on May 14th, 2012%
Do your kids love Lego? Just manipulating the pieces, snapping them together and pulling them apart is a great work out for fingers, helping to develop fine-motor skills, but Lego is a classic open-ended toy that can be used in so many different ways by creative kids. My girls most often use their Lego to build imaginary buildings or enclosures for their toy animals but recently L has been using them in lot of math games.
on May 8th, 2012%
One of the ideas we had for our Screen-Free Week was to have a rummage around on our craft shelves to see if there were any long-lost art materials that we might like to try. We struck gold with two packs of air drying clay that Father Christmas had brought in the girls’ stockings and which had been put away in a post-Christmas tidy up and forgotten about.
Modelling with air drying clay
Have you used air drying clay before? It’s not too messy and quite easy for young children to use – my 5-year-old had no problem manipulating the clay into the shapes she wanted. The girls had wooden skewers and scissors to use to cut and make marks with but mostly just used their hands. The clay warms to the touch and is a great work out for fine motor skills. Read more »
on April 16th, 2012%
The inspiration for our spring chicken play dough comes from the clutch of ten eggs which have been resident in the girls school for a week. The eggs have been in an incubator in the reception class but every child in the school has been in to visit, to hear the chicks cheeping from inside the shells and to see the eggs wobbling and the first cracks appear. Then, most exciting of all, the chicks hatched, some brown, some yellow but all very fluffy. Great inspiration to talk about spring, bring out our favourite easy play dough recipe for some sensory play and make some chicks of our own.
Yellow play dough recipe for spring chicks Read more »
on March 19th, 2012%
Nurturestore has lots of articles about fun play dough ideas but I though today I’d get back to basics with an easy play dough recipe master class. I’m often asked for a play dough recipe by people who are trying out home-made play dough for the first time, so I thought I’d post a step-by-step guide to my favourite no cook recipe. I’ve included some tips and tricks to answer the most common play dough crises and added in some fun ideas for you to try once you’ve mastered the basic play dough recipe to jazz it up a little! There’s also a link to my free Let’s Play Dough e-book.
Calling it a master class is very tongue-in-cheek: it’s a super easy recipe and even if you’ve never tried making your own play dough before I’m sure you’ll be able to whip up a cordon bleu version.
Easy play dough recipe master class Read more »
on March 13th, 2012%
Art for kids can be hands on fun with the simplest of ingredients. My girls find it so hard to resist putting their hands in the paint, so why not encourage it and let them enjoy some sensory play. Try these suggestions to add in some maths and literacy play too. Read more »
on January 26th, 2012%
Many of the play ideas I post here happen as a result of my children taking some everyday materials and experimenting. Having a well stocked making box (which really doesn’t mean lots of expensive art materials) and permission to help themselves to some of our kitchen supplies often leads to all sorts of creativity and learning. Today’s post is an example of how a fusion of two materials can produce lots of thinking about maths, dimensions, construction, creativity, roleplay and of course plenty of fun.
Play dough and cocktail sticks Read more »
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Copyright Information Please feel free to use any of these ideas with your children at home, school or any place you teach and play. You are welcome to pin images from this site onto Pinterest so long as your pin links back to the original article here. If you would like to share a post on a blog or site, you may use one picture so long as you include a link to the original post. Please do not re-post the whole article or distribute printed-out content without written permission from the original author. You can contact me at cathy (at) nurturestore (dot) co (dot) uk. Thank you.
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