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Keeping Toddlers Busy in the Garden – A Guest Post by Building Blocks and Acorns
Hi, I’m Louise and I’m so excited to be guest-posting here at ‘Our Little House in the Country.’ My usual ‘home’ is Building Blocks and Acorns, where I share the activities I do with my two year old son, on my days off as a Primary School teacher and nursery worker. Often, the activities we do have a nature or sensory focus. We are fortunate enough to have a little space at the back of our house to call our own; our garden. It’s not huge, but its ours and we love it. My two year old (who is lovingly known as ‘Darth’ over on my page, thanks to my…
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5 Autumn /Fall Books for Preschoolers
These 5 beautiful picture books about Autumn are my little girl’s favourites at the moment. We have a book rack in our kitchen that we use to display seasonal books and since I took out all of our Autumn and Halloween themed books last week she has been fascinated by these five in particular. Our 5 Favourite Autumn Picture Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers Millie-Mae in Autumn – Natalie Marshal: This is a stunningly beautiful board book, in my opinion. It is described as a touch-and-learn book and its glittery and shiny details throughout really do encourage children to interact with the book. What’s perfect about this book is that…
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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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Foam Dough – Squishy Squashy Sensory Fun!
Shaving foam is a fantastic material to use in a variety of ways in sensory play. My little girl Oodles loves to sit in her mini paddling pool in her swim suit play with the foam and toys. We have created gorgeous paint foam prints and of course there is foam dough. What we used: 1 cup of cornflour/cornstarch 2 cups of shaving foam paint What we did: Doodles and Oodles measured out the cornflour and added it to their bowls D poured the shaving foam into each bowl – O couldn’t quite manage to press the nozzle They chose their colour of choice and squeezed it into…
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Cloud Dough with a Fizzy Surprise – Sensory Play with a Science Twist!
We love to experiment with sensory play, recipes and doughs. Doodles loves doing experiments and he asked if we could do a fizzy one today. Oodles wanted to make dough so I decided we could try and combine both. What we used: 1 cup of flour 1 cup of baby oil food colouring 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda vinegar What we did: I gave Doodles and Oodles the ingredients and encouraged them to measure out what they needed by themselves. They then mixed the ingredients in a bowl before emptying onto the table to mix with their hands as if making breadcrumbs They loved the texture were delighted to see…
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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…
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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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Ooooey Gooooey Slime! – Simple Indoor Rainy Day Messy Play Fun
On Friday it rained!!!!! Shock, horror :O ! Having been away in sunnier climes for a few weeks and a number of weeks of hot, sunny weather here since our return we had almost forgotten what rain was like! Over breakfast Doodles and Oodles discussed with me what they would like to do for the day! First on the agenda – PJs day, they had no plans to get dressed! Second on the agenda – make purple slime (and pink playdough). What we used: a little warm water 1 cup PVA water soluable non toxic glue 2 cups cornflour/cornstarch purple food colouring What we did: We mixed a few drops…
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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…
