NurtureStore » Sensory

52 kids painting ideas: a year’s worth of creativity

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:47:02 +0000

This month the Kids Art Explorers have been enjoying a No Paint Brushes Allowed project. Creativity is encouraged when you set aside your everyday materials and try something different.

The Kids Art Explorers celebrate the process of art: trying new things, having a go, being daring, making mistakes. We’re interested in how things turn out but much more focused on the fun we have along the way. Here’s a whole year’s worth of ideas for the fun you could have if you tried painting with something other than a paint brush.

Click each word to discover a fabulous kids painting idea. Pin this page so you can come back and get another idea when you need it. Print this checklist for kids painting ideas. Then go try one of the ideas with your kids!

Why paint with a paint brush when you could paint with a…?

1. Potato masher 2. drinking straw 3. finger 4. stacking cup

5. sponge 6. spaghetti 7. popcorn 8. cookie cutter

9. hand 10. pine cone 11. bubble wrap 12. celery 13. bubble wand

14. fishing rod 15. water bead 16. syringe 17. Easter egg

18. body 19. ketchup bottle 20. tooth brush 21. paint popsicle

22. Acorn 23. pipe cleaner 24. thumb 25. leaf 26. spatula

27. foot 28. nail brush 29. feather 30. slide 31. okra

32. rubber band 33. magnet 34. Q-tip 35. flower 36. party blower

37. tennis ball 38. elastic 39. potato 40. pan 41. packing peanut

42. scrubbing brush 43. carrot 44. marble 45. corn cob

46. bubble 47. styrofoam 48. egg carton 49. apple

50. pendulum 51. toy car 52. udder

Join the Kids Art Explorers for more kids painting ideas

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Spring play dough recipe – cheep, cheep!

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:00:38 +0000

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

We made a batch of yellow play dough using our favourite no cook play dough recipe. If you’ve never made home made play dough before our easy play dough recipe master class takes you through the recipe step by step.

Then we raided the craft cupboard to find our chick essentials: foam triangles for beaks, straws for feet, and feathers, feathers, feathers.

The children wanted to add some nests to their play so found some yarn to make their chickens a home.

Some birds are tidier than others – B said this swan’s nest could do with a bit of spring cleaning.

Just like at school, the eggs hatched out and we had some baby play dough chicks.

The children never tire of play dough, and ringing the changes with different themes to match each season gives us the opportunity to introduce different ideas and language every time we play. Play dough is great for sensory play and manipulating the dough is so good to build strength and dexterity in fingers, developing fine motor skills. If you’ve never made your own play dough, why not follow the master class and give it a try?

More spring activities

For lambs, bunnies, daffodils and more have a look at our kids spring activities.

And for different play dough ideas including a space theme, under the sea and ice cream varieties take a look at all our play dough recipe ideas.

Earth day activities: grow a meadow indoors!

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:24:31 +0000

Are you planning any Earth Day activities on April 22nd? Celebrated around the world, Earth Day is a great time to pause and reflect the impact you, your kids and your family have on the earth.

Last year we carried out an eco-audit of our play, looking at simple but effective ways we could align our activities with the ideas of reducing, re-using and recycling.

This year, we’re joining in with the Earth Day Celebrations hosted by Mommy Labs and Greening Sam and Avery to bring you a blog hop bursting with ideas you can use to celebrate Earth Day with your kids. Have a browse around the blog hop at the end of this post to find ideas for art, crafts, games, activities and positive action your family can take to go a little greener this month. First though, here’s what the NurtureStore girls came up with as an Earth Day play idea: we grew an indoor meadow!

Earth Day activities: grow a meadow indoors!

I still haven’t decided if this was a crazy or genius idea but it has been a huge hit with the children. We live on the edge of a city and have a small urban garden. We grow lots of flowers, fruit and vegetables in the garden – as well as running a School Gardening Club – but the one thing our house is missing is a lawn. We had a lawn in a previous home (and I have to say I don’t miss all the mowing) and we’re blessed with having excellent local parks on our doorstep, but, to celebrate Earth Day, we came up with the idea of grown our own small world meadow – to play with indoors and out.

We started by filling a seed tray with compost and watering it. We wanted a meadow that was big enough for the girls to use as a small world play area but something which was small enough so it was very easy to bring inside.

We measured out our grass seeds (according to the seed packet instructions) and sprinkled it over the compost – in horizontal and vertical lines to ensure good coverage.

As we knew our seed bed would be too tempting for our pesky cat, we placed the seed tray in our mini greenhouse and waited for the grass seeds to sprout. The girls checked the seeds everyday and in just over a week they had begun to grow. And they grew and grew and grew until….

we had a beautiful, verdant meadow, which the girls have played and played with. It’s such a sensory little world for them to use – so green and wonderful to touch. It’s been next to our fairy garden for a while…

until the dinosaurs moved in and the fairies fled to safety.

(This photo makes me laugh.I don’t know why the goat is so cross, but my husband says is looks like an episode of Lost.)

And of course the miniature meadow has been inside too. L especially loves to lie on her tummy and play here with her little creatures. She has the animals chat away to each other and sends them off for adventures in the tall grass. The meadow’s in need of a haircut now – time to bring out the scissors!

More Earth Day activities

How are you going to celebrate Earth Day with your children? Will you grown some seeds with your children, make a junk model toy, turn rubbish into plant pots? For inspiration take a browse through the ideas in this Earth Day blog hop. And please join us. If you are a blogger and you have a great Earth Day idea, please link up with the blog hop and share with us.

This Earth Day celebration is brought to you by:

Easy play dough recipe master class

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:51:04 +0000

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

I’m going to show you my favourite no cook play dough recipe. There are many versions and variations of play dough available but this is the one I use most often because it’s easy, quick and lasts really well.

Step One: Take a large bowl and add 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, oil, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons cream of tartar

Step Two: add in any dry extras such as glitter

Step Three: boil the kettle and pour 1 1/2 cups of the water into your mixture. Add in any food colouring at this stage so it mixes evenly through the dough.
Step Four: mix the ingredients together to form a dough.

Step Five: done! Your easy play dough recipe is complete and you’re ready to play.

Play dough problems: solved

Play dough too crumbly? Add a little more oil.

Play dough too sticky? Add in a little more flour.

Want a coloured play dough? For white snow play dough use corn flour instead of regular flour. For chocolate play dough use a mix of flour and cocoa. For other colours, add in some food colouring. Add the food colouring along with the water, rather than trying to knead it in later, to get a more even colour and so the children don’t end up with colouring all over their hands. Try black space play dough or red Valentine play dough.

Want to make your play dough smell good? Add some fragrance by mixing in some herbs or spices with your flour: try cinnamon play dough. Using essential oils can be too harsh on children’s skin so you might like to try food oils such as orange or vanilla essence instead. Try ice-cream play dough.

Want your play dough to last a long time? Wrap it up well in a plastic bag as soon as you’ve finished playing and your play dough could last for months.

Want a gluten free recipe? Try the no flour play dough recipe over at Messy Kids.

Not got all the ingredients? If you discover you have no cream of tartar, no problem – just leave it out. You can make a basic dough just by combining flour and water if that’s all you have. The dough won’t last but will give you a great day’s worth of play.

Want to add in some extra play and learning? Try using cocktail sticks / tooth picks for maths play. Add pencils and try some mark making. Encourage imaginations with under the sea or outer space play dough.

Got another play dough question or a great tip? Please share with us in the comments.

Want more play dough ideas?

Combine this easy play dough recipe with a year’s worth of play dough ideas by downloading NurtureStore’s free Let’s Play Dough ebook. Like NurtureStore on Facebook and subscribe to our weekly Play Planner and I’ll keep you in a regular supply of more play dough fun.

Art for kids: paint play

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:00:18 +0000

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.

We use pieces of card for this hands-on art, as paper will likely fall apart. We used washable ready-mixed poster paint as we wanted the paint to easily clean off everyone’s hands when we’d finished. We covered the table, floor and the kids’ clothes, and then we could all relax about getting a little mess and enjoy ourselves. If this is still a messy step to far for either you or your children – as not all kids like to put their hands right in – you could try putting the paint (or use hair gel and some colouring) inside a zip-lock bag. You’ll still be able to create patterns but have a lot less to tidy up afterwards.

Letting your children free-form patterns in the paint encourages them to explore the texture and see what they can create. My daughter was humming away to herself as she drew: happy, relaxed and thinking.

You could try making some pre-writing marks in the paint, copying the shapes which appear in many of our letters: curls, circles and lines.

See which mathematical shapes you can make: try circles, squares and stars.

Making spirals that increase and decrease in size is great for hand-eye co-ordination.

Or put on some music and see what patterns you an make to match the sounds you hear.

More art for kids

If you’d like to try some different art for kids, watch out for our Kids Art Explorers announcement on Thursday – it’ll be about painting with a difference!