Block bridges and garages

The Duplo got a workout at our house today; we built garages, bridges, houses and roads using blocks, and the best part is that they are baby friendly so Bubble and Squeak could enjoy them together. The favourite project was bridge building, Bubble loved driving her cars back and forth, under and over them. We stood a few of them all in a row and made a tunnel, which was an even bigger hit especially when we used our torches to shine light down it as 'headlights'.

Bedroom teaparties

When Squeak has her naptime in the morning Bubble and I love to have a teaparty for morning snack time. Sometimes we have a treat but most of the time we just have fruit or crackers and cheese. The food isnt important though, the most exciting part for Bubble is setting the table, using pretty cups and practicing pouring the drinks herself. She loves serving me my 'tea' and snack, and it's a nice way for us to have some quiet time together before we all get back into the day. We have our tea parties where ever we can fit the little table; outside in the cubby, in Bubble's bedroom, in front of the dress ups mirror and sometimes we just sit on the girls small trampoline. Often we will also dress up or have a theme. I cant wait until Squeak is old enough to join us too :-)

Toilet roll painting

As part of our painting today we used old toilet rolls from the recycling box to make circle prints. Not only was it good for fine motor exercise and for practicing shapes, but later we used the circles to draw different faces (happy, sad, angry etc...).

WE USED:

* sponge or cotton wool for paint (or use a paint pad)
* empty toilet or paper towel rolls
* paper for printing on

Other ideas: The toilet rolls could also be squashed into different shapes to make different prints on your paper, or wool/string could be wrapped end to end to make interesting patterns.

Our makeshift paint pad - a clean damp dishcloth on a plate.

Making circles.

10, 9, 8, 7 ...

We spent the day at the park playing with Bubble and Squeak's new favourite toy - this rocket launcher from ELC (Early Learning Centre). Squeak cant operate it yet of course, but she loved watching it fly up and then crawling off to retrieve it so Bubble could launch it all over again. Too much fun :-)

Popsicle puppets

I love books and I love sharing them with my kids, but every now and then a book gets to the point where it can no longer be saved from the recycling box. We had one such book recently, it had fallen apart at the spine and no amount of taping could rescue it this time. I wasn't sure what to do with it but didnt want to just throw it into the recycling bin, so we cut out all of the pictures and turned them into puppets instead. We even used some packing from a toy box and made a little puppet theatre back drop. Bubble was intrigued and played with them for hours in different settings, it was nice to see something worn out become so useable again!

WE USED:
* old story book, magazines or draw your own pictures
* giant popsicle sticks
* tape
* scissors

The cut out pictures from our story book.

Our puppets - we just taped the popsticks to the reverse side so that they were secure. Bubble was proud to be able to do this part herself :-)

We used some packing from an old box, painted it blue and green for the sky and grass and glued on some of the background pictures to make a backdrop for our puppets.

Our puppets go to the 'beach' :-)

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles

My girls love blowing bubbles (ok, ok, so do I) but they always want to hold the bottle themselves which inevitably leads to a big puddle, an empty bottle and the end of their fun. Instead I have a stash of old plates in the craft cupboard that I pour the bubble mix into so they can dip their wands into that. A bit of blutac underneath in case it gets knocked and they can bubble blow to their hearts content :-)

Car houses

Bubble chose her cars to play with while Squeak napped today, so we emptied the recycling bag and created some 'car houses'. The empty icecream box and egg carton were the favourites by a long shot, especially because they could be closed so that the cars could 'go to sleep'.
And no, Bubble isnt usually a butterfly, we also did some face painting hehe ;-D