Fish Tank Artwork

How do you display your child's artwork? If your house is like mine we seem to find it hard to find the fridge handle among all the glittery colourful pieces Tara has made especially for us.
One unique way to display a lovely picture is by laminating it in plastic and adding it to your fish tank as a background. We put ours in our actual fish tank so that is why we laminated it first but if you wanted to secure it to the outside of a clear tank with blu tak it would also look just as good
Tara was very proud of her fish picture and seeing it in her own fish tank made her smile. The fish even enjoyed the new decor :p

Marshmellow constructions

Wind storms are creating havoc around Sydney today so we find ourselves inside making some marshmellow constructions. We find the small marshmellows work best and using toothpicks allows us to create whatever we can imagine Tara making her square cube

Into a mini building...

Fruit Pulp Sensory

We make our fresh juice with our juicer from home so we are left with this soft, gooey, squishy pulp which i knew would be just perfect for a sensory tub seeing as Mason now 9 months seems to be mouthing everything, i knew it would be safe for him to join in too!
For around 2 months, each time i made juice i gathered the pulp and kept it in a snap lock bag in the freezer and just added to it each time until i had a container full
I added some scooping utensils, play people pegs and let the kids explore it. Please note, this is a non toxic sensory tub but beware of any little scratches or cuts on children's hands as the acid will sting

Tara made some pulp castles and added some sticks to decorate

Then we made some mud pulp pies

Lastly a little pulp chick! Cheap, easy and so much fun!

New Work Area

For those of you haven't read Mariah Bruehl's "Playful learning", you NEED to get yourself a copy. There are so many books on the market now for kids but only a handful that i adore and this is one of them.
Mariah quotes "what i saw when looking into my young daughter's eyes is that the curriculum of life,as experienced by children in their own homes on a daily basis, is the most revolutionary teaching and learning that can take place". Those words truly resonated with me yet i was only on page 2!
The book has inspirational ideas on everything from nurturing young authors to raising citizens of tomorrow. I would recommend this book to any parent or career with a passion for educating.
After reading the first chapter "Learning playful spaces" it got me thinking. Tara's work area was set up as soon as she could sit at a table. A pink table she chose that was used for meal times was now her art table. This table was ready for what ever activity was planned for the day-but creativity is never planned!


I set to work organising a new creative area that Tara can go to when she likes, imagine and create for hours on end(and has she ever!)
Mariah's book gave me some great tips on making everything accessible so instead of spending money on new toys we choose to buy art mediums to explore. I have pastels, watercolours, clay,coloured paper, card stock and charcoal all ready at her fingertips at her desk so she can choose when to create.
Tara is now 3.5 yrs old and i see a real Independence in her now and of course her imagination is amazing so i feel this was a great step for her and for me to step back and let her own a space that she can take care of and call her own.
Mariah Bruehl's ideas will pop up again on my blog, we are currently making our mail center which i will write about soon. Thanks Mariah!

Chalk Waterpaints

So after grating our chalk to make coloured sand we had some left over and decided to make some paint from it. Tara used the medicine dropper to add water then mixed it until it was thin and runny
Beautiful vibrant colours

Used sparingly, the colours gave a stunning sheen to them on some watercolour paper. So next time you run out paint just grab your chalk and get grating!

Chalk Coloured Sand Artwork

Coloured sand can be used for many activities and this an easy way to make it and involve children. All you need is a child sized grater,sand and thick coloured chalk......
Start by putting those little finger muscles to work and grating the chalk into bowls keeping each colour separate

The end result will look like this, its fine and powdery

Add your sand into each container and mix thoroughly

Perfect coloured sand so much cheaper to make than buy from craft shops

We used our coloured sand to do sand art pictures. Drawing an outline of your object (Tara chose a sunflower for spring) then paste the inside of the object

Sprinkle on some coloured sand...

And shake off onto a tray..