Check out the details on Kelly Waters' watercolors show at Pot and Pantry in San Francisco on Refinery29.
3 v. 39 cm. (text: 34 cm.)
Do you know what is perfect for a rainy day? A playdate? Any sick day? Or a just-about-an-anything day? Homemade musical instruments! If you're not sure what to do with those little ones, making a homemade musical instrument band is the answer! There is so much fun to be had and amazing memories to be
As we approach Matariki, there are some wonderful Matariki crafts you can do with your children to celebrate.
You will need: A big sheet of white paper (we used a strip of butchers block paper), a few different food colourings, a few snails and a bit...
Sketch #5 More about feeling the forms than seeing them... Definitely not copying (previous post). Just doing a little dance with line & color...
Laura @inspiremyplay Founder of @inspiremyplay, Early Years teacher for 11 years and mummy to three gorgeous girls. I'm passionate about the benefits of play in early childhood. This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and go on to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Please read my disclosure policy for more details. It's not long until Easter! Here's a round up of some of the play and craft ideas that we love at this time of year. I love making our Easter celebrations extra special with lots of play and craft. There's so many ways we can build special memories, introduce fun family traditions and explore the Easter story with our kids. I hope the activities below provide a bit of inspiration for you. Many use household items, but any additional resources featured can usually be found via my online Amazon storefronts. Amazon UK Supplies Amazon US Supplies In amongst the cute crafts and Easter play we also love to share the Easter story! Here is an animated version below. And if you'd like a home-based Easter Egg Hunt you can download our free printable here. Easter Play & Craft Activities Easter Play Dough We love play dough and had such fun with this Easter play dough invitation last year! Home made play dough is so easy to make and is so much nicer than shop bought stuff! Find our play dough recipe here. To make pastel colours like these, just add a very small amount of food colouring to each batch. You can find these play dough cutters linked in my Amazon storefronts. Pasta Eggs This is a fun craft for toddlers and pre-schoolers involving pasta shapes. I prepared this painted pasta ahead of time (see my how to colour pasta post) and then provided white glue to stick on the various pieces to the cardboard egg. I helped my toddler by squeezing out the glue in lines across the egg and then she placed the pasta on-top. It was a great work out for her fingers and the results were lovely Get your FREE ebook For more simple DIY recipes & ideas for sensory play at home download your Beginner's Guide to Sensory Play by subscribing to Inspire My Play today. Get Yours Now Chick Small World Play If you have any of these cute little chicks that are everywhere at Easter why not set up a little world for them. Small world play is great for encouraging story telling and imaginative play! Easter Bunnies with Nature Often the best activities are free! Why not have a scavenge in the garden or on your daily walk and collect some things from nature. Then use it to make some cute bunny pictures! Pompom & Easter Egg Tray My kids have loved playing with this tray full of pom-poms and plastic Easter Eggs. There's so many opportunities to practice counting and teach number in this set up. Add some scoops and tools and it's also brilliant for practicing fine motor skills. Shaving Foam Easter Egg Wreath This Easter wreath was made using shaving foam art. It’s such a fun technique and it works well for sibling groups. My tips are to have a towel ready and somewhere close by to wash hands and wash the trays down. Shaving foam is messy but relatively painless to clean up! Here are the instructions, but if you’d rather watch the technique in action I made a reel awhile back using the same process but making Valentine’s hearts. 1. Add drops of food colouring to the shaving foam in your chosen colours. 2. Use the end of a pencil or paintbrush to make patterns with the food colouring or leave it as blobs of colour (each will achieve a different look) 3. Next place a piece of photo paper or card on top of the shaving foam and press it down gently. 4. Once the paper is covered in shaving foam lay it face up on a tray and scrape off the excess using a ruler. You should be left with a beautiful, unique pattern every time. You can have a few goes at this before needing to add a bit more food colouring. We did several trays of shaving foam with different colour food colouring each time. Once everything is dry, cut out the Easter eggs, arrange them in a circle slightly overlapping and glue together. Then string it up with a ribbon. Alternatively you could make bunting or Easter cards. Easter Cutting Tray I set up this cutting tray for my 4 year old last week and it was such a hit! She spent ages cutting these up and returned several times! It's a great way of using up scraps of paper and practicing cutting skills at the same time! If you don't fancy lots of prep we've made lots of Easter scissor skills resources available on our sister website - Playful Printables. You can find out more here. Easter Garden Every year we make an Easter garden as a way of exploring the Easter Story. For this one we used a flowerpot and stone to show the empty tomb and bound some twigs together to make a cross. We then gathered lots of foliage and flowers to make a beautiful garden. Magnetic Easter Eggs Hide some magnetic letters or numbers in plastic eggs and they become 'magnetic'! Great for a little treasure hunt or 'lucky dip' activity. Pom-pom Painting Clipping pom-poms to pegs is a fun way of doing art. Either draw lines across the egg to follow or leave it completely blank for them to design their own. For more precise designs you could also do this with q-tips (cotton-wool buds). Tin Foil Chicks These little chicks are so easy to make using scrunched up tinfoil. Paint pieces of kitchen towel and once dry rip into small pieces before gluing onto the tinfoil body. Add a beak, eyes and feet to finish off your cute chick. Wooden Easter Egg Decorating These gorgeous wooden eggs are linked in my Amazon storefronts. Last year we had a lovely time decorating them with acrylic paint pens and then using the eggs for an Easter Egg Hunt. Easter Pebble Painting We love pebble painting! You can paint on pebbles using acrylic paint pens. We recommend Posca Pens for older kids and adults, and the Colorful Art Co. as a cheaper brand with chunky tips for little ones. Other alternatives are to use paint sticks or ready-mixed paint, though the colours won't be quite as vibrant. There's so many ways you could paint pebbles at Easter time. Why not paint some Easter Eggs and hide them around the garden for an Easter Egg hunt? Or paint some little chicks. You could also make some Easter story stones to use to retell the Easter Story. Sticky Easter Eggs This has been such a popular idea over the past few years! This activity uses a piece of contact paper (sticky-backed plastic) stuck onto a cardboard surround, with an egg shape cut out. Draw lines over the egg using a permanent marker and provide a selection of craft supplies to decorate the egg. This activity is great for developing fine motor skills. Easter Nests This is a classic Easter Activity! Find the instructions on the BBC Good Food website. Pom-pom Animals My 6 year old made these cute pom-pom animals. We used two different sized pom-pom makers (linked in my Amazon storefront), but you can also use a couple of cardboard disks instead. You can watch a useful tutorial here. Easter Tablecloth It has become a bit of a tradition of ours to make a tablecloth to use on Easter Sunday. For this particular one I drew eggs all over the paper cloth and then the girls decorated them using q-tips. The girls spent ages on this project and each one was so unique! If you can't get hold of a paper tablecloth you could make a table runner using a roll of paper or make Easter placemats.
Things we do in K/1 Science Enrichment
From 'The Children's Encyclopedia' published by Arthur Mee. Date and artist unknown.
Explore mealisab's 11054 photos on Flickr!
A blog about packaging, by a food lover's.
My kids are always wanting to paint, so I thought I would change it up a little by letting them make this marbleized paper that I found on Unplug Your Kids. Now I can't lie...this was messy, so make sure your kids are wearing something to protect their clothing. And definitely don't let the word "messy" deter you
