Its Monday again which means its Parenting Pin it party day and this week I'm hosting. If it's your first week welcome! We hope you'll find lots ideas for activities and parenting tips. If your a blogger we hope you'll join in and link up.

As I'm hosting I get to choose some of my favourite posts from last weeks entries. 

I love this post from Discovering breadcrumbs, talking about the importance of doodling

Regular readers of The Fairy and the Frog will know how much we love messy and sensory play. No surprise then that this post from princess and the grapie caught my eye.

If you are featured , you might want to 'grab a badge' 

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How does it work?
1) Link up a blog post of yours below - we'll pin it
2) Make sure you follow The Monday Parenting Pin it Party pin board, it would be super lovely if you could follow The Fairy and The Frog on Pinterest too.
3) Try to visit two other people who have linked up (and maybe let them know)

Observational drawing with children

Exploring art is one way to tap into how your child sees the world and to encourage them to make observations of the world around them. 

I love the sweet little things that children say. Things that make you realise they don't always see the world the same way as you. The Fairy calls INSET days (UK teacher training days) 'Insect days' (I like to imagine she thinking her teachers are learning about invertebrates!) Or the Frog shouting 'ball' when ever he sees anything round in the vegetable aisle at the supermarket.

Drawing at the same time as the kids draw is really fun (it's a tip I have picked up from one of favourite bloggers Rachelle at Tinkerlab). I really enjoy the shared experience of creating together. The kids seem more engaged and want to take part for longer. It's also a great way to model that art doesn't have to 'be' a certain way or to be perfect to have value.

Earlier on this week the Fairy and I got out some chalk pastels and drew some squashes.

Before we started I encouraged her to hold and feel the squash- talk about the shape and colour. We talked about what other things were the same colour - oranges, sweets and her friend's hair.

We then got drawing each with our own sheet of paper. She drew 3 (very orange) squashes.

She loved smudging the pastel to mix colours.

Unfortunately The Frog wanted to join in with the arty action when he got up from his nap and drew over all of our finished art work. I need to remember to put things on a higher shelf!

Language Links: colours, shape and size concepts. Developing comparative language (same as, different, like).

Coffee filter leaves

These gorgeous leaves are super easy to make and make lovely homemade fall/ autumn decorations.  

First draw a leaf on a coffee filter paper

Then colour the leaf. We used autumnal (fall) colours to fit in with the season but you could use what ever colour you like.

The Fairy colouring.

The Frog colouring.

Next you spray (we used a well cleaned out bottle to hold the water). Using the spray is great for encouraging motor control in little hands. It helps if the leaf is on backing paper at this point as the link spreads(not kitchen roll as that will absorb all the colour).

The Fairy observed the leaf looked more like a leaf (and less like a blob of colour!) if she used less water.

The Fairy was fascinated to watch the colours blend and merge.

This activity was great fun as well as being a great learning opportunity. Not only could both the children (aged 2 and 5 years) do something together at the same time, they were developing fine motor control and making observations.

Language Links: wet, dry, spread, colours (red, yellow orange brown), autumn (fall)