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

Scented Instant Snow castles from play gel

Play Gel? What is play gel I hear you mutter as you read the title... You'll never guess.

A form of instant snow, if you have bought instant snow you will agree that it is not cheap, I got some years ago when I made The Melted Snow Man sensory Tray for Dimples. I think I paid $6-7 for one little tube that was used a few times. This play gel costed about $1 and is 3 times the amount.

I came across this one day browsing pinterest, Science Kiddo shared a pretty interesting post on how to do it. I was reluctant to begin with, knowing what it was made of, if I told Adventures at home Dad I let the kids play with **** today, I am sure he would have looked at me sidewards and questioned my sanity.

 

 

Have you  guessed yet?

Here is how we made Castles from scented play gel....

*get a jug of water *add colouring  *add essential oil or scented essence (we used peppermint essence) *Get an unused New Disposable Nappy *Open it and lay it flat with the absorbent side up and pour on your mixture *add more water as needed *cut along the side of the Diaper and empty the contents *add more scent, colour, glitter or water if needed. *Play

 

After a lot of exploration with their hands and fingers, Dimples and Miss Cherub used animals and buried them, poured more water on and explored with it for a long while. It just kept soaking up water, I was amazed. From one disposable Nappy they had a tray each full of play gel, it smelt so nice and refreshing and looked pretty cool to dig in to. After a while they turned to 'building'

 

Using sand moulds, buckets and plastic cones they build 'snow castles'. This was quite a challenge, it took a lot of patience and skills because the scented play snow was not like sand, it didn't pack in tight and stay firm so the larger the castle the harder it was. Dimples mastered it with a slow steady technique and noticed that the cones and taller castles wobbled like jelly.  It was definitely a fun and new experience, Dimples and I discussed the scientific side of the play gel and how it soaks water, what it is made from, what will happen after we let it dry. Miss Cherub and I labelled how it felt, the shapes we made and the colour/smell of it.

 

If you are curious like I was, the stuff inside the diapers is similar to what is used in water crystals, water-beads and so forth. It is a form of polymer, and although it is manmade it is non-toxic and can not be absorbed through the skin see here. However it is better to ere on the side of safety so for that reason it is not recommended to be consumed, due to the fact that it absorbs 50 times its weight in water (like water-beads) - Read this here if you are concerned although it is labelled as non toxic and safe it is likely to cause irritation if consumed so as always, keep an eye on the kids as they play, don't leave them alone if you feel they will eat it and don't give it to babies or toddlers who mouth anything.

 

After playing, you can store it in a container in a dry and watch what happens as it dries out but remember that disposable nappies are not good for our environment so don't go pouring it in the yard, near a drain or down the toilet remember to dispose of it adequately as you would with other non-degradable waste. If you store it in a air tight container you can get a few play sessions out of it, just add some more water next time and away you go.



Happy Adventures 

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Thanks for visiting.

DIY textured play dough printing Balls

I made these cool salt dough balls with prints in them the other day so they could be used as textured printing balls in playdough.  Little miss Cherub (20 months) loves her playdough at the moment and squishing all sorts of things into it to see what pattern it will make so these worked really well. If you have a child with some measuring and cooking interests you could get them involved in the process of making these by introducing measurement, pouring, mixing, kneading, food prep and baking. Here is our easy DIY textured Salt Dough rolling balls for some super cool play dough printing.

 

DIY Salt dough;

Add 1 cup flour,

1 1/2 cup salt,

1 cup water and 

1 tsp oil.

Mix into a dough consistency by adding a sprinkle more flour if it's too sticky or sloppy.

Mix together well, knead it for a few moments then let it sit for 5 so it expands and toughens a bit, (this isn't necessary but I found it made it easier to work with). 

While you wait you should preheat the oven to 100- 120 degrees, remember your not going to stuff it up if you get the details a bit wrong 😊 it's a pretty flexible recipe.

 

Lay out some cooking paper ready on a tray & take the opportunity to clean up any flour dusted little hands (chairs, benches, walls and where ever else kids manage to splat ingredients on).  Once your happy with the texture of the dough roll it into even sized balls about the size of a childs fist (great size for them to hold & roll).

 

To make our textures in the salt dough ball we used a tooth pick to puncture small surface holes; the handle end of a wooden spoon to get large round deep holes; a fork to Criss-cross thatch lines; and a print on an ornament that had snake tails, the key is to look around and think abstractly.

Look for deep textured or significant prints that are highly visible and will last the cooking process. You might find a crochet cloth works, a glass 3d print vase, wood carved furniture, utensils, jewellery, a weaved leather belt (anything really).

The trick is to roll the salt dough ball around it enough times that its printed deeply on every side and do so with as little skin contact as possible because the more handling the more you flatten or smooth out the pattern, you want deep and noticeable patterns so it prints well in your playdough. 

Once your happy lay them on cooking paper and slow bake to dry them out for an hour at least, maybe even longer depending on how thick and large your salt dough balls are. You will see them dry out and lighten up changing colour as they cook, turn them a couple times just to even the process out & tap them to see if they're cooked right through. They should be very hard.

That's pretty much it, let them cool and they're ready to roll. 

Now all you need is some silky playdough and someone keen to roll them around. Both Dimples and miss Cherub enjoyed this playdough extension and experimented with rolling the textured balls in different directions, pushing hard and soft, rolling fast and slow then around in circles, they tried just plain pushing it in a ball of play dough and all sorts of cause effect experiments. It was lots of fun!

What do your children like to use on their Playdough?

 

 

More Printing ideas;
Outdoor Surface Rubbing
Play-doh printing everyday texture

More Salt Dough ideas;
Dinosaur fossils
Halloween Salt Dough



Happy Adventures 

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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 

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Egg Sounds : A Listening & Critical thinking Game

Listening doesn't come naturally to Dimples. It really is something we need to work on. 

I guess there is so much going on and so many things to do that stopping to listen to boring ol' mum just isn't a priority of his and with a stubborn streak, parenting this strong willed little man can sometimes feel like a challenge. 

By being proactive in the way we speak to Dimples, getting on his level, touching his arm to get his attention and eye contact first and by praising the times he does listen we are aiming to improve this. Another way we have been trying to address it is through listening games.  Childhood 101 has 5 listening games that we have been playing lately and this new one I came up with, Eggy Sounds. 

All you need is a plastic egg, we used an old pavlova shell and some small objects made from different materials, different shapes and sizes and weights. Depending on your childs skill level you can add more or less varying the complexity of the objects used.  

First I laid them all out on a tray so Dimples could see what was there. I then put the tray up high and asked him what sounds he thought they would make. Starting with the obvious, what sound would the bells make?

This part of the game gives a heads up as to what sounds they should be listening for and acts as a memory match, meaning they have to recall what objects were on the tray that could match the sound and rule out the objects they've already guessed correctly.  

I placed an object or group of objects into the egg and asked Dimples what sound is it? He shook it and moved it about listening carefully, some things such as the bell and the pebbles he guessed straight away, then others were a little bit trickier. This is where the critical thinking came into play, I asked him questions to encourage him to think outside the egg!

What type of material does it sound like? does it sound as if there are one or more things inside? is it heavy? 

Then if he couldnt guess it I asked him to listen carefully, shake it slow, then fast, then rotate it, after he did that he was allowed to ask me questions. Is it one thing? Is it plastic? I would then ask him to think about what else was on the tray that might make the same sound as ____ or what else was the same material. 

This encourages problem solving by elimination and critical thinking as well as drawing on scientific concepts to solve the problem, all the while listening carefully. 

Learning concepts:

Listening skills

Memory - visual recall

Critical thinking & problem solving

Questioning & elimination

Scientific concepts - materials, gravity, how things move, weight and sound

Vocabulary 

Linking auditory and visuals to enhance focus 

Happy Adventures 

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The Grassy Farm Barn - Enhancing imagination and learning

Are your children fascinated with Animals? Mine are.
Its a great idea to follow a child's lead and provide them with enriching play areas based on their interests. If they're interested in something they pay more attention, enjoy themselves more and this means that they learn more.
Both Dimples & Miss Cherub love animals so I set up this little Pretend play barn yard.
If you missed it, I have this post that goes through WHY Pretend Play is so important in early childhood and the benefits of it.

I still strongly advocate the benefits of pretend play  so following the interests of both Dimples and Miss Cherub I set up this Farm barn play area on a low lying coffee table that they both could access freely and explore easily. I aimed to use materials that resembles a real life farm yard in order to capture their imagination and attention for longer more enjoyable pretend play. I think it worked! They love it.
I added some artificial grass covering the play table to give it a realistic look and feel. This enhances the imaginary play experience and makes the play area more inviting. I then added a pebble patterned mat (it was a small shower mat), a blue foam cut out in the shape of a pond and a fake silk plant to really give the Grassy Farm area a realistic feel.

The farm area is complete with a little plastic barn and of course a variety of plastic farm animals. Both Dimples and Miss Cherub have enjoyed the area and engaged in pretend play together and alone at different levels of play. Dimples, nearly 5 has a vivid imagination and pretends it a real working farm, the dog does the herding, the sheep need to be sheared and the cows eat grass, the rooster crows at the crack of dawn, the tractor maintains the pastor, the pig rolls on the edge of the pond and so on. He labels the animals and is learning the different names based on the animals gender eg. a sow, a boar & a piglet.  In the book shelf next to it I have some farm yard board books for him to expand on.

Where as Miss Cherub (nearly 1) explores the texture of the grass with her finger tips (and sometimes her mouth) and the feel of the foam pond, she is following Dimples through imitation and makes Moo sounds, "roff roff" barking sounds and she gets the horses to trott up and down clicking her tongue and jiggling around as if she is riding a horse. Its so cute to watch her learning through observing the way big brother plays. This also gives me an opportunity to introduce new vocabulary to her by labeling the animals for her.

Learning Concepts:

Pretend Play & Developing imaginary play scenes

Early vocabulary

Turn taking and sharing,

Learning animal names, sounds, diet and place in the farm.

Exploring real life concepts

Other ways to create a play space to enhance imaginative play
A fun Science Lab conducting real experiments
Magical Gnome Garden
Banking & Sorting: using real money & a trip to the bank
Sensory Play: Ice cream dough

Have you used any materials in a play area to immitate real life?

Happy Adventures 

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I love reading your comments 

DIY Dinosaur theme Garden in Recycled Tyre

Do you have an old tire floating around? Tires can be re-purposed for so many things. We have one stuck in the ground to climb all over and another was recently turned into a dinosaur garden. 

We have been expanding our outdoor area, near by we have a cool Water Wall out of PVC Pipe, & of course our Magnificent Mud Kitchen that we are in the process of renovating (stay tuned for that), then we have some Outdoor Balance Stumps. Now for the DIY tire Garden, its cute, little and practical for any size yard and you could really do it in any theme...  Fairies, gnomes, bugs, farm animals to give you a few ideas!

To make this outdoor play space all I did was put the tire into position, spray paint it fluro bright yellow, fill with soil and then Dimples helped create a Dinosaur garden for play and to create a fun feel to his outdoor play space. First we started talking about what we need to do to keep the plants growing, how to look after them and then the discussion lead to herbivores & dinosaurs, their habitat and environment, what they eat/drink and so on which fueled his pretend play. 

We added a couple of soft succulents that are cheap and tolerable to harsh conditions. Then a curved piece of drift wood fit perfectly around the center of the tire, from there on Dimples added stones and shells. The dinosaurs needed a drink or a pool so we planted an old bowl filled it with water and then the finishing touches were of course the dinosaurs. After playing for a while Dimples added a small stick for a bridge and some lucky stones. It makes a cute addition to the outdoor play are and encourages outside physical and imaginative play

Learning Concepts:
Recycle & Reuse
Planting and keeping plants
Physical/Active Play
Connecting with the outdoors
Imaginative & Pretend play
Dinosaur Habitats & environments

Follow on:
DIY baked Dinosaur fossils
Dig for dinosaurs near by
Dinosaur Paint Stomping

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How do you get the kids to be enthusiastic about Outdoor Play?

I love reading your comments 

Happy Adventures

Outdoor PVC Pipe Water Wall

In Australia it is extremely hot with sweaty Summer days, we live on the coast so we are lucky that we get an ocean breeze but other parts of Australia aren't so lucky this time of year. Its been that hot lately that Dimples hasn't even wanted to go outdoors to play. I don't blame him! 

But after re-vamping Dimples Play area, Renovating his cubby house & his water wall we are back outside playing under the trees in the shad with some good old water play. 

Here is our new Water wall that is still off the side of his Mud kitchen. 

The Outdoor Water wall is easy to make if you're a little handy or have a handy man, even if you don't I am sure you can pull it off. All you need is a sheet of ply wood structured up, some PVC pipes, preferably the same width so the water flows easily & directly in the center of the next one, a drill and screws. 

I have spray painted the wood surface blue and I asked Adventures Dad if he could cut the PVC pipes in half length ways on his bench Saw with some different lengths and angles then I sprayed them yellow. 

That is the easy part. Putting it all together takes a little more patience and a great little helper with a bottle of water. 

I used a drill to attache the pipes on to the wall. First I held them in place as Dimples, the willing helper, stood by with a bottle of water to "test" the water wall placing. This is a crucial part.... If you just screw the pipes in any old way it wont flow smoothly so we tested the water flow before screwing them on. 

If they are too close the water splats and splashes out, mean less makes it to the bottom of the water wall, if they are too far away you might miss the mark entirely, also the water speed depends on the angle of your pipe. Dimples enjoyed testing the way the water flowed and helping get it just right.

Then is was time to use it and see which tunnels worked best and how much water made it down to the bottom. Dimples was narrating play and making inferences about which way the water will flow if he poured it down a certain pipe. It was a fun way to cool down and the good thing about doing a PVC water wall is that the pipes are wide enough for marbles and can double as a ball run. 

Hope you like it.

Dimples sure does and Miss Cherub does too. She sits at the bottom waiting for the water to come rolling down, wont be long until she is trying to pour the water as well.

Learning Experiences:

Involvement in the Design & construction of the Water wall

Scientific investigation

Open ended Play

Outdoor Play

Hand eye coordination (lift, Pour, control, move)

Concept of gravity

Peaceful and calming water play that increases focus 

Tactile and sensory learning

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How do you get the kids to cool down on a Hot Summer Day?

I love reading your comments 

Happy Adventures

DIY Smell & Shake Discovery Bottles for Babies & Kids

I made these DIY Scented Sensory Bottles when Dimples was younger, they were a definite hit. He still has the Coffee Bean one and it still smells so good. I decided to do a new and improved batch of scented discovery bottles for Miss Cherub.

Dimples was a great helper, he came up with some ideas while he made these for his baby sister.
First we gather our materials, we tried to stick to a theme of a colour. Because these are scented the materials need to be able to hold and soak up the essence and essential oil.

• Dimples designed a Eucalyptus one using, blue and white pom-poms, some blue knitted wool daisies, some blue pipe cleaners and some metal bells. We added eucalyptus oil in. It smells and sounds great.
• The Lavender one had some real lavender flowers in it, lavender incense oil dyed rice from our Lavender Zen Rice garden & a little butterfly.
• The Rocking Rosemary had fresh rosemary from our backyard and some dried herb rosemary from our spice rack. Simple!
• The Christmas one had Peppermint scented red & green Rice from our Christmas Rice Sensory Tub, some sequins and a plastic candy cane.
• We still have the plastic Dinosaur in coffee beans &
• The old Lavender one that had silk purple flowers and lavender rice.  

All you need to make these are some old baby Bottles, stocking, a hot glue gun and your materials.
Take the teat out of your bottle so your left with a hole, put all your materials in the discovery bottle and the essence or essential oil, and hot glue gun a piece of stocking tight over the lid, then hot glue gun a circle over this and screw your lid on tight. Done!

They smell so sweet.

Miss Cherub loves sniffing them, shaking them and transferring them from hand to hand listening to the sounds they make.

Dimples plays I-spy with me and while he had a cold the past week he slept with his eucalyptus one by his pillow.

The Christmas themed one looks so festive at this time of year and has been placed up with the Christmas ornaments.

These are a really handy DIY toy that uses all the sense; smell, shake & listen to them, rattle & bang them around, look and see what you can spot. Considering the coffee bean one still smells years later I think this set will be rotated around frequently with the Christmas one getting packed away with our Christmas decorations until next year.

Learning concepts:

Colour coordination

Learning with the senses;

Defining between different scents

Listening to different sounds

Search & find, I-spy games

Baby grasp, transferring between hands.

Happy Adventures :)

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