If you are looking for a wet weather activity to keep the kids busy here is something to try. Suitable for any age.
Grab a couple of coat hangers, some pegs and pens. We used left over wallpaper to draw on.
How many drawings can we make at once? Tape the pegs to the coat hangers and clip in the pens to make multiple pictures!
We taped our coat hangers together to make more copies.
Have fun!
For this you will need some spare fabric (we cut up an old sheet), food colouring and cotton buds.
We watered down our food colouring and set about spotting it onto our cotton squares. As the colour is absorbed by the fabric it created perfect spots of colour.
We experimented further by folding the fabric first and dipping the corners in the colour to produce regular patters, overlapping colours and adding water to spread the colours further.
Some lovely results!
Tiny Adventure toddler workshops Cheltenham.
Simple and brilliant!
1cup of Greek yoghurt to two cups of plain flour! That it! Kneed it and you will get a great pizza dough. Spread a thin strip with Nutella and roll into a swirl or make cheese topped buns! This is fab and hassle free!
It’s also great for play time!
http://lessonslearntjournal.com/bread-recipe-2ingredient-bread/
We’ve been playing around with pens and ways to make them more interesting. We’ve taped pens to coat hangers to make a pair of compasses and to rulers for rainbow drawing. We also tried three pens taped inside a cup to produce triple images!
It is lovely watching them play with the coat hanger compasses, discovering what happens with one pen also happens with the other.
The rainbow pens are taped in a line. It is tricky to get them level but worth it. She worked out how to use it fairly quickly.
The three legged cup is a nice idea and produces triple lines and images. I could almost see her brain expanding as she tried everything out!
Perfect for a wet morning!
Early Years STEM Activity:
This is a simple, fun, cheap and never gets old! We used our motors and OFF CENTRE wheels for this activity which we have used in previous robot building activities. A small plastic lid is used as a wheel for a small motor driven by a couple of AA batteries. This is mounted on a lightweight foam or polystyrene body. Here is a video of them in action!
A motor and battery box can be found at your local Maplin electrical store for a couple of pounds! We use a plastic lid as it doesn’t hurt fingers when it is in motion or if it comes loose. Good duck tape is need to secure the motor well so the vibration from the wheel is transferred to the body to make it move!
We allowed our toddlers to work with their parents to build a bot using foam from our local scrap store, sticks, golf tees, matchsticks, wooden beads and cotton reels! This gave them the chance to problem solve, easily modifying their bots changing the number of legs and leg length for example.
Happy Bot Building People!
Tiny Adventure Toddler and Pre school workshops Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
This is a nice activity best for a quiet moment or rainy day with your toddler. It’s cheap a easy to make! We’ve lined thick cardboard rectangles with mirror card and taped them into two and three panelled mirrors. We lined the box with highly patterned wrapping paper. Next we added plastic lenses from our local scrap store, some kaleidoscopes and small toys. Let the experimenting begin!
I took inspiration from Sewing School’s blog and decide it would be fun and a challenge to bring tapestry to toddlers! I saw this lovely tapestry table Sewing School had created.
I loved it. But how to get toddlers sewing? I repurposed a large empty picture frame and chose some netting I’d picked up from Gloucester Scrap Store. This left the problem of needles! With no budget for this I found a perfect solution knocking about in the garage. Plastic plant seed labels!
These have pointed ends but aren’t sharp and they have a ready made hole that wool can be threaded through. I sewed the netting to the frame with wool and attached needles with various threads including ribbon, wool, curling ribbon, and string. We clamped the frame between two chairs to stand it up and…
It’s good team work, passing the needle through to each other!
We quickly got the hang of it and over a couple weeks lots of Tiny Adventurers added to it!
.
I added buttons to the netting and shapes that could be buttoned on or sewn on and after a while its started to look really lovely!
This is a great collaborative project that can be added to over long periods!
Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.
Early Years STEM Activity:
Inspired by Squishy Circuits website we decided to play around with dough and the simplest equipment: Dough (shop bought play-doh or homemade salt dough), LEDs (from your local electronics shop or some old Christmas tree lights) and 9V batteries. If you have some crocodile clips it helps but it’s not essential!
Here is a circuit with out crocodile clips! To get your LEDs to light you need two separate pieces of dough connected to the two terminals on the battery and the LEDs have to connect the two pieces of dough to complete the circuit. LEDs only allow current to flow in one direction, so if they don’t light turn them around!
Avoiding problems:
Don’t test the LEDs by touching them on the batteries directly as this will damage them! We tried AA batteries but the current was too small. We also tried Christmas tree bulbs, but the current was too small to light them (LEDs need much less current).
Now add curious toddlers and parents!
Dough play with a new twist! Could this be used to get daddies involved in dough play?
Toddler activities, toddler classes, baby activities, preschool activities, creative play ideas preschool science,
Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.
Vegetable pigment printing! Just for fun we folded veg into watercolour paper and smacked it with toy hammers and rolling pins to release the natural pigments on to the paper.
The red cabbage was very successful and the coriander gave off a lovely smell.
I’m looking forward to doing this again in spring with flowers!
Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.
There is plenty to enjoy in this activity box. We coloured the rice using food colouring and added lots so seasonal treasures we’ve found on our walks, such as acorns, conkers, pine cones, and sticks. Next I raided the kitchen cupboards for some walnuts, cloves, star anise and cinnamon sticks. We added some cloves to a couple of oranges (great fine motor skills activity) in a christingle style.
The result is a superb smelling, heuristic, sensory box to stimulate the senses
. With the addition of tweezers and scoops it is great for fine motor skills! Super for engaging curious little minds.
Creative messy play toddler classes for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in Cheltenham.
Tiny Adventure 