Spring Craft Yarn Dancing sticks & dreamcatchers

Kids craft activities using yarn are always unique, giving children a different opportunity to create something individual and bright for them self or for a gift.
We had lots of fun collecting and painting sticks for these spring time dancing sticks made with spotlights colourful flinders yarn.

Using this silky smooth 100% cotton 8 ply yarn from Spotlight  in kids craft was great for developing fine motor skills, making patterns, discussing colours and the craft ideas are endless. 

With our bright spotlight yarn we made Pom-Pom dancing sticks, a twirling wand and a zig-zag dancing stick.

The kids loved dancing around with them, twirling and waving them in the wind.  after a cold miserable winter, the sun is finally shining and the air smells like Spring, these were a little celebration to inspire the kids to get outside and enjoy the outdoors again. Making them was a process that involved a bit of patience, focus and fine motor skills. Dimples did great weaving the yellow zig-zag yarn through his forked stick. Because this yarn is thick and smooth, it is great quality which made it easy for the kids to handle.

This yarn is available in the most bright and beautiful colours from spotlight stores. you can find them on Facebook.

Spotlight is a family owned and operated Australian business that has become as household name. Spotlight is a brand loved and used by many for all things crafting, fabrics and home wares. They also have an awesome party section.

With our bright yarn we had the opportunity to #getcreative and craft some spring time dream catchers and dancing sticks to have fun with.

What you need:

Flinders 8ply yarn from spotlight 

Rainbow painted sticks

Feathers

Metal ring

Glue and scissors.

 

 

Dancing sticks:

First have your children find some cool sticks and paint them in beautiful bright spring colours.

Talk about the colours, name them and point out other colours in nature. We sat by the lake on a grassy hill to paint our sticks.  If your not a fan of painting with little ones, here are some tis to make it easy.

 

 

Once dry, weave yarn around the sticks. Depending on the shape of your stick, they could thread it around, tie strings off one end like a wand or put two sticks in a cross and weave it around all four ends to make a pattern. 

Pom-pom spring time sticks.

These are awesome, they look about like mini Lorax tuffaluffa trees or big bright flowers.

First make a pom-Pom. its easy enough to do on your hand.

Next glue it to the top of your rainbow stick. Done. Isn't it cute? This was both Dimples & Cherubs favourite.

Dream catcher:

Crochet a circle pattern, like a doily, as your centre piece feature (I cant knit or crocket so had Mum do some cute little ones we could use). 

Shape wire into circle and cover it around and around with spotlights 100% cotton 8 ply yarn.  It was really easy to manage, it circled in evenly, covered all the wire smoothly and was not fluffy at all.

Then with a little help, get your child to thread through the doily and back to the sides in the pattern of a star. It's a little bit tricky and requires a lot of concentration but dimples had a good go of it and practiced tying knots at the bottom of it.
Add hanging strings and feathers from the bottom.
 

We still have plenty of yarn left and will be making some more dream catchers to give as gifts. smaller kid friendly ones. with the rest of the bright colours, the kids was some more pom-pom sticks.
Visit Spotlight and check out their online catalogue to see what type of yarn and craft activities you can #getcreative with.

This product talk is brought to you by Nuffnang and Spotlight

Child-made Construction Small World Backdrop

 

A few weeks before Dimples had his 5th Birthday Party, a construction themed party, I had an idea to make a back drop type play station for the party so the kids could play with all sorts of construction themed toys in a small world diorama.  Some kids are sensory challenged and don tlike dirt, mud and getting their hands all gross so this was an easy outdoor option on a smaller scale.

 

We started with an open cardboard box and some paint, it developed from there with some roads and cotton wool dirt piles and a rubbish pile glue in one corner. On the day of his party I put some cocoa pops and rice bubbles out for the kids to "dig into".  I had seen the idea of using rice bubbles a couple years ago on Paint on the ceiling and always kept it in the back of my head hoping that one year Dimples would want a digging themed party.

This was it and it worked a treat.

 

 

During the weeks before, Dimples practised his scissor skills cutting out some buildings or 'skyscrapers' to stick on the back drop, he helped paint, glue and decorate the back drop. So the cardboard box which was just opened up on an angle and then stapled together so that it kept steady yet open enough for play slowly turned into a mini world full of construction.  It was turning into a cool looking pretend play zone and Dimples had a blast making it come to life bit by bit leading up to his party.

 

 

Dimples loves craft, it was his idea to glue in some cotton wool balls and paint them brown to resemble a pile of rocks, and then in another corner he glued in "rubbish" which was ripped pieces of paper.  I added some drawings, like a demolition ball on a crane and the windows in the buildings.  It was looking more like a 3D small world by now. We added some road work signs and little traffic toys that he had along with a collection of construction vehicles and there he had his own construction area for pretend play.  Dimples loves imaginative pretend play and small world areas, they give play time a realistic element.  

 

It was a small construction zone for a couple of weeks before and he continues to love it for weeks after his birthday party, it proved to be a realistic little 3D small world on the day of his party and looked realistic with piles of pretend rubble. The coco pops and rice bubbles were a great sensory add on to the 3D world, they bought it to life and worked well getting dumped around and bulldozed over. The fit inside dump trucks and were able to get pushed around and cleared.  The boys were happy to taste some and it is a safe alternative for younger kids as well.

 

I imagined that on the day they would get spread out everywhere but it was a risk worth taking, the boys were quite happy to play with them at the 3D small world construction station and used them in their imaginative play the way they were intended. They were able to spread them out all over the table and a majority of them did exactly that, carting, hauling, dumping and loading trucks tractors and construction vehicles all over the scene. It was definitely a fun alternative to digging in the dirt.

 

 

What other alternatives to dirt and mud would your kids love to dig in to?

Small World Play Ideas from around the Web

 

Benefits of Small World Play - Happy Feet Penguins By Adventures at Home with Mum

Using Books to Create Small World Play  By My little Bookcase

Frog Pond Small world Play  By One Perfect Day

A Rainbow Stacker small world By You clever Monkey 

Sand Dough Small world Beach  By Adventures at Home with Mum

Farm Small World Play  By Two Daloo

Free Small World Printable  By Picklebums 

Outdoor Small World Magical Gnome Garden  By Adventures at Home with Mum

Monster Truck Sensory Track with Faux Dirt  By Paging Fun Mums 

Styrofoam Ice Capsules and Penguins in water beads  By Adventures at Home with Mum

 

Happy Adventures 

You can keep updated with all our Adventures by following Adventures at Home with Mum on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest, or check us out on Instagram.

Alphabet Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree

When it comes to direct learning which isn't hidden in some form of play Dimples finds it quite a bore, looses focus and doesn't want a bar of it. He hasn't really been interested in the alphabet, reading or identifying letters besides his name until recently so to foster this new interest of early literacy in a fun hands on way that isn't plain boring letter recognition we read the funny story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and made a Felt Alphabet tree to go with it.  

We started with two large postal tubes (you know the ones you send posters in), filled one with some sand to weigh it down, duck taped them together and Dimples painted our soon to be tree trunk brown.
Then we did the branches using paper towel rolls painted green, these were cut and shaped to fit into one another at the top of our tree trunk, then they were also taped down firmly.
Next we used some felt cut in the shape of palm leaves big enough to fit over the rolls, these were hot glued down using a hot glue gun. Dimples helped position and press them down.
What is our tree missing? Dimples come up with the idea of using paper bags scrunched into balls to resemble our coconuts. He carefully helped glue them into position and then we were only missing our Alphabet letters.

The Alphabet letters were also glued onto the felt with a hot glue gun. I found some cheap wooden letters off eBay for a few dollars, you could use those plastic magnetic ones or foam letters but these wooden ones did the trick and stuck nicely with hot glue. First we ordered our alphabet along with the story, finding each letter as we read the pages, then once our tree and glue were prepared I called out letters and Dimples went and found them for me, helping to stick them out. This was great for letter recognition and he found fetching them as quickly as possible lots of fun.

The story gives a good opportunity to discuss why we have upper and lower case letters. Why do we have two of each letter? it also goes over the alphabet with visual cues in both the story and the illustration. Its a very upbeat fun story using rhyme and humor.

Once our letters were on we re-read the story and Dimples reenacted it pretending to be certain letters going up the tree and shaking it when they all fell out. Now we use the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree in many ways, as a story prop and along with letter identification when we read the story. Dimples points to the letters as I sing the alphabet, we combine it with an Alphabet Abacus and a Alphabet placemat and play letter match, we play I-spy; mixing it up so he can search for individual letters.

Learning Concepts:
Early literacy
Learning the Alphabet
Benefits of craft
Letter recognition
Identifying individual letters
Discussing upper and lower case letters
Connecting literature, hands on craft and fun

Ideas to Extend with:
A DIY Letter Puzzle
Alphabet match using other forms of the Alphabet.
I-Spy Letter search
A name Letter Recognition Sensory Bag
Use magazines and news papers to go on a letter Hunt for a drawn Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree

You can keep updated with all our Adventures by following Adventures at Home with Mum on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest, or check us out on Instagram.

Salad Spun Solar System - Extreme Paint

Apparently Pluto isn't important any more?
I know I learnt this stuff at school but my memory has failed me.
When Dimples got his Tag reading system on his 4th birthday I also got him a solar system booklet, he loves it and often plays, well "reads" by himself so it shouldn't have been a surprise when he told me that Venus was the hottest planet.
Silly me jumped in and said "isn't Mercury the one closest to the sun" well yes but Dimples was quick to tell me Venus is hottest because its cloud keep the heat in.

This conversation lead to my 4 year old teaching me all these things about our solar system that his tag reader had taught him. Fancy That! Then this lead to putting together a large floor puzzle we had and pulling out a space poster with matching stickers then some extended learning through Extreme Painting; The Salad Spinning technique.

Using a salad spinner, some circle paper and paint. We put the paper in with the right colours on top, shut the lid and spun. Dimples though that was the best part, he was rapidly spinning the planets around with wide open eyes telling me this one is going to be awesome! This one is going to be the best, I am spinning it so so very fast. Its a pretty easy painting technique and all the mess is confined in the salad tub making for easy clean up. We went through pointing out the planets on the floor puzzle, the tag reader diagram, the poster and then the ones we put in the salad spinner reading all the facts as we went. Dimples really engaged in the process, even to the extent of repeating anything I read to him.

All the Salad Spun Planets were put out in order and he set out his own solar system drawing rings around Saturn and the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter. Saturn and Earth worked the best in the salad spinner, it works best with running blobs of paint and with some even spread over your planet otherwise the paper can end up flying up the side of the salad bowl.

I think I learnt more doing this then I did at school, or my memory has failed me. One thing I noticed was the Pluto wasn't even on any of the solar system info anymore, apparently it is a dwarf planet with several others.

Happy Adventures

Free Crafting Benefits - Just a Creation

Since we have established a craft corner, I have noticed dimples taking more of an interest in craft and creating. Before our art corner, some where down the track I had forgotten the importance of being creative. Freedom!
If you missed the Art Corner check it out by clicking HERE :) 

It shouldn't be about copying other work it should be about designing and creating your own. How can you be truly creative with so much restriction.  For this reason, instead of forcing creativity on Dimples with strictly planned activities I have set the craft corner up so that everything is organised and accessible to him so that he can create his own craft with whatever materials, colours and ideas he has.

This is one of his creations. Just a creation! But there is a story to it. I gave him the reigns and asked him to make something, anything he wanted and off he went. He asked for some muffin cases, and as he went on creating this piece he was telling me that it was a 3 eyed monster but 2 eyes are magic, it has X-ray vision, and it lives under the water (the ribbon is its tentacles).  He came up with every idea and every material on his own and made up the story as he went. Apparently this sea monster can trick fish with its glittery mouths and the beads are suckers. Go figure! I love it.

It has been great and he really enjoys doing his own thing. The free craft corner, or self directed creativity corner has given dimples a real sense of belonging where he can create and express anything in his own space and display his work with pride.

Child directed free craft can really develop a child's creativity because their options are endless. It gives them a chance to work on fine motor skills, use various tools, explore different materials/textures,  visualise ideas and create something using their own ideas and skills. for a child this free crafting can work as a self motivating achievement and improve their desire to be creative and work with their own ideas.

Dimples has made some pretty unique craft.  He enjoys experimenting with stickers, sticky tape and glue. There's been many collages and lots of shapes cutting. Sometimes he enjoys just sitting and cutting up scrap paper into a million tiny shapes and other times he just draws lines using a ruler.

Every few craft corner adventure sessions Dimples creates something that makes me smile, like his sea monster above. It is amazing to see his creativity unfold and to hear him express his ideas.  As he explains to me what he has created, I can try to visualise his creation as he does and get a glimpse into the workings of his imagination. It makes me smile and it is a boost of his esteem when his work gets displayed.

Free craft isn't always about the product, even though dimples mostly sits down and fiddles around with bits and bobs, cutting, sticking, pasting and tracing, there are so many important skills at work. Not to mention the benefits of being independent and expressive. To be honest, I am happy to let him cut, paste, stick and trace even if there is a bit of waste or no purpose at all because he is much better doing this then say, sitting in front of a TV or annoying me while I am over a hot stove.

Happy adventures :)

Our Art Centre - Freedom and creativity

Craft is a fun way to let children explore lots of different materials and resources while building on their fine motor skills and many other crucial developmental abilities. It is a great tool for inside play on rainy days or for the times your child is feeling crafty and creative, it can also be a fun outlet for imagination.

Is your craft usually structured?
It can get very messy.
Young children love LOTS of glue and need to learn to hold scissors correctly and I am sure you have had your share of Art creations that are wall art or carpet sculptures?  I remember finding Dimples one morning camped up under our king size Doona, quiet as can be.... I now have a lovely white flannelet fitted sheet with beautiful black swirls all over it!

For this reason I, as I am sure many parents do, easily fall into the habit of using quick easy craft ideas out of books and off the web that require few materials with the least amount of glue and let dimples make his own version of these cool craft projects.  Cool yes, original No!

To celebrate Dimples creativity I decided to redesign a corner of our home as a Art Centre for him where he has the freedom to create what ever he wants to safely. Everything is at his level and organised. All his materials and tools are bright, appealing to the eye, easy to see and easy to reach.  He calls this his "business" & his "Office work".

The materials in it are all his to use for the taking as he wishes, however there are rules he needs to obey such as using the bin, tidying up, using materials wisely not wastefully and sitting at his desk.
So far so good!

Dimples Art Centre includes-

• His own glue (sticks and clag only mind you),
• a scissor caddie,
• The scissor box You can check out the scissor box idea here 
• sticky tape,
• some craft jars (sequins, googly craft eyes and beads),
• a crayon caddy,
• a pencil pot,
• a pot full of bingo stampers & stamps,
• a pot full of kids stamps and hole Punch's,
• colour coordinated markers in jars (These are office pen jars painted and hung on the side of the shelf)
• a file of coloured paper and card stock,
• a box full of colouring in books,
• a box full of craft paper and envelopes (cellophane, crepe, wrapping paper)
• Craft draws with felt stickers, pipe cleaners, pompoms, ribbons, chipboard letters and numbers.
• His own Desk, Bin and Display string with clips.
• stickers

To date there has been some unique and clever creations that I would never have thought Dimples could or would create. He has let his imagination go and its been amazing to watch how this freedom has allowed him to express his ideas in a way he wants. If you are creating a space like this you must remember that these materials will most likely get used in every way other then intended, sticky tape around crayons for instance but the point of the art centre is freedom and creativity so pick your materials wisely and keep the special resources out of reach.

Dimples is nearly 4 and has been very responsible in his space, if he were a little younger or this space was tucked away in an area out of sight I wouldn't be comfortable with this much freedom. There are times when he will just sit and cut different shapes right into the bin from his scrap paper, he is still learning, focusing and practising important skills so I am happy for him to do this.

That is the beauty of the art centre. It is meant to provide freedom so if he feels like sharpening all his pencils for no apparent reason then he can, if he feels like folding a pompom over and over again inside a treasure map then he can, if he feels like cutting a bit of paper into a million pieces then he can and every once in a while he makes an awesome creative piece of art that I get to hold on to.

Happy Adventures



Raised Foil Prints for Christmas

Hello Lovely blog readers.  I hope you're all getting in to the Christmas Spirit.

I am very organised this year, which is extremely unusual for me, I am loving the feeling.

Dimples created some Raised Foil Prints for Christmas gifts this week.  Here they are:

 

 

Since most of the Christmas shopping has been done, wrapped and is ready under the tree (I know! Fancy that!)  these are some extra bonuses that are a gorgeous, very special label for some special peoples gifts.  They make the gifts look unique and wrapped with love or would like great as a DIY Card.

They're really simple to make. We havent used foil as a material before and it was so easy to work with.  The Raised foil Prints are made from cardboard base, with tacky dried glue pictures. I used a tacky clear craft glue to drizzle on the pictures and sat them up to dry.

Once the glue prints were dry I covered them with a small, thin layer of glue (not enough to dry bumpy) and covered them with Foil. Using a paper towel on top, I pressed down and rubbed the print so that the foil stuck down around the raised glue prints. It worked well.

Dimples had fun painting them. He did some red and green to match our Christmas theme and then sprinkled glitter over them. With the paint over them, the raised glue print isn't as noticeable, so as they dried I used the paper towel again to softly rub over the raised foil only, taking some of the excess paint off so the silver can shine through.  Then I stuck the final creation on some coloured paper, punched a hole, decorated with ribbon and tinsle and Dimples picked which gifts to add them to. We wrote a special message on the back of them.

I love the way they turned out.  They are beautiful and such a thoughtful gift topper. They were also a new and fun way for us to be creative with our Christmas Decorating and wrapping.

Happy Christmas Adventures

Felt Recreatable Christmas Tree

 

 

If you look on Pinterest or follow any other children's blogs you may have already seen a similar Tree to this; A Felt Children's Christmas Tree.

I made our Felt Re-createable Christmas Tree last year but never did a blog post on it as there were so many others at the same time so here we are now, setting it up for the second year.

 

The basic idea of the Felt tree is that it is a very special Christmas tree, made especially for the child to recreate. They are always distracted and drawn to the shining sparkling Christmas tree decorations but once your tree is up, you would like it to stay that way.

With out little monkeys swinging off it trying to grab up at the decorations, rearrange the tinsel, possibly even trying to climb to the star at the top!

Sound Familiar?



That's where the Felt tree comes in handy. This is their very own Christmas Tree that they are allowed to grab at and re-decorate over and over again keeping their fingers busy and away from the real thing. 

All you need is Felt. A Large Piece of Green (well it doesn't have to be green, you might like a White snow Tree), cut into the shape of a tree. Then smaller felt pieces in different colours for your decorations. Pin your tree up to a wall or large board and get your decorations cut out ready to play with. Then your little one can recreate their tree every day.


 

Its like a large felt board, just cut your circular balls, some stars, stocking shapes and so on as your decorations. You can be as plain or as crafty as you like.

You can use Christmas Cookie cutters as inspiration, simply trace your shape and cut it out.

I used a hot glue gun to combine colours on some of the decorations and to make some presents.

Now the felt tree can be created with any themed colours in any way every single day if they like, one day might be all stars, or all red decorations, one day it may remain blank or with no presents.

Dimples has a small gift bag that his decorations stay in at the bottom of his tree until he wants to decorate it.

 

Happy Adventures  :)

Sensory Stepping Stones

SQUISHY, SPONGY, SPIKY, LUMPY, SCRATCHY, CRACKLING, SOFT

On some circular paper, aka Stepping stones to Dimples, I gathered some different textured & unusual feeling materials and Dimples glued them onto the stepping stones to make different feeling sensory mats.

A scourer cut in pieces, a Sponge cut in pieces, a different thicker lumpy sponge, some Bubble wrap layered, some Styrofoam & pom poms, some bristles of an old paint brush, and a gel filled zip lock bag.  All with way too much glue as usual so it took a long time for them to dry!
They were pretty successful none-the-less!

Dimples took off his socks and tip-toed over the sensory stepping stones. The look on his face said it all, he thought they were awesome.

With uhmmms, arhhhs, Ewwwws, giggles and funny faces he trotted over them pulling some pretty unusual facial expressions.  I asked him what they felt like?  " This is squishy & cold in my toes ",  "this ones a tiny bit spiky, it looks like hair?"  "this ones bumpy" "this one sounds funny, Ill pop it?"  "this one scratches my toes".  As he went through I expanded on what he was saying, bumpy, lumpy, uneven, squishy, scratchy, spiky, prickly, ticklish? and so forth as he chuckled to himself and had a good time jumping around....

He mixed them all up and tried again!
He closed his eyes and tried to identify them just through touch
He laid them apart and tried to do big slow steps, moved them close and did little fast steps.
He put them in a circle & went around & around until he fell down.
Then he felt them all on his hands and knees using his fingers to touch around the edges.
He threw them about like Frisbee's
Then his imagination kicked in, he told me he was jumping over a pond of crocodiles & that he cant fall off because he would splash in the water and get eaten as their lunch.

It was lots of fun and it was pretty fun for me as well, just to listen to his giggles and watch the expressions on his face...

Stained Glass Mothersday Book Marks

Dimples enjoyed making these cute stained glass Mothers day Bookmarks for his Nanna's.



What you will need
Materials: Crayon shavings, Cellophane, Laminate sheet, An Iron, Pipe cleaners or Ribbon and some beads.













I cut a piece of laminate paper into thin strips & put the materials out for Dimples then let him choose his colours and much much or how little he wanted to put in each one.








Using crayon shavings and cellophane for the Stain glass design Dimples sprinkled his materials into the open laminate paper and then closed it Ready for me to Iron







I then went over it with an Iron & a sheet of paper towelling making sure the sides of the laminate stuck closed and then heat melted the Crayon shavings.






Once then were stuck together and cooled Dimples punched a hole through the top and threaded a pipe cleaner on (i tied it off & twisted it tight) then he added some more colour with some foam beads.




 Voila. Easy Peasy Stained glass bookmarks.