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.

Water Fun

It was glorious sunshine today and we spent most of the afternoon in the garden and the biggest hit was 5 little ducks!
This is a pic of Chops doing this a while ago but we had 5 small people getting in on the action today.  A tub of water can be explored in so many ways.  I added blue dye, washing up liquid, 5 ducks (one an odd colour), a few metal spoons (one with holes) and straws, for the added bonus of blowing bubbles too and a few extra tubs for pouring and transferring water.
Ducks were scooped up into other buckets, water was collected and taken to the sand pit, spoons were used, hands were used and general wet fun was had by all.  Great if you don't want to get the paddling pool out yet and brilliant for lots of different ways to explore water.

Sand play

Well I have finally given in and bought a sand tray - I was reluctant as I didn't want a sandy house but sand is such a hit when we head down to the sandpit at the park that I just had to and £20 from Argos seemed cheap enough for lots of fun.

Its already a big hit, Chops has played with it loads and 5 of them were having great fun today - just got to crack the concept of keeping the sand on the decking!

I got my trusty tough tray out too so they could dig and make castles as well.  Adding in other objects such as shells and lolly sticks to make it more interesting (and not all about plastic).  Lots of birthday cakes were made!

Is it Spring

So I was trying to remember that it really is spring and looked at some of the photos of when we did manage to get out into the garden and have some fun digging and planting spring flowers (which are now under an inch of snow and probably not going to make it)!!!

This is such a great activity as we have given chops a patch of her own and she can dig away without worrying about the plants and we can plant some veg when the weather comes good again!

We also gathered stones, shells and pinecones from around the garden and decorated the border which was good fun too. (Who knew that the very annoying 50ft Christmas tree, planted over 50 years ago according to our neighbour, could be a source of fun and decoration rather than just piles of needles!)

Come back spring - pretty please.