Activity Monday - Christmas Craft

Today we started doing Christmas Craft. Mini Miss is already very excited about Christmas. She is no longer scared of Santa, but keen to see him, get a lolly & have a cuddle (yes, the stranger danger thing bothers me). She understands that there will be a tree and presents and celebrations. 

She also understands that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus birthday. 

So while I was setting up today's activity, she had a great time colouring in a picture of Jospeh, Mary and Baby Jesus. While doing this she informed me that "I love baby Jesus". Makes my heart swell with love. 

Normally I don't buy ready made craft activities. I find they are too directive and can stifle creativity. Also, if a child has a "perfect" example, even just a picture, of what is expected to be achieved but they cannot achieve it, it sets them up to fail. My children will learn about failures, I'm not going to set them up for it.

But this activity was different. And seriously, CHEAP!!! So I thought as an easy, no fuss, first Christmas craft activity it would be great. 

$3 from Officeworks, was this set of 6 Christmas figures that you make out of plaster of Paris & then paint them. Everything is supplied in the package, dried plaster, moulds, paints and a paint brush.

(NOTE: it did say to use with children over 5yrs & no Mini Miss is not 5, but with ample adult supervision she was fine).

I set about reading the instructions while Mini Miss coloured. Immediately I noticed there were no measurements. "Add plaster to water and stir until a thick pourable paste is made". No idea how much water to use, I had to guess. I also wasn't going to risk using too much, so I put the plaster in first then slowly added water while stirring the whole time. It took somewhere between 1/2-3/4 cup of water to reach a consistency I was happy with. Mini Miss did some of the stirring while I poured water. Stirring is one of her favourite things to do in the kitchen! 

Once mixed, we poured it into our moulds. 

Explaining to a 2.5yr that she has to now wait for a couple hours while they dried was not going to go well, so I had more activities planned, boring housework, but she loves to help! 

After 2 hours they popped out easily & didn't look too bad!

Now the fun, painting. Mini Miss needed some encouragement to paint them, it wasn't until later I realised she thought they were food as we had "cooked" them in the kitchen! No wonder she didn't want to paint them, I'm constantly telling her not to eat the paint! Eventually she got into it though! 

We were also lucky to have a fair bit of plaster left over, so I put it to good use.

No idea yet what we will use it for, but it's cute! And underneath I will name & date it.

The trick to using pre made activities is to  let go. Let your child just use their imagination, let them paint what they want, how they want. This is the hardest thing for me. I see that picture perfect example and want to achieve that, but I'm now focusing more on what Mini Miss gets out of it, rather than the final product. 

For example, from this activity, here are some of the skills she gets out of it; 

• Hand eye coordination, 
• Colour identification, 
• Colouring mixing, 
• Talk about Christmas and an ever growing vocabulary. 
• Learning the value of patience was a good one today too! 

So the final product? Not "perfect", but she is happy and so am I! 

Now I am off to explore Pinterest and find some more Christmas activities! 

A Valuable Lesson

On our weekend away, I learnt something from Mini Miss.

We were travelling home. On the way we passed a LOT of motorbikes, hundreds, all obviously riding together in groups. Between them groups of bikes were police cars. They were all dressed in the same jacket. Basically, a gang or group of bikies. (what IS the correct term for a group of like minded bike riders? a Gaggle? a Group? a Gang?)

this is just a stock photo!!

When we stopped at a rest stop there were several of these bike riders at the same stop. To be honest I was intimidated. "I don't want to cross paths with the likes of these people" is what I thought. 

Mini Miss charmed an older lady first. The lady, instantly charmed by Mini Misses cheeky smile around a mouthful of lolly pop, said to her "Hi, aren't you a sweetheart. That looks like a nice lolly! Could I have some?" Obviously expecting a no, the lady was taken aback when Mini Miss promptly removed the lolly pop from her mouth, held it out to her and said, very matter of factly "of course!" 

The lady was very surprised at mini misses willingness to share. 

Then, dancing around and generally being silly, as she does after being cooped up in a car for several hours, and while waiting for our order, she bumped into and stumbled over, a biker.

Now this guy was what I would call burly. He was big, had a crazy beard, dark hair, sun glasses still on, jeans and black leather jacket with his club/group/gang (I really don't know what is politically correct here!!) colours and image on it. 

This is what, in my mind, he looked like!
I'm sure he wasn't quite this stereotypical!

He slowly pushed his sunglasses up to look down at Mini Miss, now laying in a heap at his feet and giggling like a slightly psychotic monkey! (she had been cooped up in a car for 2 hours!!). 

(Has she annoyed him? Is he going to yell at her? Because if he does, the mother in me is going to tell him to back off, and the shy scared mouse in me DOES NOT want to have that sort of confrontation with anyone, let alone someone like this!)

He smiled at her, gave a big laugh and said "well who do we have here?" She gave her name & he reached down and helped her up. "Tank you man" she said and off she went, dancing and spinning around some more.

He smiled at me and said "well, she sure is full of life and surprises isn't she?"

"Yep sure she is" I replied, both relieved and surprised. 

So true! More life than I know what to do with and more surprises each and every day!!

Lesson learnt. Don't judge a book by its cover. 

He might belong to "a gang". He might look tough and scary. But he could also be a Dad, possibly a Grandad. An uncle and a friend.

And kids? They cross all social barriers to spread their joy of life and their love with everyone, regardless of how they look.

I think that's a lesson we could all benefit from.......

Activity Monday - Paint

Today I decided on some messy play. Something simple but so much fun! 

We made our own paint!!

It's a very simple recipe

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup of water
• Food colouring of your choice. 

I gathered the ingredients we would need with Mini Miss. She loves being involved in EVERYTHING at the moment, so I pulled it out of the cupboard, she put it on the bench. Then she went straight to the Tupperware cupboard to get our "special mixing bowl". It's just a silver bowl, but I always use it for mixing craft stuff in, so she just KNEW!! 

As Mini Miss is now 2.5, I decided she should do the making, with supervision of course! 

I find it VERY hard to ignore the mess, but this activity isn't about me, it's about her and I don't want to fill her head with my weirdness, so I reign it in as much as possible! Also, she is like her Mum, messy in the kitchen! (I drive myself crazy with cleaning up as I go when I cook. I am a major mess in the kitchen, but apparently my creations always turn out ok, so I guess it's a good thing!) 

I talked her through each step, explaining things like she needed to fill the cup right to the top, what she needed next etc. this is a VERY basic recipe, so it wasn't hard, and pouring, scooping, measuring and stiring are perfect skills for her to be learning. 

In fact, all I really did was add the food colouring and finished off the stiring to get out most of the lumps. 

So basically, you put all the ingredients in a bowl, add a few drops of colour and stir. I added extra water to this recipe as I was putting it in sauce bottles and I needed it a little runnier to make it easier to use. The consistency to aim for I think is runny pancake batter. (Everyone knows what a good pancake batter looks like!!).

I then poured it carefully into seperate sauce containers. We ended up with 4 colours. 

Of course, Mini Miss insisted in being involved in the clean up, and seriously, what Mum is going to say no to that?!! (And if you would, then I say don't! Encourage their involvement in all steps, including clean up! Believe me, all too soon they are teens who dont do anything with being dragged by the collar! Yes, it takes longer, sometimes it creates more mess, but it's teaching them to clean up after themselves.) So I gave her a sponge and let her wipe down the bench while I did a quick wash up.

REMEMBER!! 

This is a messy activity! They will spill flour, splash water, miss the cup, and if your toddler is like mine, eat some of the ingredients as you go! (Her face when she tasted it was priceless! Like she just sucked on a lemon! But she kept eating it!). 

The good thing with making things like paint at home is you know what's in them, and despite the taste, it won't make your little one sick. 

So yes, in hindsight, I SHOULD HAVE put a towel on the chair she was standing on! Good tip that! If they are standing on a fabric chair, COVER IT!! 

Another good tip if you are letting your toddler do this is have separate "craft" flour/salt/other ingredients. They put their hands in the containers and packets, they lick their fingers and dive back on in! So, keep the food ingredients separate from your craft ingredients!! 

After lunch we headed outside where I had set up a special painting activity, painting with her new paints on black card. We nearly ALWAYS paint in white paper, so I thought she would enjoy this difference. She sure did! Lots of talk followed as she painted about the night sky and "outta space". Lots of describing what she was creating with her new paints, it was great! 

And her final products? 

The first one was "night time" and the second one was "space". 

Today's activity was great, it was messy, sensory and gave us lots of opportunity for talking about lots of different things (textures, colours, measuring, space, night time....).

Best of all? 

It was FUN!