Chinese New Year

We had a little celebration of the Chinese New Year yesterday.

We started with a visual re-telling of the story of how the Jade Emperor decided on the animals of the Chinese calendar. I told the story, read from a powerpoint presentation off my laptop, and acted out the story with toys and a little scene made with tin foil, a couple of chiffons, some pebbles, bits of wood and some plastic stone and tree ornaments.  The boys were engaged, but I learnt it would have been better not to have the powerpoint presentation, for some reason they were more drawn to looking at the pictures on the screen than the story I was acting out for them.

After I told the story a couple of times (again on their request)  they had a go at playing around with the toys on the river, and tried acting the story out too. 

Later we made some Chinese lanterns.  I had to give quite a lot of help with some parts of the lamp making but they were pleased with the results. 

(My example)

Biscuits effort; he mostly did the cutting and I did the rest.

Boris' effort; he had a real go at making the lantern himself, though got frustrated at times when things weren't going exactly his way. 

And for dinner, well a Chinese stir fry of course. 

I hope you all enjoyed a happy Chinese New Year!

Home pre-school - Foot prints in the sand painting

Our theme for the summer is The Seaside, we have had some lovely sunny days this year so I decided it would be fun to do some outdoors painting.  In my mind I was thinking about footprints in the sand and making a way of capturing the footprints that are so fleeting on the beach. 

I got a couple of baking trays and poured some different colours of poster paint into them.  My boys stood in the paint (with help - it was slippy) the walked and ran along the paper, creating a crazy mess of painty footprints.

The paper was some packing paper than came with an Amazon order. 

Gotta love those little feet. 

And those even littler ones. 

It was a fun, quick activity, I have stuck the strip of paper up the stairs in our house and when we change theme I will probably cut a few bits out to keep.

Home Preschool - Under sea cave hideaway

As part of our Seaside theme that we have been following this summer I decided to create a little under-the-sea cave hideaway for my boys to play in and explore.  

Because we have a ridiculously small house, we don't have enough space for a dedicated corner for something like this so I re-claimed that mostly dead space under the dining room table to create an under-the-sea den.

I simply pinned some grey fabric to the underside of the table (no worries about damaging the table because no one sees the underside anyway), I also pinned some strips of chiffon, some grey netting and some other spangly kind of fabric (I am sure it has a proper name but I have no idea what, it's the sort of thing that people use to make dance outfits).  

I wanted the cave to have a bit of a magical, mystical feel which I hope the chiffon and net etc gives, I chose shades of green to suggest some sort of seaweed. 

Inside I put a big piece of drift wood to start giving it a more coastal feel, I also added three baskets of objects for the boys to explore, one contains pebbles, another shells and the last contains driftwood. 

I also included a little box with a sliding lid (I wanted to use a treasure chest but don't have one) and filled it with some cheap beads and shiny buttons as treasure, I also added a greet bottle containing a treasure map that Boris and I made together in the winter (its even more tatty now so more authentic looking).

Finally I put a basket of sea themed books into the cave, the titles are:

Three by the Sea - Mini Grey,

The Boy on the Beach - Niki Daly,

Don't be Afraid Little Pip - Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman,

Milly and the Mermaids - Maudie Smith and Antonia Woodward,

Mrs Armitage and the Big Wave - Quentin Blake,

Melrose and Croc Beside the Sea - Emma Chichester Clark,

Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey,

Splash Anna Hibiscus - Atinuke and Lauren Tobia.

Give a woman and hand and click on one of my affiliate links if you are interested in any of these books!

Don't forget everyone I am still running my GIVEAWAY till Friday evening so get over to Facebook and join in the fun!!

Click HERE to take you to my Facebook page.

LION KING GIVEAWAY!!

GIVEAWAY DAY IS HERE!!

Today I am giving away this fabulous kit containing everything you need for a fun Lion King themed activity week that we did a few weeks ago.

The kit includes:

Jungle shaped playdough cutters,

Silicone bug cake/ice/jelly mould,

Six plastic bug toys, 

Six plastic jungle/safari animal toys,

One dropper pipette,

Instructions for making jungle play dough

Cotton drawstring bag to keep everything in.

This kit is worth £18.00 and I will be taking orders from anyone who wants to buy one after the giveaway is finished.

To enter you need to:

Like my facebook page,

Like the Facebook post about this giveaway,

Leave a comment on the facebook post about this giveaway. 

The giveaway closes on Friday 10th July, I will announce the winner, chosen at random, here and on my facebook page that evening. 

Here is a reminder of some of the brilliant activities you can do with this kit:

Good Luck!!

COMING MONDAY - LION KING GIVEAWAY!!!

Tune in on Monday evening for my first giveaway on this blog!!

I will be giving away this fabulous kit containing everything you need for a fun Lion King themed activity week.

The kit includes:

Jungle shaped playdough cutters,

Silicone bug cake/ice/jelly mould,

Six plastic bug toys, 

Six plastic jungle/safari animal toys,

One dropper pipette,

Instructions for making jungle play dough

Cotton bag to keep everything in.

This kit is worth £18.00 and I will be taking orders from anyone who wants to buy one after the giveaway is finished.

Details of how to enter will be shared on Monday.

Home Preschool themes - Seaside 1

I have been struggling for a while with coming up with ideas for themes that my children would find fun and interesting, but then the sun really started shining, the shorts were on, the flip flops donned, the sun cream slathered. So The Seaside seemed like an obvious choice, why didn't I think of it sooner. 

I got the water table out (this was a really great buy because it's so versatile): 

and filled it with a scintillating variety of sensory stimulating materials including sand, shaving foam, water beads and hair gel!

The hair gel was just 16p from ASDA!  I used 1 1/2 tubs, the shaving foam was £1 also from ASDA, I got the waterbeads and little animals on line and the sand from our sandpit! It probably cost about £5.15 in total, but of course I can re-use the animals and water table.

I really enjoyed setting it up a little bit secretly then bringing the boys out for the big reveal.  They were very curious and tentative at first, not sure about touching the more slimy materials, but soon getting stuck in and eventually very purposefully smooshing it all though their hair!

I really enjoyed watching them play and mostly left them too it, but could have asked them some open questions to get them thinking such as what does the shaving foam/hair gel/water beads feel like? What are the animals doing/thinking? What creatures do you find at the seaside?  What sort of things do you like to do at the seaside? etc.

Boris even did a bit of imaginative play with the little sea creatures which really thrilled me because has just been getting into it and it's so sweet.  This activity was great for stimulating the senses and relaxing, it was also good for fine motor skills with the boys practising the pincer movement by picking up the animals and water beads, they also had to work on co-operation whilst playing together at the table and taking turns. 

Towards the end it had turned into a bit of a swamp!  But it was fairly easy to clean up.  I scooped out and rinsed the water beads in a colander to use again then just hosed out the table. Good clean fun. 

Check back in a few days time for more seaside related activities for toddlers/preschoolers. And if you have got this far, I will be doing a GIVEAWAY in a few days time so be sure to check back.  You can sign up by email on the right side bar, or you can stay up to date by liking my facebook page.

The Lion King Week - Day 7

Back in the summer last year Boris was mad on The Lion King film so I thought it would be fun to do a Lion King themed week for him with lots of sensory activities and fun things to do.  I didn't get round to posting about it at the time because it was a big project and I just never seemed to find the time to gather and edit all the photos. 

I have finally found the motivation to share it with you, (probably because I have been really lacking in activities for the boys recently so have nothing else activity-wise to share)  so here is it.  7 days of our activities to take you through the week.

Today I have two fun Lion King themes activities for you, and then Lion King week has come to an end.  We had such a fun time doing these activities, watching the film, singing songs to the CD, dressing up and pretending to be lions, I really hope some of these ideas have inspired you with activities to do with your children. 

Today I did a little bug exploration for Boris, I put some wood chips into a tray and buried some little plastic bugs I had under them. 

I gave him some tongs to have a dug around with and he picked out the bugs from the tray and put them into a cup. 

Excellent for the fine motor skills. 

Next we made a mask together, well if I am honest, I made it mostly myself because I used to be an art teacher and I still like colouring with oil pastels.  

I used a paper plate, oil pastels, tissue paper and a lollypop stick.

I was pretty impressed with it myself!

Don't forget you can subscribe by email to my posts (on the right had side) and you can like my facebook page to keep up to date with posts.

Lion King Week - Day 6

Back in the summer last year Boris was mad on The Lion King film so I thought it would be fun to do a Lion King themed week for him with lots of sensory activities and fun things to do.  I didn't get round to posting about it at the time because it was a big project and I just never seemed to find the time to gather and edit all the photos. 

I have finally found the motivation to share it with you, (probably because I have been really lacking in activities for the boys recently so have nothing else activity-wise to share)  so here is it.  7 days of our activities to take you through the week.

The last one with the bug mould I promise, though I think there is more potential for this lovely mould. 

This time we made cakes with them, this was a second attempt because the first attempt got very stuck in the mould, so I really really greased it second time round and they came out fine. 

I used a cake mix so Boris had a stir and helped fill the mould with a spoon, and then we iced them together with some tubes of icing, which was fun. 

Join me again for another Lion King themes activity tomorrow evening. Don't forget you can subscribe by email to my posts (on the right had side) and you can like my facebook page to keep up to date with posts.