Dinosaur Fun -

Our local shopping centre currently has a brilliant Dinosaurs Alive display. The dinosaurs move and make noise. Its a treasure trove of fun for the toddler and preschooler alike!  There is information on each one on display, which I must read over and over, and the best bit for Mini Miss? There are foot prints all over the shopping centre leading to each display! She is so focused on these foot prints every time we go, much to the annoyance of some older, less interested shoppers (to them I now say, get a life, she is 3!!). 

 

So for obvious reasons, Mini Miss has been OBSESSED with dinosaurs! No, these obsessions are not confined to boys! 

My first activity I found on Pinterest and as always, altered it a bit to make it more fun and more personal for my Mini Miss.... We built..... 

Dinosaur World!!

I bought a Kitty Litter tray from our local Dollar Tree for $3. Yes, that sounds gross, but I promise Miss Lucy is not allowed to use it! They are great for containing messy crafts, science experiments, and other fun stuff. You will see the 2 I bought starring in a lot of the science and messy craft Mini Miss gets to do! 

To do the landscape, I filled the tray with Baking Soda, which acted as the sand. I made a Bubbly Blue Lagoon using Vinegar with blue food colouring. I decorated with plastic trees and rocks. Then, The Piece de Resistance, The Erupting Volcano. 

I made the outside of the Volcano using our favourite home made Playdough recipe. (find it HERE). To make it more interesting I mixed granulated coffee (I know, it seems like a waste, but it was cheap coffee & it really did make a difference) into the mix to give it the brown colour, but also a bit of texture. Inside the Volcano was a plastic cup with a water/vinegar/dish soap mix coloured with red food colouring.  

Finally I added some dinosaurs and the masterpiece was set & placed outside (a great place for messy play, I highly recommend it!) 

apparently, from this photo, they were all headed to the Bubbly Lagoon!

Mini Miss got stuck straight in and had a ball with this. She loved the Bubbly Lagoon and although I missed taking a photo of the Volcano as I was supervising its eruption, she loved it! It oozed red bubbles everywhere. Lots of mess was made.

Of course, once all the contained bubbly fun was had, she got into the Making Mess part. This is more just fun than science, although there is colour mixing, more chemical reactions...you get the idea, but basically, its like playing with colourful mud! 

And then later in the day, even more messy play was had! This involved measuring and pouring, scooping and loads more wet gooey mess seeing as I had been busy with Mr Moo and hadn't got around to hosing it all away.

Yes, a bath was VERY necessary after this day!! 

Tips:

• For ALL outdoor messy crafts I keep 2 things nearby. A bucket of soapy water and an old towel. That way the mess does not make its way into my house!

• Spend time talking about why the vinegar and bicarb when mixed together bubble up.

• Encourage your child to think about what the world was like when there were dinosaurs, what was the land like? Were there people? Where did all the dinosaurs go? What about Volcanoes? What makes them erupt? 

If they have questions you don't know the answer to, I find honesty the best policy. I am not all knowing, but I do know how to find out and I love to show my kids how to use the tools they have to find out more. Mini Miss is already learning the value of Google. Investigating together is great fun and it teaches such valuable skills like researching, making sense of the information they find, and coming to your own conclusion with the information you have found. 

So get building, get messy and have fun with your kids! Play is such an important part of learning at this age! 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities - Part 1

So Mini Miss needs to be challenged and constantly wants to learn, be taught and understand. I try to do this through a mix of guided learning, and more importantly, play, art and craft. 

I decided we would look at the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. 

If you haven't read this book, then go out and buy it! Now! Go!! Especially if you have kids! Its an endless source of educational points, and kids just LOVE it! The illustrations are colourful, the story simple but entertaining, and Mini Miss LOVES the ending! 

I read it to Mini Miss, who immediately insist that we read it again, and then she wanted to "read" it to me. Being able to retell a story is a great skill, and she did a fantastic job using the pictures as guides for her story!

Then we got stuck into a couple of craft activities! 

Egg Carton Caterpillar

Materials Needed:

Egg Carton

Red and Green Paint

Pipe cleaners

Googly Eyes

Mini Miss loved this activity. As I said, I don't often do a guided activity, but I also find value in following step by step instructions to make something. We started by painting our caterpillar just like the Hungry Caterpillar in the book.

Then, when the paint dried we stuck on his Googly Eyes, and I put small holes in his head and his body using a skewer, and Mini Miss added antennae and legs.

So simple, yet a lot of fun for miss almost 3!!

Then sticking with the slightly messy theme, we made some

Painted Butterflies

Materials Needed:

Coloured construction paper

Paints in the colour of your choice

Pre cut butterflies (I did these beforehand as Mini Miss is not yet ready for scissors)

This was as fun as it was messy! Mini Miss LOVES paint! The hardest part was convincing her to just put the paint on 1 half of the butterfly! I got her to put some blobs of paint on the butterfly, then fold it in half. We used 2 or 3 different colours each time, so we could look at how colours mix to create new colours. These butterflies also help us talk about mirrors and how things can be the same on both sides.

 

These were 2 simple and fun activities, and a great way to start looking at this book. As she is SO obsessed with the story, and insists on reading at least 3 times a day, I figure we will continue with some more activities based around the story tomorrow. Some more advanced, possibly challenging activities. Will post these next week! 

Letter A Day

So Mini Miss is almost 3 years old.

She knows her shapes, her colours, how to count to 20, how to count to 100 by 10's, she knows the alphabet, she can recognise and sort of write her name....this isn't me boasting, she is just a sponge, and ALWAYS wants to be learning something! 

It's like she is ready for school!!!

Except, of course, she's not even close.

So where to from here? Normally with this age groups we are looking at learning all the things above! So we are moving forward a bit. We are looking closely at each letter, we are reading books and doing craft based on them. Basically, we are doing early reading learning....which is scary!! 

For those who are interested, I have joined a couple of great websites that focus on homeschooling. They have amazing resources and are a wealth of knowledge! 

Free home school deals
The Kinder Corner
Teach With Me

For more pages, check out my Education & Activity Monday boards on Pinterest!

So first up is the Letter A. Seemed like a pretty obvious place to start, but nonetheless, she knows this letter well, so introducing her to some more in depth learning, discussion and crafts was easier done with a letter she already knows well (at least, I thought so. To be honest, I have no idea what I am doing here, I'm just making it up as I go!).

So I printed off some craft worksheets, simple easy ones for us to ease into this new phase of learning. I encouraged Mini Miss to fill the letters, both upper case and lower case with pom poms. We talked about the 2 different types of A, she traced them with her finger, and it is really good for her fine motor skills, something she has a lot of work to do on!

When she was done, I wrote her name in the corner and Mini Miss wanted to copy it, so I gave her a pencil and was very surprised at the results!

She needed help with the M, but the rest was all her! 

Then since she was very focused and interested in doing "more A crafta mummy" we continued, colouring in an Apple tree and tracing more letters. Then, finally, using her favourite paddle pop sticks, we made some letter A's and glued them onto paper.

Mini Miss loves this one on one time. She knows Mondays are "her" day, where we do lots of activities together. I put aside housework, chores and errands and spend time with her. We read, we do craft, we play with toys. Its our very own special day. The fact that I am helping her learn at the same time is just a bonus!! 

*Please note, I am not paid, nor affiliated with any of the websites I have shared. I just share them as I find them valuable resources*

Activity Monday Part 2 - Straws!!!

I love how one activity often leads to another one. When I let Mini Miss's imagination run wild, and follow her lead, we often end up where I would never have expected! Other times its my own imagination that runs off and leads us down the yellow brick road of craft adventures.

Bubbles Monday was no exception. Once we were done with our bubble painting we were left with lots more straws, and lots of bubble paintings.

So I decided rather than put these paintings away with all the other paintings that are gathering dust, in a box, at the top of our wardrobe, we would use them to make something else. 

So, off to Pinterest I went while they dried!!

And I found 2 great ideas that were perfect (that is quick and easy and didn't require any more planning or prep!)

First was at the Growing a Jeweled Rose website. This is a FANTASTIC site with sooooo many activities you don't ever really need to go anywhere else!! (but I still do!). 

Paper Rockets! 

Mini Miss loves rockets and space and planes and adventures. These were so easy to make and so much fun to play with. 

They are so simple to make. Cut an A4 piece of paper into strips. Obviously we used the bubble painting paper, but you could also get the kids to decorate some pieces of paper etc.

Roll the paper around a large pencil and either glue or tape shut.

Then to seal the top end, simply fold over and sticky tape shut.

See a full list of instructions HERE at Curious Kangaroos, where the original idea came from!

Then, inspired by a single image I found on Pinterest, I decided to make 

Straw Flowers.

Disclaimer: our flowers are NOTHING like those above! You know those "I found it on Pinterest and nailed it" memes? Yeah, we could be one! BUT, we had fun!

First I cut out some flower shapes from our paintings, found some colourful cupcake cases, and cut out some flower centres. And then I let Mini Miss put them together!

Then I found an (empty!) toilet roll and let her loose with the paint to make our vase!

And the final product? 

These activities kept us busy ALL day! Mini Miss was happy as she is at that "give me all your attention all the time, RIGHT NOW" phase and she was kept busy! I was happy too because as well as spending quality time with my Mini Miss, where I was focused on her, I can see all the skills she is learning, the fine motor development, the cognitive connections....or maybe that's the retired child care worker in me.......

Wonder what the plan for next Monday is? (no really! Any suggestions?! Its tough stuff coming up with interesting fun and engaging activities for a very busy active and easily distracted toddler!!)