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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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Outdoor messy play

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Warm, sunny weather gives a great opportunity to take your play outside. How about some outdoor painting? Even if you’re usually reluctant to let the kids do messy play indoors, when you’re outside you can relax a little and let them get creative.

We used a wipe-able tablecloth to give the floor some protection and used washable paint. It was too hot to get wrapped up in coveralls so we wore old clothes. The plant pots did a great job holding our big roll of parcel paper in place. We had a washing up bowl full of water and a tea towel handy – good for washing off our feet!

We experimented with big brushes, washing-up scrubbers and the rake from the sandpit.

This was an ‘open-ended’ craft session where the kids had the opportunity to use the paint their way, rather than us making anything in particular.  Little especially enjoyed using her hands and feet to paint with and Big experimented with some splatter painting.

Why not try this with your children and see what they create?

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Peg dolls

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We had so much fun making these peg dolls! The wooden pegs costs less than a pound for about 24 and everything else came from our making boxes, so they’re a great frugal activity – perfect for the summer holidays. What I always like about these kind of crafts is that there’s so much playing you can do with what you’ve made. You can put on a puppet show, take them for a ride on your double decker bus, let them move into your fairy garden… wherever the kids’ imaginations take them.

If you make some peg dolls, we would LOVE to see them. You can share a photo on our Facebook page.

Happily shared with and teach mama Craft Schooling Sunday

 

 

Air drying clay models

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Have you ever used air drying clay? My girls love it – it’s maleable, not too sticky, and you can poke embellishments into the clay to create wonderful effects. And as the name suggests, when you’ve made your model you can simply leave it to dry instead of having to bake it. You can paint the dried model, or leave the clay in its natural state. As it’s long-lasting its a good material to use for gifts and decorations too.

So, what did we make today? Well, I don’t you know if you’ve seen The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers, where Tara posts a prompt each week to inspire readers to take photographs of a particular topic, but this week the theme is ‘Creatures‘. So that’s what we made. Do you like them?

Why don’t you try some air drying clay with your children and see what they can make?

And if you’d like to see how everyone else interpreted the theme ‘Creatures’ why not pop over to Sticky Fingers and see?

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