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How to Make Orange and Cloves Pomanders
This has been one of my favourite Christmas crafts ever since I was a child. Orange pomanders are great decorations for kids to make and they smell absolutely amazing! How to Make Orange and Cloves Pomanders – a simple Christmas craft for kids. These simple yet pretty little decorations are perfect for little hands to make and are a lovely tradition to start as a family. Both of my children (5 and almost 3) were able to make these with little or no help (I helped to secure the ribbons) and we have lots of festive fun doing this activity together. What you need: oranges or clementines – we used…
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Fuzzy Wuzzy PomPom Monsters
PopPom Monsters are a great simple Halloween craft for kids. These cute little guys have been the centre of much monster fun and mayhem at Our Little House in the Country! Super Easy PomPoms I used to love making pompoms as a child but they can be tedious and sometimes tricky for younger children if using the traditional method of using two circular pieces of card. So, I used this as an excuse to spend even more time on Pinterest (as if I need an excuse!) and went about looking for an easier way for little hands to make pompoms. I came across this great, very easy method from Mom…
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10 Spooktacular Halloween Picture Books for Children
There are so many fantastic picture books about Halloween, however some can be quite scary especially for the more sensitive child. With that in mind we have compiled our favourite spooky stories for younger children from our vast collection of books! Our Top 10 Halloween Picture Books The Night Before Halloween – Natasha Wing & Cynthia Fisher: A spooktacular take of the Christmas favourite! A fun, colourful book, packed with cheerful, child friendly pictures. Mouse’s First Halloween – Lauren Thompson & Buket Erdogan: A beautifully written and illustrated adventure of a little mouse sneaking around on Halloween. Angelina’s Halloween – Katherine Holabird & Helen Craig: Join Angelina Ballerina and her…
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Cornstarch / Cornflour Dough Pumpkin Hanging Decorations
Cornstarch dough is the perfect dough for making decorations to hang on a tree. These cute little pumpkins are great for this time of year to add an autumnal feel plus they are perfect for Halloween and Thanksgiving too! We have a plain white tree/branch in a tin bucket in our home all year round. As the seasons change we change the decorations on it. Currently we have the clay autumn leaves we recently made hanging on it as well as some fabric fall coloured leaves, but we felt it was lacking a little something! So, we decided to make cute little pumpkins to hang on it too. We have…
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10 Fantastic Fall Activities for Kids – Autumn Arts, Crafts and Lots More!
10 Fantastic Fall Activities for Kids – Autumn arts, crafts and lots more from my some of my favourite bloggers and pinners! 10 Fantastic Autumn Activities for Kids I have pinned! (if you click on the the “pins” displayed below it will take straight to each blogger’s own pin to repin to your own boards) 1. If you haven’t already, you should check out Kyla’s – The Train Driver’s Wife – blog – it is full of amazing and creative activities for babies and toddlers. I love this fun colourful activity for encouraging babies to discover autumn colours. 2. Craftulate is one of my favourite websites for creative and fun…
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Family Autumn / Fall Bucket List
Our Family Bucket List for Autumn 2014! Autumn is one of my favourite times of year and I often find that it provides lots of opportunities for family activities and fun times together! Below you will find our bucket list of 15 things we hope to do in the coming months! What’s on your Fall Bucket List for 2014? Let us know if you have anything planned or special family traditions for this time of year! Have fun! Ciara x For lots and lots of activities, ideas, crafts, decor ideas etc take a look at our Autumn themed Pinterest boards, a full list list can be found here!
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Finger Print Autumn Trees – Fall Art Activities for Kids
This is another quick and easy autumn art activity perfect for younger kids, similar to our Autumn Tree Collages, but using finger painting this time instead of collage work. What we used: poster paints paint tray blue card paint brushes What we did: We each painted a tree trunk Using our fingers we printed lots and lots of different coloured autumn leaves all over the tree Doodles and Oodles both wanted to add apples and D showed apples falling from his tree. Still using our fingers we added grass to the paintings and dotted a leaf or two on the grass. We used gold paint for some of the leaves…
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The Benefits of Playing with Playdough
If you are familiar with our blog then you have probably noticed that we love to make and play with Playdough. The benefits of play dough play are numerous and kids of all ages have much to gain from engaging with play dough activities. So, why should our children play with play dough? Benefits of Playdough Play: 1. Fine Motor Skill Development: great for strengthening muscle tone in little hands – squishing, squashing, rolling, flattening play dough all develop children’s muscles and encourage prewriting and other skills such as cutting with a scissors, using a tweezers, holding a pencil etc. 2. Calming and therapeutic: simply sitting and squashing and rolling a…
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Top 10 Party Games – for younger kids!
My little man Doodles turned five on Friday, as a result we have a had a busy weekend celebrating! Some of the highlights of the weekend were the fun had by all with these all time favourite party games! Pass the Parcel: I loved Pass the Parcel as a child and it is a “must have” game at all of our parties. As the vast majority of the children at the party were under 6 I tucked a little gift into each layer of wrapping paper – whistles, badges, crayons, bouncy balls, etc. Musical statues/bumps: Most kids love to boogie and they also love a good competition. Musical statues…
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Marble Painting – More Rainy Day Messy Art Fun!
Another rainy day meant another afternoon of messy art fun! Today we used our marbles to create fantastic works of art and most importantly had a lot of fun doing it! What we used: marbles paint trays (we used a printing tray and a lid of a shoe box – couldn’t find my 2nd printing tray!!!!) card cheap and cheerful frames from Ikea basin of soapy water What we did: We placed a piece of card onto each tray and squirted some paint onto the card Doodles and oodles practiced with one marble first in order to get used to rolling the marble around the tray through the paint. They…
