creative play ideas

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Coconut Cloud Dough

I was inspired by Triple T Mom to whip up some Coconut Cloud Dough for one of our Tiny Adventure Workshop activities last week! It’s so simple and needs only two ingredients- flour and coconut oil! Actually coconut oil is a bit pricey, so I used veg oil and a bit of coconut body balm I had sat around on a shelf. The result was a beautiful smelling, moldable sand. We chucked in a coconut as a prop.

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It was a lovely sensory activity. We had great fun shaking the coconut to hear the liquid inside!

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Thanks Triple T Mum! http://tttmum.com/coconut-cloud-dough/

Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Autumn Heuristic Sensory Discovery Box

Before you use your birdseed to make winter bird feeders with your toddlers, why not use it as a base for an Autumn sensory box? We added lots natural materials for the little ones to examine and some toy bugs. The different seed sizes are great for improving fine motor skills with tweezers and tongs.

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We selected some treasures from the box to use for dough play!

Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Spooky Slime Wall Toddler Activity Box

Cheap and Easy Slime activity wall and box! Perfect for Halloween! We converted the lid of one of our plastic storage boxes in to a slime wall! We drilled holes and cable tied funnels, sieves and tubes to pour our slime in to. We stabilised our lid to the box by using some toy nuts and bolts, so each time we are done we undo the bolts and just put the lid on. Easy!

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What is the slime? The supermarket own brand shampoo or conditioner with some food colouring. This is about 40p an litre! Perfect! Add in some spooky spiders and skulls for a Halloween feel and you are away!

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The top half of a milk carton makes a great scoop! This was dead popular. So far we’ve rolled it out for three workshops and my 2yr old’s birthday party. Totally worth the effort!

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Teddy Bear Printing Art Activity

I was so inspired when I saw this photo.

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I had to try it with the kids! We had plenty of small teddies and lots of washable paint. So we dived straight in! Some of the bears needed a little stuffing removed from their noses to make good prints. We made ink pads from takeaway containers and sponges. Which is a great idea because you can just pop the lid on until next time!

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We liked it so much, we took it a long to our workshops!

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Toddler Art – Dough paint and Artist’s Trowels

I wondered what they would make of this and I liked the idea of giving them an authentic experience. Oil paint would have proved pricey but dough paint proved a super substitute.

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Dough paint is just flour, water and poster paint. You can make it as thick as you like. We popped it down on some mirror card with some artists trowels and off they went!

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They explored spreading and mark making using the tip and sides of the trowel.
Then they just got nice and messy!

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Lid Soup Water Play

This is really easy and lots of fun for toddlers! Water, food colouring, assorted plastic lids, kitchen utensils and other random ingredients such as chopped wool and buttons!

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Amazing how something so simple can be so engaging! Water play is always a winner.

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Blue Sensory Discovery Box

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All things blue! The medium in the box is a mixture of rice and salt. I used a small amount of paint to colour it blue. Then I decided to add lots interesting items in different shades of blue. The result is a rather beautiful and intriguing discovery box.

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Perfect for little fingers to practice their fine motor skills picking out little jewels. As well as examining and talking about all the little treasures we find, they also love sorting the objects.

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The glass beads were the most popular items. The toddlers loved hunting through the rice for them!

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Sand Dough!

What happens when you add a couple of cups of sand to salt dough?

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You get a lovely gritty beach dough! Great for moulding and making shell impressions!

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Tip Tap Dry Sand Play

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Our Tip Tap Water Wall works very well with dry sand!! The closed end containers with small holes in means the sand trickles out slowly!

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Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.

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Ginger Playdough

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This weeks Tiny Adventure playdough is ginger scented. We have used one of my favourite playdough recipes if from CBeebies. It’s an easy no cook recipe that you can add what ever you like to. We added chopped tinsel and ground Ginger for our playdough kitchen activity.