There is no ding ding ding of the home bell for the stay at home mum. There used to be the blessing of the afternoon nap, but my preschool twin boys no longer subscribe to it. A cup of tea used to be my quick three o’clock pick me up. The effects of that are wearing off at an exponential rate.

 
At those 3 o’clock moments, I’m desperate for some sort of play that’s engaging for the kids, and requires minimal input and supervision from me. Tah dah! I would like to introduce our light activity box.

Gather all sorts of light related toys and gadgets into a box.

Torches, lanterns, coloured cups to stack on top of lights.

We even placed our toy periscope in our light activity box. The mirrors inside the periscope are fun to bounce light off. My kids are too young to grasp the science behind that – (but one day I anticipate the question shall arise.)

It’s simple but intensely engaging. My favourite type of play – (and the kids love it too).

 Another KISS (Keep It Short & Simple) play idea.

N&M: 3 years 8 months
E: 1 years, 7 months

Check out other Short & Simple play ideas.

This post was shared with

It’s Playtime
For the Kids Fridays
Play Academy
Sunday Showcase
Sharing Saturday

The post Lights Activity Box by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

Over our Christmas Summer holidays I had grand visions of building a water wall for hours of messy play in our garden. Pipes, hoses, water wheels, bits and bobs to engage my kids for hours on end. It would be grand.

It’s now February and there is no water wall. Perhaps next Christmas Summer holidays… or maybe I’ll wait till the kids are old enough to build themselves one.

In the meantime, our water play toys are getting their fair share of play time. After some weeks of experimentation, here are our top 5 water play toys that have stood the test of time.

1. Large containers and buckets. We love our old baby bath. We have a small water table that we bought from the toy shop, but as you can see, it’s the simple (and cheap) baby bath and bucket that gets used more during play time.

[gridly layout=”2″ captions=”off” gutter=”2px”]

[/gridly]

2. Cups of all sorts. Tea cups from our toy kitchen somehow ended up in our water toys box and are a favourite pouring tool. The two dollar toy watering can from the reject shop has been great value for money. The boys water the garden while they play. We also love our water play cups from Early Learning Centre. They stack up on top of each other and each has a different gadget to experiment with, e.g. a sieve, a slider to block up the hole which lets water through, a funnel, etc.

[gridly layout=”2″ captions=”off” gutter=”2px”]

[/gridly]

3. Old bath toys.

4. Sponges.

5. Water funnels and wheels. As an adult, I still find these really fun.

What are your tried and tested water play toys? I wonder if ours will change as the kids get older. Again, I have grand visions of our water wall.

N&M: 3 years, 7 months
E: 1 year, 6 months

This post was shared with

It’s Playtime
For the Kids Fridays
Play Academy
Sunday Showcase
Sharing Saturday

The post Our Top 5 Water Play Toys by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

Playdough Aliens is KISS to its core.

Materials:

Playdough (2 months later, our original cooked playdough is still going strong!)

Big googly eyes

Coloured matchsticks

Fuzzy pipe cleaners

I love it.

The kids love it.

You’ll love it.

KISS

N&M: 3 years, 8 months
E: 1 year, 7 months

Check out other Short & Simple play ideas.

This post was shared with:

It’s Playtime

The post Playdough Aliens by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

Paint it! That was Day 20’s Challenge from the 30 days to Hands on Play hosted by the Imagination Tree & Hands On: As We Grow. Here’s how we played.

We started with some marbles, paint, baking trays and coloured paper.

 N & M have not tried rolling ball art before. I did a quick demo and they jumped straight into it themselves.

They had so much fun rolling one marble around, they decided to add more marbles to their trays.

M moved onto using his hands. He experimented with different ways to move the marbles around: using a pinch grip and also rolling them around using his palms.

Then he left the marbles behind and decided to just move paint around with his hands – swoosh!

I then brought some dinosaurs to the table to join in the fun. I asked them to make some dinosaur footprints. Spoons and brushes were used.

Stomp, stomp, stomp!

N had the brilliant idea to combine both rolling ball art and dinosaur fun.

The dinosaurs had a wild ride.

M decided to paint dinosaurs. His favourite colour at the moment is red.
(I think the expression on Mr. T-Rex is priceless.)

M changed his mind, cleaned up Mr. T-Rex,

and painted him blue.

(Again, how fitting is the expression on Mr. T-Rex?)

The aim of this activity was to spend 15 minutes of uninterrupted time with my kids. We did that and so much more. By the time we had finished I was surprised to find that an hour had passed. We had so much fun playing together. Many skills were also practised through our play: fine motor skills, gross motor skills, life skills, language and creativity – all without the drudgery of dry drill & repetition. I could not have asked for a better morning.

N & M: 3 years, 5 months.

This post was shared in the following linky parties:

Today at Play
Kids Get Crafty
It’s Playtime
TGIF
For the Kids Fridays
Play Academy
Sunday Showcase
Crafty Moms Share Sharing Saturday
No Time for Flash Cards Link & Learn
After School Linky Party

The post paint it: let the good times roll with dinosaurs by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.