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Creating a Space for Connection: How to Prioritise Family Time in a Busy World
Let’s face it—life can be busy. Between work, school, extracurriculars, and the constant pull of our digital devices, it’s easy to feel like family time slips right through the cracks. And that’s totally normal! But here’s the good news: with a little intention, it’s possible to make family connection a priority, even in the middle of all the hustle. Why does this matter? Well, strong family bonds are like the glue that holds us together—providing emotional support, boosting our resilience, and simply making life more enjoyable. And when you’ve got teens in the mix (especially those with unique needs), fostering these connections becomes even more important. So, how do we…
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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…
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Beach Themed Invitation to Play – Small World Play and Sensory Play
A Beach Themed sensory play activity was on our 100 Days of Summer Bucket List and this week we had we had the opportunity to cross it off our list and have a whole lot of fun doing it! So, what is an invitation to play (you may have seen this term used on this blog and elsewhere before)? Simply, it is arranging an activity in an attractive manner that will encourage a child’s curiosity, allow opportunities for exploration, independent play and participation in a meaningful, purpose and sensory way. It should invite the child to want to play and use their imagination. Of course it should also be age…
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How to Make a Fairy Tale Castle – Outdoor Summer Fun for Kids!
I don’t know about you, but when I was a child I absolutely loved to build houses, tents, dens, castles, clubhouses etc. My two monkeys are exactly the same and when our chickens and their coop arrived last Sunday (more about that later!) they were far more excited about the two huge cardboard boxes the flat pack chicken coop came in than their 3 new feathered friends! Honestly, so was I! I immediately started to conjure up all sorts of ideas for what we could create with the cardboard – I probably should have been more interested in Mr G as he expertly constructed the chicken coop – good job…
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Miniature Gardens – Outdoor Summer Fun!
This morning while lazing in bed in true Sunday morning fashion I came across a tweet from Nicola who blogs at Multicraftingmummy. She had tweeted a link to a recent post she had done for MumRx. (I love Nicola’s blog, we blog about similar things, have similar aged children and she lives along the east coast of Ireland too, so we’ve lots in common. She has tonnes of fab arts and crafts activities for younger children and well worth checking her blog out!). She had written a post about miniature gardens. As a child I loved making miniature gardens and for years I have been making them with the kids…
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5 Tips for a Fun and Stress-Free Summer!
Summer is well and truly under way here at Our Little House in the Country. The weather is stunning, the paddling pool is out and we spent the morning at the beach! Hi all, apologies for the short hiatus in posts, we have been away on holiday in the South of France for the past few weeks and while away we decided to take a total break from cyberspace! The only thing our iPads were used for were for reading several books and we even turned off our data roaming services so that emails and all other notifications couldn’t interrupt our family holiday. I must admit that I really and…
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Summer Butterfly Collages: An Invitation to Create – using materials as a stimulus
I love to wander around “Euro” or “Pound” shops looking out for bits and pieces to use in art projects or play activities. On one such trip recently I found these card butterfly cut outs. I’m not a huge fan of using templates and cut outs but I find if they are used in the right way they can be very useful for creative process art projects. Often I use some sort of a stimulus for our art activities – a book, an item, a picture, or even a piece of music. I also use the actual art materials as a stimulus, which is what I did for this…
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Bubbles Play – Our Top 5 Tried and Tested Recipes
I don’t know about you bu I have spent a fortune on bubble mixture and bubble machines over the years. My kids are bubble crazy, so crazy that I regularly have to hide the bubbles!!!! Anyway, recently I said enough is enough and I am not buying bubble mixtures anymore, especially as they invariably get spilled within minutes of the fun starting! So, I went hunting in my favourite hang out – Pinterest and set about trying out the various recipes pinned and wow, some were absolutely amazing!!! Our Top 5 Recipes: 1. Giant Bubbles from Busy Kids Happy Mom – these are amazing, really great fun! 2. Easy Homemade…
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Fun Pre Writing Activities – Early Literacy & Fine Motor Skills Development
Over the past few weeks we have been having quite a bit of fun developing our fine motor skills, in particular we have been working of prewriting activities. Doodles is starting school in September and is very eager to do homework at the moment (let’s hope he maintains that enthusiasm in the years to come!!!). Activity 1 – Writing Trays Using a Variety of Materials: Sand Compost/Peat Moss Flour Rice Paint Linseed What do you need: Trays, baking sheets Flour Rice Sand Compost/peat moss Coloured paper/card Paint Paint brushes Lolly pop sticks Pencils Both Doodles and Oodles love this activity and it is so easy to set up. Simply add…
