The ice snow palace

The kids have been getting excited with the hope of snow over christmas so i decided to bring our snow theme out sooner than planned. I wanted a snow scene that combined construction, discovery and imagination.

It was an instant hit with all ages who renamed it The polar express.. 

We used sugar, shaving foam and  glass gems. The ice palace was made from an old sand mould we had. We also used some old moonsand moulds.

I wanted the children to feel the coldness of ice and snow so i had stored some out of date sugar in the fridge.

The mini explorers dived in. They tried different ways to structure the ice sculptures then played a story of a lost polar bear.

The children led the penguins to the ice scating ( a small mirror) rink were they scated as the train wisked past.

The first train was taken away and replaced with a better one called the polar express....Santa came although noone saw him (we never do)  and left gifts in the snow for the passengers to find.

A naughty penguin tried to erupt the ice volcano......the story continues............

Building and melting Olaf

The childen loved filling Olaf with warm hugs the other day. Today we changed this by adding real ice cubes that the children could see melting.

We started with a bowl of ice cubes i had previously made and lots of sqeezy tweezers so everyone could help.

The children were eager to fill him up. We filled him a few times before everyone decided to watch him melt.

crawl2explore

Such a fun activity and once the children were fed up building him we timed how long it took for him to melt :)

Bubble explosions

Who ever would have thought blowing bubbles would be so much fun. Following on from our firework art we decided to do firework explotions in bubbles.

We worked up quite a few bubbles as we  dripped  food colour onto them. As the children blew through the straws the colour spread making small explosions in the bubbles. 

FIREWORK ART

Children love fireworks and after watching several we decided it was time to make our own.

The children have been using oil brushes to do paint strokes so we used this in our design.

by dragging the brushes over the paint the children were able create the effects of fireworks.

PRETEND ICE CREAM PARLOUR

This activity was so much fun. The children were able to use their imaginations in a pretend ice-cream parlour. We filled the pipping bags with shaving foam (only do this activity with children who understand not to eat the shaving foam).I put gems, beads and acorns in little see through containers as toppings and squeezy tweezers to access them.

The children practised piping the foam into ice cream cups and we even added paint inside the bags for the swirly effect. This activity was not only fun but a great hand control excersise controlling the flow of the foam into the glass.

I did this with children aged 4 years plus who understood it was non edible and only for play

ROOM ON THE BROOM ACTIVITIES

Room on the broom is one of our favorite books and i knew we had to use it for our halloween theme.
The children were familiar with the story and excited when i told them the witch had flown over the woods near us so off went to see if we could find the items she had dropped.

I had previously hidden the items so off we went to search

 I acted shocked as we uncovered most of the items the witch has dropped

By now i had the children fully engaged in our witch hunt 

but i needed to extend this activity so the next day i set up an invite to play.

The children were familiar with the book The witches kitchen so didnt need any 

prompting and set to work adding and mixing the potions....

Although not edible the children enjoyed this preted potion play and

mixed up what they called a witches worm stew!

Threading a christmas tree

  

Everyone has baubles on their christmas tree at christmas and i thought these mini baubles i picked up from a local shop were just the right size for little hands to hold and fingers to thread.

I started the children off by letting them thread the baubles onto coloured laces. 

 Once they got the hang of this i moved them onto
decorating the tree by threading the laces inbetween holes with every bauble. 

The smallest children  added beads and gems

 for their personal tree. This is a great activity for fine motor skills. The concentration on their faces was priceless!

ABOUT ME

Welcome to my blog. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crawl2Explore-creative-play-based-ideas/457048164307625?ref=hl
Hi everyone,
welcome to my blog, i am a mum to 4 beautiful children and run a home based childcare setting. I have  a creative background in design and i  encourage children to explore their surroundings and see everything as a learning post.
Children are born curious and I love being able to teach children to extend their imaginations through play based activities.

All photographs, observations, and  text on my blog is done by me unless otherwise stated.

Everyone is welcome to share my blog address however i do not give  permission  for anyone to copy any  photographs or  text i have written however i am happy for you to share.

I do not give anyone permission to write on any of my photos or modify my images in any way.

I am happy for anyone to share my photos on their blog and  briefly give a description on any activities i have posted on here with a link to my blog. 

If you wish to contact me in regard to any photos please use the contact me form . Thankyou