While I didn’t have anything LEGO-inspired planned for today, Miss G and I had a little bit of downtime this afternoon and while brainstorming, we remembered the laminated LEGO people printouts we paired with plasticine for last summer’s house boating trip…. Perfect!
LEGO. Miss G’s been into it in a big way for sometime now, so when some blogging friends made mention of an entire week dedicated to LEGO-inspired fun, I jumped aboard as quickly as I could.
After his dad’s Facebook post about the number of times the word ‘and’ shows up in the book Where the Wild Things Are, I knew that we had to get today’s birthday boy a new book {something with more than 8 sentences, preferably – that nifty fact also learned through a FB post about the dreaded/beloved Where the Wild Things Are ☺}.
Another birthday party, another play dough kit. ☺ I don’t think we can help it. I mention an upcoming birthday party, and Miss G automatically thinks, ‘play dough kit!!!’ This one, a cupcake play dough kit, was actually inspired by the little cupcake play dough favours that we gave out at Miss G’s very low-key birthday celebration we had here in Kuwait.
Spring on the horizon means that it was finally time for us to say au revoir to the Christmas and winter play dough kits we’ve had around for months… New season, new play dough sets – that’s what they say, right?? ☺
This morning when we woke up to a miserable windy, dusty, trash-floating-through-the-air sort of day, Miss G and I opted to stay in and have a quiet day at home. We made a big pot of oatmeal, read stacks of books, played some games, built puzzles, and then played this super fun and simple play dough subtraction smash game I came up with a few days ago.
It’s very likely that our friends may soon disown us for constantly gifting them with play dough… And until then, we’ll probably just continue coming up with clever ways to present it and give it anyways {sorry, friends}. ☺
Okay, so I admit it – we’re a bit play dough kit obsessed over here. We can’t help it. Play dough is something that we play with on a daily basis and having pre-made kits filled with dough and interesting loose parts makes it really easy to delve into the fun – everything that’s needed is right there in a container waiting to be taken out! It also means that Grae can easily help herself to a kit and have a fun activity pre-prepared for independent play times, which I love.
I’m pretty sure Gracen’s obsession with Frozen has reached an all-time high recently. She’s always really enjoyed the movie, but since removing the YouTube app from her iPad a while back, I’m fairly certain she’s spent at least a portion of her allotted screen time watching it every single day. Of course, when your start your day with a dose of Frozen, it translates into into a whole lot of Elsa dress-up, many Anna hairdo requests, non-stop ‘Let It Go’, and daily reenactments of the ‘do you want to build a snowman?’ scene {accompanied by plenty of door knocking}. Welcome to our world.
Grae and I absolutely love putting together fun play kits as gifts, especially when they involve sensory play materials. While we’ve made a very simple homemade play dough kit previously, time around we decided to make the birthday boy a colourful kit filled with a rainbow of play dough and a bunch of fun tools and loose parts to up its play possibilities.
Gosh, I love setting out fun play invitations for my girl. This one, set out today for our Thanksgiving celebration is nothing new, but the classics are classics for a reason, right? My kindergarten students used to love creating colourful feathered play dough turkeys at our play dough station and Miss G loved it just as much too!
While fall may not be in the air here in the desert, that certainly doesn’t stop us from pretending. One of my favourite things about fall back home in Canada {besides the crisp air, the colourful leaves, the scarves, layers, and boots}, is walking outdoors with my girl with a steaming hot chai latte in hand. It’s the way we began many of our mornings during our most recent two years in Vancouver… G would be bundled up in her stroller, I’d push her up the big hill on Fraser Street, we’d pop into Breka for my hot drink, and then make our way to a nearby playground where we’d stay for an hour or two. Ahhhh… Those were the days!
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!
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.
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.