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10 playdough ideas

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Welcome to the first @nurturestore #goplay Twitter Tips. Tonight: 10 ideas to get the most fun from play dough

#goplay Tip #1: playdough is perfect when you have a mixed age group playing together: everyone can play their way

#goplay Tip #2: play dough is a good introduction to messy play for children (and parents!) who don’t like mess

#goplay Tip #3: use this recipe to make your own play dough: food ingredients so OK is the kids eat a sneaky bit

#goplay Tip #4: play dough is so good for encouraging creativity, you could make this

#goplay Tip #5: bring an extra sensory experience to play dough by adding food essences or essential oils: vanilla, peppermint, orange

#goplay Tip #6: manipulating play dough is perfect for fine motor skills – getting fingers ready for holding a pencil one day

#goplay Tip #7: a pot of homemade play dough is perfect for party loot bags. Try this recipe

#goplay Tip #8: try adding in different resources each time you use play dough and see how your kids play creatively

#goplay Tip #9: other things to add to play dough play: lollysticks, matchsticks, shells, cookie cutters, knives & forks, feathers…

#goplay Tip #10: try using play dough in a different place: the garden, the toy kitchen, the dolls’ house. Give kids a fresh challenge

>>>Download our free Playdough recipe and ideas ebook >>>

play dough recipe

Summer holiday planner

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For the last few weeks we have been collecting ideas for things we’d like to do over the summer holiday and starting to think about all the plans we have. Then yesterday Deb from Carrots and Kids shared an idea for a Summer Holiday Planner she’d seen over at the Future Craft Collective. It’s such a great way to give some shape to the holiday but still keep things flexible. It includes a calendar for any days  out or events that are scheduled  and pockets to fill with ideas of things to do, people to see, chores that need completing. You can pop over to the Future Craft Collective to find a complete tutorial on how to sew the planner and ideas on what to include. We went for quick and instant with our version and used envelopes stuck on with sticky tape for our pockets. We’ve included some blank cards so we can add ideas as we go along (and encourage B do keep up with her writing over the holiday too). It will also be great to have a store of ideas in the ‘things to do’ envelope, ready for the first cry of ‘I’m bored’!

Are you a holiday planner kind of family – or do you take each day as it comes?

The tiger who came to tea activities

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Storybook Springboard – bringing books to life

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr is one of our all time favourite stories. My girls are spellbound by the idea of a tiger popping round and helping himself to all the cakes. It’s also a perfect book to use as a springboard for lots of other play and learning activities. Here are a few ideas:

When children first begin to engage in imaginary play it’s usually by role-playing things they see in their everyday life – feeding their teddy, giving their doll a bath, chatting to daddy on the phone. This is a valuable way for them to try out a different experience and practise all the language associated with it. As they get a little older and their view of the world expands beyond their own homelife they start to play in more imaginative, fantasy ways. The Tiger Who Came to Tea is a great book to use to foster this creative play and get them using their imagination. You could try some face painting, so they can be the tiger themselves. Add in some props, such as a tea set and some packets of food,  and they can recreate the story – and then adapt it and make up their own endings too.

As an alternative you could make a tiger mask.

Or how about making a tiger puppet so they can play out the story on a small scale.

 

Everyone learns best when a new idea is linked in with other experiences which re-inforce the new. Can you have some fun bringing your child’s favourite book to life today?

 

This post is linking in with The Gallery, hosted by Tara at Sticky Fingers, where the theme this week is A Novel Idea – a photo inspired by your favourite book. Why not pop over and see the other pictures for more inspiration?

 


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We Play

The best craft supplies

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What are the best craft supplies to use with children? We like to re-use and recycle a lot of the things we have around the house which we keep in our making box. In preparation for the long summer holiday I’m also stocking up on some essential supplies. Our favourites are:

Glue Sticks

Relatively mess-free and easy to grasp in little hands – a good glue option for young children.

Coloured Card

We always use lots of this so we like to bulk buy in assorted colours.

Sticky Tape Dispenser

A dispenser which is weighted down makes using sticky tape so much easier for kids – allowing them to be more independent when they are creating.

Giant roll of paper

Perfect for street maps or drawing round yourself

Tissue Paper

Big sheets of tissue paper can be tricky to cut or tear, so these assorted smaller pieces are great for children to use. Perfect for making sun catchers.

Pom Poms

A few bits and bobs such as pompoms, stickers, foil shapes can be used to customise designs and add a little fun.

Pipe Cleaners

Good for arms and antennas (we used them for our peg dolls). B also uses them as connectors to fasten models together

Paper Plates

Lots and lots of uses for these, such as sunflowers or angels

Air Drying Clay

A good option for some modelling, not too messy and easy for your children to use and create a long-lasting masterpiece.

What are you stocking up on for the holiday?


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Recipes for all the family

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For a quick tea after school, an easy meal at the weekend, or to mix-and-match a bit to suit kids with assorted fussiness, you can’t go far wrong with:

Quesadillas : Cheese Tortillas

Quick photo grabbed before the kids started eating!

You will need:

A pack of tortilla wraps (8 wraps makes enough for a family of 4, or for 6 kids)

A mound of grated cheese

A selection of flavours: we like finely chopped onion, peppers, sweetcorn, coriander

You need to:

Place a tortilla wrap in a frying pan (no oil needed).

Pop some cheese on top.

Let the kids choose which extras they want to customise their quesadilla and pop them on top of the cheese.

Add another tortilla wrap on top to make a sandwich.

Dry fry for a couple of minutes, then flip with a spatula and dry fry the other side for a couple of minutes.

Slice like a pizza & it’s ready to eat.

We like to serve them with soured cream and guacamole.

This is a nice recipe to use if you fancy trying some new ‘international’ food with your kids and links in very well with the book Come and Eat with Us (Discovery Flaps) which was created with Oxfam and shows families in different countries shopping for food, cooking and eating. It introduces the idea of there being many similarities and differences around the world and gives lots to talk about.

Teachers end of year present

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So imagine you are your child’s teacher. You’ve spent the last school year taking care of 25 lively, noisy, energetic infants. You’ve listened to all their news, wiped noses, fastened coats, resolved squabbles,  as well as rather a lot of teaching too. Wouldn’t you like to walk into the staff room at playtime on the last day of term to find this…

We couldn’t decide what to make for L’s pre-school teachers as a thank you present. We knew we wanted something homemade that L could help make. These cakes fit the bill perfectly. We used our never fail cake recipe with a butter icing topping. L helped with the weighing, sieving, mixing, egg cracking, cake case counting and spoon licking. The little flags add a cute flourish on top. We wrote ‘with love from’ on one end of a strip of paper and L drew a picture on the other, but you could go with whatever design you like and even print images from a photo. Each strip was folded round a cocktail stick and held in place with a little glue. Super easy, super cute.

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