Soft sand

Hoping having this app on my mobile will mean more updates here! I got a bargain play table the other week, last week we used it for water play so this morning we're giving sand a go. Not ordinary sand though, homemade stuff! Very simple to make and it's lovely and soft :) just mix 8 cups of flour with one cup of baby oil, voila lovely sand! Seems to be a hit here this morning :)

Stations without trains

My eldest started school in August and has been loving the experience so far, she talks a lot about what they do every day and in particular kept mentioning that they use stations.  Intrigued I enquired further and she explained we'd need to set up 4 different activities then have a set time at each one before choosing which one to move to next, with the person leading the group being the train driver.  It sounded simple enough so this afternoon since it was wet we decided to give it a go.

We discussed what toys we'd like to play with and set up all the stations in the living room, in one corner we had the kitchen toys set up, which they used like a cafe, making each other dinner and drinks.

In another we set up a little table for drawing and colouring

In the next corner we had all the dollies and two prams out for them to play with.

And finally we had a game set up, called tummy ache for us all to play together.

We split into two groups and I picked a train driver for each one, then we decided which station we'd like to visit first.  Then I set a timer for 10 minutes and it was time to play.  I will admit I was sceptical about how well it would work and there was a little bit of mixing between stations, seems the dollies were hungry and wanted to visit the cafe!  But I was very impressed at how it helped then focus on a particular toy/activity, in particular they all really enjoyed their turn playing the game, whereas normally it can be tricky to get them to concentrate long enough to complete a game.  I think it's definately a approach which we will be revisiting in the future.

Making jewellery

The weather here was awful today, wet, windy and cold!  I think summer is officially over, the wellies and winter coats are out.  All my older mindees and my eldest daughter have just started school last month and here they do half days until after the october holidays, so from 1215pm everyday I have rather a lot of little girls to keep amused!  The last few weeks that has been made very easy with trips to the park and lots of outdoor play but that definately wasn't going to work today so it was time to do some crafts.

I gave the girls a choice between junk modelling and making necklaces and being typical girls they voted for the later.  So, to start with they choose 3 colours of paint, pink, purple and orange which they used to paint dry pasta.

I gave each child a paper plate to put their pasta on to dry and once they had painted them all we went to have a play while we waited for them to dry.  Once they were all dry and after a bit of searching on my part I found some string for us to use to make the necklaces.  They all had a good attempt at doing threading them on by themselves, although the younger ones needed some help, very good for those fine motor skills and encouraging them to concentrate!

Once they had threaded all their pasta pieces on, we tied a knot and our necklaces were complete!

Music Time

My other half is usually out at work all day while I'm minding so apart from a brief hello in the mornings as he's leaving he doesn't really get to meet and interact with the children, which is a shame since he's very good with kids.  On Monday though he had the bank holiday off work so got the pleasure of being surrounded by us girls all day long, for some reason as well as having 2 daughters all my mindees are also girls just now.  In the afternoon after we'd exhausted them playing outside, we headed inside to do get the instruments out and do some singing.  Ian has been taking guitar lessons since christmas yet we rarely hear him play but we managed to convince him to bring his guitar out and I have to say the girls were fascinated by it.

As you can see above they were all desperate to get their fingers on it and make some music, from the 17 month old right up to the two 4.5 year olds.  So after they had all heard him play a bit he sat with each one in turn and let them have a go at playing too.  Funny how the unplanned afternoons can turn out to be the nicest!

Exploring colours in nature

Since the sun was shining today we made the most of it and got outside, a little trip to the swing park this morning and out exploring the garden later on.  Keeping on the topic of colours we chatted about the different colours we could see in the garden.  I then gave each child a container and asked them if they'd like to collect some things from the garden in as many colours as they could find.  Naturally this was met with much excitement and off they went exploring the garden.

Once they came back with their containers filled, a little cup in all cases except one child who favoured the toy wheelbarrow!  We chatted some more about colours, helping the younger ones to identify them and encouraging the older ones to think about what the colours reminded them of.

The children then decided they would like to use the objects they'd found to make collage pictures to take home, so they got stuck in with the glue!

The one below was my personal favourite although I may be biased since it was the creation of my eldest, I just loved her little wheelbarrow!

Rainbow Cakes!

As I mentioned yesterday this month we are learning about colours and shapes, so today as it's horrid outside we decided to add some colour to our baking.  I had a wee search and followed this recipe http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9968/rainbow-fairy-cakes.aspx

The girls had great fun helping me measure out the ingredients and of course helping stir the mixture

Then it was time to split the mixture into bowls so we could add the food colouring, we only had red, green and yellow so decided we'd have traffic light cakes!

Lots more stirring was needed to make sure the colours were nice and bright and then it was time to pop them in the oven, the girls were very excited helping put spoonfuls of each colour in every cake case.  Before too long the cakes were ready to come out the oven, creating more excitement for the finished product!  which tasted very yummy indeed :)

Time to share

I have decided to set this blog up partly because I enjoy reading so many others and thought I'd get in on the act but partly to record the activities I do with my own and minded children and to share them with others.  I hope it will inspire those looking for activity ideas for young children!

So, first a little about me!  I'm Hazel, mum to two gorgeous girls and childminder to another 5 beautiful girls, all under 5, so I'm kept very busy as you can imagine!  I like to ensure we have a variety of different activities to keep them stimulated and their little brains working away and generally I find most of my inspiration on the internet, so this is my chance to give a little back.  It would have made sense to start at the beginning of a month or week but nope I'm just going to jump right in with starting tmrw on a friday!

I look forward to updating this blog regularly and hope you will too.