Painting with bouncy balls

When heading to the park for a play date, Bee wanted to take her bouncy balls to show her friend A. She seems to be really into them at the moment. To extend her learning and follow her interests, I also had the idea to take along some paint and paper and try a bit of bouncy ball painting. The park was the best place for this activity as we had enough space to really bounce the paint covered ball on the paper... and it meant less cleaning up at home, double bonus! 

                                 

Who can play?

This activity is aimed at children aged 3 years and over, however all activities depend on the child's age and stage of development. Younger children can play if the bouncy balls are substituted by larger balls.

What do you need?

• Bouncy balls
• Large roll of paper or unwanted wrapping paper
• Non toxic, waterproof paint
• Baby wipes to clean up afterwards
• Bowls to hold the paint and balls
• Clothing that you do not mind the children getting paint on
• Bag to place the items used to paint in

Safety:

Small bouncy balls can be swallowed, so ensure children are closely supervised. When carrying this activity out in the park, ensure that you have a good distance between yourself and other visitors, this will ensure that no one gets hit with a stray painted bouncy ball. 

What did we do?

Prep the area, by placing the paper on the ground and paint in bowls. It was a little bit windy on the day we made our painting, so we had to add objects to the corners to keep the paper down. Baby wipes were placed right next to the activity to clean the children once they had finished the activity.

The children were then given a bouncy ball and I talked about how they could dip them in the paint and bounce them on the paper. A enjoyed bouncing hers from a low height and Bee preferred to bounce hers high. Both children found it funny when the ball bounced on and off the paper, making lots of splodges. A said the ball was "making tiny circles on the ground"

Paint covered bouncy balls in action

Bee and her friend enjoyed bouncing the balls to make patterns on the paper. After a while they then dipped the balls in the paint and then used them to print small circles on the paper.

Printing with the bouncy balls

The children seemed to be enjoying painting in the park and decided to take this activity to the next level by removing their shoes and paint with their feet. They enjoyed mixing the colours together with their feet and commented on the change colours, textures and that is was wet. The paint was quite slippy, so the children held onto a mummies hand or each other's to stay up right.

Bee experimenting with foot painting and saying hi to her shadow 

                       
 By the end of the activity, the children looked really mucky, but you could see that they had enjoyed the process of getting in that state!. 

Paint covered children and Bee's new preferred pose

Bee and her friend practiced their self help skills by helping clear away the paints and attempting to wipe the paint off their bodies.
Painting in the park was a big success. The children were given the experience to paint on a large scale and the bonus for me, was not having to wipe away paint from my walls and floor.

What did we learn?

• Communication and language-Talking about what they see and feel. Describing textures and what is happening.
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills when throwing the bouncy ball on the paper and walking through the paint with their feet 
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, taking turns with the paint. Self help skills and asking others for help when the paint was getting slippy. Fun and enjoyment. Cooperation when creating a piece of art with their friend feelings and self help
• Literacy- Making marks with the paint
• Mathematics- Learning about the shapes the ball and their feet make on the paper. Developing an awareness of space and measurement when creating their masterpiece, for example, A bounced her ball low and Bee bounced her ball high. 
• Understanding of the world- Developing an awareness of change of state, when the children mixed the paints together. Experimenting the effects that the paint covered ball has on the paper, when it bounces on it.
• Expressive arts and design- Mixing and experimenting with different coloured paints. Creating patterns with the paint, balls and feet

What could be done next?

• Use larger balls.
• Roll the balls rather than bounce
• Try this activity on a smaller scale, by placing paper on a tray and then rolling marbles coated in paint around on it.

Coffee filter flowers

With Spring in the air and Mother's Day around the corner, we thought we would experiment and try to make some flowers. I remember making flowers whilst working at a Nursery with coffee filters and water colours. I thought I would substitute the water colours with food colouring, since we had these items in our food cupboard. Once we had made our filter paper creations, we added a pipe cleaner to transform it into a pretty flower.

Who can play?

Children aged 3 years plus, depending on the child's age and stage of development.

If younger children are involved you could substitute the food colouring for non toxic, washable watercolours.

Safety:

Protect clothing and tables by using an apron and newspaper. I also placed the activity on a tray, just in case it steeped through the paper. Food colouring can also stain clothing and hands, so I would recommend your child wears clothing that you do not mind getting stained. If the colouring stains hands, try rubbing olive oil and lemon juice on them, to remove.

What do you need?

• Coffee filters
• Paintbrush
• 4 containers to hold the diluted food colouring. I chose egg cups
• Food colouring. I chose red, blue, yellow and green
• Water
• Apron
• Newspaper
• Tray
• Watercolours (if younger children are involved in the activity)

What did we do?

The first thing I did was to protected the area and clothing, by applying newspaper and a tray to the table and asking Bee to put on her apron.

The next thing was to mix the food colouring with water. Bee poured a little bit of water in each egg cup and I added one drop of the food colouring.

                                     

Our next job was to get creative and paint our coffee filter papers. Bee commented on how the paper was making the coloured liquid 'spread out'. I introduced the word 'absorb' at this point and we discussed that the paper was more porous than ordinary paper and therefore readily soaked up the food colouring. She enjoyed applying the liquid and watching the paper soak it up.

                                

Bee enjoyed mixing the colours together on the paper, by using her paint brush. 

Towards the end of the activity, she decided to pour one liquid into the other, mixing the colours in the pots and commenting on their change of state. Bee continued mixing all the colours until the only colour that was left was brown.

                                          

Bee wanted to continue with this activity, so we introduced some watercolour paints. We noticed that the watercolours left a pastel colour and the watercolours were much stronger and brighter.

                                      

Once they were dry, she held one up to the window. It looked so pretty when the light passed through it, so I taped a few up to the window, as a sun catcher. When her Dad came home from work, she could not wait to show him. 

With the remaining painted filter papers, we pinched them in at the centre and attached a pipe cleaner to them, so that it looked like a pretty flower. I found some vanilla essence in the cupboard, so we sprinkled a drop on each flower, to make it smell nice. You could also use any other essence available or perfume.

What did we learn?

• Communication and language-Discussing the effects and changes she is seeing. Talking about what she is doing.
• Physical development- Fine manipulative skills when holding and painting with the paintbrush and developing coordination.
• Personal, social and emotional- Fun and enjoyment. Pride from finished product. 
• Literacy-Developing a tripod grip when holding the paintbrush (building the muscles to hold a pencil)
• Mathematics- Learning about capacity when pouring and filling the egg cups with the food colouring.
• Understanding of the world- Learning about change of state when mixing the colours.
• Expressive arts and design- Being creative and experimenting with colours and colour recognition. Learning through sense of smell, touch and what she can see.

What could be done next?

• Gather a bunch of the flowers together and put either in a vase or give as a Mother's Day gift
• Play flower shop
• Guess the smell of the flowers, add perfume, essence and possibly spices 
• If you do not have coffee filters at hand, why not try kitchen roll. It is just as absorbent.

Herbal tea party

What better way to spend a beautiful spring morning than inviting your favourite toys to a tea party. Even better when the tea is made with items found in the garden.

                                                           

Who can play?

This activity is aimed for children aged three years plus, however children as young as two could enjoy this, but you would have to observe closely so they do not try to eat/drink the tea.

Safety:

Ensure that the plants your child is collecting are safe. Demonstrate how to pretend drink the tea and encourage children not to drink it, as this could cause tummy upsets.

If your child has pollen allergies this activity may trigger this.

What do you need?

• Your child's favourite cuddly  toys
• Picnic blanket
• Tea set
• Grass, flowers and other safe found objects in the garden
• Water
• Jug

What did we do?

To encourage writing skills, we wrote an invitation to Bee's  favourite toys, Big T, Mummy's bear and Ariel (from the Little Mermaid) inviting them to our tea party.

Once our invitation was accepted we set out the picnic blanket and sat the toys on top of it. Then we placed a jug of water and the tea set on the path.

Our next job was to go on a hunt for the perfect ingredients. Bee found some rose petals, leaves and...

... fresh rosemary. Bee loved smelling this and said "this will make my tea smell lovely"

We added the items to the jug of water and found a stick to stir it.

                                                   

Once Bee was happy with her herbal tea, she began pouring it into the tea cups. Most ended up on the pavement, but this was OK as she was practicing her hand eye coordination and spacial awareness skills.

 Mmmm, it is looking yummy!

Bee then began giving each of her toys a cup of her fresh herbal tea as well as a plate of grass.

Bee was getting really into this activity now and said that she wanted to make some soup. Adding some bowls and a ladle to her play, she began collecting more rose petals, grass, stones, pine cones and shells and made a delicious batch of 'Garden soup' as she called it.

When it was ready, she served up this delightful meal to her cuddly toys... By the look of Ariel, I think she may have had enough :-) She asked them did they like her soup and pretended to feed them all.

After a while Bee asked if she could use her chop sticks (that we brought home from a recent restaurant visit) This was a great addition to the activity as she practiced her fine manipulative skills, by trying to pick up the rose petals with her chop sticks and transferred them from one dish to the other.

Bee seemed to really enjoy this activity and stayed on task for a whole morning!

What did we learn?

• Communication and language- Talking to her soft toys and asking them questions.
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills and hand eye coordination
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, social skills, developing self competence, fun and enjoyment and being resourceful.
• Literacy- Learning how to write
• Mathematics-  Developing an awareness of space and measurement, when filling up the cups.
• Understanding of the world- Learning about  the world around them
• Expressive arts and design- Role play and  developing her own activities.

What could be done next?

• Make a cafe area to pretend to sell your home made tea and soup.
• Introduce glue and paper, so that you could make a collage with the flowers, grass etc
• Sing the song 'I'm a little tea pot' 

Letter recognition eggs

So, Easter is over and you seem to be left with lots of empty, redundant plastic eggs. Instead of storing them for next year, put them into good use and change them into a fun literacy game to promote letter recognition. All you need is some sticky labels/masking tape and a pen.


Who can play?
This activity is intended for children aged 3 years and above, however all activities depend on the child's age and stage of development.

Safety:
The plastic eggs could cause a choking hazard if your child puts them in their mouth. Supervision is recommended at all times.

What do you need?

• Empty plastic eggs
• Sticky labels/masking tape, to write the letters on
• Marker
• Container to store the eggs

What did we do?
To set up the activity, I took a plastic egg and wrote an upper case letter on one half and a lower case letter on the other.

1. Make 6 eggs with the upper case and lower case letters s,a,t,p,i and n (The first letters that are taught in the Department For Education and Skills Letters and sounds document) I did this by writing the letters on the sticky label (but you could also use masking tape) and sticking it to the upper and lower half of the egg.
2. I then separated the eggs so that when my daughter visited the activity, she would have to firstly recognize the letter and then find its corresponding upper/lower case letter
3. Once she had recognized the correct pairs she attached both halves together, developing her fine manipulative skills.

What did we learn?

• Communication and language-Speaking and listening.
• Physical development- Fine manipulative skills when trying to open and close the eggs and coordination.
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, social skills, feelings and self help
• Literacy- Linking sounds to letters, learning and how to read. Recognition of upper case and lower case letters.
• Mathematics- Matching and sorting. Finding the correct sized other half of the egg

What could be done next?

• To add an extra twist to this game, you could add small objects that begin with the letters on the eggs and that can fit inside. The children can sort and classify them into the correct egg.

• Hide the eggs in the garden or in the home. Once they have been collected the child has to tell what the letter is on the front.
• You could write the rest of the alphabet on the eggs to complete the set
• If this activity proves too challenging for your child, instead of writing upper and lower case letters, you cold write the same letter on both sides of the egg. You could also write a letter on the top half and then a drawing of an object that begins with that letter on the other.

Bunny bowling

Want to make an easy and fun Easter game with your child? Look no further. This home made game is a great activity during the run up to Easter, or could be given as an alternative chocolate free gift.

                                                     

Who can play?

Children aged 2 years and above. As all activities it depends on the child's age and stage of development.

Safety:

Secure the lid on the bottle by applying cello tape. This will ensure that the lid does not come off and pose a potential choking hazard.

What do you need?

• 6 empty water bottles.
• A ball
• 6 cotton wool balls and glue
• Card
• Scissors
• Felt tip pen
• Food colouring and water
• Chalk to record the score

What did we do?

Firstly, we made our bunny bowling pins by following the steps below:

1. Apply glue to a piece of cotton wool and stick onto the back of the bottle (lower half).
2. Fill the bottles with a few drops of food colouring. Add half an inch of water. This not only helps children develop colour recognition when knocking down the bottles, but helps them stand up.
3. Draw 6 bunny faces on some card and cut out
4. Cello tape around the lid of the bottle to secure it into place
5. Add bunny faces to the top of the bottles.
6. Arrange the bottles in a triangular formation.

Next, we learnt how to play our bowling game. Bee tried rolling the ball on the ground, however she found out that if she threw it, it knocked down more bunnies. At first we just practiced rolling/throwing the ball into the rabbits and lining them back up. We then took it one step further and began recording our scores on the floor with chalk, to encourage mathematical and literacy skills.

 If she knocked down two rabbits she record this by putting two lines under her name. We would then compare how many rabbits we had knocked down and talked about more and less. 

What did we learn?

• Communication and language- Talking about what she is doing and what is happening.
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills (rolling and throwing) and coordination
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, social skills, fun and enjoyment and following the rules of the game.
• Literacy- Recording scores with chalk (mark making)
• Mathematics- Developing an awareness of space and measurement. Recording scores in a table and counting how many bunnies she has knocked down. Learning about more and less.
• Expressive arts and design- Creating her own game and developing an awareness of colours.

What could be done next?

• At the end of the activity, Bee made up her own game, by lining up the bunnies and then knocking them down with beanbags. She asked me to call out a colour and she would try to knock them down.
• Add numbers to the bunnies, so that when you knock them down, you have to record the numbers and then add them together.
• Add letters to the pins, to encourage letter recognition. You could even get the child to try and make up a cvc word with them, such as cat or dog.
• Arrange the bunnies in a line, to encourage precision skills when throwing the ball.

Put on your Easter Bonnet

Easter is fast approaching, so why not get creative and decorate your own Easter bonnet? I remember doing them as a child. I didn't necessarily enjoy wearing them myself, but I loved designing and making them. Have fun and be creative!!

When researching the history behind the Easter Bonnet, I discovered that an Easter Bonnet parade began in New York during the 1870's. The parade gave people the opportunity to show off their new Easter clothes. Women would wear their new Easter hat (Easter bonnet) during this parade.This Easter Parade song on YouTube, gives an example of what the parade was like. For more information check out Wikipedia

Who can play?

The activity is best suited for children aged two years and above, but this all depends on their age and stage of development. If the decorations have a sticky back, younger children would also enjoy this activity (under close supervision)

Safety:

As with any activity, it is best to supervise young children.

What do I need?

• Stick on Easter felt decorations and flowers bought from your local craft/dollar store
• Glue
• Hat
• Ribbons

What did we do?

1. To set up the area, I placed some newspaper on the table to protect it. I then arranged the Easter felt decorations in a tray for easy access and placed the hats next to them. 
   
2. Choose your favourite colour hat and begin sticking on your preferred decorations. If not using sticky back decorations, you may need to apply glue at this point. Bee chose just to use the patterned eggs. When I offered the other items, she said "no thanks, I just want the eggs". This was OK, because it was her personal choice. We talked about what patterns she could see on the eggs.
   
   
   
   
3. We wrapped a ribbon around the hat and tied it with a bow (Bee needed help with this)
4.  We sang along and watched the Easter Parade song and Bee commented on all the pretty hats she could see. 
5. We plan to wear our bonnet during our Easter egg hunt on Sunday.

What did we learn?

• Communication and language-Speaking and listening. Talking about what they are doing.
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills and  coordination.
• Personal, social and emotional- Self help, fun and enjoyment. Pride from finished product.
• Mathematics- Shapes and developing a concept of space. Patterns on the eggs
• Understanding of the world- Learning about culture and the world around them
• Expressive arts and design- Designing your own hat. Being creative.

What could be done next?

• Read Mrs Honey's hat. A lovely book about a lady who has a hat. The objects on the hat are swapped by different animals whilst she is at the park. Happy Little Munchkins have a great activity to accompany this.
• Older children may enjoy designing their hat first on paper and then making it.
• Make your own hat out of card.
• Decorate an Easter basket to go along with your beautiful Easter bonnet.
• Hold an Easter bonnet competition on Easter Sunday. The best hat wins a small egg/gift.
• Have an Easter bonnet parade
• Have a mad hatters tea party.

Sleeping bunnies

I thought I would share one of our favorite Easter songs, The Sleeping Bunny song. My daughter loves this one and I remember the children in Nursery and School enjoying it too. This song is not just for Easter, it can be sung the whole year through.

To add a bit of creativity to the song, we made our own bunny ears.

Who can play?

Children aged 1 year and above.

Safety:

Ensure you have enough space for your child to jump around and that the area is safe (nothing sharp to bump into or objects to fall over)

What do we need?

• Card
• Crayons
• Cello tape
• Scissors (for adult)

What did we do?

To make the bunny ears:

1. Cut one length of card around 22 inch long and 3 inch wide, for the head band
   
   
   
2. To make the bunny ears, cut two ear shapes around 8 inch long by 3 inch wide
3. Cut a slit down the centre of each ear, around 2 inch long from the bottom. Then place one side slightly behind the other to create a 3D effect. Secure this in place with a piece of cello tape. 
   
4. Colour the bunny ears and headband. Add cotton wool to the centre of the ears.
5. Place the headband around the child's head. Ensure that it is big enough and attach the two sides together with cello tape.
6. Attach the ears to the headband with more tape.
   

Once the bunny ears were ready we popped them on our head and began singing the sleeping bunny song.

The first thing we had to do was lie on the floor and pretend we were sleeping. I began to sing:
" See the little bunny sleeping, till it's nearly noon.

Hush shall we wake them with our merry tune.

Oh how still are they ill?... wake up soon...wake up soon...

Wake up bunny!!!

Hop little bunny hop hop hop, hop little bunny hop hop hop.

Hop little bunny hop hop hop, hop little bunny, hop and stop!"

Repeat for as long as your child (or you) want to. 

What did we learn?

• Communication and language-Singing, listening and following instructions
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills and  coordination when doing the actions to the song.
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, social skills, fun and enjoyment.
• Mathematics- Sequencing the actions to the song.
• Understanding of the world- Learning that bunnies hop
• Expressive arts and design- Dancing and role play whilst pretending to be a bunny

What next? 

• Sing .Little Peter Rabbit with Makaton
• Play hop scotch outside
• Practice hopping on one leg 

Noisy eggs

To add a communication and  language spin to an Easter activity, why not hide different objects in plastic Easter eggs. Encourage your child to shake the eggs and find its matching noisy egg. By listening to the different sounds of the eggs and discriminating them, they will develop sound recognition, this in turn will assist with recognizing letter sounds. So get shaking and have fun!                                                

                                     
Who can play?
The activity is intended for children aged 3 years and over. However, f you add cello tape to the seal of the eggs younger children would love experimenting with the sounds the shaker makes (ensure that they are supervised at all times)

Safety:
Be aware of the choking hazards that the objects could cause. Supervise children when playing this game, especially if little ones are around.

What do you need?

• 12 Plastic eggs
• Objects to place in eggs. I used rice, pasta, bells, pom poms, beans and left two empty.
• Basket/tub to hide the eggs in
• Shredded paper
• Empty egg box that fits 12 eggs
• Cello tape if you want to seal the eggs (so that the objects do not fall out)

How to set up the activity:
Taking 2 plastic eggs at a time, I filled them with the objects mentioned above. So that I had 6 pairs of noisy eggs. I placed some shredded paper in a basket and scattered the eggs inside. Next to the basket I positioned the egg box, ready for the eggs to be collected, explored and placed inside.

                                   

                                   
What did we do?

Bee looked excited when she saw the activity. She loved played hide and seek with the eggs in the shredded paper. She would take them out and shake them vigorously and then place them back into the basket.

                                                   
Her next choice was to shake the eggs and then empty its contents on the floor. We talked about the objects she had found inside and she said "I knew that egg had rice inside!"

                                                    
By this stage, the floor was getting a bit 'messy' so we began to put the objects back in their eggs. Bee enjoyed sorting the objects into their groups and counting them whilst putting them back in the eggs. 

She was also developing her fine manipulative skills whilst picking them up.

                                                     

I then introduced the noisy egg game. The aim was to shake the eggs and find its matching egg. At first she didn't really seem interested, but I made it fun by saying I was a chicken and wanted to sit on my eggs, so that they could hatch. Before I could sit on my eggs, they had to be sorted into matching sounds. This got her attention and she soon began on the task.

Firstly she would shake and egg next to her ear, then pick up a matching colour egg and shake that too.

                                         
Once she had found the matching sound, she placed them next to each other in the egg box.
                         

The eggs that contained the beans and rice sounded very similar, so Bee had to really concentrate to discriminate them. 

Bee figured out that eggs of the same colour, were also of the same sound, so I swapped them around to increase the challenge. At first she was surprised but it made her really listen to each egg for the matching sound.

                                                
Once the box was full, she asked me to sit on the eggs to hatch them. She thought this was very funny. Unfortunately, I do not have a photograph of this to show you.

What did we learn?

• Communication and language- Listening to the sounds inside the eggs and matching them. Discriminating them and describing what she thought was inside.
• Physical development- Fine manipulative skills when picking up objects and placing them in the eggs. Large manipulative when shaking the eggs. Developing coordination.
• Personal, social and emotional- Playing a game together and developing relationships/social skills, 
• Mathematics- Sorting objects, classifying and matching. Counting objects and eggs.
• Understanding of the world- Learning about where an egg comes from and how it hatches.
• Expressive arts and design- Making music with the shakers.

What could be done next?

• Sing the I know a chicken song whilst shaking the eggs.
• Play with the shredded paper. Trust me it might get messy, but the kids will love this activity.

Chocolate Easter nest cakes

Easter will soon be here, so we have been experimenting in the kitchen. 

When working in Early Years settings, we always made a batch of chocolate Easter nest cakes with the children. These beauties always went down well and  I know that my daughter would love making them too.

                                     

Who can play?

Children aged two years plus, depending on their age and stage of development.

Safety:

When heating the chocolate chips, ensure that the hot melted chocolate chips and bowl does not come into contact with the children, as it can burn.

What do you need?

• Bowl to place chocolate chips in
• Spoon
• Microwave
• Apron
• 1 cup of chocolate chips
• 2 cups of Rice Krispies
• Small chocolate eggs 
• Cake cases
• Cake tray
• Fridge

What we did:

The first thing that we did was wash our hands and put on our aprons, to protect our clothing. Okay, so this photo was taken at the end of the activity, but I just had to share Bee's cute apron made by Amberlola Designs...too cute! Mummy has a matching one :-)

Next, we added the chocolate chips to the microwavable bowl and placed it in the microwave for around 30 seconds. If it is not melted enough add for a few seconds more.

Once it was slightly cooled, I brought the bowl to the table and Bee began to stir it.

We then added the rice krispies.

and combined them with a spoon.

We obviously had to taste the chocolate, purely for scientific purposes... someone will need their teeth brushing soon :-)

Once the rice krispies were covered in chocolate, we began filling our cake cases with the mixture. Bee would scoop a spoonful of the mixture and help it into the case by using her finger.

...and then she used two spoons.

Eek, I think maybe the sugar is kicking in!!!!

Our next task was to add our little eggs to the center on the mixture. Bee chose three matching colours, and carefully pressed them into place.

Nearly finished! All that we needed to do next was place them into the fridge for around 15 minutes-half hour, to allow them to set and then enjoy.

What did we learn?

• Communication and language-Speaking and listening. Describing what they are doing and talking about what they are seeing.
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills when mixing ingredients and adding the eggs. Hand eye coordination when carefully placing the eggs in the center of the mixture.
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, fun and enjoyment, personal hygiene and social skills
• Mathematics- Concepts of space when filling up the cake cases with the mixture, measuring ingredients. Counting down the seconds on the microwave.
• Understanding of the world- Learning change of state and how to combine ingredients. The effects that heat and the cold has on chocolate.
• Expressive arts and design- Creating a pattern with the eggs and learning about the colours (through deciding what colour eggs to choose)

What could be done next?

• The cakes could be wrapped in cellophane and a pretty ribbon, then given to friends as Easter treats
• Make craft Easter nests, by using shredded brown paper and plastic Easter eggs.