The Lion King Week - Day 5

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.

So today we used the bug mould that I got from ASDA again.  This time I filled them with water and popped it into the freezer.  The icy bugs on their own were fascinating enough but we than added a dropper with food colouring the enhance the shapes and improve fine motor skills.  It gace us an opportunity to talk about colour mixing, and the qualities of materials (i.e. ice is frozen water, melts at room temperature etc). 

I put the food colouring into a mince pie tin, Boris found the dropper a bit tricky to fill, he struggles with coordinating squeezing the dropper and putting it into the food colouring, then letting go to suck it up.  

It was fascinating watching the colours mix on the ice and in the dish. 

The colour ran into the grooves in the bugs making their shape stand out. 

At the end we added some baby oil for an extra bit of interest, it was fascinating seeing it resist the food colouring and float on top.

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.

Fun things to do with toddlers - A week of activities!

We've been busy!  it's been a fun and activity filled summer, here are some of the things we have been doing in a bumper week of fun toddler activities. 

Ice play - Way back in 2013 I put an ice cream container filled with water, stones, twigs and herbs into the freezer and there is sat for 12 loooong months until one hot and sunny day in August when I remembered it, got it out and smashed it to smithereens on the patio!

It looked beautiful, you could see through the ice to the objects within, suspended in frozen animation like a time capsule of the previous year.

Boris had a poke around with a trowel; this activity needs careful supervision to make sure shards or ice aren't flying near eyes. I helped him to smash it up to get the the objects inside. (I think I may have used a hammer)

Biscuit was intrigued as well and picking up the ice and pushed it around. The smell of the mint that was frozen inside was amazing!  I couldn't believe how well the sent was preserved in the ice, not only stimulating the sense of touch but also the sense of smell and taste!

A great thing to suck on on a hot day.

Do you have a back log of toddler activities?  Feel free to share a link in the comments, we can have a link party!

Fun Things to do With Toddlers - Playing with ice

 A few weeks ago when the weather was really hot I thought I would freeze some objects in water in a Tupperware container with the idea that Boris could smash it open and dig all the bits out (I had seen something similar in Pinterest).  I forgot all about it then one sunny day last week when we had nothing in particular to do it popped into my head and I retrieved it from the depths of the freezer.
I thought I would share it with you today as those hot sunny days are rapidly coming to an end and there might not be many more chances to do an activity like this. 
In this tub I froze some sticks, feathers, pebbles, seeds, sand flowers and leaves.

At first he enjoyed scratching the ice crystals that had formed on the lid and on the surface of the ice:

He had a taste of it too,

The ice looked really beautiful filled with the different objects and you could see all the marks created during the formation of the ice inside.

Boris got frustrated because he wanted to get to the pebble straight away but couldn't,

We smashed it with a mallet, I held the handle but Boris had his hand on it too so he could feel involved,

 

I showed him how to lift up the pieces of broken ice to get to the objects inside,

He enjoyed throwing bits of ice on the ground and making it smash into smaller pieces,

One stick had a piece of ice stuck to the end, Boris licked it like a lolly pop!

He used another stick as a tool to push round and poke the broken pieces of ice,

 

In this activity Boris learnt a lot about the qualities of ice; that is is cold, wet, disappears over time and turns into water, is hard but breaks easily (brittle), you can see through it, it melts in your mouth, he learnt he could smash it with a heavy object or by throwing it,and that it was slippery and could be pushed around easily.  We spent quite a long time on this activity, we could have spent longer if it had been a cooler day, the ice melted very quickly!!  Boris seemed to really engage with the activity and didn't mind his hands getting wet.  The activity ended because we got too hot sat outside in the sun. 
I have made another one using herbs from the herb garden, it should create an interesting sensory experience when smashed open.

 

If you have a toddler then I would recommend this activity, it is fun to do and clean, very little clear up and takes very little time to put together (excluding freezing time).
What have you been doing with your toddler recently?