Outdoor kitchen

Our temporary outdoor kitchen has been great fun.  I have been inspired by the sheer number of mud kitchens on pintrest  but haven't quite got round to doing the full on mud session yet.

We created a leafy, red dyed rice concoction that Chops loved stirring, spooning and generally dolloping everywhere.  The exciting thing was the next day it was full of snails who seemed to be feasting on the mixture, much to the delight of Chops.

I also put out a muffin tin, lots of smaller bowls and a sieve just to make it feel a bit more like a kitchen.

Going to work on a full on mud pie kitchen next - got to convince hubby its a brilliant idea though!!! (He mainly does bath time so he is on clean up duty after the mess).

Chalk fun

 SOOOOO loving being outside (although there have been a few rain showers but enjoying throwing on the wellies and jumping in the puddles in between the showers).  It is so rare in the UK to get such a prolonged spell of warmth!
We have spent so much time outdoors and chalk and pots of water with brushes have been filling lots of time. We have a permanent outdoor chalk board and we have also had the easel up and of course the patio is popular.  We used lots of different sizes and shapes of brushes and sponges and also some normal sized chalk and giant chalks.
I found this from the imagination tree inspiring too, which was all about putting chalk on the board first and letting the kids paint out the chalk with water which has also been a great activity that doesn't create too much mess!!!

Shaving foam sensory fun

I had been wanting to do this for ages and with all this hot weather we had the perfect opportunity - shaving foam play!  As we had the paddling pool up Chops could wash everything off in the pool as she played so we got quite covered and added sand and glitter too.  Great fun and such a different play material - next we want to try shaving foam painting.

Busy times and golf tees

Well 2 months went by quickly! Had lots on including a birthday and a holiday. Chops is now 2! So where to begin.

We have been doing lots of activities so I will try to get an idea up as often as possibly starting with an idea I got from Pre School Patti. I had been wanting to try it for some time and finally got some golf tees off the father-in-law.

It is super simple and they really enjoyed it and using the mini hand held hoover to collect up all the pesky small balls of styro foam!  We used some simple plastic hammers and golf tees pushed into styro foam.

Lots of fun they played for quite a long period of time returning to it again later.