Space sensory tub

At the moment in one of my groups I am working on 'Space' themed activities whilst developing children's early language skills through play.

One of the play items I have recently put together is this 'Space' themed sensory box.  It was really easy to put together and the children have had so much fun with it, that I have to take it back to every session.  You can use a variety of items to put your sensory bin together.

Here is a list of what I used:

• A box with a lid
• Ordinary white dried cooking rice
• Pack of wild rice to mix in
• A thunder birds space rocket with sound effects
• A selection of small play spaceships
• A metal space shuttle
• A toy from a children's meal that lights up when pressed
• A selection of space small world play items 
• A pack of planets in various sizes

I mixed the toys into the rice and asked the children if they could find the.......small spaceship, big spaceship etc.

I asked them questions about what they found such as 'what noise do you think it makes', 'what can we do with it', asking open ended questions.

You could also take pictures of the items and ask the children to find them and match to the pictures while telling you about the items.

They also just love playing make believe with the items and having fun with the sensory side.

Harry the hedgehog

Autumn is a brilliant time of year for craft ideas for children as its such a colourful season.  Here is a really simple idea that can be used time and time again.  

Go for a walk to collect leaves in different sizes, shapes and colours.  Draw a hedgehog outline for your child to fill with leaves that can be glued to make the hedgehog spiky.  Simple and effective.

Here is one I have made using the leaves I purchased from the works.  You don't have to name yours but i thought he looked really cute and decided to call him Harry.

Autumn discovery tray

I needed to put together an Autumn discovery tray really quickly for an activity.  I always have a selection of trays I keep including cat litter trays that I purchase as they have a deeper edge for the children to explore further while keeping the contents together.

I printed the picture cards off  a while ago from Sparklebox and use them time and time again for different activities.  Ideally you would add real leaves that you can find with the children but I have to say that I love these that I found in the works for children to sort into colours or use to make pictures with.

I added some conkers from the nearby trees where I live that have them in abundance, a large pine cone that a friend gave me (you can find lots of these too at this time of the year when you go out for walks in the woods etc) and a squirrel and hedgehog finger puppet.  

There are so many other items that you could add including some acorns, apples as its harvest time and maybe a pumpkin too.  

Have fun putting yours together.  There are so many opportunities with this to develop early language skills, early number skills and to have fun together including leaf rubbings.

  

My home made cardboard box princess play mat

Ok so I have to admit after making the space mat, I wanted to have a go at making a princess play mat.  Living with three males and having a male cat, I do sometimes have a little urge to be girly.

What I used:

• Larger flattened out cereal box
• Left over slate effect wallpaper to represent the pathways in the grounds of the castle
• 2 x sheets of blue tissue paper
• 1 x pack of funky foam (neoprene) from the pound shop
• Glue gun
• Sellotape
• scissors

1. After flattening the cereal box, I covered it with the wallpaper and secured with tape.
2. I decided on what I wanted to include on the play mat  and cut the pieces out of the foam.  For my play mat I decided on a pink castle (but of course), a pond with goldfish (because the princess who lives here likes to sit by the pond and watch the fish), some flower beds (because she likes pretty flowers), a space for the carriage to be parked, somewhere for her best friend to guard the palace (her dog) and somewhere for her horse to graze and drink with a very large sunshine because the sun always shines here.
3. I then measured and glued the tissue paper in place for the sky before gluing the castle pieces and sunshine on top.  
4. I set out the pieces for the grounds on the board before gluing to make sure I was happy with the positioning. 
5. Finally I added the finishing touches such as the grass, flowers and goldfish.

Unfortunately I don't have a horse or dog figure to add, but I cant wait to find some in the local charity shops.

Cheap, cheerful and ready for play.  Get your little ones involved in making the mats.  As they lie flat and can be stored easily you can make a few of these.  What about the following:

• Zoo
• Jungle
• Road 
• Dolls house - different rooms with printable furniture glued on from the internet

What else can you come up with?

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My home made space play mat

So as promised here is my low cost / no cost home made recycled cardboard box space play mat.  As my boys are a lot older now i don,t have as many toys to add to it but i don't think it turned out too badly.  I have had so much fun putting this together this morning.

What I used:

• Empty cereal box flattened
• Left over wallpaper from when I decorated my sons room which happened to be space themed
• Left over white wallpaper from decorating another room
• Empty egg box carton used to enhance the craters on the moon
• Scraps of wallpaper rolled into balls
• Kitchen foil to warp around the wallpaper balls to make moon rocks
• Sellotape
• Pencil to create craters on the moon
• Empty lime juice bottle for the rocket
• Coloured paper and funky foam (neoprene) to decorate the rocket

What I added:

• Alien finger puppets made for a previous project
• Some of my sons Star Wars Lego characters

The empty cereal box....

Leftover space wallpaper from my sons room....

I used the space wallpaper to cover the cardboard box and secured with tape.....

Then placed another piece on the underside and secured with tape to make the play mat stronger....

After scrunching up scraps of the wallpaper into balls, I then wrapped them in the kitchen foil shaping them to look like moon rocks....

The recycled lime juice bottle ready to make the rocket....

The added white leftover wallpaper cut out to represent the moon and the cut up egg box to add to the crater effect....

Here is the bottle decorated with the coloured paper and funky foam as a rocket....

Then i added some home made alien finger puppets from a previous project to add to the fun ready for play....

Then I added some Lego Star Wars characters, a bit smaller than the aliens but heroes come in all sizes....

Crew on their way to help their buddies conquer the aliens....

One down and one to go....

It doesnt have to cost to develop imagination, creativity, small world play and language skills.  Look around your home today and see what you can come up with.  I would love to see your makes : )

Dinosaur home made play mat

A while ago I was asked to make a dinosaur play mat for a friends son which ended up as a sen bag which could be taken on holiday etc and had pockets to carry his dinosaurs as well as his name on.  

You don't have to be able to sew to produce a play mat that your child will love.  Here I have used scrap pieces of fabric left over from past projects and some very strong child friendly fabric glue.  The various textured fabric pieces add to the sensory play element of the play mat.  Mountains, rocks, palm trees, a river, a drinking / washing pool and a place to roam as well as a volcano of course.  Just add dinosaurs : )

Home made portable dolls house

I wanted to make something out of my fabric scrap box that my friends little girl could play with when they popped round.  Something in the form of a play mat is what I was thinking but then I came across a pattern to make a transportable fabric dolls house.

You don't have to be able to sew to make something similar, good fabric, a sharp pair of scissors and some fabric glue is all you need to make something similar.

You will need a larger piece of fabric for the main house as you can see in the picture.  If you use something like felt for the house you can then glue your furniture pieces to each room.

As you can see the house has a bathroom, living room and bedroom but you could make anything you want.  There are plenty of templates on line for furniture pieces etc.  This is something you can get your little ones involved with when it comes to the planning and gluing.  Have fun!

Jungle theme activities

Jungle animals are just so great to link to so many different activities whether it be art and craft or music as well as many more.

I made a simple jungle animal book for the children to look through using Sparklebox resources and printed off some of the animal masks they have for the children to wear for the song below.

The Jungle Hokey Pokey

A great action song for children

(To the tune of the Hokey cokey)

You put your Elephant trunk in,

You put your Elephant trunk out,

You put your Elephant trunk in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey - Pokey

And you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about.

You put your Monkey hand in,

You put your Monkey hand out,

You put your Monkey hand in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey - Pokey

And you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about.

You put your Giraffe neck in,

You put your Giraffe neck out,

You put your GIraffe neck in,

And you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey - Pokey

And you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about.

Other ideas to try:

1. Make a giraffe out of a kitchen roll

http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/animals/africa/giraffe.asp

2. Make some masks using funky foam.  This can be purchased really cheaply and can be found in the pound shops.

Image taken from Pinterest

3. Make a jungle animal picture frame

http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/kids/kids-craft-supplies/kids-foam-sheets-and-shapes

4. Make some jungle animal finger puppets

http://www.crafthubs.com/animal-finger-puppets/20729

5. Decorate some cupcakes into jungle animals

Image taken from Pinterest

Brown Bear, Brown Bear story box

I love making and using story boxes.  They are really simple to make and a great opportunity to get everyone involved in putting one together.  This one is based on one of my favourite stories, Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  

Shoe boxes are the perfect size for this make.  I popped on over to the Sparklebox size to see what characters they might have that I could use and found all the ones used for this make including the printout for the top of the box as shown below.

My lovely friend helped to complete this one.  She added some blue, white and yellow paper to make the sky scene.  Again Sparklebox was used for the small world play scenery along the inside of the box.  A small amount of artificial grass was placed at the bottom of the box. 

A printout of a brown bear mask was laminated and a lollipop stick added to encourage role play.

The following characters which were found on Sparklebox from the story were printed out and laminated and made into a matching game which has been added to the box.  A home made dice has also been made using pictures of the characters to encourage children to not only match the animals but to tell the story in their own way using the matching characters.

Some knitted characters have also been added to give the box another dimension and encourage role play, imaginative and creative play as well as developing early language skills through play.

Story boxes can be made for any favourite story book that your child loves.

Home made baby buggy book

Here is a simple idea for a home made textured baby buggy book that can be used time and time again.  

Items I used:

• Funky foam sheets (otherwise known as neoprene)
• Scissors 
• Various pieces of textured fabric
• Glue gun
• The top of a pringles crisp tube or similar
• Ribbon
• Hole punch

Cut out the shapes for the pages that you require.  As you can see I have used a simple flower shape for this book.

Cut out circles from the various textured fabric pieces for the middle of the flower pages and glue down in the centre of each page.

Make a hole using the hole punch in each of the pages and thread the ribbon through.

Choose the fabric of your choice for the centre of the pringles lid and glue securely before gluing the lid to the centre of the top page of the book.

And there you have it!  An easy and cheap to make book.

Home made CD pocket book

This simple idea came from my husband who works in IT.  I was looking for some new ways of making books when he came up with this idea.  'What about using these he said' ? CD pockets.  

What a fab, simple idea! Especially when you can buy a box of 50 of them for a £1.  I threaded a few of them together using ribbon and then popped some printed laminated cards in to the pockets.  

Here I have used simple colour recognition picture cards.  You could use anything at all including magazine pictures stuck on cardboard of animals, transport, mini beasts, flowers, even photographs of family members.  The really good thing about this book is that you only have to change the contents and not the book.   The opportunities are endless!