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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Glowing water bead increased attention & coordination

Playing in the dark is so much fun with a UV light & some glowing water beads.

A few people have mention before that these type of activities would be great for kids who have a fear of the dark, it may help them be at ease in the dark and come to enjoy it.

 

You can make water beads UV reactive by getting some clear, yellow or light coloured water beads in their dehydrated form & soaking them over night in glow water (highlighter ink infused water). It's pretty simple. Get some highlighters, a uv light & you can do lots of fun things. Check out my Glow tab above for some more ideas.

 

The best part about glowing UV play is that no matter how messy it gets, and no matter how many glowing artifacts get scrambled across the floor the UV light picks them up. They're so easy to see, so you wont be finding hidden water beads crushed into the carpet for the following week lol.

 

This was a simple activity that I set out in the hope that Dimples could practise a steady hand, patience, perseverance, focus & bilateral coordination. I had some clear cups of different sizes, different shape tweezers and small spoons in a tray with glowing water beads, a UV light and a ice tray. It did look very inviting, as expected.

This was a fun, bright activity where Dimples got some good practise in bilateral coordination. By setting out the cups on one side, the tweezers/cups on the other and by giving him the spoon to one particular hand he got some good practise in using both hands steadily and reaching across the body slowly, coordinating his reach and movements to carefully spoon the water beads into the cups or across the ice tray.

Scooping with spoons is something simple but also very complex with glow in the dark water beads as they slip and slide unless you have a steady hand and they're quite difficult to scoop up unless you manoeuvre the spoon around or trap them against a edge or corner.

 

Not only do you need to focus your visual coordination in the dark but the water beads are slimy little suckers and they bounce and skim away at any movement so you need to work hard at task to succeed. Handling them must be with a slow stead scoop and its serious business, otherwise they bounce and scatter in all different directions.

 

You get the drift.

Lots of fun that helps develop concentration, focus, coordination and fine motor skills.

The ice tray worked really well, the more he filled up an ice cube - the more it glowed. Dimples experimented with scooping, pouring and tweezing (which was extremely difficult) water beads into the sections if the ice tray one at a time. The tweezers weren't really a success, it was way too difficult to secure a water bead, most likely they hit a sharp edge and crushed but if you had some of those plastic kids play tweezers that are semi-rounded on the end it would work well and provide a great fine motor task to master.

Dimples then poured them all out and try again!

Pouring from different size clear cups and back, experimenting with the volume and size of cups. 

Experimenting with the angle of the ice tray while pouring water beads from it and watching each section.  Filling cups up with the small spoon and the large with the opposite hand, leaning across the body and keeping a slow steady focus. It all looks so fun but Dimples was working on some very important tasks as he played.

Learning Concepts:
Bilateral Coordination
Focused attention
Patience and slow, steady movements
Transferring
Fine motor skills
Volume & Size
Sensory Play

Ideas for Extension:
Make water beads into Glowing Dragon Eggs
Make a small world with them for some pretend/Imaginative play
Add some glowing spaghetti for more of a messy sensory experience.
Add some measuring cups & funnels for a math approach
or some PVC pipes to experiment with transference
If your brave do it in a tub of glow water

Happy Adventures

Halloween Sensory Tubs

Sensory tubs are the perfect activity for Halloween!
Lots of cool textures, gross feeling slimy things and bright colours. 
This is a Halloween Themed One we had at our Halloween Party.

The Basics:
A sensory tub includes objects that encourage children to explore using their senses.  It is an easy way to teach children about how they experience the world and to enhance their visual, tactile, and Auditory awareness.
Sensory tubs encourage exploration, experimentation and messy play. You can include things that have different textures; smooth, rough, slimy, crunchy, slippery, cold/warm, lumpy with everyday things such as rice, unpoped corn, cooked spaghetti, dry split lentils, beans, shaving cream, water beads, jelly or gelatine.
Here are some great ones that were linked up to our recent BOO! Halloween Link Party
1. Halloween Sensory Bin by blogmemom
2. Halloween Sensory box by Dirt & Boogers
3. Witches Brew Pretend cooking by me, Adventures at home with Mum
4. and here is a great general one for kids of all ages including younger kids who still mouth objects rice-bubble-sensory-tub by Paint on the Ceiling

All you need to do is add some materials that are tactile, they might feel different, have different textures or temperatures, they could have different smells, and put some objects in the bin that children can sift through and find, or bury with some tools to explore with; measuring cups, tongs, spoons, small spades, play safe microscope or just encourage the use of their fingers.
Not only is this type of messy play great in enhances the sensory learning for little ones but it gives a good opportunity for vocalisation, turn taking and of course imagination.

The Brain Box:
I made a Gross looking Spaghetti Brain. It was successful as well! On first attempt I made a cooked pasta brain and attempted to set it in glue in the hope to use it as a table decoration but that was a big fat FAIL of an idea. I came up with another great idea, this one was more practical.
I cooked some spaghetti, soaked it in green and yellow food dye (the yellow adds a bit of brightness to the green). Once the colour had stuck, I drained the spaghetti and then placed it in a bowl. But first I put a circular piece of baking paper in the bottom of my bowl so that the brain would slide out easily. Don't forget this crucial part otherwise you could be digging your brain out before the kids get to see it.

 

I mixed up some Red Gelatin. You could use jelly but Gelatine in much more rubbery, it sets firmer and withstands room temperature for longer than jelly. In play, I use gelatine over jelly for that reason, it lasts longer and is more pliable with a smooth rubbery feel.
After I packed and pressed the Spaghetti into the bowl I mixed up the gelatine and poured it in, I would have used a litre but you should use enough so that you can see it at the top of your spaghetti (so that all the spaghetti will be set in the gelatin and held together).  I set it in the fridge for a few days until the party.
And this was the result;

It worked pretty well, i used a butter knife just to separate the gelatine off the walls of the bowl and with a firm hand wiggled the brain around in the bowl until I felt it had all separated in one piece. Tipped it out upside down in the sensory tub and Voila. Brains to play with.
In this tub I surrounded it with water beads and plastic eye balls.
If your child Loves water beads like we do, check out my previous posts using Water beads...

The kids enjoyed it, poking at it initially. It wasn't long before there were some plastic rats hanging out of the brain and then there was some imaginary cooking and some digging.
This was the wet box, the water beads remain slippery and cold while the brain was slimy and smooth and warmed as it got broken apart. The water beads could be crushed and squished or bounced around or collected in a bucket. This was the hands on messy tub.

The Pumpkin Seed Box:

This one contained Orange Split lentils, dyed Purple Rice and Yellow unpopped corn. This sensory box was the dry one with lots of different textures. There were some measuring cups and some small pumpkin head buckets so that the children could scatter the 'pumpkin seeds', using hand eye coordination, tracking skills, visual attention and encouraging motor skills through scooping, pouring, measuring, burying, sifting and rattling the seeds around.

There were small Halloween plastic party favours in it as well that could be found under the grains or buried. For visual stimulation I kept the materials pale orange, yellow and light purple so that the bright green, Orange and black creepy crawlies and Halloween things stood out.

The Verdict:
By the end of the afternoon the 2 Sensory bins got mixed around, and there were some great pretend cooking games using the Halloween buckets. One of the 5 year old boys who attended the party mixed up a good brew with some brains, some water beads, bugs, rats, bats, eye balls, creepy crawlies and pumpkin seeds. A bit of everything! 
Dimples pretended to taste the devilish dinner saying "yum yum" and licking his lips.
Messy play is definitly always a hit with young children. The kids ranged in age from 1 to 9 yrs old, and each one inspected  and messed around in the tables at least once, but it was the 3 yr olds who stuck with it and enjoyed it the most :)

The Sensory trays at the end of the evening. All messed up :)

Happy Adventures

Glowing dragon Eggs by the Hulk

The story of the Glowing Magical Baby Dragon Eggs made by my Baby Hulk.

As you may have noticed I have been doing a bit of experimenting with glowing play for Dimples to explore. We started with glow baths and bath paint made from shaving cream and highlighter ink. We have made Glowing playdoh, substituting the water with glow water, and I made some glow spaghetti yesterday. This time we made some glowing water beads.

Through this experimenting I have found that yellow and green Neon highlighters work the best.

We made the water beads by using hydrated ones and soaking them for 18 hours in glow water (highlighter ink & water). It has been done before in the blogging world, but for us it was new & it was a success. We did Clear beads in yellow ink, green beads in green ink and some Orange in orange highlighter ink (the ones that aren't as vibrant are the orange ones).

We put them in a tray and used a bit of the glow water mixed in a zip lock bag with some shaving cream.  Dimples then poured this in over the beads and mixed it into a big glowing mass of fun.

Using some clear containers with lids he filled them up and shook them round so the entire container was a glowing tube. He experimented with site perception, shaking it quickly and watching the blurred trail in the dark. (We had an almost pitch black room).

He discovered after a while that he was also glowing, his hands and finger nails were glowing under the black light. He told me this meant he had turned into a monster!  The green Hulk Monster.

Hulk Alert, Dimples has turned into a glowing Hulk :) 

Or is he radioactive?

The radioactive glowing Dimples did some pretend cooking. He Made me some magic berries but then suddenly they were magic baby dragon eggs.  So he went with this for a while, helping to "hatch" baby dragons out of the magic glowing eggs, telling me what colour each one was. I love his imagination!

He had lots of fun filling up jars and cups then shaking them around and holding them towards the light, then hiding them so they weren't glowing but mostly he enjoyed crushing them into oblivion and making a huge slushy mess.

If you have missed our glowing Adventures, click on the Glowing Fun Tab under my header for more ideas.

If you have never tried using black light play, start here glowing-bath-play where you will find a link for how to make & use it :)

First you will need a Black light globe that you can get from your local hardward or lighting store. You can purchase fandango ones online that are enclosed but they are costly, we got our Black light globe for $13 and use it in a lamp with the ahde taken off. While in the Bath, I replace the globe on the ceiling light and it works just as good :)

Happy Adventures

Pretend cooking: wild berry muffins

Pretend Cooking : Wild berry Muffins in the outdoor oven

For some quick fun messy play in the afternoon sun Dimples cooked up a storm in his outdoor kitchen. 

He mixed together Water beads & Shaving foam until bumpy.

Added some red & some blue colour (food colour/water in spray bottles).

 Poured in some blue dessicated coconut.

Then he decided "this needs to be mixed by ARM" & squeezed the mixtures around.

I am not to keen on using real cooking ingredients just for the sake of it, but these were things Id had for a while that would be close to getting tossed anyway :)  The water beads have been used over & over again, the shaving foam... well you can grab it for $1 a can and you only need a few squirts for some fun messy play!

Add nuts & spoon into the muffin tray

Don't forget more colour for extra juiciness!!

Cook in the outdoor oven.  DONE!!! 

Then feed it to the dog  (who happens to be blue on this occasion)

Lots of fun.

Want more pretend cooking ideas?

Add some saucepans and cutlery, some measuring cups and spoons.

a cake tin or muffin tray, mixing bowl. Plates to serve on!

Extra ingredients can be added by raiding your cupboard and looking for end of, near date or never to be used again things. nuts, flour, oats, seeds, cooked pasta or rice. Add shaving foam, hair gel, coloured spray always works well on shaving foam.

Penguin sensory box: styrofoam Ice & waterbeads.

Styrofoam Ice & Blue water beads with penguins.

Using Broken pieces of Styrofoam box as ice capsules for the penguins to sit on & bright blue water beads as the water Dimples played in the penguin sensory box for hours.

Like as if it were in water the Styrofoam didn't sink in the water beads. It was a fun experiment and we talked about where the penguins lived and how they lived on ice capsules and were able to escape from predators who live in the water like killer whales and lion seals by jumping up onto the floating ice.  Happy feet the kids movie came into our conversation a few times because the penguins are off this movie and Dimples adores the movie.

If you push the Styrofoam down under the water beads it slowly floats back up to the top. So Dimples experimented by putting the little penguin figurines on it and seeing if they could balance and stay on there as they floated on an angle up to the top, & popped back to the surface (just like ice does) they did stay on it most of the time.   He tried covering the Styrofoam with water beads but they just rolled off. The penguins had a good swim around diving under and over the rock and ice.

Eventually he broke the Styrofoam up into small pieces for each of the penguins but they still wouldn't sink or stay under the "water".  I also put in some foam packing that you get in delivery boxes and the water beads made it do strange things. this was something interesting for Dimples as well, the pieces stuck together and got some what sticky so through play they ended up slightly touching each other and eventually clumped together.

Dimples loves water beads, he never gets bored of them.