• What's Inside The Giant Ice Cube? - Super Outdoor Fun - Our Little House in the Country #iceplay #kidsactivities #gianticecube #summer
    Kids' Crafts and Activities,  Seasonal Inspiration,  Summer

    What’s Inside the Ice-Cube? – Outdoor Summer Fun!

    Number 81 on our 100 Days of Summer Bucket list is “Discover what’s inside the giant ice cube!”.  Doodles and Oodles have been dying to try this out since I showed them a number of similar activities on other blogs and Pinterest!  Doodles actually did this at nursery when he was 2 or 3 years old and has often referred to it since! So, yesterday as I was reading down through our bucket list and ticking off a few more items I spotted number 81 and decided that would be our next activity! What we used: basin water toy dinosaurs meat mallet kitchen utensils spades, spoons, plastic knives freezer!!!! What…

  • Beach themed Invitation to Play - Sensory and Imaginative Play- Our Little House in the Country #invitationtoplay #sensoryplay #imaginativeplay #summer
    Kids' Crafts and Activities

    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…

  • How to Make a Fairy Tale Castle - Outdoor Summer Fun for Kids - Our Little House int he Country #outdoorfun #summer #kids #fairytalecastle #pretendplay #artsandcrafts
    Kids' Crafts and Activities,  Seasonal Inspiration,  Summer

    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…

  • Super Soft Colour Surprise Playdough - Our Little House in the Country
    Kids' Crafts and Activities

    Super Soft Colour Surprise Playdough

    I love trying out new play dough ideas.  Doodles and Oodles love playing with playdough, they play with it most days.  I haven’t made it in a number of weeks as the play dough recipe I generally use makes a dough that can be stored in the fridge for weeks and weeks and used over and over again. Recently on Pinterest I spotted this really great idea by Learn Play Imagine for Colour Surprise Playdough – it looked like so much fun,  I was completely intrigued by it and have been waiting for the right opportunity to try it. I changed the recipe as I wanted to try out a…

  • Kids' Crafts and Activities

    Messy Play Madness – A Spur of the Moment Messy Play/Sensory Activitiy

    At lunchtime today Doodles and Oodles asked me if they could make Gloop.  I agreed immediately and started to get out the cornflour and paint etc. (see here for our gloop recipe). They then began shouting out other things that they would like to add to it. So today we are sharing our spur of the moment messy play fun.  It was their little experiment to see what types of textures they could make using a variety of materials. What we used: Cornflour/cornstarch Plain flour Olive oil Paint Glitter PVA glue Mini pasta shells Shredded dry noodles Water Animal toys Smurfs Wooden spoons, balloon whisk   What we did: I’m…

  • Kids' Crafts and Activities

    2 Super Easy and Quick Last Minute Easter Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

    Happy Easter!  This morning Doodles and Oodles were dying to get outside to play but couldn’t as Mr G is cutting all the hedges with a supersized power tool of some description.  So for health and safety reasons and in order to maintain my sanity while struggling to keep two very outdoorsy children indoors I suggested we have some more Easter fun.  You can see what other Easter fun we have been having here, here and here !!!!! Glittery Egg Decorations: What you need: Polystyrene eggs PVA Glue Glitter Pins Ribbon I bought polystyrene eggs last Easter and we had a few left over so Oodles had great fun rolling…

  • Kids' Crafts and Activities

    Easter Art for Toddlers and Preschoolers

    We finally got around to starting our Easter artwork today.  I’m sure that we will manage a few more seasonal projects over the next week or so.  Today we have 2 to share with you. Potato-print Easter Chicks: These were so much fun to do.. Doodles and Oodles love printing so there was great excitement when I handed them potatoes and Lego/Duplo to print with today. What do you need? Potatoes, cut in half and allowed to  dry for a couple of hours Lego or Duplo blocks Paint Paper Instructions: Have fun! We used the bricks to create our grass Our chicks were made by printing with the potatoes. We…

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