Category Archives: Sensory Play

Happy New Year- smelling of pine needles

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I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas break and are ready to jump into 2012. We have jumped in feet first and are loving it, after a rather sickly Christmas. I decided to take a blogging break between Christmas and New Year and good job; we were all sick. Here’s to a healthy and happy 2012.

On New Years Eve we took down our beautiful Christmas tree and decorations and were left with quite the sweet smelling mess.

I brushed a wee bit up and left the rest for the vacuum to digest. If you are asking the question in your head “What did they do to their tree?” The answer is; yes we did water it but apparently it did not appreciate being inside and decided to shed from day one anyway. My mum’s suggestion was to make a huge tree skirt to catch all the needles, as we obviously did not water it enough! Ta mum.

I put the needles in a box. Added and few treats, placed it on the light table and we had a new years activity to keep the flowers amused.

Rose finds her noise maker. We had one we brought back from Ghana but here are instructions on how to make one with kids.

Daisy had a wood block also brought from West Africa. Here she is trying to blow up balloons. We had fun blowing them up and letting them go.

I included:

  • balloons
  • choclate teddy bears
  • chocolate kisses and hugs
  • noise makers
  • bubbles

Rose hunts for chocolate. She managed to eat a head of her teddy before I noticed, again!

Daisy blows bubbles for her sister to catch.

Balloon volley ball.

Rose was a wee bit scared of the balloons. She howled when she saw me blowing one up but then seemed happy to play with it inflated. I guess the act of blowing up a balloon could look pretty scary.

So we had a great evening with the girls and wonderful friends. The chocolate has been eaten and when I need a reminder of Christmas, I can pull out the pine needles and let the girls play with their smelly pine needle sensory box.

30 Days to Hands on Play – Day 10-15

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Pour milk in a shallow tray, add food coloring in the center. Dip a Q-Tip in dish soap and touch the center of the milk and watch it spread.
This was the suggestion from the list of ideas provided by Hands on as we Grow and we had a lot of fun doing it. Here is what we did.
We combined these together and just played in the back yard. Field trips go out the window in winter here or they are limited.
Our first decent amount of snow.
A baby snow angel also a first for this year.
Kisses from Penny the dog.
Climbing the play structure. The joys to wearing a snowsuit- padding when you fall.
Crayons, stickers, paper.
Look mummy!
Rose enjoyed this too. As for Francois; he was very proud of his art work. Daisy and Papa worked for nearly half an hour on their art.
This was a lot of fun for Daisy and myself. Check it out here.
The invitation
Rose played with the coffee can and used it like a drum but then wandered off.
There was better fun to be had with other junk; our left over megadoodle.
The cat joined in playing hide and seek under the paper.
Ripping, tearing, flinging, hiding.
And of course another popular recycled activity. This is Rose’s favourite game at the minute. She is even asking for “pom pom”.

30 days Play challenge Days 6-9

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(I didn’t share what we did last post so here you are!)
We used a varienty of ‘islands’ including pillows and soft play equipment and created a trail or train. Daisy, Rose and I had to travel along the islands and not fall into the waters below in case the sharks got us!
The play lasted much longer than 15 minutes.

DAY 6 CHALLENGE: FAMILY TOGETHER TIME

Colouring in was our activity of choice.

Daisy colours egg lables.
Her Papa colours egg labels.
And Rose coloured a few lables and then moved on to free scribbling.
Our chickens have been laying now for about a month so we are finding we have more than a dozen eggs a day. Time for the chucks and ducks to earn their keep!
This dedicated colouring time was actually really relaxing and something we will now be doing every few weeks.
This is my idea of fun! We doodled and coloured and scribbled for quite a while.
There was a little peace making needed from me as Rose attempted to colour in Daisy’s princesses.
Here is one we rescued.
We went more for ice play rather then water play. Frost was covering our garden with a beautiful magic and as Rose slept in the afternoon, Daisy and I went out to explore.
This was her first reaction to the ice on the chain link!!
We had a discussion about the dangers of licking cold objects … or rather licking anything!
The chucks seemed to enjoy the frost.
Finding icy cobwebs on the play structure.
Watching as ice melted into water.
We also had fun making patterns on the icy grass with our footprints.
This a favourite with both kids and Rose in particular loves sorting, pouring and dumping.
Our tub included cotton balls, paper leaves, pasta and ribbon.
I am afraid I misplaced (lost) the photos of this activity but I can verify it was a lot of fun. We used the straws to have blowing competitions with the cotton balls. Daisy is making up the rules and it is difficult to work her logic out but we negotiated the boundaries. The tweezers were a hit for both girls although Rose only used them for about a minute. Her hands were quicker for grabbing. They used a variety of containers too. Daisy likes to make soup and Rose preferred to transfer from one container to another.
We are keeping up with the challenges well but not posting blogs in a timely manner. The play is taking up our time and I am glad to make that a priority. Happy playing.