The Family Canvas

Been wanting to try this one for a while! This activity had Maggie’s attention for an hour 👌

You will need: - any contrasting grains or materials; we used flour, barley and coconut.
- food colouring
- we also included 2 trucks, a dump truck to fill up, and a tractor to scoop up with.
- flexible track (mags wasn’t interested in this yet)

Mags was involved with mixing the food colouring in with the coconut. She was curious about this step, so we mixed a few different batches. We then piled up each of the materials. She enjoyed running her hand through the soft flour and was also curious about the crunchy coconut. She loved filling the dump truck with the flour, again and again.

Once she began to tire of the dry ingredients, we introduced a bucket with water. This captured her attention for a long time. Mixing the foods in to the water. Seeing the water turn pink, then purple. Witnessing the dry ingredients turn wet and gluggy, and making dough balls, plopping them in to the water and fishing them out again!

The play couch is one of the most used open ended toys we’ve purchased.

There are so many brands to choose from, we ultimately decided on the based on reviews, price, aesthetics (colour in particular) and guaranteed durability.

It’s one of a handful of toys that are used daily! Mag’s is 19 months, still a bit young to independently build and handle the large pillow pieces, but loves helping me. Each day we build a different structure together. She will play and hide in the cubby numerous times throughout the day. Getting a great thrill out of hide and seek or chasey, seeking refuge in her cubby. She also loves climbing over or relaxing when we have it set up as a couch.

We’ve also noticed that when the older cousins visit, it’s the one thing that entertains them ALL! It came with 4 pages of picture print outs for the kids to replicate and build. I laminated each of these pages and have them in the nearby bookshelf. The older kids love this activity.

Flowers in Ice Cubes Sensory Activity🌸

This is a really simple (and clean) sensory activity for toddlers.

You will need: - Flowers, leaves collected from the garden
- wooden spoon, jug or mixing tools
- Sarah’s silk
- bowl
- ice cube tray
-water

What I loved about this activity is the prep aspect. You’ll find me constantly banging on about the process being so much more important & satisfying than the outcome.

For this activity the prep component was exploring the garden together and having Maggie lead and choose which flowers or leaves or sticks she wanted. We collected them in a basket. Gross & Fine motor skills developed- balance, walking, leaning, and picking. The earth under our bare feet, the sun warming our skin 🌞 I love watching Mags in the garden. At the moment she loves the silver gum tree - it’s branches twist up and over- tickling the ground. She giggles as she ‘hides’ from me behind the branches. This turns in to a fun game of hide and seek.

The second prep component is placing each found object in the cube of an ice tray and filling the tray with water. Maggie is 18 months old. So she doesn’t turn the tap just yet but she was on a chair at the sink with me and we filled it together while she played and splashed with the water.

We refrigerated overnight. I actually saved the activity for a time when I felt it would be most savoured. Which was a few days later. I set up the bowl with Sarah’s silk, ice cubes, wooden spoon and warm water. Then placed in the tuff tray and then invited Maggie to come have a look.

She was very engaged, she loved trying to grab the ice and would say ‘hot hot’ when she held one. Haha! She says hot to describe feeling hot or cold. I described light heartedly the ice changing state to water, as the petals emerged. Mixing the cubes with the silk was mesmerising- even for me!

Would love to know how you go experimenting with this activity 😊