Easter Activities

Slightly out of season now but I wanted to share a few of the Easter activities we did, I actually had a load more Easter activities planned but was really ill over the period I had them planned for so many weren't executed, oh well, maybe next year.   

As a Christian family Easter is a really important time of year for us.  I love it, it is absolutely my favourite Christian festival.  It has all the excitement and joy of Christmas without the stress of buying presents and touring the country to visit family.  

Therefore it is essential to me that we get the children excited about it in as many ways as possibly to help them to understand the significance of the occasion. 

We began with a sensory box of mixed bird seed with plastic eggs and fluffy yellow chicks.  The seed, chicks and eggs all represent new life which is what we get in Christ and which is happening all around us at this time of year. 

Boris enjoyed scooping the seeds, filling and emptying the eggs with the seeds, sweeping the seeds around the box and making shapes in it with his hand.  Together we did some imaginative play with the chicks.  Biscuit liked pouring the seeds and scooping them with the eggs. 

The improved their fine motor skills, learned about volume and the qualities of materials, they also benefited from the therapeutic experience of feeling the seeds between their fingers.

We loved making this Easter garden.  The boys raced around our garden pulling up patches of moss (of which we have plenty!) and flowers to decorate.  Boris was really motivated to gather bits and pieces for the garden and understood that we were making a tomb which was where Jesus' body was laid and the cross where he died.  The activity was a bit advanced for Biscuit who mostly enjoyed pulling up plants round the garden then destroying out Easter one every time our backs were turned! On Easter morning we rolled away to stone to show that the tomb was empty.  Amazingly after a few days little seedlings began to grow all over the garden which must have come from seeds left in the compost we used (which was from out compost bin) they are tomato plants I think, they felt really significant and meaningful. 

Another sensory play experience using one of our favourites - water beads. (HERE are some more water bead activities)  I used the plastic eggs again which I bought off ebay I think (but found some cheaper in The Range) with the water beads and a bit of water at the bottom of the plastic box. The boys scooped and poured the water beads with the eggs, also filled the eggs with beads then emptied them.  This activity was a bit too exciting for Boris who decided ultimately to pour all the water and beads that were in the tub over the carpet, then to stamp on the beads to make them break into a million pieces for me to tidy up.

And of course the all-important Easter egg hunt.  I can't tell you how excited Boris was EVERY time he found an egg.  He ran up to us showing us then egg with great enthusiasm shouting "I found an egg".  Loved how he didn't realise I had hidden the eggs there just minuted before (tee hee). 

Biscuit, bless him, found half the amount that Boris did.

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, I am sure you still have a stash of eggs at home that your children are slowly munching through (and maybe, like me, you are giving them a little help with that). 

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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. 

I had been planning this activity for months, saw it on Pinterest and started browsing the internet for water tables. I thought it was probably the best idea ever and was going to be so much fun and so stimulating and Boris would probably play with it for hours!  Turns out (for me) this was THE most stressful (and expensive) activity I have EVER done with Boris, and that is saying something because I have done some pretty stressful activities with him.

I still think it is a great activity but I would warn you not to try it is you have a small baby who is on the move near by, he WILL want to eat the water beads no matter how much you try to distract him with tin foil!

So if you want to try this activity what you need is:

Water table (I bought this one, its expensive but a good size and has two separate sections so I think I will be versatile for future activities)
Blue water beads (I bought these)
Glass nuggets (these)
Tin foil,
Glitter (optional:

WARNING: This activity must be closely supervised, I know my toddler isn't going to put these in his mouth, but I don't know your toddler so to avoid any risks I wouldn't recommend it for children under 36 months.

I lined the water table with the tin foil which, under the water created a beautiful sparkly shiny effect. the I filled it with pre-soaked water beads and a pack of the glass nuggets.

Boris was intrigued by the water beads, he has played with them before so was quite excited about them.  

The contrast between the soft beads and the hard glass nuggets added another sensory element.

Boris kept dropping the beads and nuggets on the floor which of course Biscuit wanted to immediately eat!  So I tried to distract him with floating balls of tin foil!

I added blue glitter, but it looked a bit like bits of floating dirt, I think silver would have worked much better. 

It's a really beautiful activity and would definitely have been more enjoyable if it had just been me and Boris, but with Biscuit there is well it was a nightmare. I don't mean to sound negative but it really did get me in a sweat!  

What have you tried with water beads?  Please link below, link party fun!

Fun Things to do with Toddlers - Water beads, hair gel and shaving foam

If water beads alone weren't fun enough then combining them with hair gel and shaving foam is a sensory extravaganza! 

We put them in a dish and let the fun begin, (how good do they look all lined up, just waiting to be mixed up)

Check out that wonderful slippery shine on those babies!

Boris gets stuck in, he isn't so fussed about getting messy hands these days.  mixing them together was like combining the layers of a blanange, jelly, custard and cake, all mixed up.

Scooping, pushing, picking up, mixing, swirling, poking, grabbing, squeezing, squelching, mushing,

A marvelously messy, superbly sensory, wonderfully wet, sensationally slippery experience!

Yes, we had a good time with the shaving foam, water bead, hair gel combo, it soon ended up all round the garden, but it was worth it.  Give it a go.  Have you done anything exciting with water beads? Leave a link in the comments!

Fun Things to do with Toddlers - Hammering Water Beads

Recently I have been trying to find more fun things to do with water beads, I think there is more potential out there than just picking them up out of a dish and scooping them, (as fun as that is).

 I had some water beads in the kitchen which were on the turn (read - going mouldy!) so I thought I would just let Boris destroy them, he always tries to anyway and I attempt to stop him from doing it because I feel its wasting them, but thought as he likes it so much I will give him permission to go mad with them!  So I gave him a wooden hammer and put the water beads on a reflective tray and let him go to town squishing and bashing them.

It was really good fun, I actually found it quite hilarious because of course it was nearly impossible to squash them because they kept shooting all over the place! We had water beads bouncing all over the patio, it kept Boris occupied for quite some time, he really concentrated hard on pressing the hammer onto each bead and positioning the beads ready to hammer.

Aren't the colours beautiful? Such a great tool for improving fine motor skills.

Have you any other ideas for uses of water beads?  I am thinking about freezing them, using them with water and sorting colours for starters.  I love these bouncy little thing!

Please excuse the slightly over exposed photographs, it was really hard photographing the reflective surface of the tin, the camera wanted to over compensate for the brightness so the photos were coming out really dark so had to use a bit of trial and error.