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

We made these fairytale fridge magnets today and they’ve proved to be a big hit. Fairytales are such an important part of childhood, helping children explore emotions and think about experiences in the big wide world from the safe and secure environment of home. Getting the children to do the storytelling themselves is a great way for them to practise their language and use their creativity as they adapt the story and give it their own personal twists. Using traditional characters is a good way to hook them into the story telling – but soon you’ll find them making up adventures of their own.

We went with The Gingerbread Man today – but as the magnets are very easy to make you can put together several sets so you can play with them time and time again.

All you need is: some card, some small magnets (we bought ours from eBay), pens and pencils, scissors and some strong glue.

Draw your your characters, cut them out and pop a magnet on the back. Easy-peasy!

As soon as the glue is dry you can put them on the fridge and start telling your stories.

(P.S. It’s a great way to keep them entertained while you’re getting dinner ready.)

Happily shared with…

Preschool Corner

A Vision to Remember

Make a Clothespeg Butterfly Mobile

Look what’s been fluttering in our garden: a Lesser Spotted Peg Butterfly!

We had some wooden clothes pegs left over from making our pegdolls and Little wanted to make a butterfly. Here’s how we made it….

We used a sheet of clear plastic to cut our a butterfly shape – but card or paper would work just as well.

L was in charge of customising the butterfly, with liberal amounts of glue and bits and bobs from our making box. We talked about symmertry and L had a good try at getting her butterfly to match.

We put lots more glue down the centre of the butterly and inserted the wings into the peg. We also tied a length of string around the peg. Sitting the butterfly on the side of a glass helped press the wings in place while the glue dried.

We twisted a pipe-cleaner around to make the antennae, and drew on a face (you can see this on the first pic). Once all the glue is dry you can hang your butterfly up and watch as the breeze makes it flutter around.

They’re so pretty, why not make lots more to decorate your bedroom?

Happily shared with…

and

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 …

We really enjoyed making our tissue paper suncatchers, so we decided to adapt the technique to make a bag.

We started off, as before, by laying out tissue paper on to a laminator pouch and putting it through our laminating machine.  We made two of these.

Then, holding the two laminated pictures together, we hole-punched a series of holes around three sides of the pictures (so the holes were in the same place on each picture).

Using a large, blunt needle and some wool, Little stitched around the three sides  to join her bag together. (Perfect to help develop fine motor skills.) We used the extra wool to make a handle.

A Little Original Design bag – just the right size to fit her library book.

Happily shared with Works For Me Wednesday and…

I love the way these tissue paper suncatchers look so vibrant in the sunshine. They’re very easy to make and even toddlers can make their own masterpiece. You’ll need a laminator to make this version, which you can buy: Cathedral A4 Laminator with Jam Release or your local print shops may offer the service.  Alternatively you could use sticky-backed plastic to hold the tissue paper in place.

Choose your favourite colours and create your design on the laminator pouch

Put your finished design through the laminator

You might like a Matisse inspired square design

Or you can add texture by scrunching the tissue paper

A heart shape would make a lovely present.

To make the heart shaped suncatcher, we arranged the tissue paper in the heart design on the pouch and then cut round the outline after it had been through the laminator machine.

Ever inventive, the girls have taken the suncatchers and turned them into stained glass windows in their story tent.

And if you’re enjoying creating with tissue paper, you might also like this flower craft.

The school holidays are just a few weeks away! Whether you’re a  parent with children home from school, or a childminder with extra children to look after, it’s handy to have a store of ideas ready to entertain the family. Rather than spend a small fortune in theme parks or soft-play centres NurtureStore has lots of ideas to keep everyone busy throughout the holiday, come rain or shine. And with an emphasis on homemade and recycled fun, our ideas are environmentally friendly too.

If the sun is shining school holidays are much easier. Throw everyone out in the garden for a mini beast hunt or host a snail Olympics. Bringing indoor toys out into the garden can provide new play opportunities, such as making a dinosaur world or fairy garden.

If it’s raining you could try indoor camping, or how about turning your sofa into a pirate ship, complete with ship’s wheel and an ancient treasure map?

If you don’t mind a bit of mess our recipe for ice-cream play-dough is really easy to make and is great when you have a mixed age-group of children, as everyone can join in. We have simple baking recipes you could try too, including a delicious one for raisin oat cookies. Or how about doing something different with your veg and trying your hand at carrot printing?

If you have crafty kids why not put together a recycled ‘making box‘ this week, so they can get creative over the holiday? We have ideas for making dragons, castles, balloon puppets and more.

And if you really just need to chill, how about our flavoured popcorn and a movie, or even some child-friendly yoga?

The holidays are such a great opportunity to take time out from the usual school routine and let your children play. However you spend the week, I hope you and your kids have fun!

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

Kelly over at A Place of My Own is hosting a British Mummy Bloggers carnival this week and has challenged everyone to write a post inspired by a song title. Here is our entry:

Bubble Painting to the tune of I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles (I’m listening as I type!)

(Hazard warning: you need to make sure your child understands the concept of blowing not sucking through the straw)

We started our musical odyssey by getting our materials ready: some white paper, a plastic tray (big enough to hold our paper), paint, washing up liquid, drinking straws, water

We filled our tray with some water, paint and washing up liquid so it was about 1cm deep and mixed it all up. We made up two different trays so we could use two colours.

Then, using the drinking straw, we started blowing our bubbles. This bit was great fun!

We gently put a sheet of paper over the bubbles to make a print of them. Don’t press down too hard or leave in for too long or you will end up with soggy paper and the bubble print will be lost.

We let the first colour dry (didn’t take very long) and then re-dipped in the other tray to produce our final picture.

Have you tried bubble painting with your kids?

It’s always exciting when a delivery arrives in a great big box. Who cares what’s inside, the big questions is: what shall we make with the box? Over to Big this time, who straightaway said, ‘Let’s turn it into a Story Box’. Her inspiration came from the character Pinky Dinky Doo (attention: this link is noisy!) who has her own cardboard story box where she draws pictures which come to life to tell her stories.

I think this is a wonderful idea to get children creating stories of their own, developing language skills as they play with characters and settings.  It’s also good to use drawing in a different way – on the walls and roof of your house. And writing on a vertical (or even overhead) surface is very effective in developing wrist strength and pencil grip, getting ready for writing.

To make your own story tent you will need:

a big box – ours is big enough for both girls to fit in to together and sit upright comfortably. (If you’re not expecting any deliveries of your own, your local removal company or white goods store are places you might source a big box.)

a craft knife – to cut out some windows to let light into the box so you can see what you’re drawing. And apparently, rectangular windows are boring, so you might like our star-shaped ones.

felt pens – to get drawing and telling stories with. Whatever you like – let your imagination go free! And you can come back again and again to add more characters and make the next installment of your adventure, until every surface of your story box is full.

You might like to add in some cushions and a blanket to make your story box as comfortable as can be.

My girls are really enjoying this play den – inside together, in their own space, lying on their backs, collaborating over a story as they draw it out on the ceiling. Why not give it a try with your children? I’d love to hear what stories they come up with.

Any if you’re looking for other ways to use a cardboard box you might like our play house or ride-on train too.

For lots more play ideas: Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up or visit the ABC and 123 Show and Tell Blog Hop