“That’s not my…” by Fiona Watt & Rachel Wells

I’ve actually done quite a few activities this week, but haven’t had the time to blog about them, mainly because Bean believes that sleep is over-rated and that if she is going to sleep, she’d like to do so on my face. Tonight, I’ve managed to get her sleeping and actually move away, so I thought I’d try to write up one of the activities. I’m going out of order and doing the one we did today for two reasons. Firstly, that it’s fresh in my mind, and secondly because I love this series. They’re very simple board books with bold, bright illustrations, they all follow the same format: “That’s not my (noun) its (part) is too (adjective).” Each page has a different example of the object or animal featured in that book, with a different textured part, until the end, where we find the correct item. There is a mouse on each page, presumably the items belong to him, a very odd mouse, having his own baby, dinosaur, monkey (though the monkey is an Orangutan, which annoys me as I’m a pedant), goat, rocket etc.

The books help children learn descriptive words, rough, bumpy etc and are good fun. They’re also great for a preschooler to “read” to a toddler or baby.

For today’s activity, I didn’t want to have to do a lot of preparation, or clear up loads of mess. It took me about 5 minutes to set up, which was ideal, and nothing gloopy or messy. The idea was to do our own “That’s not my” game. With various different items for the children to feel, with them trying to figure out which one was the toy rabbit.

First you need some sort of box to put items into. I used a nappy box as these are sturdy and we happened to have one kicking around. Cut a hole in the front, large enough for you to put your hand inside to feel things (in theory it only needs to be large enough for your child, but it’s likely they’ll want you to try too). You can leave it at that, but I wanted to make sure they couldn’t peep inside, so I fringed some paper and taped it, hanging down inside over the hole. If you had the time it would be nice to cover the box too, but remember to leave the top easy to open, as not all of the items you want to put in will fit through the hole.

Collect lots of objects and hide them under a sheet. Put one at a time into the box, without children seeing. For older children ask them to feel and describe what they are feeling. Is it their bunny (or whatever toy you picked)? Bean (17 months) doesn’t have many words, so obviously she wasn’t going to describe what she could feel, but mainly just wanted to feel the things and put them in and out, I talked to her about the textures etc as she was feeling them. Jumbles got really into it, trying to work out if each item was the bunny (he was fooled by the feather duster). Then he put things in for me to guess, he decided to play “That’s not my Octonaut” making me work out which of his Octonaut action figures he had put inside.

External Links:
Buy “That’s Not My…” books
Borrow “That’s not my…” books

“Where the Wild Things are” by Maurice Sendak

If you haven’t read this book before, then please do, it’s available online free as a read along audio book, here. It’s a classic book, that has aged well. As you probably know, the book is about a boy in a rage, who is sent to his room, from there he enters the realm of “The wild things” he becomes their king and leads them on a wild rumpus, before calming them and heading back home to his supper which is still hot.

This is a great book for talking about emotions and anger and how to deal with difficult feelings. The wild ones are also a great example of monsters, which are not too scary for small children. As an aside, the film that came out a few years ago, is nothing like the book, it is very surreal and I don’t think I’d show it to small children. I didn’t enjoy it much myself and think they’d find it confusing and potentially scary.

Activity:
Brief description
Read story.
Make masks using paper plates
Take masks out to explore the woods, playing in the “new land” you’ve discovered, taking bark rubbings, collecting souvenirs.
Have a “wild rumpus” in the woods.

Write up of how it worked for us:
I decided to make “wild thing” masks. Paper plates are a great basis for making masks, it was very simple to poke some holes in for eyes, draw on nose, beard etc. Cut off some of the top to leave horns, then tape paper sticks (see tips) on the back. Jumbles mostly likes to cut at the moment, so he cut his mask in half, then got sad that his was smaller and swapped it with Daddy’s. You will have to excuse my terrible artwork, but this shows that even if you can’t draw you can make crafts your kids will like. Jumbles and Bean both loved their masks. Though for Bean, she was trying to use it as sustenance rather than a mask.

Once we had the masks, we had a quick rumpus at home, before setting out for the woods. In the woods we had a lot of fun squelching through the mud, tripping over brambles (possibly, we should have done “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” instead) searching for wild things and taking samples (pine cones and sticks) of the woods to take home. We also tried out bark rubbings with some crayons we took with us.

We didn’t actually use the masks while out, but the plan was to dance around with them. We were having too much fun just playing.

External links:
Buy Where the wild things are
Borrow “Where the wild things are”
Read along online free version

“Toddle Waddle” by Julia Donaldson & Nick Sharratt

This is a bit of an odd choice for a book to do an activity on, as I actually hate it. However, it’s Bean’s favourite book, she fetches it from the bookshelf every night (or at least on all of those nights that I haven’t “accidentally” misplaced it).

I don’t really know why I hate it, I should by all rights love it, I love both Julia Donaldson and Nick Sharratt, but I prefer books with a story, whereas this is sounds, no story in words to follow, just pictures and sound effects. Which is probably what makes it a great story that toddlers love, it has repetition, simple, excellent pictures, it’s just that I find it boring, but since I’m not its target audience, that’s fine.

As this book is not necessarily that well known, I’ll explain the set up, in case you are having trouble visualising, but really, you need to get a copy. The structure of the book is that it begins with a toddler and a duck walking, with the text “Toddle waddle” Then on the next page it shows the same, but with a woman wearing flip flops, with the text “Flip flop, toddle waddle.” It continues adding more animals in the line behind them, and the sound effects they make.

Anyway, this was the perfect book for working on listening and making sounds. Often when we talk about sensory play, we get caught up in messy play and forget our other senses (or at least, I do). So I wanted to ensure I covered the other senses too.

The activity

The idea was to find items from around the house to make the different sounds represented in the book. I thought that actually choosing the sounds would be a fun activity for Jumbles, but didn’t think Bean would be able to, so I waited for Bean’s nap. I did think that Jumbles would need a bit of help, so I collected up a lot of the musical toys and things that I thought might be useful and brought them into the living room. I purposefully didn’t bring enough to do all of the sounds, so that once we’d done a few Jumbles could start to try Looking further afield. I didn’t want to limit his creativity.

He got really into this part of the activity and loved selecting different sounds. We worked through the pages, so we started with one sound, then on the next page added a new sound and then repeated the first, building up until we had reached the midpoint of the book where they stop, and watch a beach, with lots of new noises.

Initially, we just put the instruments down around us after we had played the sound, but Jumbles kept forgetting which order to play them, so I laid them out in straight lines, this worked much better.

We then, had to create 12 new sounds for the next part of the book, this is where his interest started to wane, it was also where Bean woke up, so I decided not to do sounds for the dancing and playing bit right at the end. Instead I wanted to reread the book with him from the beginning using his sound effects.

Bean really enjoyed listening to me read, while Jumbles played instruments, and she joined in making noises on the drum etc. I want this blog to be honest and realistic, so instead of glossing over and saying everything continued beautifully, I will tell you that at this point, Jumbles got fed up and started shoving the instruments around and rolling around on the space hopper. I think I structured it a bit too much, so my advice if you’re doing this with the same ages, is, don’t worry too much about sticking to the story with the noises, just get them enjoying making the sound effects how they want. Try to avoid controlling too much as I think I took some of the fun out of it. Or it could just be that it took too long. I do plan on doing it again with Bean though, when Jumbles is at preschool, as she was really enjoying hearing the noises.

If you want inspiration for what to use for different sound effects, and find it hard to tell in the pictures, this is what we used (remember, a 3 year old picked some of them, if you’re thinking they’re odd choices):

Toddle waddle – Drum

Flip Flop – baby shoes

Hurry Scurry – egg shaker

Clip Clop – Stacking cups (banged on floor, or against each other)

Ting-a-ling – Bike bell

Leap creep – Slide whistle

Buzz buzz – kazoo

Flitter flutter- fanned paper

Boing Boing – bouncy ball, later changed to space hopper

Splish Splash – rice shaker

Puff Puff – Balloon pump

roly poly – bottle

Crunch Munch – biting a breadstick (typically we had run out of apples)

Slurp slurp – Drink with a straw

Chitter chatter – shaker

Helter Skelter – ball drop toy

See Saw – The scratchy instrument shaped like a frog (sorry, don’t know name!)

Snip Snap – The jaws from a toy digger

Ping Pong – a plastic plate

Choo Choo – a harmonica

So, in conclusion, use this as an activity for sound effects, but perhaps don’t structure as much, talk about what sounds they can hear, can they mimic those sounds using items in the room. Can they tap out the rhythm of the words with the drum?

I promise, my next book will not be Julia Donaldson, or Nick Sharratt, I do realise that’s all I’ve done so far! Honestly, I do love other authors too.

External Links:
Buy Toddle Waddle
Borrow from your local library
Toddle Waddle activity sheet

“The Gruffalo’s child” by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler

I thought since I’d done The Gruffalo, that it’d be nice to do the sequel too. The Gruffalo’s child is set in winter, so the obvious thing to do is snow play. Now, if it happens to be snowing for you, great, wrap up warm, go outside and do this, but if like me there is no sign of real snow, you’ll have to improvise.

Now, in the past I’ve used cotton wool as a fun, no mess “snow” but it’s not terribly realistic, and won’t work for what I have planned as we need to make impressions in the snow. So, you can buy fake snow online, or make your own, now here I planned to link to an online recipe, as I’m sure I’ve seen many, but my internet isn’t working, so I’m writing this offline, and I need to have the snow ready for when I pick up Jumbles from preschool, so I’m just going to have to wing it, so here is my snow recipe:

Snow Recipe:
1. Leave freezer door slightly ajar overnight.
2. Come down in the morning to discover said door is open.
2a. (Optional) blame other half for not closing door properly.
3. Cook, throw out, or deem salvagable contents of freezer.
4. Scrape ice with a knife into a containter.
5. Freeze until needed
Estimated cost: 0-£1000 depending on how much food you have to throw away and whether you damage the freezer whilst scraping off the ice. Plus potential marriage counselling costs for repeated blame of other half for incidents such as this.

Alternatively, you could probably make ice cubes, and stick them in a blender. Or, if you don’t want to be quite so realistic and don’t want something that will melt, you can make snow by adding water to the stuff you find in disposable nappies (U.S diapers) see instructions (external link) I am not so keen on this method as although it’s non toxic, it’s still not edible, and Bean will try to eat it. Plus, I only use disposable nappies in emergencies, so don’t have many in stock.

Now I’m back online, I have checked and a fun way to make snow looks like mixing cornflour (U.S cornstarch) and shaving foam. Growing a Jeweled Rose.com has several snow recipes.

Activity:
Part 1: snow play
Set up your snow in a tray on the floor.
Read through the book, pointing out the footprints and how each animal’s is different.
Allow free play with the snow.
Experiment making marks in the snow using different implements and toys.
While your child looks away, take a toy and make tracks in the snow, see if s/he can work out what toy made the tracks. take it in turns with your child to make tracks for the other to guess.
Jumbles played around making roads and trying to write letters, whilst Bean scooped it up lots.

Part 2: Light and Shadow
We left a big gap and did this when it was getting darker.
Point out the end of the story, where the Gruffalo’s child is fooled by the mouse’s shadow, talk about how shadows of objects can look different.
Close the curtains, turn off the lights and play with torches, making shadows using hands and objects. If you want, set up a sheet which you can go behind to make shadows and have the child guess what it is. We draped a sheet over the doorway of our cardboard house, my Godson, also 3, had come over by this point, the boys enjoyed playing with torches, then they went into the house and I held up toys outside in front of the torch for them to guess. Bean was not impressed with this section of the activity. (I had to turn the lights on for the photo).

Links
Buy artificial snow
Make snow using disposable nappies
Growing a Jeweled Rose snow recipes
Buy The Gruffalo’s child
Borrow The Gruffalo’s child from your local library

“The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler

There are so many amazing books to choose from, I wasn’t sure where to start. So I’ve gone with a request, for something everyone has: The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. A fantastic book for reading aloud and acting out.

This book really lends itself to sensory play. I thought we’d do a barefoot walk. Now, I am doing this in the winter, and don’t fancy letting them freeze in the local stream at this time of year, so I brought the woods to our garden, but it would be much more fun to do this out in the wild, if you have woods with a stream and rocky area, then plan out your own walk, but if like me, you’re needing some indoor activities, read on:

First, take the kids out for a walk somewhere where you can collect lots of sticks and stones, despite living in the middle of a city, we were able to do this fairly easily.

I am fortunate and have a carport so that we can do messy play out there, if you don’t, cover your floor as it will get messy:

Set up a trail across the room, with different stations, I like to use underbed storage boxes, they can be closed up or stacked when not in use, plus they clean really easily:

1. The deep dark woods – fill a box with, or just place on the ground the twigs/leaves/pinecones, collected on your walk
2. Rocks – fill a box, or just an area with rocks and pebbles
3. Stream – use a silver emergency blanket to represent the stream, weigh it down with small stones. If you’re in the UK, poundland sell twin packs of these in their camping section, I would highly recommend buying a pack. If you don’t have any, use foil or some blue material.
4. Lake – a paddling pool, or box of water, or, if you have nowhere suitable for water play, end the trail at your bathroom.

Make a path from one station to the next, perhaps vary the materials of the path to give variety for walking on. If you’re spreading the trail across a long distance e.g through the house to end at your bath, consider making some paper arrows, or footprints to follow.

Suggestions for the path:
Sand
Astroturf (get free samples online if you’re cheeky enough)
Greengrocers material (buy on ebay)
Mud or compost
grass cuttings
bark chippings
Sawdust

Optional extras to improve the experience:
Print off and colour in animal masks for the characters in the story, tape these to sticks and prop them by the correct part of the trail (fox by rocks etc) then children can hold masks to act out story if they wish. Or make finger puppets, the official Gruffalo site has a Gruffalo mask, finger puppets to print and other activities.

Depending on their age, children may enjoy helping to set up the trail.

Running the activity:
Tell the story once through before starting, pointing at the different areas where the mouse meets the animals. Then retell, or have the children retell, the story slowly as they move through the trail. Don’t rush them, they may want to explore one station for ages, talk about the way the different materials feel.

Keep towels nearby and once they’ve finished exploring, use the lake to wash hands and feet.

Links

Gruffalo.com printable activities includes mask, finger puppets, recipe.
Colouring sheets
Borrow The Gruffalo from your local library
Buy The Gruffalo online

What’s it all about?

Ooh, a new blog, all pristine and filled with potential. I feel immense pressure in this first post to be witty and insightful, drawing people who’ve stumbled across it in and gathering loyal followers. Unfortunately, what I am is permanently tired, I’ve noticed a dramatic decrease in my sense of humour and ability to think. Please, parents of older children, reassure me that once they get past the toddler/pre school stage I’ll regain at least some of my faculties?

Anyway, I’ll get to the point. I’m starting this blog after being challenged to do so by my good friend Julie, who suggested I post some of the activities I do with my kids. I used to have a personal blog in the past, but never had a focus, and haven’t updated it in 3 years. The only trouble is, I get most of my ideas for sensory activities or crafts, from amazing blogs that are already out there, do I have anything to add? That’s when I thought, I could pick a more specific niche. Well, what I know best is books, having worked in libraries for the last 11 years, until stopping after the birth of my second child to be a stay at home Mum (not that I do stay at home, I’d go stir crazy, I’m a “how many groups can we get to this week” kind of Mum), I am used to planning and running events based on stories and books, I often use books as the basis for activities at home. Therefore, I plan (though don’t promise to stick to it) to mainly write about activites that could go with certain books. I don’t want to make anyone spend more money than necessary, and want to encourage library use, so my book links will take you to a page which lets you check your local library for a copy.

I do however, have a habit of rambling, so expect that I will go off on many tangents if I see a cool craft or messy play idea. I also like crafting myself, so plan to share a few homemade gift ideas for kids, as I like to a) save money b) avoid buying more cheap plastic stuff to fill our houses c) give things that are a bit more personal.

I should introduce myself, it might have made sense to do that first, but hey. My name is Ali, I am married with 2 children. I cannot decide about the wisdom of sharing my kids’ names online, I don’t really have an issue with it, and have done in the past, but I think to be on the safe side, I’ll use their nicknames, so they are Jumbles (boy), aged 3, and Bean (girl) aged 1. We live in Leicester, England.

I am a Christian, who has spent many years planning and running a club for 4 to 10 year olds, so hope to sometimes include Christian activities or books.

And that’s about all I can think of for now. I will leave you with the simplest of book related activities, “Goldilocks and the 3 bears” by Nick Sharratt we love this lift the flap version. Simple activity of porridge oats, bowls and scoops. We happened to get a cardboard house for Christmas, which we set up as the 3 bears’ cottage, but it works just as well without the house. We began following the story, then it morphed into Goldilocks and the 3 Octonauts. Mainly Jumbles enjoyed scooping oats and throwing them everywhere, oddly Bean didn’t join in with the oats, she wanted to play with the door instead, but that is the way of play, lay out the invitations, they may not do it.