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.

100 things to do with a paper plate challenge

I love paper plates and we use them a lot - even just in my "keep Chops happy when out kit" that I have full of stickers and colouring books as we can decorate a plate with crayons and stickers when out and about.  So I have challenged myself to find 100 things to do with a paper plate and I have set up a pinterest board for it!  Lets see if I can complete the challenge in a month!!!!

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.

Giant toddler friendly fuzzy felt!

This is something I made a while ago but it is just starting to be used a bit more.  The nice thing was that Chops actually asked for it today.

I had bought a pack of felt letters from Sainsbury a while ago and didn't know what to do with them, so I covered a canvas with green felt and cut up some more large shapes out of felt so Chops could create giant fuzzy felt pictures.

Today Chops and her friend had a great time with it and concentrated on paring up shapes and letters.  A great fun activity and really cheap to make. You can also just throw them around!!!!!