Block Play - Dora The Explorer

Both Bubble and Squeak are insane about Dora The Explorer at the moment. Bubble has an imaginary friend 'Swiper' who follows us around all day and Squeak delights in yelling 'map!' when we walk out the door to go anywhere.
Today while Squeak had her nap Bubble asked to 'play Dora' so we had to get a bit inventive and ended up using blocks. We don't have any Dora dolls or anything, so two babushka dolls were stand ins for Dora and Diego, a little mat from the girl's dollhouse was Map, a fairy wand was one of the helper star thingys and Swiper The Fox was a yellow block.
We created a little Dora type adventure with different destinations, starting with our Swiper block stealing Dora and Diego's bucket and throwing it all the way over to Gooey Geyser (oh dear!). They had to cross Raging River and work out which log to use to make a bridge, find their way through the maze at Flower Garden and then dodge the bubbles at Gooey Geyser to find their precious bucket - about 100 times over and over again :-D
I'm new to Dora The Explorer and since I put it on when Im cooking dinner in the afternoons Ive never actually watched a show, so please forgive me if the names of things/places/characters are a bit off!

This is Dora and Diego just hanging out on Tallest Mountain with a bucket (as they do), and Swiper the Fox sneaking up behind them.

A tiny mat from the dollshouse made a great 'Map' and the yellow block was our Swiper (we thought it looked like him bending over to sneak along).

We used a magic wand as the star helpers (no idea if that's what they are called!).

The first obstacle was Raging River. Dora and Diego had to choose between three different logs to make their bridge.

Dora and Diego building their bridge across Raging River.

This was our maze through Flower Garden. The colourful square blocks are the flowers and we laid other blocks between them to make a maze.

Dora and Diego at the Gooey Geyser.

Oh no, Gooey Geyser erupted!

But at least Dora and Diego got their bucket back in the end :-D

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

Blueberry Loaf

Ok, so this recipe is actually for muffins, but I made it into a loaf (because my muffin tin died and I havent got another one yet) and it was really nice! So this is really a recipe for Blueberry Loaf/Cake/Muffins. Although, since you can use anything you want - not just blueberries - it's really a Miscellaneous Loaf/Cake/Muffin recipe. But, you know, I don't want to get all technical or anything :-)
This is a recipe my Mum gave me for a 'One Bowl Muffin Mix' and you can just add in whatever you have; in our case one and a half punnets of blueberries that weren't going to look too great tomorrow and had to be used.

One Bowl Muffin Mix:

3 cups self raising flour
1 cup caster sugar (white sugar)
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 cup milk
90g melted butter
Whatever you want to add (banana, berries, toppings, chocolate chips etc...)

Preheat oven to 180'c.
Sift Flour into a large bowl, add sugar, combine and make a well in the centre.
Add eggs, milk and butter and mix until just combined.
Add your 'whatever' to the mix. Stir to combine but don't overstir.

For muffins bake for 15-20 minutes, for cakes and loaves Im not sure sorry - I just kept checking on it until it looked yummy :-D

Art Tree

I loved the look of this tree on the Mama to 4 Blessings Blog so dug out the cardboard tree shape we cut out for our leaf matching activity ages ago to make something similar. We have sheets and sheets of watercolour paintings that the girls have been busy creating, so I used some of these to create leaves for the tree trunk. It looks great stuck to the tile splashback behind our sink in the kitchen, so bright and colourful and I can enjoy Bubble and Squeak's paintings at the same time :-)

Cutting Skills - Business Cards

Business cards are the perfect size for practicing cutting with, and not only are they easy for small hands to hold and manouvre they are also usually thicker than normal paper as well. We save ours and other junk type mail (calendars etc...) in a box just for this purpose. Sometimes I draw lines across the cards for Bubble to cut along and sometimes she just likes to hack them into itty bitty pieces :-D

WE USED:

* business cards
* scissors

More and Less - Beach Scene Game

Bubble has been harping at me for the last few days about going to the beach but unfortunately the weather hasn't been exactly ideal. Yesterday we made our own beach in her room instead using beach towels and blankets and played some beach themed games. This quantity activity was great for teaching the concept of 'less and more', something Bubble is still getting the hang of.

WE USED:

* felt sheets (yellow and blue).
You could also use paper or any other coloured surface such as fabric, cutting boards, clothing etc...
* seashells

We laid our felt sheets down next to each other to make our 'beach'.

Then we took it in turns placing the shells so the other person could count and work out which side had more and which had less ( the sand or the water).

Eye Spy Necklace

Trekking around the Blogsphere the other night I came across this post about Thanksgiving Story Beads on Little Page Turners and thought it was an excellent idea! What a great visual way to tell a story. I decided to make up something similar for our activity bag in the pram so we could use when we are out (and waiting for a train to arrive :-D). I used our wooden animal beads so we can play Eye Spy games with it;
" I see with my little eye something that eats grass/says quack/lives in a burrow" etc...

Toadstool & Fairy Peg Matching Mat

Awhile ago we got some cute little fairy pegs from our favourite toy store (The Toy Bug) and I've been wanting to do 'something' with them ever since but wasn't quite sure what. Bubble and I were doing some fine motor activities clipping them around the outside of an empty icecream container yesterday when she said to me;
"Mum, my fairies have no houses. Poor fairies, they can't sleep!".
So last night I finally did 'something' and made a little fairy house matching mat to go with the fairy pegs.
The idea is very simple, the bottom of the toadstools are sewn flat to the mat and the caps are attached only at the top allowing them to be lifted and the pegs clipped on. Each different coloured fairy house matches a fairy peg so this mat is a colour sorting game as well as a way to practice fine motor skills and imaginary play.
Bubble was rapt with it when she saw it this morning and has been carrying it everywhere, matching the peg and house colours and making up elaborate stories where the fairies all visit each others toadstool houses for 'sparkly tea'. Im sure we'll find plenty of other uses for this mat in future games, but for now I'm very happy that our peg fairies finally have somewhere to sleep :-)

Sorry the photos are so dark and don't show the colours very well, you get the idea though!

The various coloured fairy houses waiting for their fairies to find them.
The mat is double sided for durability (and to hide all of my messy threads!).

Little toadstool fairy houses.

The stalks are sewn flat while the caps are only sewn at the top so that they can be lifted.

Our very cute fairy pegs. There are 6 altogether, all different colours.

The fairy pegs simply clip onto the toadstool caps so it looks as though they are sitting inside their houses.