Halloween-Spooky Slime Sensory Tub

What is Halloween without some green spooky slime? Found this great easy recipe
http://play.powerhousemuseum.com/makedo/slime.php
Added some plastic spiders,flies,and eyeballs and kept in the fridge over night for a cool slimy sensory play tub
The slime is a great consistency that you can spend hours exploring

This is best suited for children who wont try to eat it but an alternative option for toddlers would be green jelly made to instructions on packet, set in the fridge then squeeze through fingers to loosen up.

Cereal box Mosaic

The amount of wastage that is in packaging these days its nice to use materials that lessen the impact on our environment. Instead of throwing out your boxes from cereal, cut them into strips then into squares. You will be amazed at the different colour varieties you get. For younger children draw up a sheet of paper with squares marked out already for them in which they can paste and place the cardboard squares into. For older children they will enjoy using their own template to make their own mosaic picture.

Hand and Feet printing

After doing a Halloween footprints we just couldn't get enough so i rolled out her art paper and let her go...
Great for sensory awareness but very slippery-i recommend holding the child's hand

We couldn't forget the hands...

Great wrapping paper design

I couldn't resist the feeling of cold paint on my hands so we made a mummy daughter design

Halloween-footprint ghost

Ghosts have been Tara's favourite topic this Halloween, although we haven't had to explain what they are exactly she seems to been keen on making everything into a ghost!
She painted her foot white and made a footprint on a piece of black felt
She cut it out, using the scissors she is really getting the art of cutting lately-even poor Cinderella dolly got a haircut last week-oops!

Added the trusty googly eyes and a little mouth in black marker

Pretty cute result....

Halloween-cotton wool ghost

On a orange piece of paper i drew an outline of a ghost which Tara glued inside the lines and added googly eyes on top of the dots
Then she covered the ghost with cotton wool balls to make a very scary ghost picture

Halloween-pumpkin mask

These super cute pumpkin paper plate mask templates are found at
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/halloween/mepumpkin.html

Pencil Pets

While daddy was at work we found his pencils and decided to decorate them and surprise him with a pencil pet!
With some feathers as hair stuck on by twisting a pipe cleaner around the pencil, finished off with googly eyes, a pom pom nose and sticker mouth-they looked very cute!
You could replace the face features with whatever you have around the house to give each pencil its own unique look

Spring quails

Our property is certainly showing signs of spring time! We have had 5 baby quails hatch recently and they are Tara's favourite pass time. Catching those quick quails is a challenge but she has now mastered it and loves giving them a pat
Good practice for being gentle when her baby brother comes along!

Bush walking fairy style

We explored our local forest for a springtime "Fairies and Elves" bushwalk and here is my little Fairy ready for a day that didn't turn out as planned!

Had a fantastic time investigating the wood theme table

And our bush walk began...This was just before that little hand got bitten by the biggest bull ant i have ever seen, poor little poppet wasn't happy

Sensory Tub-Habitat

This stunning spring weather has kept us outside most days and what better than exploring in a sensory tub full of nature. I started off with a beach type area with sand,pebbles and water filled with her stretchy frogs and lizards and let her add whatever she wanted
The tub quickly turned into a "muddy mud puddle" filled with sticks, leaves, cuttlefish and shells but was enjoyed for hours!

Smelling bottles

I have been searching for amber bottles to make this Montessori activity for a while and when i finally found them i was excited to get it prepared. So much of our life is about what we see it really makes me strive to use our other senses to explore the world.
To make these you need an even amount of amber bottles and some essences or flavours. We used peppermint,chocolate,lemon,strawberry and vanilla. Each smell was dabbed onto a cotton wool ball and pushed into the bottle and then a second was made to match it. Under the glass bottles i placed a coloured coded sticker to match the pair and allow Tara to self correct .
To start take one bottle from the left side tub.....
Twist off lid and smell keeping the lid off in case you need to smell again, take a bottle from the right side tub and twist off lid and smell. If they don't smell the same put the lid back on and put it back in the tub and pick a new one

Smell the next one and if they do smell the same

Check under to see if you were correct and keep them to the side in their pairs

Put away the activity by ensuring each pair of bottles are in separate tubs

Matching-herb gardening

With spring here we have made the most of it by getting into the sunshine. We decided to this year add a herb garden to our vegetable patch so i labeled the pots and Tara matched the packet of herbs to their pots. Great for letter and word recognition.

Its amazing how the outdoors can bring out so many more learning opportunities and the simple things like filling up pots can turn into lessons about "empty" "half" and "full"

Painting-Spray bottles

These spray bottles were filled with 1/2 water 1/2 poster paint to make a lovely runny consistency perfect for spraying from bottles. Great for little hand muscles and so much fun!
Great to store for gift wrapping paper. For older children using a white wax candle you can write a secret message or picture before starting and as you spray your paper the hidden message will appear

Number bridge

This was an activity i thought up after many days of constant rain and being stuck inside. It was done in our kitchen but it could be adapted to anywhere using cardboard squares inside or some chalk outside.
Using a whiteboard marker to mark out numbers 1 to 10 length ways in order but in a scattered pattern and then used extra numbers on either side of them. Sorry the photo didnt pick up numbers very well..

Tara started at one side of the "bridge" and had to find her way across the bridge by stepping on the correct number order. She found 1 on the first row then found 2 on the second row etc

Made it all the way across the bridge to 10 to finish off crossing it. She then asked me to help her do it backwards like a countdown.It stayed on our kitchen floor for a few days and got a good work out. Easy to wipe off and got us out from behind the desk. Lots of fun!

Sorting-eye sizes

After Tara realised some of her pet rocks were in need of repairs we got out our stash of googly eyes and were looking at the different sizes.
It was Tara that surprised me with her knowledge of "medium" so we went on to sort "small "medium" and "large" eyes into little cups. It goes to show that our children really are listening to every word we speak. Though i have never explained to her what medium was she had heard it and worked it out herself.

Calming Dough

At 30 months Tara had given up her afternoon nap and was struggling through the afternoon only to liven up when daddy arrived home at 5pm so i found we needed a relaxing playtime with daddy after dinner to wind down before bedtime.
I made our usual batch of play dough but added a calming blend of oils instead of vegetable oil in the mix. I used a specially made children's calming mix that i used in our oil burner when Tara was a newborn, its found at
http://http://shop.newdirections.com.au/epages/newdirections.sf/en_AU/?ObjectPath=/Shops/newdirections/Categories/12/118/1310

Relaxing, educational and even daddy can wind down after a hard day with this activity!

Spring suncatcher

With some clear contact and some cellophane cut out into shapes Tara arranged a collage of colour
Until all the contact is covered in colour leaving the edges clear to stick to the window

Smooth it out on your window

And see the lovely rainbows it makes

We added our weather chart from "Confessions of a Homeschooler" that i laminated and Tara checks her weather everyday now.

Tissue paper bowls

We had a very special person's birthday coming up and wanted to make a handmade pressie that she could keep and use forever so we decided on a handmade bowl.
Firstly Tara practiced her ripping with some different coloured tissue paper and we made up a batch of watered down PVA glue.
We tried using two bowls, one plastic and one glass and both seemed to work fine so just choose a nicely shaped bowl and spray with cooking oil and cover with cling wrap.

Use the paper and the glue to paper mache around the bowl.Keep layering to make the bowl nice and strong. Allow it to dry overnight.

And in the morning just slide your finger between the cling wrap and the bowl to lift out the masterpiece

You can either peel the cling wrap off for a more matt look and use scissors to even out the edge (see bigger bowl in pic) or just trim the cling wrap around the edge for a more rustic look (see smaller bowl)

Great for storing treats or treasures!