NurtureStore

This week’s #goplay Twitter Tips* are bringing you some junk modelling ideas to inspire you to raid your recycling bin and get creating.

#goplay Twitter Tip #1 Stock a Making Box with left-over boxes wrapping ribbons tubes tinfoil to use for modelling

#goplay Twitter Tip #2 Junk modeling helps children think creatively, problem solve, imagine, play with size, dimension, angles and more

#goplay Twitter Tip #3 How about transforming some milk cartons into a fire station with this idea from @noflashcards?

#goplay Twitter Tip #4 @Childhood101 has a fantastic tutorial  showing you how to make a kitchen from yr junk

#goplay Twitter Tip #5 How about hovercrafts from CDs and hot air balloons from yoghurt pots? http://www.playbasedlearning.com.au/2010/07/more-flying-machines/

#goplay Twitter Tip #6 Teacher Tom’s class made an erupting volcano from a fizzy drink bottle and some newspaper!

#goplay Twitter Tip #7 How about making fairy toadstools from a paper bag? @mayamade shows you how

#goplay Twitter Tip #8 Transform a shoe box and some toilet roll tubes into a medieval castle

#goplay Twitter Tip #9 Turn a shoe box into a double decker bus

#goplay Twitter Tip #10 How about transforming a egg box into a fire breathing dragon?

Hope you find inspiration in these ideas – what could you make?

*These #goplayTwitter Tips are tweeted each Friday at 8.30pm – follow @nurturestore or the #goplay hashtag to share

View the Twitter Tips on playdough, water play,  travelling with kids and encouraging reading and writing

Happily shared with WeareThat Family

You can make maths much more fun if you mix in some songs and imaginary play. Today we’ve been counting backwards and singing ‘Ten in the Bed’.

First we took a cardboard box and used some fabric scraps to make a bedsheet, pillows and blanket.

Then we made 10 little people and numbered them 1 to 10. With a bit of a squash and a squeeze they all fitted in.

Then it was time for some singing – and lots of giggling as Little rolled her people out of bed. We’ve done an alternative version of this using our sofa as a bed and Big’s favourite teddies to make up the numbers. It’s very funny when you’re 3 to make your teds whizz out of bed!

A great book choice to go with this is Ten in the Bedby Penny Dale, which has beautiful illustrations.

And just in case you don’t know the song, there’s a cute pre-school class over on You Tube waiting to sing it to you.

We had so much fun making these peg dolls! The wooden pegs costs less than a pound for about 24 and everything else came from our making boxes, so they’re a great frugal activity – perfect for the summer holidays. What I always like about these kind of crafts is that there’s so much playing you can do with what you’ve made. You can put on a puppet show, take them for a ride on your double decker bus, let them move into your fairy garden… wherever the kids’ imaginations take them.

If you make some peg dolls, we would LOVE to see them. You can share a photo on our Facebook page.

Happily shared with …

Have you ever used air drying clay? My girls love it – it’s maleable, not too sticky, and you can poke embellishments into the clay to create wonderful effects. And as the name suggests, when you’ve made your model you can simply leave it to dry instead of having to bake it. You can paint the dried model, or leave the clay in its natural state. As it’s long-lasting its a good material to use for gifts and decorations too.

So, what did we make today? Well, I don’t you know if you’ve seen The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers, where Tara posts a prompt each week to inspire readers to take photographs of a particular topic, but this week the theme is ‘Creatures‘. So that’s what we made. Do you like them?

Why don’t you try some air drying clay with your children and see what they can make?

And if you’d like to see how everyone else interpreted the theme ‘Creatures’ why not pop over to Sticky Fingers and see?

The highlight of Little’s week was a ride on a double decker bus. We had to sit on top and right at the front of course- something I remember always wanting to do when I was a child. When we got home she wanted to make a double decker of her own.

We used a shoe box for the bus and found two biscuit containers which we stuck in place with sticky tape to make the decks. I used a craft knife to make the bus open-top and to add in some windows.

It’s always good to add in some letters and numbers, so we made a sign for our bus too.

This kind of small world play lets children try out situations they come across in real life. By testing out scenarios they can gain confidence for their own encounters in the big world. It also lets them use lots of language and if you play along with them you can add in some new vocabulary. There’s usually a song you include too – The Wheels on the Bus would be perfect here.

We have more transport theme activities you might like too.

And you can find lots more play ideas at the Childhood 101 We Play link up

Gloriana, Queen of Balloons

Please welcome Her Royal Highness, Gloriana, Queen of Balloons.

This is Big’s creation made this weekend from the balloon she got from the vet’s open day, and the contents of our craft box. The balloon came with a plastic stick attached so it’s perfect to hold upright and move, play, dance with. The features are simply fastened on with sticky tape. She’s holding up pretty well, three days later, so we may be in for a long reign (so long as the kitten doesn’t pop her).

Have you ever made balloon puppets?

(One word of caution is that young children should be supervised with balloons. It they do pop, the pieces of balloon can be very dangerous if swallowed.)

P.S Don’t forget to head over to the MAD Blog Awards to vote for your favourite blogs.  You  could even vote for NurtureStore in the Best Family Fun category!

This post is happily shared with Tired Need Sleep’s Art Box link-up

Following on from the success of our Dinosaur Garden, this weekend we’ve been working on a Fairy Garden. The film below shows how we made it – now we’re eagerly waiting for the seeds to start growing so the flower fairies can really feel at home.

The music on the film is kindly provided by Anne van Schothorst and is from a piece called A Bird Came Flying.

As the weather is getting warmer and we’re starting to spend more time outside I thought I’d show you one way my girls love to play in our garden: in our Dinosaur Land. Big recently did a ‘show and tell’ at school about gardening and the Dinosaur Land proved to be so popular an idea with her classmates, that several of them have gone home and made their own – so it comes highly recommended.

This kind of ‘small world’ play is fantastic for young children: they get to be the boss of the world, create characters, role play situations, use their language skills, be imaginative…..  I love watching children engaged in this kind of play as it really gives you an insight into where they’re at, what’s concerning them, what they’re exploring at this present time. Big’s characters are often having battles at the moment, as she works through ideas of ‘being fair’ and negotiations. Little’s play in nearly always focused on a family group and playing out familiar routines – her dinosaurs get tucked up in bed and read a bedtime story.

As always, this idea is easy to make and you’re likely to have most, if not all, of the things you need around your home.

Start by finding a big plastic storage box and making some drainage holes in the bottom. Then let your children fill it up with soil – good, messy fun. Add a few rocks – we have one big one, which the dinosaurs like to stand on to survey their territory, and some smaller one to sit on. How about some plants for the dinos to eat and hide in? Have you got one to spare somewhere in one of your borders? The grassy one we used works really well – low maintenance, pretty robust and won’t get too overgrown. You can add any other props which catch your children’s eye: glass pebbles, fir cones, sticks, water too if you’d like a swamp area.

Then it’s over to the kids to get playing.

If your children are enjoying the garden, have a look at our Sunflower Club for more outside play ideas.

With Earth Day and St. George’s Day both falling in this week, why not combine the two to make a Recycled Egg Box Dragon? Big says he’s ‘fantastically ferocious’!

You will need: 3 egg boxes, green paint & a paint brush, red paper, 2 treasury tags, glue / sticky tape, red and black felt pens, scissors

Start by cutting out 2 of the ‘cups’ from one of the egg boxes and painting them green. These will be your eyes.

The other two egg boxes will be your head and body. Ours were already green, but if yours aren’t you can paint them. We added some extra painted ‘scales’. Leave the paint to dry.

Fasten the head and body together with treasury tags. This means you can move your dragon to play with him and he’ll have a bit of movement in his body.

Cut out some flames, spines and a tail from the red paper and fasten on with glue or sticky tape.

Add some scary eyes and some nostrils.

Rrrrrrr! Your dragon is ready to play.

And how about some dragon books to go with your new pet?

Boat by Little

This is Little’s boat – the first thing she’s made all by herself from our ‘making box’ full of household junk on the way to be recycled. I love how she’s explored the three dimensional nature of the box by colouring each plane in a different colour. And how she thought to make a door so her passengers could come aboard.

Our Making Box

Do you have a making box? What kind of things are in yours?

Like to see what’s in our other craft box?