Milk Bottle Jumping Frogs

Ok, so I'm pretty excited that this idea actually worked! I thought maybe I'd been staring at milk bottles too long but not only do these jumping frogs do exactly what I was hoping (namely jump), Bubble also thought they were hugely fun :-)
This idea could easily be adapted to make spiders, rabbits - anything you like really.

WE USED:

* empty milk bottle (plastic)
* scissors
* googly eyes
* green and red paper
* glue/blutack
* pencil

Cut the base from an empty milk bottle or other bottle made of flexible plastic (juice etc...) about halfway down the bottle. Cut the base as shown in the photos above and below, leaving four 'legs'.

Bend the end of each 'leg' section at the end so that the tab faces outwards.

You can decorate your frog however you like (paint, glitter, stickers, contact) but we just glued green circles cut from construction paper to the top.

To make a tongue for your frog cut a strip of red paper and wind it firmly around a pencil.

Using blutac attach your frogs eyes and tongue.

To make your frog jump you simply press and flick on the back end (as you would with toy jumping frogs).

The best mid air action shot I managed to get of our jumping frogs!

Bubble had a stack of fun doing this activity, we'll be making more and decorating them in different ways for outside play at the park.

I cut a lilypad from another sheet of construction paper and we took turns to see if we could jump our frog onto it from varying distances.
You could make numbered lilypads and use them as a counting game, jumping the right number of frogs onto each, or just one frog onto correct answers.

Bubble insisted that her frogs needed water, so a sheet of blue paper and we had ourselves a pond :-D

This idea has been shared on ABC and 123 Show & Tell Blog Hop.

Toddler Gluing Activity

Squeak isn't too interested in either painting or drawing, but loves experimenting with glue. We use a childsafe glue in case of those taste testing moments (Clag or homemade with flour and water) and she loves squishing and smearing the glue as much as she loves sticking things to it. She is 18 months old and it does get very messy, especially when the paper tears and gets saturated in one place.
To fix this problem I've started giving her a newspaper to glue her bits and pieces onto, there are so many layers that it doesn't matter how soggy it gets and she finds the pictures and patterns interesting as well. I also try and find lots of things of different textures for her to glue, her favourites so far being;

felt offcuts
textured or corrugated papers/cardboard
flattened patty pans
popsticks
matchsticks
cellophane (very messy though!)
lolly/chocolate wrappers

Please note : Clag + Newspaper can = stained hands and other things! I always put down a waterproof tablecloth and keep a washer close by :-)

F is for Friends

This afternoon we made another sound wall activity for the letter 'F'. While Bubble was at preschool I cut some felt shapes so that we could make some toilet roll people when she got home. I based the hair colours/styles on a couple of her little friends at school and she thought it was the best thing ever making miniature versions of her mates! :-D
The superhero toilet roll dude was just for fun, I got a bit carried away with my felt cutting...

WE USED:

* felt (fabric, coloured paper, ribbons etc...)
* toilet rolls
* textas/markers
* 'googly' eyes
* glue/blutack
* scissors

I precut some felt hair and clothes.

Bubble got busy gluing it all together. She found positioning the felt tricky at first but got better and better as we went along. We ended up using blutack to attach the eyes instead of glue as it didnt stick all that well (and Bubble enjoyed moving their eyes around :-D).

Bubble's mini friends :-)

A mini superhero - isnt he cute!

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

F is for Fairies

These little fairy paper dolls were easy to make and perfect for our letter wall theme 'F'. I used a great template page I came across on the net (link found here), and think the alien is also pretty awesome and would love to give it a go sometime soon! Bubble chose to decorate them with texta, glue, glitter (oh so much glitter!) and felt pieces she cut with scissors.

WE USED:

* template
* scissors
* markers
* glue
* decorations for your fairies

I cut some paper dolls using the fairy template on some lilac purple scrapbook pages. I realised after Id cut the first one out that I should have drawn the template on the reverse instead of the front though! Luckily Bubble didnt seem to mind :-D
For anyone who has never made joined paper dolls, Im so sorry I forgot to take photos of the process, but this link is a great written tutorial:
eHow Making Paper Dolls

Bubble had a lot of fun using copious amounts of glitter on her fairies (getting the excess glitter out the rug was a tiny bit less fun)

She also used her scissors to cut bits of felt from strips we had.

One fairy has more felt decorations than the others because she is 'the Mum Fairy' aparently :-D

Wax Paper Flower Hangings

A little while ago we made a phonebook flower press and today we opened it up to see the results. The flowers had dried really well and Bubble was intrigued at how flat they were, "like paper". We used wax paper to turn them into a pretty window hanging, and Im thinking we will do this activity again using paper shapes and cellophane to make some christmas wrap.

WE USED:

* flat dried flowers
* wax lunch wrap paper
* iron
* old newspaper
* coloured cardboard
* tape
* scissors

We opened our phonebooks to find our flowers looking great!

Cut two sheets of wax paper to the same size. Lay one sheet wax side up (feel the paper, one side is smooth and the other feels waxy) and arrange your flowers on top (or whatever you are using for decoration; cellophane, confetti, paper shapes etc...).

Bubble took her time arranging and rearranging her flowers.

Lay the second sheet of wax paper over the top, wax side down.
So the two sheets of wax paper should be facing each other wax side IN, with the flowers in between.

Use a warmed iron to seal the two sheets together. I used my iron set quite hot and it did the job quickly and easily. If you are worried about wax transfer to your iron lay a sheet of baking paper over the top before ironing.

We decided to make a frame, you dont have to of course! To make our frame I cut the centre out of a sheet of corrugated cardboard.

Tape your wax paper picture to the window so the light can stream through it.
The photos don't show how pretty it looked up on the window unfortunately!

Bubble added her frame where she wanted it. We decided not to trim the edges so we could keep all of the flowers. I think this would also look great in an embroidery hoop or something similar.

It makes a very colourful pretty display.

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

Same and Different

We played a simple game today to teach categories as well as the concept of same and different.

WE USED:

An assortment of objects representing a range of categories. I picked out five things for each one to be mixed and matched (eg: wooden foods, toy cars and trains for transport, circular and square objects etc...)

Example: Transport (odd one out was the person)

Example: Food (odd one out was the animal)

Example: Fruit (odd one out was the cheese)

Example: Circles (odd one out was the square block)

Example: Squares (odd one out was the round bangle)

The Versatile Blogger Award

Sorry it's taken me so long to get around to this, I hope I do it correctly!

Task 1. Thank the person who gave you the award: Thankyou Michelle from Best Toys For Toddlers and Philippa from House Of Baby Piranha, I was so surprised and very chuffed considering I love both of your blogs so much!

Task 2. Share 7 things about yourself: oh my, I hope I don't bore everyone here! I'm not terribly exciting, aside from the fact that I tapdance underwater in a monkey suit every Tuesday. See I totally made that up and it still wasn't interesting!

1) Previous to having my own babies I have worked with children in many different capacities for over ten years.

2) Im an Ebay addict. There. I said it :-D

3) I am terrified of sharks. Irrationally terrified. When I was younger I secretly read the book 'Jaws' because my parents wouldn't let me watch the movie and have been wary of even the smallest puddles of water ever since.

4) I had a wonderful childhood, if I can replicate it to even half a degree for my own children I will be happy.

5) I spend more money on craft supplies than I do on clothing for myself. And it shows :-D

6) I drink far too much milk. When I was pregnant with my girls it was not unusual for me to go through 2L in a day.

7) I have a very short attention span. I'm often doing several things at once and sometimes forget to finish th.......

Task 3. Pass the award onto 12 Bloggers you have recently discovered:

Love And Lollipops - I just love the ideas and gorgeous photos!
Sweetest Jane - writes so beautifully it's like you were following them around that day.
Play 2 Grow - lots of great learning games.
A Peek Over The Fence - I love the variety in this Blog.
Hear Mum Roar - covers so many areas of parenting.
Kebeni - I love the way she writes and the different range of topics.
Oesch & Doot - what a beautiful Blog.
Chapter Forty - another Blog with great writing and photos.
The Organised Housewife - for obvious reasons, who doesnt want to be more organised! Great Blog full of great ideas.
Another Lunch - I love bento boxes and have gotten lots of ideas from this site for the girls mealtimes.
HomeAge - so many topics covered and Im very jealous that they are growing their own blueberries! :-D Yum!
Sew New To This - I love the sewing projects on this Blog, so much talent!

Task 4. Contact the Bloggers you chose and let them know. Off to do that now, before I forget (refer to task 2, point 7 ;-D).