It’s no secret that Miss G and I like to create and give little homemade gifts. I’ve always loved giving gifts and it’s important to me that Gracen sees that there’s just as much joy {if not more} in giving as there is in receiving, even if the gifts are tiny and made by hand. I think ‘happy summer’ gifts like these also help her prepare for significant transitions – in this case, saying goodbye to her friends and home here in Kuwait and heading back to Canada for the summer.
In preparation for this week’s Hawaiian-themedCrafty Kids class, Miss G and I experimented with a new-to-us dough this morning… Sand play dough! While I have seen several different types of sand doughs and clays floating around the internet, I figured we may as well try just adding some sand to our very favourite no-cook play dough first. Sure enough, it worked. Wonderfully, I might add!
Another birthday party means another opportunity for Grae and I to come up with a fun, homemade gift {which we love doing}. This time around, we decided we’d put together a tinkle trunk filled with fun dress-up costumes and accessories similar to what Grae has in her dress-up station. We were really excited about the idea until we realized that the birthday girl is headed home to the States just a few days after her party. A tickle trunk simply wouldn’t do. After some brainstorming, we opted for something she could bring along on her travels – a portable activity kit! Our goal was to keep it as compact and lightweight as possible, while cramming in tons of fun {and quiet} things she could explore and play with during her travels. Here’s what we included…
Oh my word… I’m pretty sure book activities are quickly becoming Miss G’s favourite thing ever. So much so that when I asked her what she’d like to do the other day and proceeded to suggest a trip to the beach, a morning at the pool, or a visit to an indoor play area, she quickly responded with, ‘I know! I want to do another fun book activity!’ So that’s what we did. {Apparently the fun outings can wait.}
Grae’s been absolutely loving our coloured gel baggies. Today we took them off of the window where they’ve been hanging out for the last couple of days and tried them out on a very simple DIY light box I threw together for us to experiment with.
Oh my goodness… Gracen has just been loving the book activities we’ve been doing with our Preschool Book Club! So much so that yesterday while she was happily engaged in an activity not based on a book, she stopped suddenly and announced, ‘I know what this activity needs! A book to go with it!!’ Then she ran to the shelf, sorted through to find a story that coordinated with the project, and brought it over, declaring, ‘Now that’s better!’ Hah!
{this post contains affiliate links}I’ve had a package of large foam craft sticks for a long while now, but have never really figured out a fun way to put them to use. Well, today as I was working on a project for CBC Parents, I realized that the cute flower-shaped buttons I was using coordinated perfectly with the colours of the foam sticks. Having had a reusable countdown chain on my mind for quite a while now, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them.
Something I’ve recently started making sure we make time for is fun, hands-on book activities. I’ve always loved extending favourite read alouds with fun learning activities in my classroom, and Miss G absolutely adores reading books, so I’m not sure why it took this long, but heh – here we are.
One of the things I do for the Crafty Kids class i teach here in Kuwait is prepare some open-ended materials for the children to explore and create with after they’re done their main project for the day. Since this week’s theme Bright Minds was ‘bedtime’, I decided to prepare what I originally called ’sleepy time starry sky play dough’. My crafty kids loved it and it continued to bring all sorts of fun throughout the afternoon once we were home. It was a big hit again today, and Miss G actually chose it as one of the activities to have out during our weekly play date with her little buddy from downstairs.
Since we already had a bunch of fun things leftover from this week’s classes at Bright Minds, Grae and I decided to put them to good use by creating a senses-themed play date for she and her little buddy from downstairs. Here’s a peek at our very simple materials…
We’ve made many beach-themed sensory bins in Miss G’s {almost} 3.5 years and I’ve got to say, they’re always a hit. I mean, who wouldn’t want a miniature indoor beach to play at, right?!
The moment I came across Kate’s printable people play dough mats on Pickelbums, I knew that they’d bring us hours of fun. We loooove play dough, and pairing it with a mat and loose parts makes it even better.
There’s no doubt that we love play dough. In fact, we’ve given it out as gifts and favours several times before. But that being said, I can’t take any credit for these sweet, simple little Valentine’s Day treats…
Oh how I adore lemons! We bought a ton of them last week in order to make a big batch of our favourite homemade cleaner and some chia lemonade, but only really needed the juice of the lemons for both projects. It seemed sort of sad to let all of those rinds go to waste, so I zested them before getting to the juicing part and set the zest aside for later, knowing that I’d come up with some sort of plan for it. Well, we could have made our yummy lemon poppyseed pancakes or some lemon cookies or muffins, but what did we make? Why lemony play dough of course! {Does that surprise you??}
There’s no doubt we have a thing for play doughs in this house. I absolutely love coming up with fun new dough recipes, and Miss G absolutely loves exploring and creating with them. I’m not sure where this crazy idea came from exactly, but one day I found myself wondering why we had yet to play with basic cooking doughs {like the ones used to make breads and pastas}. Miss G’s well out of the putting things in her mouth stage, so ingredients like raw eggs are not a concern, and how fun would it be to ‘play’ with the dough by shaping and cutting, and then cook it up into something delicious? Sounded like a plan to me {as long as very clean hands and a clean playing surface were involved, that is!}