Growing sunflowers with children? Download our free sunflower activities ebook.
Come and join our Sunflower Club for lots more sunflower fun.
The music on the slideshow is from the Album Frogs Legs by Various Artists Kazoomzoom
Have some fun with bean bags!
We have four colours of bean bags so we chose four coloured chalks to match. We drew four different shapes and numbered them 1 to 4. Then it was time to play.
Have a go at colour matching – can you throw the blue bean bag into the blue shape?
Have a go with numbers – can you throw a bean bag onto the number 1? onto the number 2?
Have a go with shapes – can you throw all the bean bags into the circle?
With older children you can let them throw at the targets and add up the scores as you go along.
We have the great pleasure of having another guest post today. Please welcome Maggie from Red Ted Art with ideas for combining nature and art…
Over at Red Ted Art, my son (Red Ted (2)) and I (Maggy (old)) do lots of crafts projects. Sometimes Pip Squeak (0) joins us. Usually I am inspired by books that we read (the tagline from another crafty mum being – story + art = great stART). This time however, we were Inspired by Nature as well as the Arts! (come visit “Get Crafty” for a host of nature related ideas):
The V&A is running a World Beach Project with artist Sue Lawty. This is a project involving sculptures and pictures made from stones. Check out the V&A website for more info. Here is Sue Lawty’s project.
We couldn’t get to a beach, but still wanted to “take part”, so friends of ours brought us some Brighton Beach stones and we got Inspired by Nature at home… we have 6 BIG stones and lots of pebbles from the garden.
*** PLEASE TAKE CARE WITH THE PEBBLES AND SMALL CHILDREN – DO NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE – CHOKING HAZARD***
This is what we got up to:
Whilst playing with the stones we learnt lots of things:
“Just Feeling” – enjoying nature and playing with the pebbles. They feel nice, don’t they?!
Lots here:
And finally! Some “artwork” and some playing (Red Ted did the flower pattern when I had turned my back).
Happy & Sad! We made a stone caterpillar with petals for eyes. Turn the stone one way and he is sad (“hungry mummy”), turn the stone the other way and he is happy!
Hurray for Brighton Beach stone (and pebbles from the garden)!
If you enjoyed this post, do pop over to Red Ted Art and see what we get up to on a regular basis – Get Inspired by Nature in Nature Get Crafty or just visit for Wednesday Crafts!! We look forward to meeting you!
Maggy & Red Ted (& sometimes Pip Squeak)
For hot and cranky kids these homemade ice lollies are just the thing to cool down, and to make sure they’re getting enough fluids in hot weather. It’s great to have a batch ready for when they get home from school and they’re feeling frazzled.
You can use fruit to make your own juices, or use cartons of bought fruit juice. If you’re using shop bought juice it’s worth checking the ingredients label if you want to avoid added sugar. We went with apple and mango juices, but the choice is yours.
To make multi-coloured layer lollies: Part fill your lolly containers with a fruit juice. Pop in the freezer until frozen.
Top up with a different juice…
Then put your lolly sticks on top. Pop them back in the freezer until they’re all frozen and you have them ready and waiting for the next lot of sunshine.
Happily shared with Works For Me Wednesday
The A – Z of Kids Play & Learning
A is for…. Active Learning
I once sat in on a pre-school session where the teacher was introducing a group of eight 3-year-olds to the idea of mixing colours. She had two pots of paint, one red and one yellow, and was showing the children how combining the two would make orange. Messy fun, sensory play swirling the colours together, and the magical realisation that they’re created something new by stirring the colours together. Except the children weren’t allowed to touch the paint themselves. They were being asked to sit around a table and watch the teacher having all the fun. What a missed opportunity to let the children do some active learning.
Active learning means learning by doing – by exploring and investigating, being spontaneous and engaging in purposeful play. It’s the way children learn best. They are naturally curious and inquisative, so rather than see our job as giving children information we can look for ways to help them learn and discover for themselves. No hot-housing, no flash cards, no sitting still and being taught, but rather using their everyday experiences to learn: at the breakfast table, in the bath, in the garden, on the way to play group. By letting children persue their interests with our support, they gain a positive attitude to learning. They enjoy learning, they gain confidence and independence and they aquire new skills.
Here are three ideas you could use this week to support your children in their active learning:
1. Materials: Can you provide some materials, toys or objects which are ‘open-ended’ so you child can use them in a variety of different ways in their play? How will you child play with some wooden blocks, yoghurt pots, fir cones or shells? Let them use their creativity and see where their imagination takes them.
2. Freedom: Can you let your children choose how to play this week? Are they able to access different toys / materials to include in their play — perhaps by having it on low, open shelving or in toy boxes, so they can include different objects in their games? Can they have ‘permission’ to play their way, taking toys in to the garden, using jigsaw pieces as food in their ‘cooking’ or wearing a tambourine as a hat? Can they spend the whole morning rolling a ball down a slide (and experimenting with gravity and rotation as they play?)
3. Support: Can you play along with them and talk to them about what they’re doing? Can you help them solve problems when they meet an obstacle to their play? Can you plan another opportunity for them to explore their interests further?
As an example of active learning, taking a child’s interest and supporting it to provide more fun and learning you might like to have a look at our ‘Ducks’ post.
What could you play this week?
Hello everyone and welcome to Guest Post Day! Erica over at Littlemummy.com has been organising ‘blind dates’, linking up pairs of blogs to swap posts today. I am delighted to be paired up with Sandy from Baby Baby and to bring your her post, which even includes a story she has written just for us, which I hope you will enjoy reading with your children. (And please do pop over to Baby Baby to read the post I’ve written for her.) So, over to Sandy….
Hi, I’m Sandy. I write the blog Baby Baby. Baby Baby is my place to rant, rave, process my thoughts and attempt to entertain. One thing I don’t do is write about crafting. My two boys, Presley, 2 and Cash, 1, enjoy colouring at home and occasional sticking, but we tend to leave the messy stuff for Toddler Group.
When I found I was swapping blogs with NurtureStore for the day I felt inadequate. What on earth could I write about? Cathy has written a wonderful post for me called A Reluctant Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Craft. Yep, that was definitely written for me!
The name of this blog however, NurtureStore, inspired me. Here is my guest post.
It’s never too early to encourage a life-long love of books in your children.
One of my earliest memories is being read ‘Toby to the Rescue’ by my Mum. I was only two. Part way through the story the phone rang. Mum answered it and I carried on ‘reading’. I could remember every single word.
Another treasured memory is of my Dad making up stories about a family of hedgehogs at bathtime, then my Mum would read stories and sing to us as she tucked us up in bed.
I’ve always loved books and I still read every day, even if it’s just a couple of pages of a novel before I fall asleep.
Newborn babies will love being read to. They will be comforted by the sound of your voice. As they develop and their eyes begin to focus, babies will enjoy looking at the pictures in board books. Soon they will reach out to touch the images. This is where textured books are brilliant. They may annoy mum and dad, but books with animal sounds will usually raise a smile from your little one.
Encourage your baby to hold books. As they learn to turn the pages of a board book they are developing motor skills. Make books part of their everyday play, don’t just save them for bedtime.
The bedtime story is a wonderful part of childhood. You can start your baby’s bedtime routine at any age, the younger the better. To begin with you may think they’re not listening, they will grab the book and try to eat it. Do persevere. This is a wonderful opportunity to bond with your child – for both parents.
Soon your little one will be choosing books and you will accidentally on purpose rotate them so that you don’t have to read ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle for the thousandth time! Presley loves Julia Donaldson stories, particularly ‘Night Monkey, Day Monkey’ and, of course, ‘The Gruffalo’. Cash’s current favourites are ‘Elmer’ by David McKee and the Panda and Gander stories by Joyce Dunbar and Helen Craig.
Reading can be free, you just need to join a library. Our local library is tiny, but they have hundreds of children’s books. You can also ask for books as presents.
Happy reading!
***
One thing I’ve never done is write a children’s story. It’s always been something I’ve thought about, but didn’t have the inspiration – until now.
This week I was sat with a toddler on each knee, looking at the garden. We saw squirrels, birds and bees. I started to tell my boys that bees made honey. They looked at me like I was making it up. So I made this up instead.
Boris was a young bee.
Boris was a busy buzzy young bee.
He didn’t stop buzzing all day.
Boris spent all day flying from flower to flower.
He collected pollen from the flowers in little bags on his legs.
When the bags were full he flew back to his hive.
Boris lived in a hive with loads of other buzzy bees.
The buzzy bees made delicious honey in the hive.
One day Boris was buzzing around some beautiful yellow flowers.
He had collected a lot of pollen and it was nearly time to go back to the hive.
All of a sudden he heard Walter the wasp flying towards him.
Walter was a naughty wasp who liked to cause trouble.
Walter didn’t have an important job, like Boris.
Boris was scared of wasps and Walter was a big wasp.
Boris decided to fly home, but Walter chased him.
Walter laughed as he chased Boris, but Boris was too quick for him.
Boris buzzed away from Walter.
When he could no longer hear Walter, Boris stopped buzzing and rested on an orange flower.
Boris looked around. He didn’t know where he was. He hadn’t seen orange flowers before.
Boris was lost! He didn’t know what to do.
He had a little room in his bags so Boris collected some pollen from the orange flower.
It was getting dark, but Boris didn’t know the way home.
Then Boris heard buzzing and saw a big bee from his hive flying towards him.
‘There you are, Boris!’ said Billy, ‘I’ve been looking for you’.
Boris was very happy to see Billy and followed him back to the hive.
All the other buzzy bees were pleased to see Billy and Boris.
Boris turned his pollen into honey and it tasted wonderful.
After that all the buzzy bees from the hive collected pollen from orange flowers.
Boris was a beaming busy buzzy bee who decided he was no longer scared of wasps.
Thank you for having me, Cathy.
Normal service will be resumed next time!