{Preschooler Craft Day}

Yesterday I had one of 'those days' with my three year old. If you have had a three year old, I know you are on the same page right now. Mister mischief just seemed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and the day followed suit until he crashed at 6:00!

I was determined to not repeat this performance. Once the kids went to bed, I had a cuppa, took a breathe and decided to plan craft day. I visited the only place open after normal hours, my local Kmart.

These kits were $5 each and such great value!!

DIY Cars

The great thing is that there is no glue needed, as they are all adhesive stickers. So, no sticky mess! There is plenty of opportunity to practice fine motor skills. There were a tonne of stickers left over, so just print off some plain car templates and you can keep the fun going.



He was so proud of himself and has been playing with them ever since! We might try this one later today also:
Can definitely recommend to have these on hand for an easy preschoolers craft. I think my 6 year old would even enjoy this!
Lauren x

{Pasta Play : And Other Cheap Toddler Fun}

All this funny Sydney weather has left me many times with a very active toddler at home whilst it's raining outside. Here are SOME of the ways I have kept him amused lately. I have had to get creative as he is a smart kid, but needs to burn energy and get creative and change activities frequently!

1. Pasta Play:
I started simply by putting 5 pasta noodles on one plate, handing him another empty plate and some mini tongs. No instructions, just let him play and count.


2. Spaghetti Tower: Then I blu-taked a spaghetti strand to a plate and he started building them up counting as he went. He was enjoying this more than I thought.





Of course my son found a way to make a mess (he is an expert there) and do we turned cleaning into another game (I know I may have a shelf life for this lol)!



Then we got s break in the sun so we decided to try car painting. Combining cars and mess = BIG hit for my little one.

1. Find old or cheap cars you don't mind getting painted.
2. Let them paint the wheels and watch on some paper as the tyres make rainbow tracks.
3. Then put done warm soapy water in a bucket and have a "car wash" to clean up ;)


There are a few other things I will share soon that don't cost the earth. If you have any other ideas - feel free to share them here or on facebook or twitter :)

Lauren x




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Puppet Theatre Craft Time

Puppet Theatre Craft Time
We had fun with this craft the other day - click on link below and find details ;)

All templates and instructions for this wonderful crafty idea available at Craft Projects.

Patterns With Buttons - Incidental playing/ learning :)

While my little man was napping the day before last, I cooked dinner and some cookies with my (almost) 4 year old boy. Whilst cookies were in the oven, I took the chance to have some teaching/ playing time with him. I got out a sheet that I quickly whipped up that looked like this and got a jar of buttons from my craft room. Then we spontaniously "played button games" (which I made up as we went). Some examples of these games are below:

* First I used the grid and put a red button in the first square, then a yellow one then red again (making a pattern of 2 colours: RED/YELLOW/RED/ YELLOW). Then we said the colours aloud together and he told me which one came next. Then I said "finish the pattern" and taught him what that meant. He placed buttons in the RYRYRY pattern to fill the grid.

* Then I did a pattern of three colours BLUE/YELLOW/ORANGE. So I put into the grid BLUE/YELLOW/ORANGE/BLUE......then he figured out he had to fill in the pattern by putting in the yellow then orange buttons squares and he kept it going to fill the 10 space grid.

* The circles we used for early addition skills. E.g. I have one in my circle. (1) How many in your circle? (1) Lets ADD them together 1 plus 1 = 2 buttons together.

* (CATEGORY/ ATTRIBUTE LEARNING). Choose your favourite button and put it into the circle (they might pick a green/ shiny/ big one). Ask them "why is that your favourite?" Whatever reason they state is the attribute they have notified in their button. So, lets see if we can find any other green buttons and put the others in the different circle.

The sky is the limit with this activity and there are so many things you can teach but because it's fun, they think they atre playing!!! I could fill this page with activity ideas, but I will spare you :)

Lauren x

Rainy Day Activity - Paper City

There are just some things that are perfect rainy day activities.....we have done two of these today. Playdough and a paper city inspired by a favourite blog of mine 'Made by Joel'.
Joel has putup on his blog, different printable components for his paper city. The best thing about this is it is a cheap activity and we were at it for hours!!! We did something similar ages ago and these are great activities that store well and entertain for hours....the options are endless.