Adventures @ Play

Make a Christmas Cake

2011-12-05T18:26:00.000Z

Everything's ready it's time to bake a most spectacular Christmas cake

Currants, raisins, sugar and spice will make it ever so nice

Cherries and nuts and almond paste,

These will give it a Christmas taste,

Everyone in the family must stir it twice!

A simple song I learned when I did my teaching practice several years ago and I always remember it when we make ours. Boy and I have done this together for the last three years, since he was 2 years old. I use a recipe which is a slight adaptation of Delia Smith's Rich Fruit Cake recipe from her excellent book 'Complete Cookery Course.' Here's the recipe:

800g mixed dried fruit and peel

50g glace cherries (rinsed and chopped)

3 tablespoons brandy (optional - you can use cold tea if you prefer)

225g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp mixed spice

225g butter

225g soft brown sugar

4 large eggs

50g chopped almonds

1 dessert spoon black treacle

grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon

The day before, weigh out all the fruit and mix in the brandy. Allow to soak overnight. Grease and line an 20cm round cake tin.

Cream the butter and sugar by beating together until light and fluffy.

Then add the eggs one at a time and beat into the mixture well.

Then once all the eggs have been added you can fold in the flour, salt and spices a few spoonfuls at a time.

Then you can add all the remaining ingredients and mix gently. Then spoon into the tin.

You will need to protect the cake with a strip of brown paper or newspaper round the outside of the tin and then some paper over the top with a small hole to allow steam to escape.

Bake in the oven at 140 degrees/Gas 1 for between 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours until the cake is a deep brown colour and is cooked through.

Once it is cooler you can take it out of the tin and let it cool completely. Then wrap it in layers of greaseproof paper and tin foil and put it in the cupboard for a few weeks to mature before you decorate it. Another post in a couple of week to show you how we decorate ours.

Frosty Paper Plates

2011-12-01T19:55:00.000Z

Boy had a day at home on Wed and we decided not to waste the day. He spent 1 1/2 hours decorating paper plates with a winter theme. Girl joined in too, as did I. I put a selection of cookie cutters in wintery shapes out along with blue and white paints, glitter paint, and some bubble wrap for printing with.

Girl enjoyed sploshing paint and glitter all over her plates. Boy went for more sophisticated designs using the cutters. He put down layers of blue paint and glitter and then used the cutters to put white shapes over the top.

Then he filled in the shapes with paint.

Some good painting and fine motor skills developing here. The bubble wrap was fun to print with and made a lovely snowy effect against a blue background.

These would look lovely hung up somewhere as Christmas decorations.

As the activity went on we talked about wintery weather, ice and snow. Later on we read 'The Gruffalo's Child' and boy read one of his reading books called 'The Snowman' from the Biff, Chip and Kipper series. We played some more with our snow dough (will post about that at a later date).

Snow Dough and Stick Man

2011-11-27T21:43:00.000Z

I have not posted for quite some time. My time has been taken up with other things lately and the blog has fallen down my to do list somewhat. In spite of that we have still been doing lots of things both at home and at nursery but I have just not got round to writing about them.

Anyway here is an activity I've prepared for our toddler group. We have spent the past two weeks looking at the ever popular 'The Gruffalo' and 'The gruffalo's Child.' This week is the turn of 'Stick Man.' Tomorrow we will be reading the story with the children and I have made some 'snow dough' for them to play with. I simply added white paint and some silver glitter to my usual dough recipe. I must confess the dough has a slightly different texture to normal, more spongy but still workable.

I made some stick men using twigs. I stuck googly eyes on them and painted a nose and mouth with paint. Plenty of wintery cookie cutters and the children can create whatever they want to.

You could adapt this activity and get the children to make their own stick men for small world imaginary play. This is one of Girl's favourite stories so I'm hoping she'll really enjoy what we have planned for tomorrow!

Playing with Scrap

2011-10-22T20:09:00.000+01:00

We visited our local scrap store 'Scrap Magic!' this week and came home with an interesting array of 'intelligent materials' to explore and play with. They have a great set up where you can fill a basket with reclaimed and recycled scrap materials for £1.50. We got pieces of rubber, paper clips, a wooden box, bottle lids, a bag of fabric pieces, a bag of wool, pieces of plastic, lengths of coloured cellophane and shiny paper, film canisters, large plastic spools, telephone bits and some tile pieces.

We explored the objects and materials together and I let the children do what they wanted with them.

They made little tables and stools using the spools, plastic lids and film canisters.

Then they wanted to arrange bottle lids and rubber bits on top.

Boy enjoyed turning a small sheet of tiles into a telescope!

The paper clips were also popular and we got out a magnet and played with them using that. See if you have a scrap store near you and go and explore what you can use with your children. This kind of stuff has so many open ended play and craft opportunities and the children found it fascinating.

Prehistoric Imaginary Play Kit

2011-10-08T15:43:00.000+01:00

Another young friend's birthday meant a new homemade imaginary play kit earlier this week. We had plenty of left over bits and pieces so we made a kit for Boy as well. This kit includes green and brown play dough, a tree cutter, mini dinosaur toys, plastic leaves (from the aquatics dept at The Range), a dinosaur story, and some small wooden logs.

Boy was very excited by the idea of this 'dinosaur dough.' We put it onto a small tray and he sat down one evening this week with it.

First he made bases for some 'trees' using the plastic leaves.

Then he used the dinosaurs to make prints in the dough.

Then he made this small world scene using all the resources on the tray.

We're looking forward to getting this kit out again later this week. We may make some extra dough to go with it so the play can be extended a bit.

Make a Harvest Loaf

2011-10-05T19:52:00.000+01:00

It's Harvest Festival at Boy's school tomorrow. He was ken for us to make a Harvest Loaf to take in as I had made one earlier in the week for the toddler group Harvest morning. Once you get going it's actually very simple and something children can help with.
Ingredients: 750g strong white flour, 21g instant yeast, 3 tsp salt, 30ml olive oil. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and add 360ml water. Mix with your hands for about 3 mins. Then add a further 120ml water and mix for another couple of minutes. You will have quite a wet dough. Turn onto a floured surface and knead for 5-7 mins until the dough is smooth on the surface and feels quite elastic. Put it back into the bowl, cover and leave for an hour.
Once the dough has doubled in size knead it again for about a minute. You are now ready to shape it.

First make lots of quite thin wiggly worm shapes. These will be the stalks of the corn. Arrange them onto the baking sheet so they are piled up into a bunch.

Then we made some quite fat sausage shapes for the ears of corn and arranged these at one end of the stalks.

Then we made a plait to represent rope tying the corn together.

Then placed the rope around the loaf.

Then we used a pair of scissors to snip into the ears of corn.

It's traditional to put a mouse onto the loaf so show that the harvest was plentiful and that there was spare corn to feed the mice. We made ours from a ball of dough, a long strip for the tail and two tiny ball for ears. The eyes are peppercorns.

Then turn the oven on to 180 degrees. Cover the loaf. When the oven is hot brush beaten egg all over the loaf.

Then bake for 30-35 mins until it is a lovely golden brown colour.

This is a very traditional loaf to make. Farmers used to use the first of their harvest to make loaves and donate them to the church in the past but today you will sometimes see loaves like this one being used to decorate churches and schools as part of their harvest display. Happy Harvest!

Mirror Fun!

2011-10-02T14:12:00.000+01:00

I am planning a science and technology event for the families and children I work with at Little Champions in November. I've been dreaming up activities and exhibits and this weekend we went to buy some resources. One of things I've been planning is some mirror play. I got a set of 4 star shaped acrylic mirrors (four different sizes) for £3.49 at The Range. I also bought these colourful star shaped buttons for £1.25 from The Sewing Box at Halifax Borough Market. Boy was very interested in these items and so I agreed he could test drive them!

He began using the buttons to make a pattern on the surface of the mirror. High levels of engagement and concentration here!

At this point he wasn't interested in selecting different buttons for any purpose. He wanted to fit all of them onto the mirror as close to each other as possible. He finished and said 'look it's a jungle!'

Placing objects onto the surface of a mirror gives a really aesthetically pleasing result. It also gives children the opportunity to explore reflection. I plan to get some rectangular mirrors and tape two together and then stand them up so that you can see reflections in more directions. I had a go myself and Boy took some pictures of me.

Here's my design.

He noticed that I had been selective about the buttons I had chosen and he did the same. He decided to only use blue and white buttons at first and then asked if we had any more buttons. I got my box of spare buttons out and he chose some wooden ones from there to use as well.

I asked him if he enjoyed this and he said 'yes because I'm in the pattern, behind it and I like that!' I really enjoyed doing this too and it was a great way of getting a child to really think and concentrate as it is so fascinating.

Sand & Surf Imaginary Play Gift

2011-09-24T18:56:00.000+01:00

We have just returned from a friends birthday party so I am now able to share this idea for a birthday gift without it's recipient seeing it before opening it. I've been thinking about giving some homemade play dough to little friends for their birthday's for a while. I didn't want to just give the dough on it's own so I put a few different resources together on a 'sea' theme along with the dough. It's intended to be really open ended with scope for all kinds of play and to encourage creativity and the imagination. Here's what is included.....

The play dough is blue (added green and silver glitter) and yellow (added gold glitter.)

A boat shaped cookie cutter.

Three small plastic tropical fish.

A selection of seashells. I also put in a small book about underwater creatures.

Then I made it look attractive by wrapping the items in a cellophane gift bag and putting the dough into a kilner style jar. A blue ribbon and some blue paper to write a tag and it was finished! I think it's a lovely idea to put something like this together for a child's present. There are so many commercial toys on the market but it can be difficult to find something original that children can really explore and get creative with. I intend to make some similar ones on different themes for some more birthdays coming up. I'll post these once they're done!

Autumn Antics

2011-09-15T10:12:00.001+01:00

Now that we walk to school and back every morning we have the perfect opportunity to collect some leaves on the way home. When you really start to look there are some amazing colours. We got home and I asked Girl what she wanted to do and she said 'play!' We narrowed it down to play dough so we made some in autumn colours.

She experimented with the leaves and seeds we had collected pressing them into the dough.

She used cutters to make prints on the dough.

The contrast of the colours of the dough against the leaves was particularly striking and we enjoyed comparing different combinations.

We found we could make some lovely prints too.

Now we are on the lookout for other interesting autumn things to collect and play with.

Another great post on a very similar theme can be found here at Nurture Store.

Easy Kite to Make

2011-09-12T18:32:00.000+01:00

It's so very windy today and so we made a very easy kite this evening and tried it out. So simple all you need is a plastic carrier bag of any size and some wool or string. Tie one end of the string or wool to the handles of the bag and, hey presto, kite finished!

Add some wind and you have a really easy activity which can spark plenty of questions about scientific topics such as weather, speed, flying, capacity. Besides which kites are loads of fun and there is something very exhilarating about the wind which children seem to enjoy.

British Science Festival 2011

2011-09-10T18:35:00.000+01:00

We visited two of the exhibitions at the British Science Festival this weekend. First 'Science in the Early Years' at Bradford University and then the BBC Bang Goes the Theory Roadshow. Both were brilliant!

We explored cornflour gloop and found that we could hit it with a hammer. They were even kind enough to give me this rather stylish lab coat so I really looked the part! We made slime by mixing pva glue and borax, we also did some experiments with red cabbage and dry ice.

Boy was particularly fascinated by the dry ice!

Then we moved onto circus skills. Boy was really interested in the diabalo and learned to spin plates.

Girl really enjoyed playing with the water and exploring magnets and natural materials.

Whilst Boy followed a recipe to make some very simple play dough with the help of one of the staff.

Then we made a rocket and launched it using a foot pump. Brilliant!

This was one of the best events for young children I have been to and it has given me loads of science based activities and ideas to try. Watch this space to see how we get on!

What I learnt from Potty Training

2011-09-03T12:09:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed these past few weeks we haven't posted much. The reason for this is that we have been focusing our efforts on helping Girl to master using the potty. Our approach (for those who are interested) was to spend one week taking her to the potty every hour although she was still wearing nappies. Then after this she went into pants and we continued to take her to the potty regularly. This has worked really well for us and she is now confidently telling us when she wants to go. The whole process has taken only two weeks. Girl is 22 months old so by some standards she is quite young but has been very keen to do it and really initiated it herself. I'm not suggesting this would work in all cases. In fact, Boy was much later to toilet train and was really scared of the potty and refused to use it.

Now to the title of this post. What I learnt from Potty Training. It has nothing to do with the potty. We do a lot of activities in our home. This is no bad thing of course. The children and I enjoy doing it and they are never forced to do anything. If they're not in the mood then we don't bother. However, these last few weeks we've done far fewer planned activities because all our energy has been on remembering to visit the potty at regular intervals. This has given the children much more 'space' and opportunity to play freely.

Boy has been 'reading' to his sister and some toys. They made picnics, played shops more, in fact, a great deal more role play than they would usually do and for extended periods of time. Girl has really shown far more interest in books and has been constantly bringing her favourites to me to be read to. As a result, her speech and language has progressed. I have found quite a few photos on the camera that Boy has taken (one below further down). He has been experimenting on his own without being directed or restricted.

What I have learnt is that sometimes we can be so busy doing things that we don't always really watch what is going on with children's play. This was re-iterated to me earlier this week when I was having a conversation with our fantastic Nursery Manager Steph. We were talking about planning for a staff training session next week. We make use of flipcams at the nursery to assist in observing children. She had been looking back over some of the videos and had noticed that the vast majority of flipcam film observations are of children doing 'activities' rather than engaged in their own free play. This isn't that children don't play freely but just that adults are not observing them at these times so much.

It reminded me of the following poem 'Leisure' by William Henry Davies;

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Our lives can be so busy. Toddler groups, nursery, activity classes, school, homework, visiting family, shopping. Our staying in the house for the past few weeks has enabled me to really just sit back and watch the children. Sometimes you don't need to be doing things with them, just be with them and let them involve you if they want to. It has been in these times of free play in the past that I have been able to identify when my children have been showing schematic behaviour and then I have been able to plan activities for them in line with this. Boy starts Primary School this week so the two children will be spending less time together from now on so I'm really pleased that they have been making so much creative play together in recent weeks. In fact, right now they are hiding behind a chair together, pushing the chair backwards and forwards together and laughing and smiling. So what I have learnt is simply to watch them more!

Teddy's Wash Day

2011-08-22T20:57:00.000+01:00

We are taking care of Barney, the pre school bear, this week. This morning we decided that Barney's clothes needed washing so we headed out to the garden to wash his things.

Warm water and soap solution are all we needed. Both children had fun scrubbing his clothes.

And then wringing them out.

Then they realised they could use the clothes like sponges to transport water from the water tray to a watering can a few metres away.

Then to throw water across the garden.

Then they hung them out to dry in the sun.

Barney just sat and watched!

This is something I remember doing as a child. Washing dolls clothes in the garden. Water play and role play combined.
We are recording all the things we do with Barney to write into his book of adventures. Boy only has two weeks left at nursery before he leaves for good to go on to primary school so he's very keen to give Barney a great time. So far he's been shopping, played mini golf and helped to build some shelves with Daddy.

Holiday Diary Scrapbook

2011-08-20T18:31:00.000+01:00

If you read our blog regularly you will know we recently went on a family holiday camping near Scarborough. Both children kept things from the holiday to make scrapbooks to record what they did. We finished them off this week after finally getting the photographs printed! I bought a cheap pack of exercise books and used two of these.

We collected postcards, receipts, paper bags, leaflets, mini golf scorecards and took plenty of photos to stick in. Both children took their books into nursery to show their friends and to talk about their holiday.

I wrote captions for some of the photos to add extra meaning. I asked Boy to describe somethings and then recorded his own words.

This is a lovely thing to keep and look back on in years to come. It was something to focus on whilst we were away, remembering to take pictures and collect things and stick them in. It also provided a great opportunity for the children to talk to their friends and teachers about their home life. Developing skills in literacy and speaking and listening too.

Homemade Play Food

2011-08-18T07:56:00.000+01:00

Having made salt dough models with the children at home the other day I made these pieces of play food in the same way. These are for the new shop role play area we are creating at nursery. We realised much of the play food was missing so I decided to make these. For the recipe for salt dough take a look at this.

A selection of bakery items including jam tarts, biscuits, cupcakes, swiss roll and gingerbread men.

And some fruit and veg; apples, pears, bananas, tomatoes and potatoes.

Obviously you know your children and if they are likely to put things in their mouths then this wouldn't be such a good idea. We will be using these with children 3 years and over. I painted them with ready made toxic free water based paint from tesco. I mixed the colours and it was fairly easy. The children helped me make some bread and pies yesterday at the nursery so our shop should be pretty well stocked by the end of today. I've also collected a few boxes (cereal, egg, toothpaste etc..) too! I really enjoyed making these actually, very cheap and easy too!

Polystyrene Printing

2011-08-17T19:54:00.000+01:00

My husband was planning a trip to the dump last weekend and I wondered if we had any polystyrene left from packaging. I asked him and he said there wasn't anything. I intended just to save any we might get in the future put he came back from the dump with a car full of the stuff! He had seem a man getting rid of a load and asked him for it! We used it this morning for some printing.

I cut it into hand sized chunks and away we went with all the different paints we have in the house.

Some nice results and the best part was not having to wash it afterwards, I just threw it away. I must say though, it is quite messy when you cut it up and you will need to vacuum afterwards. Was good fun though and something both Boy and Girl could do in their own way.

Chocolate Butterfly Cakes

2011-08-16T19:52:00.000+01:00

Boy was keen to bake yesterday after dinner and we decided on chocolate butterfly cakes. Here's how we did it. Ingredients; 100g butter, 100g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 75g self raising flour, 25g cocoa.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, and beat into the mixture.

Then add the flour and cocoa, a few spoonfuls at a time, and gently mix in using a metal spoon.

Then place a teaspoonful into cake cases. I got 15 cakes out of this mixture.

Bake for 10-15 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees. Allow to cool.

For the icing you will need; 50g butter, 75g icing sugar, 25g cocoa, a spoonful of milk. Beat all the ingredients together until light and fluffy.

To make the butterflies cut a disk from the top of each cake using a sharp knife.

Cut the disk in half.

Put a spoonful of icing on the top and then arrange the 'wings' on the top!

Dust with icing sugar and you're finished. A nice alternative to a plain butterfly cake. These are also a big hit with Daddy!

Decorating Salt Dough

2011-08-15T15:03:00.000+01:00

This morning we finished off the Salt Dough Shapes we made yesterday. We used a variety of ready made paints and also some glitter paints and sequins.

They each painted a tealight holder.

As well as the different shapes Boy made yesterday. Boy was very keen to stick to just the one colour on each of his shapes whereas Girl enjoyed using lots of colours on hers.

The finished tealight holders turned out well I think. We may put glue or varnish over these if the paint rubs off to the touch, if not we'll just leave them as they are.

Salt Dough Shapes

2011-08-14T20:49:00.001+01:00

It has been quite a while since we last did salt dough models so I quickly made some salt dough this afternoon whilst Girl was asleep and Boy was out on a trip to the dump with his Dad. When he came back I had laid out the dough and some equipment for him. Girl was still napping so she didn't take part on this occasion.

The recipe for this dough is different to the play dough one I usually use. Salt dough is used to make models and shapes which are then baked in the oven and go hard. They can then be decorated and painted and you can keep your child's creation. It's very simple to make. All you need is plain flour, salt and water. The measurements are 2 parts flour, 2 parts salt and 1 part water. For this small quantity I used 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and 1/2 cup water. Mix the ingredients together in a bowl until a firm dough is formed. Knead until smooth. Job done!

He wanted to make a tealight holder - I suggested this actually because it is an easy shape to achieve and is then functional and could be given as a gift to a great grandmother who's birthday it is soon. If you know her, don't show her this!

After this he decided to roll out the dough and cut out shapes. Circles, stars and hearts.

Once you have made your models, put them on a baking sheet and bake for a few hours in a low oven (about 100 degrees). If your models are quite large or thick it might take up to 3 hours for them to harden.

Once they are done they will be very pale white in colour and very hard. Once they are cooled you can paint and decorate them. We will be doing this tomorrow using some glitter paints I picked up at the weekend. Hopefully Girl will be able to decorate some of the shapes too. You could use this dough to make all sorts of models and creations - let your children's imagination take the lead and see what they come up with!
Find out what happened when we decorate these here. To find out how to make some great play food using salt dough have a look at this post.

Paper Plate Craft #3 Spinning Paints

2011-08-10T19:39:00.002+01:00

Girl has a strong Rotation schema (see here for schema information) and I was discussing this with a colleague a few weeks back. We were trying to think of activities for children with rotational schema and I remembered I had heard mention of using salad spinners to make patterns and designs using paint. I can't remember where I've seen this - probably on a kids art programme as a child. I haven't actually read any instructions on this but we decided to experiment with centrifugal force this morning.

You need a salad spinner, paper plates and ready made paints in various colours. I cut round the edge of the plates to make them fit into the basket of the spinner.

Then we squirted blobs of paint onto the plates. Boy was keen to use all the colours we had!

Then spin it for a short time. Girl loved this bit! She kept saying 'my do, my do, faster, faster!' Great stuff!

We did quite a few different ones and mixed some colours too to make pinks and purples. The results were really good and Boy was quite interested in how it works. An opportunity to talk about physics.

We ran out of plates and had to take a quick trip to the shop to get some more. It was a really popular activity with my children and I plan to take the salad spinner into nursery later this week to let the other children have a go too. Happy spinning!
For some more creative ideas click on the button below. This post is included in the collection of great ideas this week.

Camping!

2011-08-08T18:29:00.000+01:00

We have spent the last week camping on the Yorkshire Coast near Scarborough. Camping in itself is a brilliant activity for young children. They love the opportunity to be outdoors for long periods of time and sleeping in a tent is very exciting!

We spent a fair amount of time playing on the beaches at Filey and Scarborough. Sand castles, ice cream, rock pools and digging big holes!

The view from the camping field was stunning on a clear day. We spent some time looking for pirate ships on the sea!

We visited Scarborough Castle and went on a treasure hunt around the grounds. We also joined in with some pirate games, which was lots of fun!

Boy and Girl enjoyed playing and getting dirty and not having to wash (much!). If you get the chance to go camping with your children, go for it! It really is worthwhile and they get a great deal out of it.

Trip to the Seaside

2011-08-01T08:14:00.000+01:00

There will be no new posts for this week as we are taking a camping holiday at the seaside. We'll definitely update when we get back with plenty of beach/sea/cove/rock pool adventures I'm sure. Have a great week!

Perfect Victoria Sandwich Cake

2011-07-28T21:25:00.000+01:00

Whilst at our Agricultural Show at the weekend I attended a Victoria Sandwich Cake Masterclass. This wasn't a demonstration but rather advice on what judges are looking for when awarding prizes in cake competitions. I thought I'd share these tips and also a recipe for anyone who might be interested. Of course I enlisted the help of my two mini bakers too!

A true Victoria Sandwich is sandwiched together with raspberry jam only (no buttercream) and has a sprinkling of caster sugar (not icing sugar). Using butter is preferable to baking margarine (although I won third prize a couple of years back using Stork!). Use good quality ingredients, fresh butter and eggs. Ensure there is no jam running down the sides and take care not to put your cake in too hot an oven for too long. It should be light golden yellow on top when cooked. A Victoria Sandwich should always be baked in two tins not a single tin and then cut in half.

Here's our recipe. Grease two 20cm sandwich tins and line the base with baking paper. Then weigh four medium sized eggs and make a note of the weight. Ours were 232g. Then use this weight to measure the same quantity of butter (softened, left out of the fridge for a while first), caster sugar, and self raising flour.

Use either an electric whisk or a wooden spoon to cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy in texture.

Then add the eggs one at a time and beat into the mixture.

Then fold in the flour using a metal spoon. do this a couple of spoonfuls at a time mixing gently until all the flour is combined.

Then carefully spoon equal amounts into the tins and smooth the surface.

Bake in the oven at 180 degrees (or less if you have a fan assisted oven) for about 20 mins.

Allow to cool a little in the tins before turning out onto a cooling rack. Be careful not to get cooling rack marks on the top of the cake - this will lose you points apparently! Once cool, warm some raspberry jam.

Spread over the top of one of the cakes and then sandwich together.

Dredge the top with caster sugar and you're done!

Messy Mixing Madness

2011-07-27T11:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday at Pre School some of the children created an activity for themselves, supported by the adults, which involved mixing glue and paint together. This then evolved into adding all sorts of different colours and glitter and then using the resulting substance to make a picture. I began wondering if I could develop this idea to use at home or take it a step further at nursery. I wondered what might happen if I put a whole load of different craft materials and kitchen ingredients on the table along with bowls and spoons and just let the children mix things together in their own way.

I simply went around the kitchen and found the 'ingredients.' We used, flour, salt, bicarb of soda, vinegar, water, yellow and blue paints and some PVA glue. I also found some small tubes of glitter.

First Girl decided to use the salt. She poured some into her dish. Then she asked for the yellow paint and mixed the two together.

Girl has a rotational schema so she really enjoys mixing.

Some bicarb made the mixture more of a paste and then some vinegar gave it some fizz which was fun!

Boy joined in a few minutes later and spent about 40 minutes gradually changing his mixture and talking to himself and to me about what was happening.

After he'd used up all the ingredients he asked if he could put his hands in and feel it. I suggested he do this in the sink!

I asked him to describe how it felt and he said 'Smooth, warm, slimy!' If you decide to have a go at this I offer the following advice; open the windows - it was pretty noxious, cover the surfaces, have plenty of cloths at the ready, be prepared for the mixtures to get everywhere - I had to clean the floors and the walls, wear aprons!

Bingley Show

2011-07-24T20:28:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we went along to our local Agricultural Show in Bingley - which is our local town. Earlier in the week we posted about the baking and craft items we had been preparing for the show. The children entered chocolate cornflakes, decorated gingerbread men and a decorated paper plate. Sadly, we didn't win any prizes this year but there were so many fantastic entries, it would have been hard for the judges to pick a winner!

Some great paper plate craft ideas here. I liked the lion one!

Homemade Party Hats. Some wonderful creations here - all age 6 and under!

Junk models.

The gingerbread men. I think I liked the footballer ones best, but they were all good and so interesting to see all the different ideas the children had.

There is always so much to see at an Agricultural Show. The livestock classes are really interesting and children just love to see the animals.

As well as all the craft and baking entries there are always plenty of horticultural items to view.

There were children's entries in horticulture too. Miniature gardens, pictures made using plants and seeds, vegetable creatures.....

So much to inspire us to find new activities and ideas. These kind of shows go on all over the country for most of the summer so there is bound to be something in your area. Find out and go along with your family and enjoy our rural heritage, and perhaps even take part.

Gingerbread Men

2011-07-22T20:06:00.000+01:00

Both children are entering '2 Decorated Gingerbread Men' in the show at the weekend. Here's our recipe!

This recipe makes quite a lot of gingerbread men. We have quite a small cutter though so perhaps that is why! Ingredients; 350g plain flour, 1 tsp bicarb of soda, 2 tsp ground ginger, 100g butter, 175g sugar, 4 tbsp golden syrup, 1 egg.

Mix the flour, bicarb and ginger together in a bowl. Add the butter in small pieces and rub in until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Then stir in the sugar.

Then add the golden syrup and beaten egg to the mixture and mix until a soft dough is formed.

Then roll the mixture out to about 1/2 cm thick and cut into gingerbread men. Bake at 190 degrees on a greased or lined baking sheet for about 10 minutes.

Once cooled you can decorate them. We used a selection of sprinkles, sweets, silver balls and some coloured icing.

This is the fun bit - especially eating the sweets!

The finished article. We'll let you know if either child wins a prize!

Paper Plate Craft #2 Frogs!

2011-07-21T10:50:00.000+01:00

One of the classes Girl is entering in our local show is 'Decorated Paper Plate.' This is a brilliant category for young children. We love being creative with a paper plate and here is our offering for the show. Boy did one too although he was insistent when I filled out the entry form that he didn't want to do this. Now he's changed his mind, obviously!

First you need to paint or otherwise decorate (collage, crayons whatever..) the plate in your chosen colour on both sides. Paint takes a while to dry so if your child finds it difficult to wait for things to dry (I had to work hard to get mine to do this) then use colouring instead of painting.

Boy made a blue frog (?) and Girl did a conventional green one. I used foam sheets in different colours and cut out shapes for them to use. Feet, eyes, tongue etc...

Once the plate is dry fold it in half.

Then stick on the various bits to make the frog look like a frog!

Then we used some coloured sequins we had in our craft drawer to make some speckles.

This is a very easy craft to do with even very young children because they are really doing simple sticking in the appropriate places. I admit there is less freedom in this than I would normally have but, as it's for a competition, I felt it ought to look like it's meant to be something. Boy and Girl are both pleased with their frogs.

Entering a Country Show

2011-07-19T19:46:00.000+01:00

You may have noticed we haven't posted anything in a while and this is because we have been busy over the last week or so! We have had two parties, one at our Parent and Toddler Group and one at Pre School for all the children who are going to school (including Boy!)

We have baked cakes galore for the Pre School party! Fairy cakes, victoria sandwich, chocolate fudge cake, lemon cake, and apple cake. The baking continues this week because we have to prepare our entries for the local country show. Boy has entered this for the last few years and it is a really great thing to get kids involved in. He has won several prizes over the years and this has really helped build his confidence and self esteem as well as learning new practical skills and being creative. This time Girl will enter for the first time too! The children are entering the chocolate cornflakes and decorated gingerbread people this year.

It's not only baking, there are often craft classes in country shows for children to take part in. Find out what is happening in your area and get your children involved. There are adult entries too - you might just get hooked.

We'll do another post later on in the week with an update on our progress before the show on Saturday!

Hedgehog Collage

2011-07-13T19:40:00.000+01:00

Having been interested in our visiting hedgehogs, we decided to make hedgehog pictures. Earlier on in the week I was talking to another parent who asked me what could be done with all the paintings and pictures children do. I had recently cut up some artwork into shapes at nursery and the children had used it for collage along with other materials and objects. I suggested the same to this parent. This led me to think about what to do with the large amount of sludgy brown 'back of a cave' pictures boy likes to do. Perfect for a hedgehog collage I thought!

I found some suitable pictures lying around. Some are just using brush painting and on some we have used printing (sponges, cloths, straws, fingers.) I stuck to a brown theme. Then I cut some, sort of, squashed semi circle shapes and lots of spiky and triangular shapes as well as a couple of small circles to use for eyes.

Girl was very interested in using as much glue as possible.

Boy got the idea straight away and began creating. Sticking spikes onto his hedgehog with enthusiasm.

Girl's hedgehog is pretty good in the end. She did have a little bit of help but not a great deal.

Boy wanted two eyes for his!

A hedgehog is a very easy animal to make. If you cut out simple shapes you could do spiders, ladybirds, birds, bees, anything you fancy really! It turned out to be a nice end result too whilst, at the same time, allowing the children some freedom and control over what they wanted to do.

All about Hedgehogs

2011-07-07T19:07:00.001+01:00

I have mentioned a couple of times over the past few weeks that we have discovered hedgehogs in our garden. At first we thought it was just one but we have now seen three, a mother and two hoglets we think. Hedgehogs are nocturnal and so, sadly, the children are in bed when they come out at dusk. We have been taking photos though and this has led onto Boy wanting to find out about them.

Here is the mother and one of her young last week.

Then the two little ones on a separate occasion. They are completely adorable and we have been feeding them cat food on an evening and really enjoying watching them. We have sought some advice from The British Hedgehog Preservation Society on caring for hedgehogs and their website is very useful if you find you also have hedgehogs.

So earlier today we made Hedgehog Bread. I remember having this as a young child myself so I really enjoying doing this with the children today. It's a very simple and very good bread dough recipe we used. It makes a very wet dough but it is far more like bakers bread than any other recipe I have tried. Ingredients: 500g strong white flour, 14g dried instant yeast, 20ml olive oil, 2 tsp salt, 240ml water. Put everything into a mixing bowl and combine with your hands.

Then add a further 80ml water and stir for a few more minutes. The dough will be VERY wet but don't worry - this gives it a great texture and taste too!

Knead it on a floured surface for about 10 minutes. Then place into the bowl and leave, covered, to prove (the yeast to work!) for 1 hour.

It should 'grow' to double the size.

Then turn it out and knead for a minute or so. Then cut into smaller pieces and shape into hedgehogs by using raisins for eyes and a nose. Then cut into the top with scissors to make the spikes.

Then bake at 200 degrees for about 15 minutes. Sadly, our hedgehogs lost their eyes and noses in the oven but the bread tasted fantastic anyway! Just needed to push them in firmer I think.

I think we might be doing one or two more hedgehog activities over the next week or so.

Cleaning and Brushing

2011-07-06T19:28:00.000+01:00

Boy was feeling a little off colour earlier this week and had a little nap during the afternoon. Girl and I went to play outside to give him some peace and quiet. Girl loves playing with water and it isn't so often that we get to play just the two of us so it was a nice opportunity to let her do her own thing instead of being led by her brother's play, which is often what happens.

She began by just playing with the squeezy bottles and a couple of bowls and jugs. I put some washing up liquid into the water and she smiled and said 'bubble.' I brought out a scrubbing brush and a dish brush for her to play with and the play quickly became based around cleaning and brushing different parts of the garden.

First the steps. She walked over saying 'dep, dep.' She poured water onto the step and then used the brush to clean it. It put me in mind of my grandmother's era when housewives would scrub their doorsteps regularly in this way.

Then she turned her attention to the paving on the patio.

Then she found the yard brush and began using this, although I think she found it too tricky because she quickly moved back to the scrubbing brush.

Then she removed her sandals and began washing her feet. Not with the brushes this time though!

She had a great time and was very upset when she had to come in for dinner. Simple household items can be the best toys. All she used were old washing up liquid bottles, a mixing bowl, plastic measuring jug and some cleaning brushes.

Silly Sand

2011-07-04T14:25:00.001+01:00

I'm quite sure someone somewhere has discovered this before but we came across this quite by chance. We had a sensory week at nursery last week and we had, of course, made gloop as part of this. The children and I wondered what would happen if we added sand to the mixture. The result is what they called 'Silly Sand.'

We mixed up some at home using about 1 1/2 cup fulls of play sand, 3/4 cup cornflour, some green food colouring and a little water.

It makes a kind of mold-able sand which is somewhere between gloop and play dough. It can be squished and squeezed and relaxes a little but doesn't go totally runny like gloop. When more water is added it becomes more gloopy and runny. We used it for some creative play in the garden.

Kitchen equipment supported the creativity. I think anything you use with play dough - especially moulds would work well.

Cake making. Boy went on to make a 'tower cake, like a wedding cake.'

You can see the silly sand oozing a little from the cake moulds. It really is great tactile, sensory stuff and both my own children and the children at nursery enjoyed it. At nursery we used ice cube trays to make little cubes of silly sand and some children used them as bricks to construct things. I guess this is similar to the commercially sold 'Moon Sand' but I think it has a more oozy nature than that.

Water Balloons

2011-07-02T19:28:00.001+01:00

On a warm summer's day what could be better than playing and splashing with water. We went for water balloons!

We are lucky enough to have an outside tap so we fill them up there and then we have one or two rules.
1. Keep only to the driveway area.
2. Don't throw them at people who ask you not to.
3. Pick up all the bits of balloons afterwards.
Other than that anything goes!

So what are we getting out of this? Firstly, it's great fun and the children just love it, especially Boy who begs to do this any day it isn't raining! More than that the children are learning loads through doing this. They are furthering their personal, social and emotional development by successfully taking turns and waiting until 'their' balloon is filled. Even Girl is managing this at 20 months old. They are also able to follow some simple rules about how we play together and they do this very successfully, understanding why those rules are in place.

Boy is learning about and interested in the physics of speed and impact. I asked him 'why does the water make this shape on the ground?' He replied 'it smashes the balloon when it hits the ground and it goes splat - the water comes out fast.' Pretty accurate too!

Girl is also figuring out that you have to throw the balloon with some force to get it to burst. Very often her's bounced on the ground so she kept picking it up and trying again - developing and perfecting her throwing skills and hand eye co-ordination.

There are probably loads of other things too but I've just highlighted a few to show that play encourages learning in such a natural and normal way that most of the time we don't notice it. The children are having enormous fun and yet they are learning skills and picking up knowledge too.

Good Old Gloop

2011-07-01T20:05:00.000+01:00

This is a real favourite amongst anyone who works with young children. Simple to make, cheap, non-toxic, slimy stuff that seems to fascinate children. You need cornflour and water. Mix enough water until the mixture is just slightly runnier than a paste. You can add colour or glitter if you like.

It forms an interesting substance which appears to be neither solid nor liquid. You can cut and slice it, pile it up, and hold it in your hand but once you release it it becomes runny again.

Girl found it interesting to pour it from spoon to spoon and then into a bowl. She did this with real concentration.

Boy enjoyed feeling it and exploring it with his sense of touch.

A great way to explore science through play and a great activity to enjoy in the sun. You could try mixing the gloop with other things to use as an ingredient in mud pies or as a paint for some art work.

Gingerbread Play Dough

2011-06-29T21:50:00.000+01:00

This one totally came from the children. I had some orange play dough left over from having given some away and, since we have been having a sensory week at nursery, I put some orange extract and cinnamon in. I asked the children what it reminded them of and they said 'gingerbread men!' I had never thought of making gingerbread play dough but thought I would give it a go. This is what happened.

I made a small batch of play dough (1 cup plain flour, 1 cup water, 1 tbsp cream of tartar, 3/4 cup salt, 1 tbsp veg oil.) Then I added a little orange colouring and several spoonfuls of ground ginger and a little mixed spice.

I put out lots of baking equipment and also some raisins out with the dough and let the children create what they wanted. At first Boy did not want to play so Girl had the dough to herself.

Boy soon wanted to join in too!

He began cutting out gingerbread men and I asked 'what are you making?' 'A gingerbread family!' He replied.

Then he made a current bun.

The dough smells just like freshly baked gingerbread men and was a real hit in our house. Boy wanted to make some real gingerbread men - we will no doubt do this at some point soon. He kept saying 'can we cook these mummy?' This would make a great Christmas activity too. I'm so glad the nursery children prompted me to try this. Thanks kids!

Glorious Mud!

2011-06-27T11:28:00.003+01:00

In celebration of International Mud Day on 29th June 2011 and of the really glorious weather here today we have been doing some muddy play!

I provided tools, mud, sand, buckets, a wheelbarrow and some sticks. The children made their own decisions about what to do with the equipment.

First they worked together using the trowels to put mud into an empty bucket. Then they added some sand.

Then some water and mixed it up into a muddy soup!

Boy said 'it's too runny - we need some more mud to make it thick!' And he began adding more mud to the mixture until a thick paste was formed. Fantastic stuff!

Then they chose to work separately. Girl took her trowel and placed small piles of the mud paste in different parts of the garden.

In the herb garden.

On top of the outdoor drum kit - which is currently out of use since we discovered a Hedgehog nesting in the bushes behind it. We are being careful not to disturb it's sleep!

Behind the trampoline too!

She enjoyed using the wheelbarrow to transport the mud paste around the garden.

Boy did something altogether different which I hadn't imagined he would do! I like it when he does surprising and interesting things though. He carried trowel fulls of mud paste over to one of the paving slabs on the patio and splatted them onto the ground.

He carried on until the whole square was covered (enveloping schema!).

Then he carefully smoothed it down and patted it so it was level. Then I asked what he was going to do with it and he said. 'Decorate it with flowers and leaves and stuff, you know?' He went off and picked some things from the garden.

Girl and I went off to play something else and we left him to it to be creative alone.

This is his creation. A sort of mud and natural material collage I guess. Interesting to see what happens when children have a chance to do their own thing!

How will you join in in celebrating Mud Day?

Beautiful Butterfly Cakes

2011-06-26T18:59:00.001+01:00

After the work we have done on Eric Carle and 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' Boy felt inspired to make some butterfly cakes. We have done this many times before and the very simple recipe we use can be found at this post called 'Fairy Cake Fun!'

The ones we made to day are coloured ones. We have never done them like this before and usually leave them plain but today we felt we wanted to have a go at them in a different way and see what happened. We followed the recipe in the usual way and then split the mixture into two. We left one plain and coloured the other red.

A tip I have learned is that 'natural' food colourings do not hold their colour very well when baked. This is especially true of red which goes brown when cooked. We used an 'unnatural' one to get the colour we wanted. You could just mix some cocoa in if you want to go for something without the E numbers. Or experiement with different brands of colouring and see if there is one which works better. If you find a good 'natural' red colouring please let me know too!

Put one teaspoonful of plain mixture in one side of the cake cases and the a spoonful of the coloured mixture in the other side.

Then use a cocktail stick to swirl the mixture round a bit and make some patterns.

Then bake for 15-20mins at 180 degrees until cooked.

Once cooled make the icing. Ingredients; 50g butter, 100g icing sugar, colouring (we used green), a tsp of milk. Whisk all the ingredients together until the icing is light and fluffy!

Then cut a disk from the top of each cake, carefully spoon in some icing. Then cut the disk in half and place the two halves into the icing to create the butterfly wings.

These turned out well and the colour is really bright. Boy really likes the look of them anyway, which is what matters! It has also been a nice way to be able to talk about the life cycle of butterflies after doing the caterpillar artwork yesterday.

Eric Carle Birthday Artwork

2011-06-25T12:31:00.004+01:00

Over at the fantastic An Amazing Child lots of people having been getting involved in celebrating the birthday of the children's author and illustrator Eric Carle. He is most famous for 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and his artwork is just beautiful and very appealing to children (and adults!) This week at pre school we have created some paintings, prints and collages using Carle's techniques but this morning we decided to do something at home.

Armed with a selection of art and craft materials and some cake cases from the kitchen cupboard we set to work to make our own 3D collage of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.'

We tore up some green, yellow and black tissue paper, cut up some green foam sheets and mixed some different shades of green paint.

Then boy painted the tops of the cake cases before using the other materials to decorate round the sides and top.

We used a circle of red foam sheet to make the face of the caterpillar.

Boy carefully stuck on the foam eyes and nose and had a little bit of help with the pipe cleaner feelers.

Then we used sticky tape to join all the cake cases together to make the caterpillar.

Finally we stuck him onto a sheet of white paper. Looks lovely!

We had quite a bit of paint left over and Girl wanted to get involved so she came and did some Eric Carle style painting using the colours of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Then she stated she wanted the tissue paper and she stuck bits of tissue over the painting to very good effect.

Pretty good piece of Eric Carle style work from a 20 month old. Check out the other Eric Carle inspired posts and to find out more click here.

Ice Cream Parlour Play

2011-06-24T18:45:00.002+01:00

Yesterday morning I asked the children what they wanted to do and Boy shouted 'Ice Cream!!!' I explained that they would not be eating ice cream at 8.30am but that we could play ice cream parlour if they wanted. Girl has a little ice cream set which she spent a Christmas gift card on so this seemed like a good starting point.

Some weeks ago I saw a wonderful post from Sun Hats & Wellie Boots with ice cream play dough. This excellent post can be found here. I had tried something similar myself at pre school some time ago and the children loved it. So we made strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream play dough.

We made up a small amount of play dough. 1 1/2 cups plain flour, 1 1/2 cups water, 3/4 cups salt, 1 tbsp cream of tartar, 1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil. Place all the ingredients in a pan over a low heat and stir until a stiff dough is formed. Knead until smooth. Then we split it into three equal parts and added cocoa, strawberry flavouring (available at Morrisons in Home Baking section) and a few drops of red colouring, and vanilla extract and some yellow colouring to the three doughs. Job done!

I put out some silicone cake cases to use as bowls, some plastic spoons and some shiny stars and sequins to use as sprinkles. Girl absolutely loved this play dough and spent most of the morning making ice creams.

Her first creation was a chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. Then she asked me for the strawberry dough.

This one with a strawberry on top! The vanilla she enjoyed making marks in with a spoon.

Boy made a chocolate ice cream cone with some sequins on top. He took some time over this to make sure it was perfect.

He gave it to his sister and this made her very happy as you can see! Then he made himself an ice cream and tucked in too!

We took the dough into pre school in the afternoon and so the children there were able to enjoy it too. We will definitely make some more to keep nice at home. This was a great activity that both children were able to take part in. It can sometimes be difficult to find things that they can both do and get something out of.

A Festival of Painting

2011-06-22T20:20:00.003+01:00

This morning turned into a celebration of different painting activities. All of these techniques and ideas are well known and well loved by children young and old. First we put together a selection of colours to start with and laid out various materials and equipment for the children to use. Then I let them take the lead and choose what to do.

Girl pointed at the brush and began mark making straight away. Easy, simple straightforward!

Boy noticed we had the colours of the rainbow and so he said he wanted to paint a rainbow. A great opportunity to do some symmetry painting. We have made abstract designs and butterflies ths way but never a rainbow so this was new for us. He painted strips of colour - he asked which order the colours went it.

Then he folded the paper over in half to make a mirror image of his work.

Girl chose to do some printing next. We used biscuit cutters on different shapes. You can use pretty much anything for printing - vegetables and fruit, fingers, hands, feet, anything with texture or shape that might be interesting.

There are one or two 'fist' prints in there too!
Boy then moved onto 'blow' painting. For this you need to water down the paint so it's quite runny. Spoon a little paint onto the paper and then use a straw to blow the paint in different directions.

Finally we did 'string' painting. Or in this case it became wool painting because I had that to hand.

Here's how to do it. Take a length of string or yarn and soak it in some paint. Then place onto paper any way you choose.

Fold it over and then gently pull the string out.

Here is the result......

We had such fun painting this morning and there are so many creative and wonderful ideas on various sites I thought I'd provide links to a few which I think are really interesting and useful
Canvas Painting at Messy Kids
Painting with toy cars and trucks at Play Create Explore
Pendulum Painting at Quirky Momma
Edible Homemade Finger Painting at The Imagination Tree
And this last one we did today at pre school and we'll finish it off tomorrow but it is really lovely
Eric Carle Prints at The Imagination Tree

You might also want to have a look at these previous posts which include painting:
Seashell Painting
Sand and Paint
Vegetable Printing

There are thousands more things to do with paint. Check out the ideas I've suggested and have a go at some of them!

Rainbow Cake

2011-06-20T19:52:00.000+01:00

We felt inspired to make a Rainbow Cake this afternoon. Our lovely friend Mel (also our most brilliant nursery chef!) suggested an idea for Rainbow Cupcakes last week. We tried it at pre school and it worked well. Here is our large scale version.
Ingredients; 150g butter, 150g caster sugar, 3 eggs, 150g self raising flour, vanilla extract, a variety of food colourings.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Then beat in the eggs one at a time. Add some vanilla extract. Then fold in the flour gently.

Then you will need six small bowls. Divide the mixture equally into the small bowls. Then add food colouring to make the different colours of the rainbow (or you could be abstract and just choose colours of your choice more randomly). We did; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple (we mixed red and blue for this.) One thing I did learn from the cupcake version we did last week is that 'natural' red colouring turns brown when baked so if you want the real pillar box look we managed today then you do have to go for the e numbers I'm afraid.

Once mixed, spoon the mixture into the cake tin (we used two 20cm sandwich tins) in the order you want them to be. I forgot to photograph this bit (crazy, I know!) so you'll need to imagine I'm afraid. You could do it in blobs or vertical strips or horizontally if you were really clever and patient!
Bake in the oven at 180 for about 25 mins.
Once cool you can fill the cake with either butter cream or jam. Decorate it however you like. Coloured smarties might look good. We had run out of icing sugar so we went for jam filling and a sprinkle of sugar on top. It would make a fantastic cake for a Rainbow Party. It's lots of fun whatever you make it for!

Pants!

2011-06-19T13:54:00.000+01:00

Boy and Girl's favourite book is 'Pants' by Giles Andae and Nick Sharratt. It's one of my favourites too!

Sometimes looking at books leads on to other kinds of play or activities. Children and adults can be inspired to extend what they have read. Sometimes it's role play, singing, or art and craft activities.
Firstly, why do we love this book?

It's about pants, which are funny and silly. It rhymes which makes it much easier for children to remember. Boy can now 'read' this book out loud using the pictures as a prompt. The illustrations are really bright and colourful which makes it really attractive to young children.

We decided to make our own pants using different papers. I cut out a very simple pants shape and then Boy created his own design.

Allow books to ignite you imagination and see where it takes you.

Homemade Science - Fun with Chemicals

2011-06-16T11:12:00.002+01:00

Over the last few weeks we have been trying out lots of different ways of playing with bicarb of soda and vinegar. Back in the New Year Boy and I made a homemade volcano from play dough and a mixture of vinegar, water, food colouring and washing up liquid. We put all the liquid ingredients into a small plastic bottle and then build a 'volcano' around it using the dough. I then added some bicarb to the top of the bottle and we had our very own volcano in the kitchen! I found the idea in a book I love 'Mum's Stuff' which has loads of great ideas for children's activities.

More recently I was prompted to revisit bicarb and vinegar as I have noticed a number of posts about Fizzing Outdoor Paint. I think the original can be found at Quirky Momma and the one I saw first is at Hands on as we Grow, here. There are many versions out there! We did this last week at pre school and it was a great success. I also let the children pour small bottles of vinegar onto bicarb mixed with paint. The result was overflowing bubbles and lots of laughter!

I began to wonder how else we could let the children play with this simple chemical reaction. They had enjoyed mixing art with science with the fizzing paint so I decided on this. We mixed up some vinegar with food colouring. I have done red and blue here. If you used white vinegar you could do yellow too but this didn't work so well with brown vinegar! Then we put a very fine layer of bicarb onto a plate. Using the small syringes you get with children's medicines, Boy made chemical patterns.

We did this at pre school a few days back and used pipettes instead of syringes and this worked equally well. Girl was able to have a go too, although I confess I was not brave enough to add colouring to her vinegar and she used a spoon instead of a syringe!

Boy came up with quite a gruesome looking design after a while and he picked up that when the two colours mixed they made purple.

I recommend you put down newspaper or something else to cover the surface because food colouring does stain. At nursery I used powdered craft/water dye and this also worked well.

This activity was really engaging for Boy. He had to really concentrate on mastering using the syringes. He was able to be creative and make a piece of 'chemical art.' He was also observing and commenting on what he saw - colour mixing and a chemical reaction. He also got to make quite a bit of mess which is always great fun!

Girl was simply fascinated by the fizzing and bubbles! She spilled vinegar all over herself so is now going a round smelling like she works at the local chippy!
I am looking for more chemistry activities to do so ideas are very very welcome!

Making Cheese Scones

2011-06-16T08:08:00.000+01:00

These are a very easy and quick snack which you can eat just with butter or use for little sandwiches. Great for a picnic.

Ingredients: 150g self raising flour, salt and pepper, tsp mustard powder, 25g butter, 75g grated cheese, milk. Set the oven to 220. Mix the flour, salt, pepper, and mustard in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and rub into the flour. Stir in most of the cheese - leaving a little bit to sprinkle on top of the scones!

Then add enough milk to mix into a firm dough. I keep adding a little at a time - if you add too much you can always add more flour. Once a dough is formed, knead on a flurd surface until smooth.

Pat the dough down and cut it into 8 pieces. I don't bother using a cutter, a knife is all I need.

Then put them onto a baking tray, either greased or lined with baking paper, sprinkle with the remaining cheese, and bake for about 15 mins

We made these ones at home but the children at nursery also enjoyed making cheese scones this week. It makes a nice change from all the cakes and cookies. It's nice to make something savory and the children ate the cheese scones with butter for their tea!

Recycled Junk Models

2011-06-11T18:14:00.000+01:00

This is such an easy activity and (if you use sticky tape) a fairly mess free one too! All you need to do is collect all the packaging, boxes, cardboard tubes, jar lids, anything at all really. Then invest in a sticky tape dispenser. Put a selection of things out and then let the children come up with something.

When we've done this at home or at nursery I've noticed the following. Sometimes children like to work collaboratively and work on one large model together, sometimes they work alone on individual projects. Sometimes their model is abstract and other times they want to create something which represents another object.

The two examples I've got here were both done at nursery by Boy. Both are individual projects and both are vehicles although they were made a few weeks apart. The first was done with my wonderful colleague Sandra and is a train.

I remember when Sandra did this activity she sat closely with the children and made a model of her own alongside them. I'm not sure whether it was her or the children who suggested making a train but they all made their own versions of trains by joining some small boxes we had been given together in lines. The second model is a plane.

I worked with the children during this project. It was inspired by the children's own ideas about what to do with some long cardboard tubes. I chose not to make a model of my own but rather to assist from time to time from a bit of a distance. I helped from time to time with a couple of suggestions. Afterwards I began to wonder if I could use this as a springboard into some improvised storytelling. I began to ask the children questions about their planes. First I asked them to describe the different parts of the models but we quickly got onto talking about where the planes were going. One child told me 'Dya wanna hear the engines? Pshhh pshhh, see it's got fire at the back. Here's the pilot and they're going to Spain on holiday! To the beach, swimming and a theme park!'

So this simple activity enabled the children to use, demonstrate and further develop their skills in, hand eye co-ordination, construction, design, storytelling and communication and imagination.

Paper Plate Activities #1 - Planet & Moon Wall Hanging

2011-06-06T19:47:00.000+01:00

I really love paper plates. In my opinion they are next to useless for the purpose for which they are intended. They are bendy and difficult to balance and you can't use a knife without very often cutting through them. They are wonderful, though for children's craft activities. I've used them so many times in so many ways and so I've decided to put some paper plate activity ideas on my posts over the coming months from time to time. Today we have a Planet & Moon Wall Hanging.

This idea was created for Love Family the Parent and Toddler group we host at Abundant Life Church. Our theme for the next couple of weeks is 'Space' and so I very quickly came up with this because we had some paper plates in our craft resources. A quick rummage through and we found pearlised blue paper, some metallic silver wrapping paper, and some yellow tissue paper. I cut up these different papers and also cut some of the plates into moon shapes. Then we left the children to come up with their own planet and moon designs using glue, the blue, silver and yellow papers and some pencils. You could use anything at all; paints, glitter, sequins, stickers, pens, crayons, tin foil, whatever you can find!

These are Boy's designs.

I then attached some thread to turn it into a wall hanging by making small holes in each plate and hanging one from the other. Simple! You could very easily make a sun and moon combination or make a mobile or window hanging for a bedroom. I've not been too restrictive in what the finished product should look like because many children find that kind of activity frustrating and just enjoy doing their own thing. This way they can be as creative as they like in how they choose to decorate their planets and moons.

Boy chose to write his name on the back of his moon. Getting there with his writing! Buy a pack of paper plates for your child to create with. We'll provide some more ideas periodically hopefully!

Gardening Project Progress

2011-06-03T21:26:00.000+01:00

Since the warmer weather has arrived our gardening projects have really come on. Here is the Bee Garden which we planted in March. Find the original post here. Boy commented 'that's coming along rather well isn't it?'
Then there are the edible plants we planted. The carrots are not doingas well it has to be said.

Then there are the mixed salad leaves and spring onions. Some have been slightly nibbled by the snails but we have enjoyed some baby salad leaves a couple of times - yummy!

Our radishes are getting there and will be ready to eat in a week or so.

Then we have the Sunflower Race! Boy's plant is still leading at 65cm tall while Girl's is just behind at 63cm.

If you fancy some garden projects it's not too late! Visit your local garden centre and get some plants or seeds. Young children will really enjoy the process of growing and caring for plants and there are loads of learning opportunities if you get out into the garden and involve the kids!

Sunny Morning of Outdoor Play

2011-06-01T11:19:00.002+01:00

Finally the sun has returned to Yorkshire and no better excuse (not that we need one!) to play outside this morning. Some time on the trampoline and then the children decided on sand. Boy climbed in to the sand box and Girl was happy to work around him.

Boy experimented with tipping and pouring the sand. I asked 'what does it feel like?' He replied 'Runny.' I said 'like water?' and he said 'yes a bit but not wet, it's cold.'

He's using the vocabulary he knows to describe the properties of sand and how it moves - likening it to water, but realising it isn't a liquid. He's drawing on his experience of playing with sand in the past to make these statements.

Girl wanted to fill buckets with sand and did this unaided and without spilling much. Her physical hand eye co-ordination is developing to enable her to do this.

The sand she did spill she used to experiment with mark making using both her fingers and sand toys to do this.

Boy then wanted to bury 'treasure.' He used shells as treasure and covered them with the sand. He noted, 'the sand isn't wet so it doesn't stick.'

There was so much in this play. Communication and early literacy, science and investigation, turn taking, sharing, physical development, mathematical capacity calculations, critical thinking, creativity and imagination. It's all learning through play, not a worksheet in sight thank goodness!

Buttermilk Scones for a Cream Tea!

2011-05-29T21:16:00.000+01:00

Boy and I enjoy making scones. This next week sees our annual women's conference Cherish 2011. The theme this year is based on flowers and garden parties and so this got me thinking about having a cream tea activity at home. This is a lovely recipe which I have slightly adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe in one of my mother's books. It is the easiest and quickest scone recipe I have come across and has the best results in my opinion. It also gives you another use for the cream of tartar you bought to make play dough!

Ingredients; 500g plain flour, 2 tsp bicarb of soda, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 tsp caster sugar, 75g unsalted butter, 1 284ml carton buttermilk, 3 tbsp milk. First put the flour, bicarb, cream of tartar and sugar together in a large bowl. Then cut the butter into small pieces. You can use a fairly blunt knife so this is a good one for little hands to learn knife skills safely.

Then add the butter to the flour.

Then rub the butter into the flour until all the lumps have disappeared.

Boy is VERY good at this. It is a great sensory experience for him too. Feeling and smelling the ingredients as he works. After this, add the whole carton of buttermilk and the milk.

Then mix everything together until a sticky dough is formed. It seems very sticky but you mix in more flour as you knead it so don't worry.

Dust a clean board or surface with flour and turn the dough onto it. Knead until the dough is smooth.

Then pat the dough down until it is about 2cm thick and cut the scones out.

Then put them on a baking sheet (either greased or lined with baking paper) and bake for about 10-12mins at 220 degrees.

Once cooked then will be golden brown and nicely risen.

The mixture makes 12-15 scones depending on how big you want them. I usually have to bake in two batches because the tray isn't big enough for all of them at once. Once cooled you can enjoy them with jam and whipped or clotted cream and a nice cup of tea!