Do you know Pippi? She’s nine years old, lives by herself and doesn’t go to . . . → Read More: The Museum of Turnupstuffing: celebrating found art treasures]]>
We are very fond of Pippi Longstocking in our house and her inspiration is seen in lots of different ways – from her encouragement to climb trees, through the idea that fun and creativity is rarely tidy to our latest passion: turnupstuffing.

Do you know Pippi? She’s nine years old, lives by herself and doesn’t go to school. Her mother has died and her father is a Cannibal King. And she’s celebrated in a series of books by Astrid Lindgren. She is also an expert at turnupstuffing – and so are my kids!

What’s a turnupstuffer? I’ll let Pippi explain.

‘Somebody who finds the stuff that turns up if only you look, of course. What else would it be?… The whole world is filled with things that are just waiting for someone to come along and find them, and that’s just what a turnupstuffer does.’

{Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren}

Children naturally make great turnupstuffers, being closer to the ground with eyes peeled to spot things that adults rush passed with out noticing. And what kind of things might you turn up? Pippi suggests gold nuggets, ostrich feathers and dead mice but we haven’t found any of those yet. What you turn up depends on where you look, and sometimes there are surprising treasures to find.

Of course, I want my children to take the utmost care when we are out and about on our walks and never pick up anything that might harm them. That’s where our Rules of Turnupstuffing are applied – so we can enjoy discovering found treasures safely.

The rules of turnupstuffing

:: Keep your eyes pealed when you are out and about to spot hidden treasures

:: You can only touch something after your adult has said it’s OK

:: If you can work out who the treasure belongs to you must do all you can to return it to them (So a lost teddy found in a friend’s garden is returned to them)

:: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A fir cone, pebble or button are treasures just as much as a gold nugget if you like the look and feel of them

Using your turnedup stuff

And what do you do with the treasures you have turned up? Welcome to the Museum of Turnupstuffing.

Previously treasures have been hoarded in pockets, stashed in the buggy or sometimes displayed on a nature table, but when I discovered this wooden house in a charity shop it seemed the perfect place to showcase our treasures.

A couple of coats of acrylic paint created different galleries within the museum.

And a sign at the entrance welcomed visitors.

When the children turnup stuff, they’re added to the museum. Sometimes like objects are classified together in one of the galleries, sometimes they like to contrast two items that are different in size or texture (like when they found a pompom and a marble on the same outing).

Items ebb and flow through the museum as the children decide to use them in their play, add them to a sensory tub or include them in some art they are making. But a new round of turnupstuffing on our next walk soon turns up new treasures to join the collection.

Ways to use found treasures

Have you ever been turnupstuffing with your kids? You’re good company! Not only does Pippi turnup stuff but so do the Kids Stuff World kids. And what else can you do with the stuff you turn up?

:: use them as part of an Incy Wincy book

:: make a found object mosaic

:: include them in some garden tile art

:: try to identify each item you find: what is it made from, what does it feel like? Can you make up a story to explain how it was lost?

:: what else? How do you use found objects?

Last year we carried out an eco-audit of our play, looking at simple but effective ways we could align our activities . . . → Read More: Earth day activities: grow a meadow indoors!]]>
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:

Mommy Labs, Greening Sam and Avery
Teach Preschool | Ready.Set.Read | Living at the Whitehead’s Zoo | The Outlaw Mom Blog | Rainy Day Mum | The Golden Gleam | Inspiration Laboratories | Nurture Store | Experimenting Mom | Kids Stuff World | Artsy Craftsy Mom | Creativity My Passion | Imagination Soup | Caution! Twins at play |Rockabye Butterfly | Explore Education | Getting Messy with Miss Jessy | Daria Music | Mama Smiles |Let’s Lasso the Moon | Reading Confetti | The Educators’ Spin On It | Kitchen Counter Chronicles | De tout et de rien | Our Feminist Playschool | The Wise Owl Factory Book a Day | Mommy and Me Book Club | Dirt and Boogers | Carrots Are Orange | Putti Prapancha | Toddler Approved | Imprints from Tricia | Smiling like Sunshine |

Easter represents new life and these decorations remind me each year of . . . → Read More: Heirloom Easter eggs]]>

Easter represents new life and these decorations remind me each year of when my own little chicks were born, because they are made from some of the girls’ baby clothes. The colours and motifs on their babygrows and little dresses seemed such a good match to the theme of Easter that we used them to sew a set of decorations. Here’s how we made them.

How to make Heirloom Easter Eggs

As with all of our sewing projects, we kept things nice and simple:

:: cut out two matching egg shapes from the fabrics

:: add decorations on top. We cut out some of the hearts, flowers and ladybirds from the baby clothes and used fabric glue to stick them on the front of the eggs

:: then we stitched around the outside using a simple running stitch. We popped some cotton wool inside just before we completed stitching all the way round and made a loop at the top so we could hang the eggs.

The heirloom Easter eggs are a mix and match of the girls baby clothes, with a few extra feathers added here and there.

They’ll be hung on our Easter tree, which sits in the hallway to welcome everyone as they arrive. The tree itself is made from twisted branches gathered from the local park and placed in a large vase. Pussy willow and forsythia make beautiful Easter trees too. We use our branches all year round and change the decorations to match the season – you might have seen our Valentine gratitude tree and our New Year angel wish tree.

How do you decorate your home for Easter?

Here’s an idea from my colleague Lesley, which we used at creche this week.

Cut out a rabbit face shape from a piece of card, with . . . → Read More: Easter bunny craft]]>
Looking for a kids Easter bunny craft idea? Here are five different ideas you might like to try – all easy to do and all super cute!

Easter bunny craft #1: rabbit mask

Here’s an idea from my colleague Lesley, which we used at creche this week.

Cut out a rabbit face shape from a piece of card, with lovely big bunny ears. Provide pink noses and ear shapes, black wool for whiskers and black pens or pencils for drawing on eyes. Invite the children to glue, stick and draw to make their own bunny rabbit craft. You could turn this into a mask too – punch eye holes and attach an elastic thread at the sides and the children can wear their creations.

It’s good to remember that kids crafts don’t all have to turn out to be ’perfect’. Even if you offer the children the same basic materials it’s great to encourage them to make their own mark, use their imagination and create their own take on an Easter bunny. At creche this week, some children wanted to stick, stick, stick – and others want to draw. Some enjoyed the process of spreading the glue and placing the materials in ‘alternative’ locations! Others were very particular about making their Easter craft looks as much like a real bunny as they could. One child sat for a whole hour adding lots of detailed extras around their bunny – carrots to eat, baby bunnies under ground, lots of kisses and decorations.

More Easter bunny craft ideas

Bunny #2 is a kids Easter recipe lollipop – with a printable recipe card for you to use.

Bunny #3 is a junk model Easter bunny craft – and has a flower meadow to play in

Bunny #4 is made from printing with carrots (of course!)

Bunny #5 is a decorated egg craft

Are you making an Easter rabbit craft this year? Share an link in the comments!