Water Play

We love water play, the sensory and skill learning possibilities are endless. Today we added lots of different things to our water tub and the girls had a blast :-)

WE USED:

* animal toys
* face washers
* cups and teapot
* funnels
* sticks and rocks
* ladel/large spoons

We had fun washing animals.

And pouring cups of tea.

The girls especially loved the sticks and rocks - they felt the texture of each before putting them in the water, and then we looked at how different they looked and felt after going into the tub. Bubble was fascinated by the way the sticks floated while the rocks went straight to the bottom.

Squeak got right into stirring :-)

Scooping with the ladel and spoons was a hit as well.

Counting stones.

Stacking cups.

Water painting with a paintbrush and bucket. The cubby, floor and walls all got a make over.

Word Match

This is a basic matching game with a bit of a twist, we used sight words but you can easily adapt it to teach any concept (letters, numbers, shapes).

WE USED:

* whiteboard marker
* puzzle board
* paper
* texta/pen

Choose a puzzle board with the same number of pieces as you have flashcards that you want to use. Using paper and markers make up two sets of matching flashcards.

Spread one of the sets of flashcards out across the floor and place a puzzle piece below each card. I used whiteboard marker to write directly onto our tiles instead of using a second set of flashcards (it wipes straight off), if you're going to do this please test a small area first though and make sure your tiles are sealed :-)

Give your child the second set of flashcards one at a time. Bubble loved spelling out each of her sight words letter by letter :-)

Bubble matching her sight word card to the words spread across the floor. Once your child has found the correct match they get to take the puzzle piece to put in the puzzle board.
You could use a lot of different rewards with this game depending on what your child is interested in; set up train tracks and put one train with each flashcard for them to add to the tracks one by one, make a posting box by cutting a slit in the top of a shoebox so your child can 'post' the cards once they are matched, or maybe cut up a sheet of stickers and use those as rewards with each flashcard.

Bubble filling up her puzzle board piece by piece.

Our sightwords all matched up :-)

Scrubbing Brush Spray Painting

WE USED:

* paper
* washable objects (we used plastic bits from a shape sorter and plastic kitchenware, but cardboard or paper shapes and plastic letters/numbers would work great as well)
* watered down paint
* scrubbing brushes/toothbrushes
* wire cake cooling rack
* two phone books
* drop sheet
* newspaper

WARNING : this activity is MESSY with a capital 'M', wear old clothes or aprons if you have some :-)

We tried a variety of brushes just to see what kind of results we'd get.

I find the easiest way to make watered down paint (unless using powder paint) is to use warm water for mixing.

Lay down your drop sheet and newspaper, then position your two phone books in the centre. The distance between the two books should be the same as the length of your cake cooling rack.

Put the paper between the phone books and position your objects. Make sure they are laid as flat as possible.

Place the cake cooling rack across the two phone books so it is suspended above the paper.

Wet your brush with the watered down paint and scrub across the cooling rack to make a spray paint effect. We found the paintbrush was terrible and just dropped all over the paper, but the scrubbing brush worked wonderfully.

Bubble making a spray paint picture. Please note you will need to hold the cooling rack so it doesn't get dislodged with all that scrubbing action! :-D

Remove the objects and you have a pretty cool effect. The photos dont show it very well, but it looked great, especially once it had dried. Alternatively you could use pictures cut from magazines, cardboard shapes, or letters to spell out words. It would be a great fun way to practice spelling your child's name.

I had a bowl covered with a plastic bag off to the side for us to drop our paint covered objects in after we were done with them - made clean up a lot easier!

Citus Printing - Making Stickers

We got creative with our left overs from afternoon tea (ok, so the lime was actually left over from our mojitos the night before :-D) and made some stamp art stickers using clear contact.

WE USED:

* left over fruit/vegetables
* paint
* paintbrush (alternatively you could use a paint stamping pad instead of a brush and paint)
* paper
* markers
* scissors
* clear contact

The orange wedges were very easy to hold and gave a good print. Ours were quite dried out from being in the sun for a few hours, but you might want to use paper towel to get rid of any excess moisture.

We had fun coming up with different ideas for pictures using the different shapes. We then cut them out and cut squares of contact in the same dimensions.

We removed the backing from the squares of contact and positioned the pictures in the centre of each. Bubble had great fun sticking them up on her wardrobe, and she was able to take them down and reposition them over and over again.

Texta Tube

Well, we used textas, but you could use anything really - pens, pencils, chalk, crayons. This was actually Mr Bubble&Squeak's brilliant idea when he had craft time with Bubble a few days ago, she enjoyed it so much we did it again today :-)

WE USED:

* toilet roll or paper towel roll
* small elastic bands
* scissors
* textas/crayons/pencils/chalk

Place your rubber bands around the tube, wrapping until they are quite tight. Slip your textas underneath the bands as evenly spaced as you can get them.

Using scissors cut small tabs top and bottom between each texta. These tabs will hold the textas in their positions so they dont go all wonky.

Top view of the tabs cut and folded down.

Bubble drawing rainbows and 'roads' :-D

She also discovered that the texta tube makes excellent dot pictures.

Phonebook Flower Press

WE USED:

* soft centred flowers
* tissues
* newspaper
* cardboard - pieces cut from an old box are perfect
* as many phone books as you can find. If you don't have phonebooks then any big heavy books will do.

Keep your flowers fresh in water or the fridge if not using right away to prevent them from wilting. Cut two pieces of cardboard to a size slightly smaller than your phone books, and do the same with the sheets of newspaper. You could also use several sheets of phonebook pages instead.

Order of layers:
Lay a piece of cardboard, then
Newspaper sheet
Tissue (use several to cover the area if they are small, or alternatively use tissue paper)
Flowers (laid so that they are not touching)
Tissue
Newspaper
Cardboard

Bubble arranging her flowers.

Tissue, newspaper and card on top.

Then pile on the phonebooks :-)

The flowers take about 2-4 weeks to dry depending on your climate and the types of flowers used. We are storing ours in a wardrobe and will check the progress in a week or two :-)