Hole punch Rainbow cards

The Fairy loves to hole punch. Our flat is frequently littered with bits of confetti produced with industrious hole punching. She is very fond of my selection of craft punches as they produce interesting shapes. She is also fond of painting and printing - as a process rather than what she produces.

Both these activities are great fun and she learns lots from doing them. I often let her combine these two loves and punch her own creations.

The by product of all this hole punching art work is lots of beautifully rainbow coloured shapes (or what ever colour she has been using to paint or print that day!) When arranged these make striking and unique designs (a bit like the originals!). Perfect for cards and a great way to preserve art work.

 

Depending on how the paper is painted it helps to get a range of colours if you cut the paper into smaller strips (other wise the hole punch can only reach the outside edge).

You can use any design you like but I really like using geometric style patterns (like a square or a line of three) in similar shades or a rainbow shape using rainbow colours. The are perfect for grandparents.

We demonstrated this craft along with another card design on a Google + hang out, along with another why not take a peak. 

How to create a Christmas writing area

This post should really be entitled 'how to make a writing area'  as I've not yet blogged about how we've made an 'all year' round mark making/ writing area yet. The reason for this is our area hasn't quite been finalised and is more 'a work in progress'! I know from working in different educational settings how important it is to give children free access to writing materials but I keep finding reason not to at home. We've had a few challenges the biggest one being it needs to be baby safe as The Frog wants to do everything his big sister does. We also live in a have a small flat so we don't have the space for a dedicated 'mark making table' with all items beautifully displayed. (I have spent far too much time on pintrest drooloing over researching other people's beautiful areas in their play rooms/ class rooms!)

Over the last couple of weeks I had noticed her interest in writing growing and wanted to provide opportunities to extend this. I came to the realisation that my desire for her to have a beautiful well organised area was stopping me get on and doing something. So I stopped dreaming and 'did'. I gathered all of the mark making stuff we normally play with and put it in one place and let her know the 'rules' for playing with it (i.e. what her brother was and wasn't allowed to touch). Having our equipment more organised and giving her freer access to it has meant an explosion in creations at home and has been great for her interdependence she is definitely asking to watch TV less which is fab!

To add festive cheer to our area we've taken our usual bits and upped the 'bling' by adding shiny, sparkly and christmasy versions into the mix. We went to a party of a very lovely friend at the weekend and many of the bits from the party bag (party favours) were perfect for adding in.

Punching holes

A letter with a stamp (this ones for a friend, but I'm sure there will be one for Father Christmas!)

More decorations for our tree

More decorations (I'm not sure where these are destined for yet!)

I love how all of these creations have been independent.

Olympic rings

Well Olympic fever has finally hit 'casa  The Fairy and The Frog'. We're not really sporty people and haven't got any tickets for the events but I felt like maybe we should do somehing to join in with the celebrations, especially as a family member is going to be one of the torch relay runners (does that count as a 'stealth boast'? I hope not!)

The Fairy is very into threading and hole punching. This Olympic ring decoration combines the two. We used paper plates and pipe cleaners.

We cut out the middle of the plates and punched holes around the outside.

The resulting plate can then be used as a 'rubber ring' to spin round your arm (cue action shot)

or it can be used to thread pipe cleaners through.

Thread one with each of the Olympic colours and then you can use them to make the Olympic rings (after checking Wikipedia as to which way round the colours should go!).  Did you know the rings symbolise the 'Olympic Movement is international and welcomes all to join'- another handy Wikipedia fact

I think the rings would make a great decoration for an Olympic themed party. All that threading is also great for developing fine motor skills and concentration - its a win win situation.

Playdough pledge # 3 - Nature dough

Take one lot of unflavoured playdough add natural 'treasures' gathered by small people, throw in a few dried pulses.

Calm, relaxing, natural playdough fun

We had planned to do 5 x sessions on the playdough pledge, but we haven't (yet!). Not sure if we'll carry it on over the weekend - we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out. We've had fun doing the things we've done!

Playdough pledge #2 playdough by numbers

We were looking to be inspired to reuse our purple dough we made yesterday for the play dough pledge when we saw some fab ideas for using wooden letters in playdough over at The Imagination tree. We don't have any  letters but we do have numbers. Cue some number fun...

Rolling

Pushing

Pressing 

Tracing

Orange playdough fun

I think play dough has to be one of my favourite 'inside' activities. It's simple to make, its fun and 'The fairy' loves it which means I love it too! Its a great way to develop imagination and fine motor skills. With an added bonus that we both find it relaxing (a bit like kneading bread or using clay). So this morning when it appeared that we both had got out of the wrong side of bed (largely due to lack of sleep as 'The frog' is teething) a play dough session seemed to be in order. As 'The fairy' had just had a clementine as a post breakfast snack we commandeered the peel and set to work on the easiest play dough recipe in the world - with a citrus twist.

The play dough recipe below was given to me by my wonderful friend and collegue D, who is Portage worker .... (as an aside the Portage workers I have had the joy to work alongside have been a very talented and inspirational bunch - they are all very special people and have taught me lots especially about sensory play).


Very easy playdough
1 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of salt
1 cup of boling water (just from the kettle)
1 table spoon of cream of tartar
1 table spoon of oil (this makes it nice and stretchy)




Mix it all up, give it a bit of knead and away you play.

There are loads of things you can add to make the sensory experince different... food colouring, flavouring or a tiny bit of essential oil (NB make sure that it is a non toxic one as some can be toxic) for a different smell, bits to make it give a different texture (lentils, porridge oats) glitter for added sparkle or flowers for a natural touch. When adding ingredients I usually omit a bit of another similar ingredient (e.g. if I'm adding food colouring I leave out a bit of water, flavoured oil then I omit a bit of olive oil or if I'm adding porridge I leave out some flour). The basic mix keeps well in a sealed container in the fridge for a bit (if the there are added 'foody' bits then it doesn't keep as well).

As we had an orange theme we used some food colouring and added orange oil to give an olfactory dimension. We snipped up clementine peel to poke in. After a root around in the cupboard I found some lentils and dried citrus peel to add as well.

Today I encouraged 'The fairy' to use other utensils rather than the favourite rolling and cutting and so we raided the kitchen for interesting looking items.

We squeezed

and banged














and pressed

and pushed












and sprinkled












and finished with some 'pizza cakes'

I love watching The Fairy come up with ideas in play. She often makes worms when we play with playdough with 'no cutters'. I wonder if today she chose 'pizza cakes' because of the food related materiels she had available.

Language Focus
Vocabulary: roll, hit, push, squeeze, sprinkle, smell, orange
Other skills: fine motor skills and imaginative play