NurtureStore

Role-play vets

Have you ever seen such a pitiful looking kitten? Good job the vet is on hand with raisin tablets to bring her temperature down.

To make our vets kit we used our doctors’ set and added in some cotton wool, cotton buds, a jar of raisin tablets, some water to go in our syringe to irrigate any wounds, and some bandages made from an old muslin cloth.

Role playing is a great way for children to rehearse everyday situations and try out new experiences. It’s also a really good way for them to develop their language and practise co-operating with others as they play. Do your children enjoy role playing?

I’m looking for fun ways to teach shapes – got any ideas for me?

We started our mission by eating a lunch of circles, easy to make a whole meal of circles once you start looking!

Happily shared with ABCand123
and Weare ThatFamily

I am taking no credit whatsoever for this idea as it was entirely inspired by Valerie and a post she wrote on her Frugal Family Fun Blog. Ever since I saw her story stones idea I have been dying to try it out as I knew B & L would love them. So making the most of our trip to the beach the girls and I collected a few smallish, flat pebbles to make our own set of story stones when we got home.

We used pencil crayons and felt pens to decorate our stones and used the shape of the stones to suggest some characters.

The illustrated stones have now moved into our fairy garden and the girls have spent a happy afternoon playing out stories with them. Make sure to pop over to the Frugal Family Fun Blog to see how Valerie added some extra play-factor to her set.

Happily shared with…

ABC and 123

To make simple flags to deck out a sandcastle: take a rectangle of card, add a design, fold and glue onto a stick.

We’re off to the beach for a few days  – see you when we get back!

Happily shared with…

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

Have you ever tried writing poetry with children? So far this summer the Sunflower Club has inspired us with measurement, science, art, numbers and biology and today we’re tried out some poems about sunflowers.

We had a go with two different prompts. The first was to take each letter of the word ‘sunflower’ and see if we could find another word beginning with that letter which suited our flowers. This worked well for my 7 year old but didn’t click with my four year old.

For the second prompt we used some starter sentences to brainstorm ideas. For example…

A sunflower is….

The sunflower’s colour is…

A sunflower is tall like…

The petals are like…

We then took the ‘answers’ and combined them to make our poem.  Here’s what we came up with – what do you think?

Sunshine

Up to the sky

Nodding

Fiery

Lovely

Over our heads

Wonderful

Extremely tall

Radiant

*****************************

Bright, beautiful, radiant colour

Like a lion’s mane

Tall as a mountain, up to the sky

Happy and sunny and radiant

And don’t forget you are invitied to our Sunflower Club linky party on August 25th. If you have been growing sunflowers or doing any sunflower activities over the summer please come and share your ideas with us. Whether you’ve a tip for planting, advice for growing giants, sunflower pictures or crafts, please come and link up with us.

Happily shared with…

One of our favourite summer treats is homemade ice cream cornettos. Great fun to make and ever so yummy.

To make some you will need: wafer ice cream cones, soft scoop vanilla ice cream, raspberries, icing sugar, chocolate, fudge

Keep the ice cream in the freezer until you need to use it – you don’t want to melt it and re-freeze it.

(The quantities given below made 10 small cones, with some tasting and nibbling as we went along)

Chop up 100g chocolate and 100g fudge into small chunks.

Melt 200g  chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.

Whizz 100g of raspberries and a dessert spoon of icing sugar to make a raspberry sauce.

Wrap each cornet in a strip of greaseproof paper, held in place with sticky tape.

Paint the inside of each cornet with melted chocolate using a pastry brush. Make sure you get a nice pool of chocolate in the bottom  so you get a chocolatey treat at the end of your cornet.

Wait until the the chocolate has set  inside the cornet (about 5-10 mins)

Fill with layers of ice cream, raspberry sauce, fudge and chocolate. Work quickly so the ice cream doesn’t melt. Fill over the rim of the cornet, inside the greaseproof paper for that authentic cornetto style.

Pop back in the freezer for a little while so the sauce can set, then remove the greaseproof paper and…

Enjoy!

You can’t beat home made cornettos for a great summer treat.

Happily shared with We Are That Family and

Sponsored post

Sensory Smell Games for Children

Did you know the world has more astronauts than perfumers? There are only about 100 perfumers in the world and last week I got to meet one of them. Kate Willams is the perfumer for Imperial Leather and she is passionate about fragrance. I was invited to meet her at the Imperial Leather Innovation Centre and to find out more about their SkinKind range of products.

Imperial Leather are experts in fragrance and they’ve used their knowledge to develop the SkinKind shower gels, which smell lovely but are still hypoallergenic. The SkinKind range is available in three allergen-free fragrances and have been designed to be kind to even very sensitive skins.  It was fascinating to talk with Kate and find out about her job. She talked about how designing a new perfume is a very creative process and how inspiration can come from anywhere: a flower she smells, a sculpture she sees, even a handbag she notices.

This got me thinking about children and their sense of smell. We often use textures and sound in sensory play but how often do you encourage kids to explore fragrance? We always smell ingredients when we’re cooking and I’ve blogged before about aromatherapy pots for babies but today, inspired by Kate, I’ve been playing a sensory smell game with the girls.

I took a few pieces of card (all the same colour so there were no sight clues) and rubbed something smelly on each one: a lemon, an onion, a garlic bulb, a strawberry. I sprayed perfume on the last one and then cut each card in half.  All the cards were jumbled up and placed out on the table. Could the girls sniff out the pairs of cards which matched together? Why not try the game with your children and see how you get on? You never know you could have a junior perfumer in the making!

It’s summer holiday season when lots of us are travelling with kids so this week’s Twitter Tips* are all about keeping children entertained on a car journey.

Twitter Tip #1 The key to traveling happily with kids is a little planning: make a box of goodies for snacks, treats and activities

Twitter Tip #2 Make a bingo game to take along with pictures of roadsigns, vehicles, people and landmarks you can spot along the way

Twitter Tip #3 Play 20 questions. With younger children give clues to about someone in the family, let older ones ask questions

Twitter Tip #4 Stock a busy bag with pens, paper, stickers, doll, magazine, books, sweets, a magnetic scribble pad, magic colour pens

Twitter Tip #5Every 20 mins or so give the kids something new from the busy bag – keeps them busy & helps measure out the journey

Twitter Tip #6 Take along some audio books (borrow some from the library ) -better for carsickness than watching a film on a screen

Twitter Tip #7 Locate the playgrounds along your route. Stop regularly and get out of the car to let the children run around.

Twitter Tip #8 Put together a compilation of the family’s favourite music: can’t beat a singalong to lift everyone’s mood!

Twitter Tip #9 Make story magnets & play with them on a baking sheet -they won’t get lost down the car seats

Twitter Tip #10 How about some washable car window crayons to let the kids get creative while they ride?

*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 and encouraging reading and writing

Happily shared with Top Ten Tuesday and We Are That Family’s Works for me Wednesday

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