Homemade Car wash

You will have to excuse the blurry photos in this one, we got lost in all the excitement and realised after the photos didn't do justice to the day of fun we had!
I had seen some ideas of PVC pipe made into a car wash and it looked amazing but seriously we dont have PVC pipes spare laying around and i wouldn't know where to start searching for them so on a hot afternoon we whipped up this little beauty.....
One clothes hanger plus orange bag netting,plastic bags,sponges,water balloons,garbage bags,string and a towel mixed with a sprinkler made our own handmade CAR WASH!

The kids had a blast! Taking each of their bikes through the car wash to get clean

The sprinkler cooled them off and the racing around on bikes wore them both out!

The towel at the end dried them off ready to go through again...These cars were SUPER clean by the end of the day!

Squeeze painting

I had been saving these squeeze bottles for a while and couldn't wait to let Tara free with some squeeze paint play.


Firstly i washed the bottles and took off the labels


Then i filled them with about 50ml paint 50mil water and gave them a good shake to mix

With some giant paper and a paint smock, she started her squeeze painting!

What a mess but what fun!

The paint from such a height made some lovely splashes

Once Tara saw the paint puddle she just wanted to get into it...that's what our playing is about!

Bottlebrush Christmas painting

What says a traditional Aussie Christmas more than bottlebrush with red and green colours?

Painting using a bottlebrush was just another way to reinvent a simple activity into something new. Lovely idea for Christmas paper or cards too!

Perfume Water

I have fond memories of making perfume when i was a little girl so when Tara was choosing Roses to cut i jumped at the chance to show her how to make her own.
After cutting her roses off the bush, we sat down and pulled each petal off the stem and ripped them up to release all the sweet smells.
I filled a glass jar up half way with HOT water. Tara gently placed the all petals into the water and replaced the lid. We let the jar steam for half a day or until the water is cool.
Take off the lid and use a strainer to strain out the rose petals and you are left with sweet rose perfume water

Dab on your wrists and behind your ears to keep you smelling as sweet as a rose!

Smurf village

A fairy garden has always been on my to do list so when the beautiful spring weather arrived we went planning our garden design, Tara quickly assured me it would be a smurf village not a fairy garden so i followed her lead and she helped me create a one of a kind smurf village. We used a saucer from under a pot plant and rested it on a stump. Make sure the saucer has a draining hole and fill up with soil. We added some ground cover greenery that will hopefully spread and can be cut back with scissors by your little gardener. To create a bridge we used twine to connect some twigs together to form a plank then placed it over some blue gems. Our toadstools are corks painted white/red with puffy paint white spots.
We found a bird nest hut from Bunnings and some coloured bonsai pebbles to add to the village. Tara remembers to water the village every day with a spray bottle i leave next to the garden. Lovely to see her enjoy hours of outside imaginative play together with the Smurfs.

Coffee cup stamping

A simple takeaway coffee cup can be transformed into a lovely child sized stamp that can create cute patterns and gift wrapping with Christmas around the corner!
Just squeeze the cup into the mould you require. We used a heart and circle but a star or triangle would also work.
The cup is nice and wide for little hands to grip

Just dip and press firmly

And add any finishing touches. Tara's yellow circles reminded her of a sun!

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!

Ice Sensory Tub

We have been exploring many different sensory tubs this month and i guess its because both children can get involved and it interests them both even with the 3 year age gap!
I made up some star shaped ice cubes and also froze a few of Tara's toy ocean creatures in containers so they were frozen in.
We were a little impatient waiting for the ice to melt and reveal the hidden ocean creature so we found our own chisel and hammer and got to work digging up the fossil.

Finally we found it was a shark

Later in the day we took it outside and let it melt and spoke about ice burgs and did some role playing with the sea creatures and ships.

Yogurt finger painting

We love our Easiyo maker and although some may think of nothing worse than making a mess from head to toe with your food, it is a great learning experience for babies. I made up a batch of Mason's yogurt http://www.goldenglow.com.au/product/EasiYo-Bio-Life-Organic-Unsweetened/378/103
Covered his highchair tray with foil so the white yogurt would be more visible and create a nice shiny picture. Placed some dobs of fresh homemade yogurt and put him in to explore.
Was cautious at first rubbing it through his fingers then squishing it in his hands

Loved it!

Then into a warm tub of water outside to splash away all the mess!

Egg carton treasure hunt

We are always looking for ways to use up our egg cartons! Seems we have collected more since having chickens of our own as everyone passes them on for us to use so while the chickens are having a break from laying during the winter we decided to use our cartons for a treasure hunt!
I googled some images of things i knew we had around our yard that Tara could collect. Glued the 12 pictures onto the egg carton and presented it to Tara
She loved it, and set about on her journey to search for her 12 items. This could also be done for a younger child with just a half dozen egg carton as i does take a while to collect all 12 items and all the hard concentrating to work out where they would be.

Grass was the easiest to check off the list first

But eventually she found them all, a shell, feather, stick, bottlebrush, wattle, snail, leaf, spring onion, rock, rose petal, and mint. Talking about where a snail may be hiding or where she has seen wattle growing made for some great memory and problem solving skills.

Ladybug play tub

This sensory play tub was made up of from our previous post when we made a sensory farm. The grass is coloured coconut and i added some wooden ladybugs of varying sizes and some leaves, along with a wooden pond with green frogs.
Making the most of the afternoon sun in the cold winter, sensory tubs are always a hit!

Volcano Dino Land

Dinosaurs are a popular part of Montessori lesson plans. To engage in some dinosaur discussions i made up this Dino land. The base is a terracotta pot plant saucer which i covered in fish tank pebbles. For the volcano you will need a plastic bottle and some sand. Then add some plastic dinosaurs

For our little science experiment we used a funnel into the plastic bottle and added about 1/2 cup of Bi-carb soda and a squirt of dish washing liquid. Tara also requested red glitter!

Make up a bowl of vinegar mixed with food colouring (we chose red). Use a baster or medicine dropper to add into your volcano and wait for the chemical reaction to start and you have an erupting volcano with bubbly red hot lava

You control the lava with the amount of vinegar you add

For more explosive lava just pour a cup full of the vinegar straight in. Watch out dinosaurs!!!!!!!!!!

Newspaper Cubby

We love cubby houses but sometimes i just need my dining room table for dinner not for bedsheets!
This cubby can be left up to play with for as long as they need!
We saved newspapers for weeks for this!
Lay out your newspaper stack, gather 10 sheets and from one corner use a pencil to help you tightly roll them into tubes using sticky tape to hold. Repeat this 25 times. Use 3 tubes to make a triangle by stapling corners, make 5 triangles all up then make a star with the remanding 5 tubes.
While all this needs to be done by an adult there are plenty of jobs a little helper can do. Ask your child how you would make a triangle with 3 tubes and ask them to count out making sure you have 25 tubes

You may need help joining them all together but in the end it will look like this.. we used masking tape over the staples to give it more stability

Throw a bed sheet over the top and enjoy your cubby however you like

Tara had a lovely afternoon tea party with her friends

Toothbrush painting

After a visit to the dentist we swapped our toothbrushes for new ones and decided to use our old toothbrushes for some fun flicking painting.
Using different colours, Tara dabbed the toothbrush into the paint and the used her finger to flick the paint onto the paper. She told me it looked like the night sky-i agree!