Advent Calendar

I can not take any credit for this idea. I gave the girls some odd post it notes to play with and they invented their own advent calendar. They numbered some, drew a surprise picture on the back and then stuck them on the wall to be taken off everyday on the count down to christmas .

Great work girls  !

Good Mummy vs Bad Mummy

Good Mummy, hand bakes the most perfectly formed shortbread stars using her traditional family recipe.  Mixes the perfect amount of food colouring and icing sugar to make a Christmas tree colour. Then  using natural flavoured and coloured sweets helps the children assemble and decorate a beautiful shortbread Christmas tree. Topping it off with a homemade sugar crafted Father Christmas and present!

VOILA!

Bad Mummy buys it ready made for £1 fro m ASDA , Leaves the kids to it and then lets them eat all the sweets and icing off it

Snow!

Oh what fun it is to play in the snow. To save the freezing wet hands after 10 minutes te girls used bucket and spades and a dustpan tp scoop up the snow into a pile ready to make  snowman .

As you can see we were quite limited for snow, but with the right tools and determination we managed to produce a snowman all be it "bijou".

Super snowballs!

Using a soup ladle we made some excellent snowballs. The best technique  was to drag it towards yourself,  which molded the shape nicely. We must of had the right type of snow as they were easy to do.

Christmas chocolate coins

A very simple activity where the kids literally just stuck the chocolate coin wrappers onto some paper. You could use them as train wheels or... to represent some other circular things that I can't think of at this present moment . My two decided to give it to their Grandad as a get well soon card .

Vets role play

I "caught" the girls feeding and putting the animals to bed. I didn't interact with them on this one I just cast an eye from the kitchen. It was great to see them playing together. At school we used to do themed bags with dress up and  role play items for the chlidren choose an activity from them .The more conventional ones such as doctors, kitchen , vets, nursery work well with younger ones. As they get older travel agents, construction sites or safari might make a change.

Sunday Munch

I have recently mentioned veg preparation. The girls really got into peeling the leeks which ended up in a casserole rather than part of the Sunday lunch .They did quite well at keeping it on the chopping boards untl the end . And please don't ask why they are wearing "sunsuits" as I can't honestly remember myself- I guess it's just because they're kids!

Candle lit dinner

Candle lit dinner for 2? A great themed night tea. I've done a buffet and party style tea before . Helps keep their mind off their hunger and tiredness. If the foods no too messy you could all dress up for dinner .

Vegetable delights

Kid's love helping with food preparation and it always gives then an interest in eating it. It's a great time of year to pick vegetables if you haven't grown your own ask friends, family or neighbours.We saw some maize being harvested at the end of the lane.The farmer let us have some- but be warned this is animal feed for a reason . Luckily I had some shop bought corn on the cob so we swapped and cooked that, much tastier! Peppers are a good one for little ones as theycan pop them open, de-seed them and then rip them up into a bowl, ideal for adding to bolognase sauces.Mushrooms are also easily "cut" with a blunt child's knife .

Theatre

Here is Bo Peep announcing the birthdays like they do on Milk shake . The table is the stage which I placed at the patio doors so she could use the "stage curtains" .

Halloween - out of a packet.

 Face paints ready for Halloween party.

I bought a bigger pack so that on rainy days or when the girls have fancy dress parties they can have some fun with these. Great ideas on the internet. Snazaroo do step by step guides which are easy to follow.

The supermarket had some boxes of halloween cake and biscuit on offer. After we had made the bat buiscuits I let the girls have some dough each to experiment with.Most of it ended up on the floor!

And finally , another shop bought packet, it is half term after all , easy to make , the stickers are great for younger ones who can create their own ideas.

Autumn collage

After collecting some autumn "treasure" ,I drew out lines of trees and put PVA glue over them and then left the children to add their leaves and acorns.

Making the most of the last of the sunshine.

Who would think after the summer we have had that we would be back in shorts and tee-shirts in October . Instead of making a mess with paints we got buckets full of water and painted lots of different thing in the garden . It is worth reserving special paintbrushes for this so nothing stains .

Star sandwiches

Just to make meal times a bit more exciting I have used shape cutters. Lakeland do a great big box for just under £10 they have all the letters, numbers, animal, holiday shapes that you can think of . They also have some good ideas of other uses for the cutters including art and craft as well as other food items .

Puzzled?

Washing machine tablet bags make great puzzle piece storage. Saves me doing my own puzzle before the children !

Nature's patterns

It's surpising what you can find when you look hard enough. This stone was on the side of our drive. It has some interesting patterns in it . The girls enjoyed looking at and feeling it . Em recreated the swirls in her colouring book.

fun generator

http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/fun-generator.aspx

Although the summer holidays are nearly at an end, this fun generator is handy if your looking for great way to entertain your kids.
 There are some other good, active, activities on this website . I like the idea of having activity cards so the children can choose what they  would like to do from the pictures. When I was teaching I used to have a "choosing  board " with pictures of writing, reading, puzzles etc on there to save repeating myself when the pupils came and asked "what can I do next". infact I may have just inspired myself to make one for home!


http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/fun-generator.aspx



Lolly sticks

I found some heart and flower shaped lolly sticks for a few pounds in Dunelm, not sure if I'm allowed to say that, but I just did. Next time I will use recycled ones from ice lollys if they survive.
 Even my youngest daughter enjoyed colouring and putting stickers on these, I let my eldest have some glue and sequins. Great fun had by all .

Obstacle race / assault course

To make playing outside more interesting , we started an obstacle race using the see saw, trampoline and slide. This ended up being more of an assault course as the girls added various items from around the garden to it. Also included were some chairs to crawl under, the ladder to climb up and some balls to run up to and throw.

sticklebricks momentos.

We've got the sticklebricks out this morning. The little one (20 months) is enjoying tipping them in and out of the box. The oldest is busy making all sorts of exciting things. so far we have made a car, camera ,binoculars and a theatre. She now wants to make a birthday cake for her Aunty's birthday but there aren't enough sticklebricks. The idea of breaking up the models hasn't gone down very well so we are going to take photos of them and then take them apart and then we have enough to make the cake .

The theatre (with stage curtains)

Photo album

Let the kids loose with the camera and then create an album for them to look at .
 If your kids are old enough you could write the names of the items or people in the pictures underneath as an early start to reading

Ladder fun

I decided to make use of the ladder that is littering the garden! I put some number bean bags out too. Printed numbers or the letters in your child's name might be fun . I 'm going to  put some teddies out later and see what the children choose to do with them.

Playdough play mats

Another typical British summers day :(
 I printed off and laminated some playdough play mats from sparklebox.co.uk to get some creative ideas. You don't need to print them all off but they're are some great activities on here. We made dinosaur horns,eggs and put the leaves on the trees- all before morning snacktime!

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/misc/playdough/topics.html

Pat a cake

Pat a cake , Pat a cake baker man,

 bake me a roll as fast as you can,

 knead it and knead it and mark it with E and put in the oven for Em and me !



Bathtime buddies

The girls really enjoy melting ice cubes so I found some room in the freezer and froze some of their animal figures. They loved playing with these in the bath, but if the sun ever comes out these would be just as much fun outside.These were quite small, yogurt pots might make some more interesting ice blocks.

For older children it would be interesting to have a competition to see who could make theirs melt the quickest or last the longest.

Lunchtime treasure hunt

As a way of making mealtimes more interesting why not have a lunchtime treasure hunt? All you need to do is fill a few present bags with lunch items and hide them around the house or garden. Then let the kids loose to find them.
 I can't guarentee they'll eat it, but it might takes some of the misery out of mealtimes. I have been known to use this for tea time too. Happy hunting x

Very cheap and very cheerful

After sorting out the wardrobes and ending up with dozens of odd socks I couldn't bear to throw them out so they've been in the back of the "arty" cupboard  ever since. Well until today, this was the most simple adaptation of a sock puppet ever. All I did was draw the faces of a dog and pig, my better effort, on with felt tips. With a bit more time, materials and patience on behalf of the eager recipients I may of produced a higher quality product, mmm maybe next time.

Making the most of the warm weather

We are really enjoying the warmer weather. This activity's great when your getting hot and sticky. All you need is a plastic storage box full of water and a few drop of food colouring. Hey presto ! Today we used tea cups in the water , I might use bath toys next time, lets hope there's another opportunity soon .

Left over Easter eggs.

Unbelievably we still had some Easter eggs tucked away in the back of the cupboard. Having helped the children out with all the top branded ones we are down to the scraps.
 I melted down some of these and the girls iced some shop bought biscuits and added sprinkles. I put the melted chocolate into a squirty honey bottle and they enjoyed squirting it on.

                                          Some of our better efforts.

Free Kite?

After many attempts in the past to make a light kite that doesn't break and trying to find some thin strong string the wind has usually dropped.

Obviously using a plasic bag has health and safety issues so I would only recommend this for older children who understand the dangers .

She did enjoy running round and round the lawn and gained some exercise

Windy day activities

What a blustery day !We made the most of the wind and enjoyed the sunshine too.
 We wrapped up warm and washed the dolls clothes. I filled a washing up bowl with lots of warm water and plenty of bubbles and the girls enjoyed pretending to do the washing.
 We hung them out on the line to dry, they're still dripping as I write this.