Mortar & Pestle Ice Play

When she was younger, Bubble was obsessed with ice cubes. Obsessed to the point where we had to put a padlock on our freezer door after finding it left open repeatedly from late night ice tray raids. We have managed to curb the obsession but her fascination is still there so ice play activities feature highly in our house.

One of the things she enjoys most is breaking ice into 'bits' so I thought she might enjoy trying out the mortar and pestle. Not only did the girls enjoy the process but it was a great motor exercise.

I knew Bubble would want to eat/lick the ice so I didn't add anything to it but this activity would be a great way to retrieve objects frozen inside (click HERE for our Ice Egg post).

WE USED:

* ice 

(we used small containers to freeze our water in)

* mortar & pestle

* small bowls

* absorbent towel/drop sheet

I chose some small containers from the recycling box that were roughly the same size as the mortar bowl to freeze our water in overnight.

The girls extracted the ice themselves and started experimenting with the pestle.

Their approaches were very different, Bubble pounded her ice and broke it into tiny pieces while Squeak was more cautious and kept turning her ice block over to bang on both sides.

As little pieces were chipped off the girls took them out of the mortar and placed them into bowls. They examined the ice bits with their magnifying glasses, laid them out on the towel to watch them melt and (of course!) ate some :)

Fort Drawing

One thing you are almost certain to find at our house is a fort. 

We permanently keep a pop up basket in the lounge room with an old sheet and clamp pegs and the girls use them to make little tents, caves and castles in any room of the house.

Today they had set up a tent in Bubble's room using some chairs and the side of her bed so they could crawl all the way underneath. The old sheet they use was once a painting drop sheet so it has quite a few colourful patches on it. Today we made it a bit more colourful using textas and imagination :) 

The girls had a ball doing this project and I really enjoyed hearing their decorating plans evolve. They decided it would be a 'Fairy Tent' and we ended up with everything from leaves and rainbows, to waterfalls and flying fairies.

WE USED:

* old sheet
* washable textas/markers

The girls tent set up in Bubble's room. I love the way they used the side of the bed so they could incorporate the underneath area into their play space.

Lots of markers. You could use any kind, we used washable so we could create other scenes at a later date.

Squeak hard at work creating a garden.

One of Squeak's fairies :)

Bubble drawing a big waterfall and some water fairies.
The girls made up a story as they drew all about what their fairies were doing and where they were going in the Fairy Tent. 

Off to explore.

Spaghetti Catch - Ribbons and Chopsticks

This fine motor game was actually Bubble's invention, I love it when the girls create their own fun activities, it gives me warm fuzzies.

I walked into our craft area yesterday to find her with a pile of cut up ribbons using a pair of chopsticks to transfer them into different bowls. When I asked her what she was doing she told me it was her new game called 'Spaghetti Catch'.
We added a bit more learning today using paper plates and the girls have been playing away all afternoon.

WE USED:

* coloured ribbons

* scissors

* paper plates

* marker/texta/pen

* chopsticks (or tongs)

* foam beads 

 

Bubble had cut up several different coloured lengths of ribbon into smaller pieces, so we put them all into a bowl together to make the 'spaghetti'.

We then put out paper plates to make a colour sorting game, but instead of putting actual colours on them we made it a bit trickier for Bubble by writing the words instead so she had to read them.

The girls then used their chopsticks to pick up the ribbons and put them onto their plates.

Little Squeak found picking up the ribbons too difficult and told me "it's too tricky for me Mama".
We added some small foam beads from the threading box as 'meatballs' for our spaghetti which were still a challenge for her but after some practice she got the hang of it.

 

They played this game a few times over and then it graduated into restaurant imaginary play which kept them happy for hours!

Pin The Spider On The Web

This was a fun little Halloween game to play with the girls that snuck in a little bit of learning as well. I think it will be staying on the wall long after today is over though because they are both enjoying it a lot!

WE USED:

* black streamers

* blutac (or 'sticky tack')

* spider pictures
(we just used Google images)

* blindfold

Using streamers and blutac we created a spider web on the wall.
The idea of this game is essentially the same as 'Pin The Tail On The Donkey' but using a web and spiders instead.

Instead of a generic spider shape I decided to use pictures of common Australian spiders that the girls see often.
I put the spiders names on the reverse side of the picture before laminating them so that we could learn those as well.  

We looked at each spider and talked about where we thought it got it's name, how venomous it was (or wasn't), where it liked to live and if we had seen them before.

The girls loved being blind folded and spun around before attaching their spider to the web.

We were trying to see who could get closest to the center of the web.

They both did very well!

Colour Mixing - Paper Plate Pumpkins

The girls added to our Halloween decorations today by making some paper plate pumpkins. Not only was it a lot of fun but they got to do some colour mixing and fine motor play as well. I think we will have to do a Christmas version of this activity, it was very popular!

WE USED:

* paper plates
* red and yellow paint
* brushes
* face shapes cut from a template
(available at the bottom of this post)

I made up some simple 'face shapes' for our jack-o-lantern plates and then printed out a sheet for each of the girls (our shape sheet is at the bottom of this post if you would like to use it too).

Before they started painting we had some fun arranging the pieces to decide where they would go.

The girls loved squeezing the paint onto their plates. 

At first they both added too much red compared to yellow and had to slowly add more yellow to get orange, it was great to watch them working it all out and seeing the different shades we ended up with on each pumpkin.

Bubble mixing her paint to get just the right shade of orange.

While the paint was still wet they added the faces to make their jack-o-lanterns.

We ended up with a whole pumpkin patch on the wall.

I love how they turned out and will be keeping them for next year!

Right click and open in a separate tab (at full size) and then print.

 

Witches Cauldron Sensory Play

The girls have been reading a lot of Halloween books from the local library and our own collection in the lead up to the big event. Their favourite ones are all about witches and in particular they have been enjoying The Witches' Supermarket by Susan Meddaugh.
Today I set up a mini 'witches supermarket' for the girls sensory play activity and it was a bit of a hit. Some of our 'ingredients' might be a bit too icky for some, there are lots of different yucky and not so yucky things you could include.

WE USED:

* cauldrons 

(ours were $1 from Hot Dollar but you could use anything; a bowl, bucket, empty plastic container)
* mixing spoons
* witchy ingredients
we had: 
slime (instructions here)

eye of newt (chickpeas)

worms (cooked spaghetti and black food colouring)

snails (cooked pasta shells and green food colouring)

maggots (rice)

The girls were very excited to play at being 'witches'.

A few cauldron essentials.

This activity provided a great imaginary and sensory play experience, lots of different textures to mix and squish.

Whenever we do messy play activities we set up a 'wash up station' nearby with warm water and a towel that the girls can use when the messiness gets a bit much.

Green Jelly Slime

As part of our Halloween activities I wanted to make the girls some 'slime' to use for sensory play. They aren't very fond of the cornstarch type so instead we tried making some using jelly, water and a blender. It turned out really well, the consistency was perfect and very very slimy!

WE USED:

* jelly (mixed and set)
(I made up a bowl using two packets, one green and one clear)

* water

* blender or stick mixer

(use with caution around kids!)

We made the jelly the night before and then in the morning just scooped it straight into the blender.

We gave it a quick blitz with the blender and then added water before mixing it further. We kept adding more and more water until we had the consistency we wanted.

We found that the jelly slime would solidify a little bit after sitting so it took us a few goes to get it just right. We used two packets of jelly and added around 1 1/2 cps of water all up.

Green jelly slime ready for some witchy play time.