Catalogue Double Up...

Last week we received two copies of the same catalogue in the mail.  I flipped through the first one, ignored the duplicate and put them both into the recycling.  I dredged them back out again though when my daughter asked if she could so some “snipping” with junk mail.  While my son napped we had some fun one-on-one time together playing junk mail games.  Here’s what we did with our doubled up catalogues: Game...

Painted Love...

My daughter seems to have had another spurt in her drawing and painting ability lately.  Little drawings of people with round tummies, funny shaped heads, stick arms and legs, and happy faces keep popping up all over the place!  The other day she asked to do some painting while her brother was asleep, so I set her up with paints and brushes and let her go for it (while I, ahem, caught up on emails). When she called...

Toilet Roll Nativity...

Making the toilet roll nativity scene has become somewhat of a tradition in our house.  This is the fourth Christmas with children in our home and the fourth rendition of the loo roll nativity! The first year my daughter was still very young, so I just made Mary and Joseph and a little manger for baby Jesus.  She was at the crawling and chomping stage so the characters were pretty well trashed by the time Christmas...

Nativity Felt Board...

I just love being able to get out this fabulous felt board set each Christmas.  My sister-in-law made it for my kids a couple of years ago.  The board is a simple mdf square, and the background felt is attached with velcro dots.  All of the characters are cut from craft felt.  (If fiddling with felt pieces is not for you, check out my friend Narelle’s suggestion for making nativity felt board characters using...

Three Easy Wreaths...

Nothing acknowledges that you are embracing Christmas quite like a wreath on the front door.  It says, “We’re happy it’s Christmas and we’re happy you’re here too!”  Have you got one on your door yet?  If not, here are three super easy wreaths you can make with your toddler, all using paper plates as an inexpensive base. For each of the wreaths, start with a plain paper plate. ...

Little Apprentice...

Our wonderful builders have been here this week, fixing up some dodgy areas on our home.  We do a lot of renovating ourselves, but we know that some jobs are completely beyond us!  Little Miss 3 was fascinated with the builders’ tool belts so we had a go at making one ourselves. I’m sure if you google it you can find patterns for sewing proper child sized toolbelts, but toddlers aren’t great with...

Beanie Bag Games...

Recently my son received these gorgeous home made beanie bags as a gift from a friend.  It was such a delightful present that I just had to share.  We have had so much fun with these together.  Here are ten of our favourite games to play with beanie bags: In and Out – very young ones enjoy the simple pleasure of putting things in and out of boxes and containers.  My 13mth old put the beanie bags in and out...

Busy Boxes (Mumblers)...

I’m blogging over at Aussie Mums Network Mumblers today about busy boxes.  Having a few boxes set up indoors and out can make free play time with kids a breeze.  For ideas on different types of boxes, and what to put into them, head over to Mumblers.  There are photos of our indoor, outdoor and quiet time boxes in the article.  Here’s a snippet… A Busy Box is a container filled with age appropriate...

Finger Paint Progress...

When I made the move from teaching upper primary to early childhood, I was amazed at how much my students learned, changed and developed in twelve short months.  When I made the move from working with five year olds (who suddenly seemed very grown up) to having my own kids, I was blown away at the rapid pace of learning. Just this week I watched my daughter finger painting.  It was only four months ago that I blogged...

Lunchtime Art...

Have you seen these awesome sandwiches?  They are so deserving of the name Funky Lunch.  I’ve never eaten anything as funky as this! I’ve also never made sandwiches with this amount of pizazz.  But they do inspire me to try a little harder with lunches.  Maybe not all the time, but every now and then it’s nice to make lunch time fun.  I sometimes forget that using a biscuit cutter to cut a shape...