Spring Flower Painting

As we have been out and about in the parks and looking at all the lovely spring flowers emerging I thought this would be a nice activity to bring the outdoors into our art using kitchen utensils to create a picture. This project worked well with toddlers though to reception age children.

Using a fork the older children learnt how to use a two step motion to press the prongs and then the base of the fork onto the paper to make a bright flower shape. The younger children just liked the brightness of the colours and were satisfied with making a pronged pattern on the paper.

Once we had our flowers we then set about painting our stems on. The older children talked about the stems and began to draw them under the flowers whereas the younger ones, loving the colours, created some more abstract art ideas!

Frozen Hands

Whilst I loved the idea of the children experimenting with salt and ice, I have to confess that I found the idea of freezing hand shapes a little strange! I was proved wrong by the children who were absolutely fascinated by this activity. 

Using some latex gloves filled with water and a drop of food colouring I made some frozen hand shapes. We placed in the garden although there were a few loss digits as we removed the hands from the gloves! I then let the children loose with some salt. As the salt was added the hands gradually began to melt and the children's attention was held as the fingers got thinner. 

As the large quantity of ice meant that melting was a bit slow the children decided to speed up the process by adding some water to the salted hands. They loved trying to pour directly onto the hands and would not stop until every little bit of ice had melted! This was a great little science experiment for the children who learnt about melting and the effect that salt has upon ice.

Mr Potato Head and Play Dough

An activity that I have found generates much fun for children of all ages is play dough. I am always on the look out for new and exciting ways for us to use our dough so was keen to try the suggestion to combine Mr Potato head with dough. 

After making up a large ball of dough and adding our favourite ingredient (glitter!!) the children spotted the Mr Potato Head and the dough and immediately dashed over to play. This activity held the attention of children ranging from one to seven years of age and the resulting combinations were fantastic. 

Even our one year old had a good go at making a character, sounding out all the body parts that he recognised as he did so.  

Valentines Day Crafts

To turn valentines day into a fun crafting opportunity I made use of some wax resist painting. This was a massive success and the children all loved seeing the 'invisible' hearts suddenly appear on the paper as they painted. To extend this activity for older children I incorporated the word 'love' to help him recognise some letter shapes. 

The children had a great time painting with watercolours and discussing the shapes they found underneath. 

Another simple activity was making some coffee filter hearts.  Even our youngest enjoyed using the felt tip pens to make some marks on the coffee filter hearts. They then had even more fun painting some water onto them and watching the colours run together. The colours of these brightened up the window on yet another rainy day! 

Chinese New Year 2014

 In celebration of the Chinese New Year, the year of the horse, we have been participating in a range of activities that encourage children to learn about the world around them at a level appropriate to their age. 

We enjoyed doing some blossom tree printing. The oldest children drew their own trees and painted on the blossom while the younger ones enjoyed getting their hands messy in the pink paint, saying the word 'tree' in recognition of their work. 

We talked about the country China and looked at some fun images of new year celebrations ranging from the festivals and lanterns through to noodles and chopsticks. 

It was then time to get our hands a bit messy for some Chinese themed sensory play complete with noodles and chopsticks. The boys had a lovely time feeling and describing the texture of the noodles as well as attempting to use the chopsticks to pick the noodles up. 

 

Finally, after all that hard work the boys were hungry so we added a Chinese aspect to snack time today. The boys all tried, and predominantly enjoyed, some spring rolls. When I asked what they tasted like, one child looked at the spring roll, spotted some carrot and triumphantly announced, carrot!!'