Frozen Theme Party ideas

 

Little Miss Cherub is TWO - Can you believe it? and she is a little Frozen obsessed. You know the song all the frozen fans sing? she can sing all three words of it "let it go" over and over and over and over...  So for her party we held a Frozen Theme party with a blue & purple theme, I pulled out our blue Christmas lights and it made it all so magical.

 

I used some glittery silk and chiffon material to create a frozen skirt that lined the kitchen area ( you can see it in the picture above), and as I have said before when we have had kids Parties for Dimples, I always forget to take photos of these small touches. Its often the small touches that pull it all together. The fortnight before, I made a Frozen theme Backdrop for some photo fun. Miss Cherub helped paint Olaf, and Dimples helped cut out some paper snow flakes. It sat nicely among the Christmas lights and all the kids (of all ages) had a go at being Elsa or Olaf.

For party Activities we had a couple of awesome Sensory tubs thanks to Sensory Playground Australia - They gave us some of these cool water bead cubes, they're firmer and more fun then water beads. The children tried stacking them and building Queen Elsa a castle before they crushed them and mixed them into a field of snow.  One tub had large frozen glitter boulders (made in a balloon with glitter, food colour and water) as well as the cool water bead cubes and some frozen figurines.

 

 

I did some face painting for the kids, the boys wanted Olaf and snowflakes on their cheeks and the girls got a tiara above their brows. There were also frozen theme tattoos and a take home goody bag for the guests that consisted of stickers, a balloon, magic sand, bubbles, a frozen badge, tattoos, a bracelet and a small lolly bag.

 

 

 

The other Sensory tub had massive 'Amaze balls' also given to use by sensoryplaygroundaustralia - They were by far the most intriguing thing the children have seen. You can see the size difference between the usual water beads and the amazeballs.

If you want to get your hands on some of these beauties check out Sensory Playgrounds Ebay Site. They have so many cool sensory resources that you can purchase for less then a cup of coffee.

Highly recommended.

 

 

 

There were balloons strung up every where, a starry background and lots of purple and blue things.

We had a bubble machine going, a ball pit full of balloons and balls, some silk materials hung up along the clothes line and lots of pink/purple food including; fairy bread, pink biscuits, strawberries dipped in white chocolate, watermelon and red grapes, pretzels dipped in purple or blue icing, strawberry & cream lollies, Blue jelly, baby spring rolls and party pies.

 

The cake was a castle of course. I made 3 layers each a different shade of purple, and cut stairs from them then covered it in blue roll out icing. I used a play dough roller with a brick pattern on it and decorated it with baby marshmallows to represent the snow balls. The tower was made from rice crispies and based on this Princess Cake tutorial by Paging fun Mums.

 

 

I think half the fun for the girls was dressing up in frozen outfits and chasing bubbles around, dancing among the streams and silk curtains and listening to their favourite song... You guessed it! Let it go.

There was also play equipment outside, a nice fluffy rug to sit on and various frozen books and colouring.

 

 

And the day after the Party, Miss Cherub was still having fun with those sensory trays. Who would have thought they were nice to use as a toe massager.

Happy Adventures 

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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.



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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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Baby Safe yummy Painting With Yogurt

Baby Painting! Of course that will be messy right? But is it safe to expose babies to paint, after all most of it will end up in their mouth, all over their face and in their skin. 

Well even though there are many of alternatives like making your own paints using natural safe ingredients or non-toxic "safe" varieties many parents just won't go there. 

So here is an easy, not so messy way to introduce baby to colours, textures and paint play while they learn some hands on skills needed to self-feed.

I used a children yogurt that was baby safe and mixed it into 3 different containers, using one drop of natural food colouring I mixed a yellow, pink and blue shade of yogurt. I gave the containers to Miss Cherub when she was on her high chair so she could explore them safely on her table. It was a bit of an experiment and i wasn't sure how she would react but she loved it and it was easy to clean up and wash off after.

I left the spoons in the containers so she could get some practice using and handling the spoons. She is at the age now she is interested in self-feeding but needs to further develop her gross motor skills and hand/eye coordination in order to succeed. So she did enjoy some colourful yogurt but the majority of it was paint.



The splatters and drops she tipped out of the container on to her tray were poked out and smeared in every fashion possible. She explored the squishy texture between her fingers and payed close attention to the colours after she mixed them around with her hand.
It was a yummy bright Baby painting expedition.

Miss Cherub enjoyed herself tactfully experimenting with the containers; handling them, tipping and turning them to see the yogurt drop out, putting the spoon in to scoop it out and eating some, while some she flung and splattered on the tray. She used her fingers to scoop some out, and them in different ways she run her fingers through the different colours, some times with her pointer finger, sometimes trying to grab it in a pincer grip but mostly she rushed her palms through it smearing it together. 

Clean up was simple; wash the tray & containers in the sink, wipe the baby clean. done! 

Learning concepts:
First Colours & Colour mixing
Exploring Textures
Sensory Play
Confidence with food
Bilateral coordination
Hand/eye coordination
Self feeding skills
Developing pincer grip and handling containers
Gross Motor Skills

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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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Sensory Material Surprise - Baby Play in a Box

Baby Play is so much fun, when baby first starts playing it becomes apparent just how much they're learning through play. My minds going crazy with play ideas.

This little baby activity introduces  sensory learning by providing textures and different feeling materials that are visually appealing, while cognitively developing a babies understanding of objects and object permanence.

Babies learn through their senses so a great way to introduce a baby to play is through different textured materials. First, gather a bunch of material swatches trying to get different feeling materials, look for different materials, different textures, things that you just want to touch that are visually appealing as well. You can then "hide" them folded or rolled up into a box; I have used an ice-cream container with a hole in the lid and a stocking over it so that Miss Cherub can see through into the hole and stretch it to fit her hands in. You could easily use an empty tissue box.

Once all the materials are in the box leave a little corner poking out so they can see there is something to grab out. With no assistance Miss Cherub pulled the materials out one by one, she looked at them, flapped them around felt them and then tried to put them over her head and rub her cheeks on them, then they got thrown to the side as she put her hand in to see if there was more.

As she continued I put the materials in and out of the box so she could see them go in, or see a small end hanging out. This encouraged her to keep seeking out the materials whether she could see them or not.

Between the ages of 4-8 months babies develop what is known as the secondary circular reactions stage of object permanence; this begins by exploring objects, reaching and grasping objects and understanding that it is a real thing that can be handled, they learn distance and that objects right in front of them can in fact be touched, they learn that the object moves and start to reach for objects that were in a position or can partially be seen, then they learn the permanence of an object (that the object exists inside the box, whether they can see or hear it or not).

A great example of this is the game peek-a-boo and a great way to encourage this skill is activities like this.

I had some cool materials; fluffy pieces, leather, pvc, felt, shiny materials, sequined material, bright stripped materials, a New scourer dish cloth, lace, knitted wool daisies, a clean glass cloth, a small piece of outdoor course carpet, a small square of outdoor fake grass and her ribbon tickle toy.  Use your imagination & go on a texture hunt; If you have an older child get them to seek out funky materials & textures to fit in the container. 

Learning Concepts:
Learning by Touch
Exploring textures
Visual discrimination
Object permanence
Pulling, Pushing, Passing materials
Seeking out hiding materials

Ideas to extend:
Make a DIY Ribbon Tickle toy
Use a really large box with scarfs and other large materials
Tie or stitch materials together so they just keep coming out in one trail
Finish by making them into a texture book to keep

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Mint Choc-chip Ice Cream Play

Does this look real or what?

After seeing some Ice-cream Dough Pinspiration Here I started craving for my favorite flavored ice cream; Mint Choc Chip. 

I thought it would be pretty cool to make this play Ice cream dough, that looks so realistic your kids might try to taste it in a minty green mixtures with choc chips, looking through my play supplies I also found a large tub of ground coffee so I decided to make a coffee scented ice-cream dough as well.

Working with corn flour can be difficult and messy (just a warning) what you need is a bowl with 1 1/2 cup corn flour, then you add 3/4 cup of cheap Hair conditioner your colour and your extract. Here I used a green food dye and a peppermint essence. For the coffee flavour I simply added ground coffee with the conditioner. Depending on the shop your at you may find some suitable conditioner that smells like.... Berries for instance if you were doing a berry ice cream dough. Then Mix; Its a good idea to get some little hands in there mixings it up for a bit of extra sensory experience. It smells so good!

As stated by the creator Play, create, explore, the secret to make it look real is to scoop it roughly and break it off, if you roll it in a ball and use it like a play dough it goes Super smooth and silky. It looks really cool and feels soft but not like real ice cream. See the original ice cream dough post by play -create -explore here: http://www.playcreateexplore.org/2013/01/ice-cream-dough-new-play-recipe.html

For our Choc-Chips in the Mint flavor I added some black and brown beads. 

Then a selection of pom-poms, straws, cardboard cut into triangle wafers for decorating our ice creams.

Using scoops and ice cream bowls Dimples played with the dough and put together some funky looking Ice creams. They look so cool & they smelt really yummy. He put one into the fridge and when Adventures Dad came home from work he looked very puzzled as he opened the fridge and Dimples laughed Hysterically "I tricked you!"

I have tried this several times and failed, but we wont go there! Many bottles of conditioner have been sacrificed. The key to getting the mixture right is don't be like me, don't try and "wing it" you need to go off the recipe and have the cornflour in the bowl first. No water & measure your conditioner, if you have too much liquid it goes more like a goop than a dough. 

So now you have a super yummy scented Ice cream dough that looks very realistic, pop it in the fridge while you set up your pretend ice cream parlour, just long enough to chill it. Once the children are ready to play you will be providing them with an awesome sensory play experience; smells good, visually interesting, feels nice and cold. the only thing they cant do with this stuff is eat it.

Learning Concepts:
Measurement
Mixing
Creativity
Sensory exploration
Imagination
Pretend Play
Imitating Real Life

Ideas for Exploration:
Make your own wafers and ice cream cones from cardboard
Experiment with different flavors; chocolate (cocoa), berry (red color & berry conditioner)
Try our Ice-Cream Sprinkles Dough
You could make real ice cream, search pinterest or google for ice-cream in a bag
and Of course after all that ice cream play you could go ice cream taste testing at a real ice cream parlor.

Happy Adventures

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