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Did you ever meet a hoomagwata?

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salt dough recipe

We used our favourite easy salt dough recipe this week to make… hoomagwatas. You’ve heard of hoomagwatas, right? Carnivorous creatures that live in the Central African rain forest. Very dangerous animals that will eat you up in a minute – or so my children tell me. (I googled the name but sadly there’s no trace of any real hoomagwatas – that would have delighted the kids)

easy salt dough recipe

Salt dough modelling gives you lots of play and learning – and we spread this project over three days so we could take our time and enjoy each stage. If you’d like to make some creatures with your children you can find the salt dough recipe [Read more…]

Play dough recipe

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play dough recipe

Need a play dough recipe? Salt dough recipe, bread dough recipe, no cook play dough recipe?

How about a year’s worth of playdough play ideas – including math, literacy and creative play.

Now available: an all-new-and-improved Homemade Play Dough Recipe Book!

come and take a look!

The Homemade Play Dough Recipe book : recipesa dn ideas for a whole year of play

 

Promoting writing: irresistible pens and pencils

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childrens writing ideas

>>>> Download our ABCs and 123s guide here

If you’re looking for ways to promote literacy and get children writing, one easy but effective way to encourage writing is to make it irresistible.

Don’t hide the paper and pencils away in a drawer – set up a creation station! Provide an assortment of papers in different colours, shapes and sizes and pots of pencils you know they’ll love. Whether they’re a sparkly, glittery, superhero, football or dinosaur kinda kid, it’s easy and inexpensive to find a few pens to suit their passion. Another sure way to get my girls interested is to mix in some ‘real grown-up’ supplies from our home office – highlighter pens are the tops! Add in some envelopes for letter writing and a roll of stickers to transform into postage stamps.

literacy resources
Can you find some supplies tonight and set up a creation station ready to surprise the children in the morning? Bet you can!

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ABCs and 123s : fun learning activities for letters and math

All our favourite literacy  activities, all in one place :: download our ABCs and 123s guide here. 

Teaching children to dress themselves

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teaching children to dress themselves
How do you teach children to dress themselves? One playful idea is to practise on dolly instead.  Being a big helper and assisting dolly can be less frustrating than struggling with your own clothes, so this might be just the trick needed to help a learner tackle buttons and velcro.

Find some dolly-sized clothes with zips, buttons and toggles – or stitch some on yourself – and then include them in your play. Trying to teach children to dress themselves when you’re in a hurry in the morning, or just about to head out the door, doesn’t create the best situation to master a new skill. By including this is in play, children gets lots of time and opportunity to practise.

For more tips see our staring school guide to putting on your own coat and shoes

How do you help your children learn to tackle zips and buttons?

Counting ladybirds

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ladybird number game

Make a set of number ladybirds, add in some stickers and have some counting fun.

Taking a child’s passion and using it to practise a new skill works really well. I know a child who *loves* stickers – that simple process of peel and stick, peel and stick, gives them immense satisfaction! So I thought I’d use this in a different way to help us work on our counting too. Ladybirds with spots lend themselves to counting games really well, and sticker dots are inexpensive and easy to get hold of.

To start your ladybird counting, first make your ladybirds.

  1. Cut out some ladybird shapes from card.
  2. Write on them numbers one to ten.
  3. Let the children lose with the stickers – putting the right number of spots on each ladybird.

Here are some of the ideas we played:

  • Can you find the ladybird with a number one?
  • Can you add the right number of stickers to match the number?
  • Which ladybird has got the most stickers?
  • Can you line up the ladybirds from one to ten, or from ten to one.
  • This ladybird has two spots – can you find a ladybird with one spot more?
  • How old are you? Can you find a ladybird with the same number of spots?

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