create over and over giving similar outcomes.

You will need
Paper
Paint
Cotton Bud / Q-tip
Paintbrush
Cookie Cutter
Cardboard - I used the backing from a Pad of Paper
Glue

To Make
1 .Cut the piece of paper into thirds
2 .On each piece of paper get your child to paint a different pattern

A Blue Mono Coloured Painting - we also did one in yellow

Cookie Cutter Stamping

Cotton Bud Dots

3 .Let Dry
4 .Cut the Cardboard to however big you would like your memory cards to be
5 .Cut the artwork to the size of your cards and glue it one
6 .Have fun playing Memory :)

No Match!

Hand Tracing Duck

We went to the park this morning to feed the ducks and play on the slide but we had to leave in a hurry when it started to rain much to Neevah's dislike. When we got home we decided to continue the duck fun by making our own duck like creation.

You will need
White Paper
Orange Paper
Blue Paper
Glue
Scissors
Pen /Marker pen

To Make
1 .Start by cutting out all the shapes you will need - from the orange paper cut legs,feet and a beak. From the white paper cut an egg shape body
2 .Trace around your childs hand on the white paper or let them trace around their own hand if they can3 .Cut out the hand shapes these will be wings
4 .Glue the body onto the blue paper5. Glue on the legs and feet
6 .Glue on the wings7 .Glue on the eyes8 .Glue on the beak and draw 2 black nostrils
So it didn't turn out completely duck like but Neevah was happy :)

We Play - Indoor Bowling

Don't forget to stop by Childhood 101 We Play where you can find lots of other great play ideas....

This doesn't have to be played inside but we certainly did and Neevah had a great time. All you need is a few empty soft drink bottles and a ball we added a little bit of coloured water to each bottle for fun (the more water you add the harder the bottles are to knock over).

Neevah bowling - she didn't have much luck rolling the ball so she took to bouncing it

Down go the bottles

Strike!

Counting how many bottles she knocked down

Fun Playdough People

The kids where going a little feral on me this morning lots of screaming, snatching and general discord it was time to find something to do and it better be fun and engaging. With grand inspiration from 2 wonderful blogs I pulled out the Playdough and Mr Potato Head pieces and we created some fun Playdough People.

Playdough Recipe
2 cups of plain flour
2 tbs Cream of Tartar
2 tbs Cooking Oil
1 cup Salt
2 cups of Water
Food Colouring

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan (except food colouring) stir over medium heat for 3 - 5 mins or until the mixture congeals. Once cool add food colouring.

You will need a decent amount of playdough for this activity the above recipe made the perfect amount for 2 kids. Place the Playdough and Mr Potato Head Pieces out on the table and invite your child to play ....

Put the playdough on some feet and then add eyes etc

Introducing a toothy creation

Having a dance with a delightful Playdough Lady

This Guy was a little bit crazy with a Moustache above his nose and 4 ears apparently he didn't hear so well

The kids had so much fun there were lots of smiles, giggles, they were sharing and best off all there was no screaming. So a huge thank you to Tinkerbell's Treehouse and Getting Messy with Ms Jessi for the fantastic Play idea.