Painting at Grayshott Pottery

Yesterday, we visited Grayshott Pottery to have a go at their Half Term painting.  

It was very reasonably priced at £2.50 per child and after payment, the kids got to choose the shape they wanted to paint from a choice of star, butterfly, rabbit, egg, heart or flower.   The shapes are pre-cut and glazed with a hole for hanging so all we needed to do was don our aprons and get painting!

We happened to arrive at the same time as two other families (something to do with the sudden downpour I suspect!) so had to wait 5 minutes for a place but that was no problem.

There were a choice of paint colours set out in trays on the table, which seated around 8 children, for the children to use as well as little bottles of a slightly more "puffy" paint which they could add detail with.  When their shapes were decorated, we handed them over for drying and were advised to return the next day for collection.

We probably weren't there for more than half an hour so whilst it's not an extensive time filler, it was a fun activity to break up our morning for very little cost.  Its on for the rest of this week between 10-1 and 2-4 daily, and operates on a drop-in system so no need to pre-book.  

Just watch your little one's arms swinging by their sides as you make your way out through the shop in case they knock something off the shelf and break it...ahem...

Autumn Playdough

A few weekends ago, Sunday morning saw the rain pouring down and it looked as though we would be housebound all day.  Fine by me but I knew we would need something to keep the littles amused so I made some autumn play dough.  I used the same recipe from before but added some cinnamon and nutmeg to make it smell wonderfully autumnal plus some red and yellow paint for colouring.  (It actually turned out a little more pinky than I planned but they didn't seem to notice!)

Motorbike Man man a dash into the garden between showers and collected a variety of leaves, herbs and nuts from the garden, and we were set.  We created trees of varying detail, from a few simple pasta pieces to a full display of leaves and nuts in the play dough.

We thought of autumn related things and made some of those - conkers, fireworks, pumpkins using the dough and some accessories.  

They learnt to identify the tree by its leaves - I was impressed that Spiderboy could name quite a few of them!

We passed a good hour or so having fun with all the autumn colours and the kitchen had a lovely smell afterwards!

Travel Noughts & Crosses

Preparations for our holiday are revving up, and although we only have a short plane ride this time (as opposed to the mammoth car journey we did last year!) I still like to put together a little bag of goodies for my two which will *hopefully* keep them occupied for a while.

I saw this cute little felt Noughts & Crosses game a while ago on Hideous, Dreadful, Stinky and have been meaning to find time to make it.  Well, I should have done it sooner - it only took me 10 minutes yesterday!  If you click through to the original tutorial, on Spoonful.com there is a handy PDF for you to print which will make it even quicker.  Like 5 minutes instead of 10 :)

DH and DS were out taking a walk while DD and I were crafting yesterday...she was sticking tissue paper and sequins to cardboard letters while I managed a quick session on the sewing machine!  When they got back and DS saw this, he couldn't wait to have a go - 5 games later and he reluctantly put it away in time for dinner.

Fingers crossed he is still interested when we are at 30,000 feet...

Chinese Lanterns

Do you remember making these as a child?  I do...and while we were passing the time indoors on a snowy Saturday after the kids were tired of snowman building, I showed them how to make these.  

This year, I'm trying to mark each celebration in the calendar...Burns Night, Chinese New Year, Pancake Day, Valentines Day, etc. with a little craft so I began thinking about these a few weeks ago.

They are so easy to make, the kids love it.  All you need is:

Red paper (or any colour will do, but they are traditionally red)
Scissors
Sticky tape

Fold your paper in half length ways, and cut slits all the way along the fold (staying around an inch away from the top).

Open the paper out and tape each end together to make the lantern.  

You could add a little paper strip for a handle to hang these (as I seem to recall doing as a kid) or put a LED tea light inside, like we did - the lanterns are now sitting on their beside tables and I was finally able to throw away the gingerbread houses from Christmas!

If you want to get even further into Chinese New Year, Red Ted Art has a great round-up of crafts, and Twinkl has some printables that I will be using to decorate the house when we cook our Chinese dinner on 10 February!

Rainbow Salt Tray

I saw this idea and thought it was a fun idea to get little ones to discover shapes, colours, numbers or anything else hidden underneath the salt.  

It was easy to put together - you just need:

A baking tray (I used the deepest one I had to avoid too much being flung over the sides!)
Packet of salt
Coloured paper sheets
Sticky tape or glue
White shapes (or numbers)
Paintbrush

Overlay the coloured sheets until you have a section of each showing to make the "rainbow"  effect and stick together, making sure it will fit within your tray.  

Stick your shapes or numbers on top.

Pour the salt on top generously and let them loose with a dry paintbrush!

DD loved discovering all the shapes hidden underneath, and kept her busy while I made dinner that evening - result!

Little Red Bus Craft

Those of you who have read my previous posts will know that I am hopeless at all things child-craft related but this sinks to new lows.  I was in two minds as to whether to post it but I figured you could all do with a laugh!

To be fair, the kids had fun making it and that's all that matters...right?!

You will need:

Empty box (tea bag box size)
Red paint
White stickers
Bottle tops
Photos
Glue
Tape
Scissors

First you need to paint your tea bag box with red paint.  Despite 3 coats, the box still showed through on ours but I think that was due to the cheap paint!  You need to leave this to dry thoroughly so you may decide to do this part yourself if you have impatient little people.

Next you need the "people" to go in the windows of the bus.  I printed off shrunken down photos of our friends & family (hence the pixellation!) but you could equally use magazine cuttings of the right size - obviously they need to be pretty small.  

Stick your white labels (white cut paper would work equally well) on to the box to make the windows.  Then get the kids to glue on their people - this part was quite interesting to watch, as DS chose all his friends and family members but DD only wanted to stick on photos of herself!  

Once the people are stuck on, you need to stick on your wheels.  Glue didn't seem to hold ours (but again, could just be the cheap brand I bought!) so we ended up putting tape on to stick them.  

DS asked if he could make a hole in his and attach string so he could pull it along but I was pretty sure it wouldn't survive so talked him out of it!  Nevertheless, we now have two red buses sitting on our table awaiting daddy's inspection when he gets home.

Travel Activities

We spent last week driving through some of Europe - we were headed to Hamburg in Germany to visit some friends and decided to stop at a few places on the way.  When DH and I talked about the visit initially, I assumed we would be flying so when he suggested we drive, I was quite reluctant.  Although the kids are pretty good in the car generally, I didn't know how they would fare for long stretches at a time.  Eventually, DH convinced me so I set about making up a travel pack for them each.  Some things worked better than others but here are my ideas.

Map
DS is obsessed with maps at the moment (must be a boy thing!) and is always asking to look at the map in the car so I thought I would make him his own one, customised to our journey.  I plotted our journey using Google maps, with the overnight stops we were making marked on it, and printed it off.  I folded it like a real map, concertina style, to add to the authenticity!  He loved getting it out periodically and telling DH where to go next.

Lacing Cards 
I got DS lacing cards but thought these may be a little tricky for DD so I got her a Wooden Threading Mouse & Cheese instead.  I hoped this would keep them busy for a while at least and it had the added bonus of helping to improve their motor skills.  The cards were one of the biggest hits, with both of the kids!  Long periods of time went by in relative peace while they were busy working on these in the back - DS loved "sewing" like he's seen me do, and DD managed to thread some of them too.  The cheese wedge was more of a fun distraction for them both but still good.

Travel Bingo
I Googled images of generic things I thought we would see on the way (road signs, coloured cars, state vehicles, etc.), not forgetting a clipboard & pencil so they could tick off things as they go!  Remember to save some sheets for the return journey if you are making one.

Colouring Sheets
I printed out a stack of free colouring sheets I found on the web, each tailored to their current obsession - Spiderman for DS and Peppa Pig for DD!  I also made up a small pack of crayons & pencils for each of them too.  Another use for those clipboards!

Felt Travel Mr & Mrs Potato Head
I'm quite proud of this one...as I made it myself (separate post on how to make it coming soon!)  This didn't work in the car like I anticipated but it was a good distraction at restaurants when we were waiting for our meal.

Funny Faces Sticker Book
I liked the fact that this was reusable so my idea was that they could take turns with this one.  After buying one on-line, a few days before our departure I found them for half price in a local toy shop so they ended up with one each...good job seeing as how DD stuck all the features onto one face and they ended up sticking to each other so they weren't reusable!

Magnetic Drawing Board
Although I did pack colouring pencils and paper for them, I put these in as a quick & easy scribbler for them...again tailored to their current obsession!  I picked them up in a local £ store & toy store.

Toy train & track
This was more for them to play with in the hotel rooms but it was still a goodie!  If you have a small / packable thing they love that won't work in a moving car, take it anyway and buy yourself 10 minutes of peace while you are unpacking.

50 things to do in a plane
I bought this earlier in the year for our plane ride to Spain but didn't end up using it.  I packed it in my bag for this journey rather than theirs, mainly due to the fact that it has a reusable marker that I could imagine would be used to draw all over the car!  Most of the cards were too old for DS at 4 years but there were a few that kept him busy with supervision during our crossing on the Euro tunnel.

Miscellaneous
I also included some "pocket money" toys that I found in ELC and The Entertainer stores.  These were some of the biggest hits with the kids - small robots with positionable arms & legs, erasers in the shape of snacks, and a tiny tea set inside a teapot the size of a walnut!  

 

And of course not forgetting our passports!   

We drove 1,494 miles in total from England to France, Belgium, through Holland and into Germany and I am surprised to hear myself now telling people it was painless but it really was!  Each night, DH gathered up the contents of their bags from the car floor and I tidied and repacked them all so they had a fresh bag to start the next journey with.  Before our longest stretch on the way home, I added some additional items (a magazine each, new colouring sheets, etc) so there was something new to hold their interest.

I would love to hear of any ideas you have to keep your kids entertained during long journeys!

Rhyming Words

DS was very into rhyming words over the summer and he loved this little game.  I dug it out again this week as DD can now match some of the words up too.  It's a great game to travel with or keep them busy at a restaurant table ;)

I drew up a list of rhyming words (see below) and then just Googled photos of each object, choosing the easiest / most recognisable object. 

Apologies for the rubbish photo quality!

Cut each picture out and mix them up in a box then get them to match as many rhyming words as they can.

These are the words I used:

Cake; Rake; Snake
Frog; Dog
Moon; Spoon
Bread; Shed; Bed
Bear; Chair
Knight; Light; Kite
Star; Car
Nose; Hose
Rock; Sock; Clock
Mouse; House
Ball; Wall

Cheap, easy and fun!

Play Passports

When I got the kid’s passports out this week in order to collect a parcel addressed to them (don’t get me started on that!), I could barely prise them away to put them back.  I obviously didn’t want to let them play with the real deal so decided we should fashion some for them.  

After a quick search, I found a handy template that we used as a base here.  Instead of laminating the cover as they suggest (who has a laminator at home anyway?!), I stuck the page onto card as a base before cutting it out.  I used the Personal Details page from the template and then cut blank pages for the inserts.  I printed shrunk down photos of each of them for their passport photo and we stuck them on before filling in their personal details.

I decided to print a flag and photo for each trip, even though it meant we had duplicate flags.  I wanted to add a photo from each trip so it would jog their memory about the holiday.  I also thought it would be nice to add a new flag and photo after each trip.

I found flag images on Google and added the country's name and the dates we had been there to surround it before printing.  We added the cut out "stamps" to a couple of the pages too for an authentic look.  

Finally, I used coloured ribbon to bind it all together - just tie it round the middle pages and knot firmly to hold it all together - I didn't feel comfortable using staples that they could pull out.

I've a feeling these will be joining us on our trip to Germany next month!

Playdough

I've had a desire to make my own play dough for a while but a part of me wondered if it was worth it...after all, shop bought isn't that expensive and I had visions of a sticky, gooey mess that the kids were unable to play with.  I was WRONG!  

This is so easy to make, costs hardly anything and is so much more lovely to handle - the kids played with it for ages longer than they usually do, mainly because it is so tactile I think.  Plus you can make it whatever colour and fragrance you want to. 

 

Here's how...you will need:

2 cups of plain flour

1 cup salt 

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp cream of tartar

1.5 cups hot water (recently boiled)

Optional:

Food colouring

Glitter

Herb / spice 

Add the flour, salt and cream of tartar into a bowl and mix well.  Add the vegetable oil plus any extra ingredients (I added red glitter and ground mixed spice).  Add food colouring into the hot water if using (I used blue) and add the water to the dry mix.  Combine well and hey presto - start playing!

DD couldn't wait to get her hands on it, as you can see above!

Nurture Store, where I got this recipe from, also suggest adding herbs such as lavender or rosemary to make scrummy smelling dough - looking forward to trying that!

TV Scheduler

It's all too easy to switch on the TV to keep the kids quiet while you try to get something done and I knew that with the summer holiday now upon us, I needed to come up with a plan to limit TV time in our house.  Inspired by a post on Playing With Words 365, I came up with my own version of their TV time chart.

I Googled a picture of our TV (so the kids could recognise it) then found images of the shows they like to watch regularly.  I stuck all of these onto card and cut them out individually.  

Next I put a piece of sticky velcro on to the back of each cut out picture, and the corresponding long piece of velcro below the TV picture.

I put all the "shows" into a bowl and each morning you can get them to pick, say, 3 shows they can watch that day and stick them onto the long velcro strip.  

It lets them feel in control of what they are watching, and also helps them to know the TV gets switched off after the end of their show.  

It's working well for us so far!