The sun has finally come out to play and it was time to get out all those summer toys that have been packed away gathering spider webs and dust. At first we checked that there were no RED BACK SPIDERS hanging around. We filled a bucket with soapy water and my little one just loved cleaning all her toys. Such fun, kids love being given a small responsibility that makes them feel as though they are doing something grown up.
I had such fun the other day shopping for creative bits for my now 3 year old poppet. In Australia we have a discount store called ‘the reject shop’, and oh my, is it a fabulous place to find arts and crafts for youngins…and its super cheap! anyhow, i collected a mass of exciting alphabet, number and farm animal stickers. they have these peel off backs that make it super easy for little sausage fingers to cope with. Also in the shopping basket was a stack of multicoloured pieces of paper scraps and fluffy pom poms.The alphabet and number stickers are great for practicing and teaching counting and recognition of letters and numbers. I also found these great storage boxes to house all the bits and pieces. I have a small kiddies table set up in our living room where our little munchkin does all her creative activities- she just loves it,and she can keep busy for quite some time.
We had some broken picture frames lying around, where the glass had actually broken. Mr B painted them with chalk board paint. Our little munchkin loves to sit outside with us and scribble works of chalk art. The great thing is we can move them around to different areas of our backyard depending on where the sunshine is.
Yet another rainy day… what to do with an almost a 3 year old who cant go and play outside? arts and craft of course. I have been collecting colourful pieces of card and paper from all sorts of random packaging, in the hope that i could use it for a craft project with the little one. So, using my large 2′ circle punches (that i just recently purchased from www.overstock.com for a very good price)
I cut out some shapes from my scraps and old magazines, added a few alphabet stickers and some sparkly bits that came in a wedding invite long ago. To make it interesting for the little one, i separated them into categories and placed them in colourful silicone baking cups. The idea was to create a colourful collage of shapes. She loved it, and spent a good 20 minutes on the project until there was pretty much nothing left in the little cups. A fair amount did find its way onto the floor. I think its really helpful to hold onto pieces of card and paper from empty food boxes or old cards so long as it has interesting colours and patterns. It saves having to go out and buy expensive coloured card and paper. Now just incase any of you are wondering, i don’t hoard all my rubbish in a secret room in the house with a sea of cereal boxes and junk mail pamphlets, with the hope that each one may find a happy and creative place in a child’s craft activity.
Its crazy to think how much work and thought go’s into creating the designs on packaging, and the materials needed to print and manufacture the final product…only to land up in some big landfill. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see a sculpture of some sort made out of all the stuff we bin every day. my mind is already ticking, maybe a project i can tackle one day…
Its raining again, and our little poppet is still feeling sick. So instead of trying to chear her up with some Dora the Explorer( totally obsessed at the moment)
We recycle most of our rubbish, but sometimes I collect egg cartons, cute and interesting plastic/glass containers for various arts and crafts. Here we have used lentils and a few bits and bobs to create a game of hiding and finding the toy animals.
This activity lasts a good 20 minutes before our poppet gets bored and needs a different source of stimulation…hello Dora!
faithful Gracey 