Summer Archives - Page 12 of 15

The Very Hungry Caterpillar craft ideas

20/06/2011 by Cathy James 11 Comments

Kicking off our celebration of Eric Carle’s birthday this week we’re sharing three The Very Hungry Caterpillar craft ideas.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is our favourite of Eric Carle’s books and is the first book I ever read to both my girls. It’s masterpiece of a children’s story, a joy to read and look at, and bursting with possibilities to use as a spring board for lots of crafting, exploring and learning.

Mr. Carle is celebrating his birthday this week and Kate at An Amazing Child blog is hosting a week of fun, linking up many early years bloggers who are sharing ideas for activities and crafts linked to Mr. Carle’s books. We’re sharing some caterpillar craft ideas today and some butterfly crafts tomorrow. On Thursday we have a post full of ideas you can use to explore The Very Hungry Caterpillar with links to the EYFS.

Eric Carle is famous for his signature style, combining colour and texture and The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a perfect book to use to inspire children to try some art and crafting. When creating with young children I always like to give them plenty of opportunity to explore materials their way. Even though these projects are all designed to result in a caterpillar there is plenty of scope for each child to experiment and add their own style to the creations. The caterpillar crafts are all very simple to follow, inviting even very young children to have a try. [Read more…]

How to make a fairy garden

08/06/2011 by Cathy James 13 Comments

How to make a fairy garden

After making our miniature garden last week, the girls re-discovered our outdoor fairy garden at the weekend. The one we made last year has been well played with but was in need of a little spring cleaning, so they hunted round the garden to see what they could find to give it a revamp.

An old, broken plant pot has been given a new lease of life as a house, with a path of mussel shells leading up to the entrance – very neatly laid in ascending size order by L.

A few twigs for the framework and some woven garden twine provided the fences.

A lucky find was another old plant pot which had been completely overgrown with moss – giving them a perfect circle to make a lawn with. B peeled off some bark from an old log to make a bench and L laid out some cockle shells ‘all in a row’ for a border.

Two longer twigs make an archway, marking the entrance to the garden – I wonder if we can find a tiny plant which might grow over it?

Did you make a fairy garden with your children? If you have a link to share, the girls would love to see where the fairies live in your garden.

Find lots more fairy garden inspiration at the Magic Onions Fairy Garden Competition 2011

happily shared with get your craft on and abcand123 and tot school and the Sunday Showcase and Craft Schooling Sunday and outdoor play and Friday’s nature table and It’s Playtime and Kids Get Crafty and Works For Me Wednesday

Free Summertime Learning ebook

04/06/2011 by Cathy James 2 Comments

Hot of the press: the Summertime Learning ebook from we teach

Are you a member of the we teach forum? It’s a network of over 1600 parents who teach – whether we’re teaching our own kids, in a playgroup, school or anywhere. And we have a free summer gift for you!

Amy, who founded we teach, has worked together with a group of fabulous contributors (including me!) to assemble a summer’s worth of play and learning ideas in one free downloadable ebook. Packed full of wonderful ideas to keep your children happy, busy and learning right through the summer it includes ideas for crafts, cooking, maths, literacy and more.

For your free Summertime Learning ebook head over to we teach to download your copy. If you’re not already a member of the forum you can sign-up easily or use your facebook or twitter account to log-in.

I hope you and your kids enjoy the ideas in the book.

How to make a miniature garden

01/06/2011 by Cathy James 12 Comments

A miniature garden makes a wonderful child-sized space for some small world play. We’ve made dinosaur lands and fairy gardens before but here’s B’s version of what a back garden should look like.

Small world play gives children the opportunity to be masters of their mini universe. They can role-play situations they’re working on in real life, testing out different ways to handle things. They also get the chance to stretch their imaginations and be creative in their little world, exploring possibilities that just aren’t possible in the real world. It’s always interesting to sit and observe children engaged in small world play, to listen to the language they’re using and get an insight into what’s occupying them at this stage in their life.

Make a miniature garden of your own

Here are our miniature garden ideas

1. Choose a container. We used an ice cream tub for this little garden and have found under-bed storage boxes to be a good size for slightly bigger play worlds.

2. Prepare the ground. If you’re going to grow real plants (which is highly recommended by us as the children get to see their garden develop) you’ll want to make some drainage holes in the bottom of your container – so it’s not going to turn into a swap. (That’s a landscape idea to try another time!) Then fill your container with soil. You can still play with your miniature garden inside, just sit it on a tray to catch any drips.

3. Add some landscaping. Use lollipop sticks and twigs to build fencing and make wigwams for your plants to grow up. Gravel and shells can be used for paths. Lids from food jars, tin foil or small mirrors can create a pond.

4. Get planting. Select plants which will stand up to some play and which will retain a miniature size. We like using grasses, which are fun to give a haircut, and easy maintenance plants such as houseleeks (semper vivum). B wanted something pretty too so she added a tiny viola.

5. Add some embellishments. You can borrow items from your dolls’ house to make a seating area, or make some chairs and a table using corks and pebbles. Use some twigs or wooden kitchen skewers and string to make a washing line or some bunting. When I was a child we used to use seeds placed in rows to make a vegetable garden. Let the children use their imagination and see what they can create.

If you make a miniature garden of our own will you share a photo with us on our Facebook page? We’d love to see what you create.

Want more happy handmade crafts?

Our Happy Handmade resource is bursting with colourful and imaginative crafts and DIY toys that are designed to add even more colour and creativity to your home. With easy-to-follow tutorials and free patterns and printables, you can read, make, and start playing today! See more of Happy Handmade here.

Beautiful flower printing craft

30/05/2011 by Cathy James 11 Comments

Ever tried printing with flowers?

Dip and print – it couldn’t be easier. The flower stalks were like little fairy wands, dabbing paint onto the paper.

Little finger prints make great stems too (and who can resist putting putting their hands in the paint?)

More creative ways to use nature to inspire learning

Fill your year with hands-on, creative learning inspired by nature. Click through to see our Garden Classroom resource and get your free Garden Journal.

Make a garden journal

10/05/2011 by Cathy James 32 Comments

Gardening with children offers so many opportunities to learn. We love growing our own fruit and vegetables, even though our garden is small, so the children get to see where their food comes from and how seeds transform into something tasty to eat.

This weekend we’ve been working on making a garden journal.

We’re using a scrapbook for our journal and filling it with all sorts of information and pictures as we go through our gardening year – making a wonderful record of everything we’ve done, seen and grown. Here are some things we’ll be including:

diary entries of our progress: what we planted, when things began to grown, what we’ve been enjoying outside (giving the kids lots of opportunities to practise their writing)
photos and drawings of the plants and animals we observe
treasures stuck on to the pages such as seeds, dried leaves, seed packets
scientific and mathematical data on how high plants are growing and what conditions they like

The journal is a collaborative project that everyone is taking part in and I’m making sure to keep it out, rather than stored away on a shelf, to encourage lots of entries whenever the kids see something they want to include. By mixing in writing, photos and pictures everyone can join in – whether they’re at the writing stage or not. We’re hoping by the end of summer – when if we’re lucky we’ll have enough produce for a harvest celebration – to have a beautiful record of all the fun we’ve had in the garden this year.

Are you growing anything with your children? Are you doing any linked activities to springboard the gardening into literacy, math, science or art? We’d love to hear your ideas.

Want more happy handmade crafts?

More creative ways to use nature to inspire learning

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