Play and Learn Every Day

New Year's Eve Smoothie for Kids

11:04 AM

We are celebrating New Year's Eve today, and the kids have got to have some special treats (just like the grown ups!) So if you are keeping your little ones up until midnight they might need a little boost of a healthy smoothie to keep them going! (I'm not keeping mine up because they are so young, but you can read about what we do instead in my New Years Traditions post).

New Year's Eve Smoothie

Ingredients:

half of a cucumber
2 apples
a pear
a banana
chia seeds
flax seeds
coconut oil
edible glitter
water

I got a Nutribullet for Christmas, so this is also just a great excuse to use it! I started by slicing up all of the fruit and vegetables. I normally wouldn't peel them for a smoothie as a lot of nutrients are in the peels, but as I was going for a white and sparkly look today I peeled and chopped them all up. I sliced one of the apples through the middle to make a couple of nice slices with a star in the middle to go on the glasses as well.

Then I filled up the Nutribullet (but any blender or smoothie maker would work) with all of my fruit and vegetables. I added the chia and flax seeds to give a bit of a confetti look, the coconut oil for shimmer and the tiniest bit of edible glitter just for a little extra sparkle. Then I added water (but you could add any liquid really) and blended it all together.

I filled up these cute glasses for the kids, a plastic champagne glass for Ivy and Ethan's favourite Cars cup and put a slice of apple on the side (I looked everywhere for star fruit but couldn't find it, that would have been perfect as a garnish!) Then we had our extra special New Year's Eve smoothies as our celebration drinks!

* This post contains affiliate links.*

For more New Year's Eve ideas for kids, take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board New Years fun for Kids on Pinterest.

1 year old

New Year's Eve Sensory Bin

8:30 AM

It's almost New Year's Eve and this year we are really making the most of it with all of our New Year's Eve Traditions and we're adding more to the fun every day! Today we made a sensory bin to ring in the new year with fun and discovery.

What you'll need:

a metal tray
silver and gold gems
shiny pom poms
aluminium foil
polystyrene / styrofoam stars
plastic champagne glass
champagne cork
shiny scoop or spoon
metal bowl or cup

We started by filling the bottom of the tray with the gems, then began to add everything else on top. Ethan loves to help to set up the sensory bins as well as playing with them, and this was a fun one for him to help with as he was enjoying ripping up the pieces of foil and making the crinkly noises. Then he crumpled up the pieces of foil and added them to the sensory bin.

Next we covered the polystyrene stars with foil, Ethan really enjoyed doing this as well. It was easy to cover them and just crumple up the foil on the other side. They look fantastic when they're done and this is definitely a technique we'll be using in future projects as well.

Then it was time to play! Ethan filled up the little pots and cup with the foil balls and poured them from one to another. He counted them and crumpled them up more as he played. Ivy got in on the fun as well, and she loved picking up all of the tiny little gems between her little fingers.

They used the spoons to scoop up the gems and put them into the different containers. The just had so much fun exploring this shiny sensory bin, the sound of the clinking of the gems on the tray and the crunching of the foil. We are definitely ready to celebrate the new year!

* This post contains affiliate links.

For more New Year's Eve fun, take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board New Years fun for Kids on Pinterest.

4 years old

Star Shaped Stained Glass Window Decoration

8:30 AM

We are busy getting ready for our New Year's Eve celebrations, and we have a few New Year's traditions that we like to do, including making lots of fun crafts! This star shaped stained glass window was a lot of fun to make and it looks pretty as well as being a great process for learning.

What you'll need:

shiny / holographic card
contact paper / sticky back plastic
pencil
ruler
scissors
star confetti
tissue paper

First we drew a star shape on the back of the shiny card using a pencil and ruler. I helped Ethan to line up the ruler and then he drew the lines to form a star. It was great for him to learn to use a ruler and to think about the lines of a star and how they go together.

There were a few times that our star didn't quite line up as we were drawing it, but that was a great lesson for Ethan as well as he's quite the perfectionist, so we learned that we could finish drawing our star by making new lines that connect, then erase all of the lines that didn't quite work out at the end. Then we cut out the star from the card (I helped with this part as it can be quite tricky to cut a shape out from inside a piece of paper without going through the side.)

So I gave Ethan a chance to work on his scissor skills next by cutting up some pieces of tissue paper to make confetti. He really enjoyed doing this as there were no lines to follow and he could freely cut out little pieces in whatever shapes he liked. Next I cut out a piece of contact paper / sticky backed plastic and stuck it to the back of our star cut out, leaving the sticky side up.

Then Ethan got to stick all of those lovely little pieces of confetti that he cut out of the tissue paper, as well as the confetti stars all over the star shape. We tried to fill it up as much as possible and leave no empty spaces.

Once Ethan had filled up the star with as much confetti as he could possibly fit, I then stuck another piece of contact paper on the top of the star to keep all of the confetti in place. Then we turned the star over and drew another star shape around the first one and cut along those lines to finish off our star shaped stained glass window decoration.

We then used some sticky tack to hang it up on the window to decorate our house for New Years Eve. But I love it so much, I may just keep it up for a lot longer than that!

* This post contains affiliate links.*

For more New Years ideas take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board New Years fun for Kids on Pinterest.

4 years old

Pie Tin Fireworks Craft

8:30 AM

We are counting down the days until New Year's Eve and enjoying spending this time between Christmas and the new year doing lots of fun crafts and activities. We've been saving all of our little pie tins from mince pies over Christmas as I just knew that we would be able to use them for a variety of crafts! We've already made these bells for ringing in the new year, and now we're onto fireworks!

What you'll need:

mini foil pie tins
pipe cleaners
glue
little gems

We started by poking a small hole in the middle of each of the pie tins, then one by one Ethan chose a pipe cleaner to poke through the hole. It was a great activity for his fine motor control and he was really determined to get the pipe cleaners through.

We repeated the process with a few more pipe cleaners, Ethan chose each of the colours that he thought would look nice in his firework.

Then we turned the little pie tins over and twisted the pipe cleaners all together and bent them over to secure them in place.

Next we covered the outside of our pie tins with glue and then stuck on as many little gems as we could possibly fit!

Then we left our firework crafts to dry, ready to proudly display as New Year's Eve decorations!

* This post contains affiliate links.*

For more fun ideas to celebrate the new year, take a look at our New Year's Eve Traditions and our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board New Years fun for Kids on Pinterest.

crafts

New Year's Eve Traditions with Kids

5:39 PM

New Year's Eve often gets overshadowed by Christmas, but it is such a fun occasion to celebrate with children that we're making sure that we are prepared this year!

Of course we also love to listen to our favourite songs of the year and have a wild dance party! This year that will probably be the Frozen soundtrack and the songs from The Three Little Pigs.

We love making crafts, so the first way we start preparing is with firework crafts and anything shiny and sparkly to commemorate this special day. We've made Paper Plate Fireworks, Ringing Bells, Glowing Rocket Fireworks, Star Shaped Stained Glass Window Decorations, Firework Pictures, Pie Tin Fireworks and Foil Fireworks.

Next we have some special food, we've always got lots of yummy treats left over from Christmas, and for the rest we just turn to our trusty star shaped cookie cutter to turn everything from pancakes to sandwiches into stars and add any sparkle that we can find! We've also made some New Year's Eve smoothies for a healthy boost to our day!

We love sensory play and exploring anything that lights up or glows in the dark! So we've been playing with our Firework Play Dough, our New Years Eve Sensory Bin as well as working on a new version of this glowing sensory bin.

Because Ethan and Ivy are still very young, they definitely won't be staying up until midnight to ring in the new year, so we celebrate with Australia instead! As they're 11 hours ahead of us it's perfect timing, straight after lunch we set up the computer to watch live streaming of the Sydney countdown and fireworks show, the kids get to throw confetti and make lots of noise and still go to bed on time! It looks like you can also watch the New York countdown live streaming, so if that works out better from where you are then that's a definite option.

Then when it's all said and done we like to reflect on our year by thinking about all the fun that we've had, we draw pictures and the kids tell me what to write on their 'Year in Review' sheets.

Happy New Year!!!

* This post contains affiliate links*

For more New Years fun for kids, take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board New Years fun for Kids on Pinterest.

4 years old

Paper Plate Firework Craft

8:30 AM

It's almost New Years Eve, and we're starting to think about all of the fun fireworks that we're going to see when we ring in the new year! So we've made a fun paper plate firework craft to bring some of the fun and colours into the house.

What you'll need:

black paper plate
ribbons
pipe cleaners
gold string
star confetti
glue
scissors

First I poked a hole through the middle of the plate with the scissors. Then I had Ethan choose which ribbon, string or pipe cleaners to use first. We threaded each one through the hole in the middle and then glued it down along and to the edge of the plate.

Once we had gone all the way around the plate with all of the different ribbons, strings and pipe cleaners I turned the plate over and took all of the little ends together and secured them with another pipe cleaner, which I then twisted into a loop to be a hook to hang up our plate when we finish.

The last step is to cover the whole plate in glue and then stick those confetti stars absolutely everywhere! Of course this was Ethan's favourite part and he was determined to put as many stars as he possibly could around the plate. Then we left the glue to dry before hanging our lovely paper plate firework up as a New Years decoration.

For more New Years fun, take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board New Years fun for Kids on Pinterest.

1 year old

Winter Small World Play

8:30 AM

It may not feel like it here in the UK, but it is officially winter now and even if we don't have snow on the ground we can play as if we do! So, we've been making our own little winter wonderland for some of our small toys and playing in their snowy world.

What we used:

a large basket
a cotton snow blanket
sparkly snowflake stickers
snow themed toys - igloos, penguins, polar bears, snowmen

We started by laying out our snow blanket in the basket, then added the stickers and collected all of the wintry and snowy toys that we could find from our various toy boxes. Then it was time to play!

Ethan was excitedly making a little penguin ride around on a snowmobile straight away, and Ivy was pretending to have the penguins go in and out of the igloo one by one. They played alongside each other with their little penguins going on their own separate adventures happily. Then the polar bears joined in the fun too! Of course there was a little bit of arguing over the toys, but for the most part they really did play nicely side by side. They love that little snowy set up!

* This post contains affiliate links.*

For more winter fun, take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board Winter Fun for Kids on Pinterest.

1 year old

Rose Petal Cottage - Review

5:00 PM

Last minute shoppers I've got you covered, this Rose Petal Cottage from Dreamtown will make the perfect gift for little ones who love imaginary play this Christmas! And I've just checked on Amazon and if you order today you can still get it in time for Christmas if you choose express delivery (or check your local Argos or Smyths to see if they have any in stock).

Ivy is going to be so excited as it will be like stepping into her own life sized doll's house! The details on the walls of the play house are fantastic, they really have thought of everything to give it that cozy cottage feeling.

It is fantastic for imaginary play, the perfect place to play house with everything that the children will need to pretend to cook and bake and play at living in this sweet little cottage. The door opens and closes, with it's own letter box for post, there are shutters to open and even a photo frame to really make their little house their own with a photo of the family. It comes with the cooker as well, but you can buy add on sets like the Tea Time set of a little table and chairs or the Kitchen set that includes a sink and washing machine.

It's also a really cosy place to play, or to just sit and read books on a day when it's too rainy to go outside. We will definitely be filling ours with blankets and soft toys and a basket full of books to read, then snuggling up and having a cosy day in our cottage.

I can't wait to see Ivy's face when she opens up her new playhouse, she is just going to be so excited to play with it! I can definitely see us having a lot of fun with our Rose Petal Cottage for a long time to come.

* This is a review post and also contains affiliate links, we were sent the Rose Petal Cottage to play with and to write our honest opinions about.*

4 years old

Ringing Bell Craft

8:30 AM

We've been making lots of different Christmas crafts, like these photo gingerbread men that are my favourites, but as it's getting closer to the big day our crafts have become a bit easier to make. And the one that we did today would also be great for New Years Eve too! These simple little bells look great hung up on the Christmas tree and will be fun to ring and make lots of noise on New Years too.

What you'll need:

mini pie tins (so get eating those mince pies!)
bells
shiny string
glitter glue

I started by making a small hole in the middle of the pie tins with scissors. Then I cut pieces of string and gave Ethan a bell and a piece of string for him to thread it through. This is great for fine motor control and hand eye coordination. I was really impressed at his concentration and determination to thread the string through the tiny hole.

Next Ethan threaded the string through the hole in the pie tin, this was a bit trickier so I had to give him a little bit of help, but he was still quite determined to do it. Once we had both of the ends of the string through I tied it in a knot on the other side.

Then our bells were ready to be decorated using glitter glue, which is just our absolute favourite thing at the moment. So the kids just squeezed glitter glue all around their bells, and then we left them overnight to dry, ready to hang up on the Christmas tree and then to ring in the New Year!

For more fun ideas take a look at our Pinterest page:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board Play & Learn Everyday - Crafts and Activities from the Blog on Pinterest.

4 years old

Robin from EE - Review

8:30 AM

If you are looking for a last minute Christmas gift to buy for one of the kids, then look no further! We have been trying out the Robin tablet from EE and having so much fun exploring all of the things that we can do with it.

First of all, it is a tablet specially designed for children, so it even comes with a protective case. This is great for peace of mind that small bumps here and there won't be causing it any damage. It also comes loaded with 40 apps and games for kids that you can use straight away, as well as Hopster which has loads of kids tv shows on it. So there's no worries about them having nothing to play with when they open it on Christmas morning, as it's ready to play with straight away!

Of course you can use it as a regular tablet as well, so you can load it up with lots of apps for yourself, but the great part is that you can set up special children's profiles which limits which apps they have access to. Within this you can even set up how long they can use the tablet within that profile, after which it will simply shut itself off. No more arguments about getting off the tablet as they've had too much screen time! You can even choose to let them play games for a set amount of time and use educational apps or the web for a separate time limit, so that they can complete their homework with it.

Ethan absolutely loves all of the games and Hopster tv that came with it, so we haven't actually downloaded anything new for it yet as he's just kept busy with everything that it came with. For us it will be ideal for travelling, for long car journeys and flights where the kids have to sit still and need to be entertained.

It is also great for days out, which we discovered when we were invited to learn about the Robin at the London Zoo! We had a fun morning of playing with the Robin and seeing how it all worked, and then meeting animals at the zoo. We had close encounters with an eagle owl and a buzzard, and this was when Ethan discovered that the Robin also has a camera that he can use! So he was happily snapping photos of these magnificent birds.

Later as we explored the zoo Ethan was snapping lots of photos again, he was especially taken by the penguins and the giraffes. Here's a few photos that Ethan took using the Robin:

We also had the London Zoo app on the Robin, so were able to walk around using the interactive map and finding out more information about the animals that we were seeing, which was a lot of fun and very helpful.

We are really enjoying using the Robin and it will definitely come in handy for our upcoming travels over the Christmas holidays as well as into the new year. It's a great first tablet for children and we would highly recommend it if you're looking to buy one for your kids.

* This is a review post, we were given the Robin from EE to use and to write our honest opinions about.*

Newer
Stories

Older
Stories

Pages

New Year's Eve Smoothie for Kids

New Year's Eve Sensory Bin

Star Shaped Stained Glass Window Decoration

Pie Tin Fireworks Craft

New Year's Eve Traditions with Kids

Paper Plate Firework Craft

Winter Small World Play

Rose Petal Cottage - Review

Ringing Bell Craft

Robin from EE - Review

Follow

Popular Topics

Search This Blog

Topics

Popular Posts

UK Blog Awards

Blog Archive

Like us on Facebook

Pages

Follow

Popular Topics

Newsletter Sign-up

Search This Blog

Topics

Popular Posts

UK Blog Awards

Blog Archive

Like us on Facebook