Magnetic pipecleaner bottle

Here is another 2 minute boredom buster..... Mister 2 cut up all our pipe cleaners into (approx) 1 cm pieces and placed them into a bottle.Its best if you use the longest bottle you have so they can be moved around.

Use a magnetic wand if you have one, if not any other strong magnet should work-try a Thomas train, fridge magnet or similar. The pipe cleaners will follow your magnet around. This is a very relaxing activity that can be used for calming down after a meltdown or keep it in the car for road trip activities. Older children may like to play the magnetic/non magnetic game as posted in our magnetic sensory tub post.

An Invitation to draw

Most children LOVE to draw but i do find Tara will 9/10 draw a bird or a house and Mason will draw a face or a digger but how do i encourage variety?

I left an invitation to draw on the table on morning and they jumped at completing them!

I flicked through magazines to find some interesting pictures, then cut them out leaving out half of the picture. Tara had half a butterfly and Mason had half a duck.

They then had to use their imagination to complete the picture and surrounding environment. These would be great to keep up your sleeve for long car rides, plane trips or when you just need that five minutes to make a phone call!

Colour swatch ombre wrapping

 Colour swatches are AMAZING in so many ways! Beautiful to the eye, useful for so many activities and did i mention FREE!!

We picked these ones up at our local Bunnings and used our butterfly hole punch to make a stack of tiny coloured butterflies. Tara sorted the colours as best she could from lightest to darkest and glued them to a brown paper package for her cousin.

The latest OMBRE trend can even become a part of learning! Tara also discovered the remains of the colour swatches made great butterfly stencils to keep for a rainy day!



Silky Smooth Dough

Sometimes plain playdough can get boring....mix it up a bit!!! This recipe is for silky smooth playdough

Mix 3/4 cup of conditioner to 1 and 1/2 cups of cornflour and mix with a spoon until blended. take into your hands and knead until smooth adding more conditioner or cornflour as needed-will depend on the room temperature.

The right consistency will be smooth yet break in half if pulled apart. Add food colouring last if required. Just a few drops in the center of dough and knead till evenly tinted.

Monet painters tape bridge

Following along with topic of interest "Great Artists", i picked up a few craft supplies and headed home to share the plan with the children

 I used the painters tape to make a bridge on each blank canvas making sure to press firmly down at the edges. We borrowed a book from the local library on Monet's artwork and Tara and i discussed which watercolours we would need on our palette to paint this famous painting.

 We put on some French music and painted all afternoon while discussing the types of paint strokes we noticed in the painting....long "stripey" ones for the flowing trees and "dotty" ones for the waterlilies

 We waited a full day for the paint to dry then carefully took off the painters tape to reveal our bridge over our waterlilies.

Sight word fab 4

With Kindergarten started we have had lists of sight words come home to practice so i made up these sheets to make it a little more fun!

Say it-cut out and stick the word from the list

Write it-using lead pencil write the letters that make the word

Build it-using beans i wrote the letters needed for all the words and placed them in a dish for Tara to find

Stamp it-using alphabet stamps and stamp pad, Tara used every letter to make her word

I used a teachers stamp to mark each line when complete

We named this the FAB 4.....

say it,write it,build it and stamp it!

Science Lab Tot Tray

I set up a tot tray for Mason with:

Test tubes of coloured water

A squeeze bottle of vinegar

A shaker of Bi-carb soda

Some small glasses,bowl,syringe and spoon.

He enjoyed his time experimenting and being able to get messy and watch colours change,bubble and fizz!

Teacher Appreciation gift 2012

Tara made these last christmas and i had forgotten to share. These were for her Pre-k teachers and we are hoping they were one of those special gifts that keep on giving-and actually get used!

I found some basic $4 clipboards in officeworks and i painted them with two coats of chalkboard paint then left to dry for 24 hours.

Tara then got busy filling the whole handle with diamonties.They sparkled,were made with love and can be used for years to come!

Three cheers for all the amazing teachers out there!!!

Chalkboard Portraits

How cute are kids button noses and tiny chins? I wanted to mark these memories so before Tara started school i took a photo of both the children side on. Best way to do this is while they are watching T.V!

I printed the photos on the printer in an A4 size and then carefully cut around the outline of the child.

Using the cut out printed photo of the child i then used blue tak to secure the picture to the wooden board that backs an A4 sized photo frame. I had painted this with white paint (i used ceiling white as that's all we had-kids paint wasn't thick enough to get a bright white)

After the printed photo was secure i outlined the photo carefully using a thin black permanent texta.

I used chalkboard paint to then simply paint the inside of the permanent marker outline.

Waited 24 hours to dry and placed them back in the frames. We hung them at our entrance and also added gold hooks under them to create a space that the children could keep their school bag on and gumboots underneath.