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..

Magic message bananas

I usually leave a note in Tara's lunchbox but today i tried something different...
Using a sharp object-i used a corn cob holder, i engraved a message for her, it can hardly be seen here
But wait 5 minutes and the hidden message is revealed! No more wasting paper just write your love note on your banana!

Tara's Tucker box

I only have two photographed lunches this month as the whole getting out of the house before 8 am with everyone dressed and fed is still a learning experience for me. I have heard mums pack lunches the night before school but for me, nothing is better than a fresh lunch so i quickly whipped these up and got a photo before we headed out to school.
Sultana cup with a panda divider
cheese stick diced with toothpicks and
Sandwich cutters with animal stamps This was a special day out Tara and i had that had a theme about "cars"
milky way car with a tiny teddy and smarties wheels
A boiled egg in a car mould
A cars container filled with cranberries
A car shaped sandwich with toothpick word "cars"
A bear divider with pea flavoured snacks that we pretended were spare tyres!

DIY dressing table

What can you make with a cardboard box??? Well the talented Christie from Childhood 101 made a dressing table and i thought that was very clever! So i set about making one for Tara
http://childhood101.com/2011/05/diy-kids-play-dressing-table-from-a-cardboard-box/
I wanted ours to be a bit taller so i didn't need a stool so we used a tall moving box that was nice and sturdy. I cut off one side of it and secured it with electrical tape
I used patterned contact to cover it. A circle mirror that is held on by double sided tape and decorated it in fabrics.

Added all of Tara's accessories

Plenty of storage underneath

Functional in her bedroom but also a great excuse to do some role playing

I think she was pleased with the outcome!

Bubble wrap printing

We had these craft stamps that have chunky handles on them great for little hands so i added bubble wrap over them and secured them with tape. One was a smaller sized bubble wrap and the other had big circle bubble wrap
Tara chose her colour paint and got started printing the different size bubble wrap prints. This made for great wrapping paper

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.

Homemade Rusks for Baby

I think getting older siblings hands on and involved in helping with their new little brother or sister is the key to a happy household. Mason is cutting his first teeth right now so Tara made some homemade teething rusks for him to chew on.
If you would like the recipe we used it was very simple and they turned out lovely. Tara used her playdough tools to mould some unique bird,fish and even candy cane rusks for her little brother

1 cup of whole wheat flour
1 cup of dry baby cereal
1 very ripe banana, mashed until smooth
2 tbsp. olive oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir in flour and cereal. In a small bowl mix in the banana,oil and 2 tbsp water. Add dry ingredients to the wet until you have a soft dough.
Roll dough out onto a lightly floured surface and mould into smooth shapes. Cook for 10-15 minutes then cool. Store in an air tight container.

Magnetic sensory tub

I had been searching for magnetic wands forever, as i wanted to do a magnetic sensory tub but was sick of using the fishing magnetic rods so when i found CELFkids supplied them i was very excited and for only $4 a wand-Bargain!
http://www.celfkids.com/default.html
We used bird seed as our sensory material, its so relaxing digging your hands into seeds and although it does make a big mess its fine for young children as its harmless to eat.
I gathered a collection of items from around the house, some magnetic and some not then buried them all into the seed.

I wrote on two pieces of paper "magnetic" and "not magnetic" and the kids used their new magnetic wands to search for the buried treasure and categorise them.

Mason enjoying the soothing seeds. Both kids ended up in the tub feet and all and seeds were everywhere but it was a great activity-maybe outside next time!

How far can you step?

How far can you step?
We have been measuring anything and everything lately and while we were out playing one day Tara decided to step as far as she could and mark it with chalk then measure it.
We both had a go and spoke about how many "bricks" in length our steps were.

Spring onion trees for Dino world

I remember curling spring onions in my childhood so when we had a spare day i showed Tara how easily it is done..
A bowl of icy cold water and a cutting of spring onion. Tara cut the spring onion length ways a few times
Then placed them in the water

Within seconds the spring onions had curled up!

I had planned on using these in a chicken soup but Tara had other ideas! "They are palm trees mummy!"

So we got started on creating a habitat of trees which led into...

Another Dino land! I'm not quite sure what it is about dinosaurs but they end up in many of our activities

And are hours of fun!