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5 Tips for Supporting Your Child as They Start School for the First Time
My little boy has started school! How fast the years fly by! Two weeks ago my little boy Doodles started primary school. So when I was approached to participate in the Fairy Non Bio Power of Soft Campaign (“encouraging parents to make the most of those oh-so-soft cuddles with their little ones while they can!”), it hit a chord with me. How could my little buddy be a school kid already? Where did the past 5 years go? I remember the day he was born as if it were yesterday, my tiny little guy in the SCBU, attached to all sorts of drips and monitors and then that amazing day…
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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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10 Fantastic Spring/Easter Books
There are so many beautiful children’s books with Spring themes available, we have so many of them I wasn’t sure where to start with this post. With the help of Oodles and Doodles, I have put together out top 10 Spring themed books! 1. The Velveteen Rabbit – not strictly about Spring but a gorgeous, timeless story . 2. That’s Not My Bunny – one of Oodles’ current bedtime touchy-feely favourites. 3. Spot’s First Easter – a fun, colourful, simple, lift-the-flap, Easter egg hunt book. 4. Emma’s Lamb – in true Kim Lewis style, a stunningly beautiful book about life on the farm in Spring time 5. Little Tail –…
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Our Top 5 Messy Play Ideas from Pinterest
When it comes to play in this house, the messier the better! I am constantly for new, fun and MESSY ideas for Doodles and Oodles to try. These are 5 of our favourite most recent finds from Pinterest! Check out my group board – Outdoor Fun and Messy Play ideas on Pinterest, follow it and I’ll send you an invite to pin on it if you want! Baking Soda and Vinegar Eruptions – this is a real favourite with Doodles. He never tires of creating these mini volcanic-like eruptions, great fun, easy to do, requires very little preparation. We got this idea from Live, Play, Imagine, a really brilliant…
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(Books for Children) Doodles’ Book of the Week – “The Great Recycling Adventure” by Jan McHarry, Illustrated by Edmond Davis & Piers Sandford
I mentioned yesterday that Doodles (4 ½) loves fact based books. I f it a detailed filled book about how something works or experiments to try or picture books of the solar system then that’s what you’ll find him reading. So, his book of choice this week is a lift and flap book called “The Great Recycling Adventure”, written by Jan McHarry and illustrated by Edmond Davis and Piers Sanford. Last Tuesday we visited our local public library. We have hundreds of books but I think that it’s a really good habit to get children interested in books and libraries. They both love our visits to the library. They browse…
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(Kids) Green Gloop Messy Play – St Patrick’s Day Fun
Messy Play Alert! Sticking with our St. Patrick’s Day theme we decided to enjoy some outdoor messy play with Green Gloop today! Spring has finally arrived after months of horrendous storms and we have been making the most of the good weather and getting out as much as possible. We even managed a trip to the beach yesterday. It was a gloriously sunny Spring day – cold(approx. 7 degrees Celcius) but calm and clear. Doodles (4 ½) and Oodles(2) had so much fun all wrapped up building sandcastles! So, today I decided that it was a perfect afternoon for some messy play. I cleaned out the sand and water tray…
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(Kids) Gloriously green play dough fun- St Patrick’s Day Festivities
St Patrick’s Day is Monday, 17th March. It’s our national day here in Ireland. It’s a weekend of fun and frolics and a celebration of all things Irish. It also means a day off school and work! In preparation for the weekend ahead we’ve been having a little fun with some St Patrick’s Day themed activities. Today’s fun included exploring with green home-made play dough and very messy outdoor antics with gloop! First thing on the agenda was to make the play dough. Usually I let the children make it themselves but we were a little short on time today as we had a trip to the library scheduled, so…
