solstice Archives - NurtureStore

Sunshine play dough recipe

18/06/2017 by Cathy James 1 Comment

Here’s a sunshine play dough recipe idea that’s great for sensory play for summer and the solstice.

Sunshine play dough recipe

Watch our Playdough Masterclass

Click play on the video above to see our playdough masterclass.

This video gives you everything you ever wanted to know about play dough: how to make homemade playdough with quick and easy recipes; the benefits of playdough for children; and lots of sensory play activities using play dough including playdough math activities, playdough literacy activities, and playdough fine motor skills activities.

Plus find out how to get printable playdough recipe cards and printable play mats. It’s an excellent beginners guide to play dough!

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We never need much excuse to bring out the play dough and as we’re learning all about the solstice this week we thought we’d make some play dough sunshines. To start, we mixed up a batch of our favourite easy play dough recipe and added in some yellow food colouring to make it nice and sunny.

Then we raided the craft shelves to find some yellow, orange and gold materials. We found drinking straws, buttons, foil shapes and sequins, craft sticks and some glittery paper strips.

Play dough is a fantastic sensory material for children to explore and it’s always great to add in some extra textures when you play.

To get some inspiration we did a Google Image search for ‘sun art’ and the children enjoyed clicking through to see the sun pictures and got some ideas for how they might make a sun with their play dough. They especially liked the mosaic artwork – an idea for a future art technique to explore!

Then the children set to work. One of the best things about play dough is that everyone can use it, from babies to grandparents! It’s an open-ended material and so versatile, and today the children all had clear ideas about how they were going to use the materials on offer to make their sun.

Every sunshine turned out different… and glorious!

Sun weaving :: solstice crafts

12/06/2017 by Cathy James 7 Comments

You know when your children make something and there is a buzz in the air because they’re so pleased with what they’ve made? This sun weaving which we made as a solstice crafts was one of those moments. The children loved the whole process and the end result. Here’s how we made them.

Sun weaving :: solstice crafts [Read more…]

Midsummer messy play :: solstice sensory tub

16/06/2014 by Cathy James 2 Comments

Today we’re enjoying some midsummer messy play with a sunshine sensory tub!

sun theme senosry play :: summer sensory tub :: summer solstice for kids

Midsummer messy play :: solstice sensory tub

Watch our Sensory Tub Masterclass

Click to play on the video above to see our sensory tub masterclass. You’ll learn how to make a sensory tub for your children using simple materials, the benefits of sensory tubs for children, and how to use a sensory tub to teach children about math, literacy, science and fine motor skills.

You’ll also see lots of ideas for sensory tub fillings plus find out how to get great printables to add to your tubs. Subscribe to NurtureStore’s YouTube channel to get more sensory play videos!

Messy play always brings a smile in our house, so we thought we’d add a little midsummer fun with a sensory tub full of sunshine colours.

I often lay out a cloth or towel when we’re setting up a messy play area, as it seems to work well to concentrate the mess in one area, and it makes clean up that much easier – just gather up the cloth and pour any stray materials back into the tub.

Today we used a gorgeous orange and gold piece of fabric.

You don’t often need to buy in things especially for a sensory tub – just use what you have.

We’ve talked recently about how important it is to have lots of loose parts available for children to use in their play, so today I just sent the kids off to hunt out anything sunshine coloured.

They found tubs, cups, cookie cutters, bottle tops and lids, paper plates and a big sponge.

I filled the tub with lemon scented rice, yellow split peas and some oricchiette pasta (left over from our autumn play dough trees).

This gave a great combination of textures to the sensory play and as all the materials are dry and uncooked, we can store them away at the end of the playing and re-use them many times.

You never know quite how the children will play with a sensory tub.

At first they often like to simply scoop and pour the materials, to enjoy the feel and sound of it.

Very often their little animal characters will make an appearance…

but today they were full of surprises, and set up ‘A Romantic Meal’ that my husband and I were invited to share!

They put flowers on the table, picked some herb salad from the garden, set out napkins and even put on some music for us to listen to. I do love my funny, creative kids!