Things We Love About Earth

Earth Day is coming up on the 22nd of April so today we talked about the things that we like about our planet. Bubble is very much into the solar system so this activity was just about the highlight of her day :-) I loved hearing the sometimes obscure but all very sweet things she came up with!

WE USED:

* play dough (green and blue)
* pop sticks
* permanent marker

First we rolled a big ball with our blue dough then Bubble went to town with the green dough to create her own version of Earth.

We wrote all the things she loves about Earth on our pop sticks, my favourites would have to be "pears and blueberries to eat" (neither of which she actually likes to eat) and "ponds with fish in them" :-)

We are going to leave our Earth on display for the rest of the month and add to it after each day. It's been a great way to talk about things we enjoy and also explore different elements of our planet.

Playdough Printing - Easter Sight Words

We played this fun game as a variant of our usual sight word activity this week, using Easter words instead.

WE USED:

* play dough
* speech cards
* marker/pen
* alphabet blocks
(if you don't have any alphabet blocks you could make some bottle lid stamps to use instead).

We brainstormed some Easter words and I wrote them on speech cards for Bubble to use as prompts.
Our alphabet blocks are upper case so I deliberately wrote her word cards in lower case so she could practice her upper/lower case letters at the same time.

Bubble rolled out a big sheet of play dough ready to stamp on.

She found each matching letter block to create her words and stamped them into the dough.

Some of the letters printed back to front of course, but the blocks were used to spell out our words as we went.

Bubble loved this activity and spent quite awhile working her way through each word card.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Playdough Eggs

When is an egg not an egg? When it's made of play dough!
This was an extension of our 'learning about eggs' activities and Bubble in particular really enjoyed it. I wanted a more interactive way of teaching the girls the parts of an egg without wasting a real one, and this project worked well.

WE USED:

* plastic eggs
* play dough (white and yellow)
* small laminated picture of a chick, or small plastic toy.
* child safe knife

To make our play dough eggs I took some white dough and made a well in the centre, then rolled some yellow dough to make a 'yolk' to go inside.

Then folded it over and gently rolled the whole thing into an egg shape. The play dough then went into a plastic egg.

I made quite a few for the girls to explore, all with yolks in the middle except for one with a chick inside. Before we cut open our play dough eggs we talked about how chicks develop and hatch.

Bubble loved cracking open her eggs,

and cutting them each in half to reveal the yellow yolk inside.

She was especially delighted to find the chick hidden inside one of the eggs!

Rainbow Party Playdate

Bubble had one of her friends over for a play date today and she was very excited about it. I asked her yesterday what she would like to do for the day and she answered with "a rainbow party" (rainbows are a bit of a big deal around here at the moment). At first I was going to say no, parties are for birthdays not for playdates, but then I thought ... well, why not? Not a presents and cake all out type party, but why not put up some decorations, pick a theme and do some special activities?
So a rainbow party day is what we had and all three of the girls had an absolute ball. I put up some tissue paper poms that were left over from a BBQ at the park, blew up some coloured balloons and put some rainbow themed activities in the middle of the table. We made coloured salt dough necklaces and colourful bead bracelets, dressed up as butterflies, drank fruit milkshakes and made some rainbow cookies. We then headed to the park and blew bubbles and made some brightly coloured dancing wands. It didn't hurt that the weather today was so beautiful too, just perfect for a happy little rainbow celebration.

These poms are so easy to make and the bright colours were perfect for our rainbow party today.
For instructions on making your own check out this link.

I made up some simple salt dough from this recipe and created some bright colours for the girls to use. We used playdough utensils and skewers for making the necklace holes in the top.

Bubble made a handprint with some of her dough.

One of the baked salt dough necklaces - I overcooked them a tad but they still looked pretty good luckily!

Milkshake time - the girls made their own using colourful fruit, yoghurt and milk.

Yum!

We played a game with some colourful pompoms - using masking tape we made a start and finsh line on the floor. The girls loved using straws to have races blowing them across the tiles.
Game inspired by this post on House Of Baby Piranha.

The girls enjoyed dressing up in wings and jewellery, as well as anything else they could dig out of the dress up boxes!

The balloons were a hit (when are they not :-D).

The girls made colourful bead bracelets while we waited for our cookies to bake.

I followed this recipe to make rainbow cookie dough and the girls created their own colourful masterpieces to bake. They were really yummy!

Chasing bubbles at the park.

I asked the girls to collect a stick each so that we could make some dancing wands. They took their time finding just the 'right one' :-)

We used some reels of ribbon and a pack of colourful clips from the dollar shop to make our wands with.

We simply attached the clips to the end of our sticks and tied the lengths of coloured ribbon to them. Easy and fun!

Bubble taking her rainbow dancing stick for a spin.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Christmas Playdough

For Day 4 of our Count Down we made some Christmas playdough today. Bubble helped me cook a big batch of white dough then we divided it into three balls. One we left white but added some silver glitter and scented it with vanilla oil (I was going to add shredded coconut for a sensory element but we were all out of it!), the second we coloured green and scented with peppermint and the third we coloured red. We then pushed some whole cloves into the red dough ball and left it covered for a few hours to get the wonderful scent through it before removing them.
The girls had a heap of fun playing with them today, although Squeak was not impressed with the smell of the green peppermint playdough at all :-D Luckily the glittery white dough was interesting enough to keep her involved for a little while!