Play and Learn Every Day

Wonderful Wednesday

Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop #168

12:00 AM

2 years old

Breakfast with the Easter Bunny

6:02 PM

2 years old

Water Beads Sensory Bottle

8:30 AM

We have recently discovered water beads, and are having so much fun exploring with them. The first time that we played with them ended up turning into a simple activity in making our own sensory bottles, the kids were absolutely fascinated by them. You have got to try it! We have also played a water bead pick up game that was a real challenge for the kids!

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What you'll need:

water beads
large bowl or container
water
plastic bottles
scoops or spoons (optional)

We started by putting the water beads into a large container and adding water. Then we came back throughout the day to check on them and see how much they had grown. The kids thought that it was incredible to see them getting bigger each time, and we had a play every time we checked on them to see if they felt different.

Then when the water beads had reached their full size (or we were just tired of waiting and ready to play) we put the container on the floor and played with scoops and spoons, stirring the water beads around and picking up handfuls to feel them slip through our fingers.

I got out some small plastic bottles and the kids started filling them up with water beads. They used the spoons for some of it, but mostly used their hands to pick up the slippery little beads. It's a great activity for fine motor skills and coordination to get the water beads into the small opening of the plastic bottles.

Then we put the lid on the bottle and moved it back and forth, watching the water beads moving around. In one of the bottles we added a bit more water and were amazed at the effect it had on the colours of the water beads as they now seemed to fade at the edges and sort of blend together. It looked so lovely when you held it up to the window, this is the one that the kids just didn't want to put down as it was completely mesmerising!

It was so simple but we kept playing with these bottles for days, and we'll definitely be doing it again!

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2 years old

Sleep Routines and the Gro-Clock Review

8:30 AM

4 years old

Paw Patrol Easter Bonnet

8:30 AM

It's almost Easter and Ethan was very excited to find out that there will be an Easter bonnet parade at his preschool on the last day before Easter break. Well, we could have just decorated an Easter bonnet with little chicks and eggs, but just to be a bit different Ethan decided that he wanted a Paw Patrol Easter bonnet! So of course I was happy for a challenge and we came up with some ideas of how to make it happen together!

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What you'll need:

First we had to come up with a plan, and this started with the idea that we would make six Easter eggs, each themed to one of the pups of the Paw Patrol. We had a few different ideas, but finally settled on simply painting the eggs the colours of the pups and decorating with their collar and pup tag (badge with their symbol). Ethan painted six polystyrene eggs, one each in blue, red, yellow, orange, green and pink.

Once the eggs were dry he put a piece of washi tape or electrical tape around the middle to look like the collar. A black collar on the blue egg for Chase, a yellow collar on the red egg for Marshall, a black collar on the yellow egg for Rubble, a blue collar on the orange egg for Zuma, an orange collar on the green egg for Rocky and a pink collar on the pink egg for Skye.

Then we made their pup tags by cutting out the badge shape from the silver card, then a smaller badge shape in white card. Ethan then drew each of the pups symbols (a star for Chase, a flame for Marshall, a wrench for Rubble, an anchor for Zuma, a recycling symbol for Rocky and a propeller symbol for Skye) in marker on the white badge and coloured around it with the corresponding colour using coloured pencils.

He then stuck the white badge to the silver badge and left the glue to dry before then sticking the whole badge to the collar on the egg. We then left the eggs to dry whilst we got going on the rest of the bonnet.

Our first idea was to make a large Paw Patrol symbol for the middle of the hat, so that's just what we did. Ethan probably could have drawn it himself, but I found this great Paw Patrol colour by numbers printable on Nick Jr's website, so we printed that out for him to colour in. Then we cut it out and stuck it onto a larger badge made from the silver card.

Our final idea was to make the middle of the hat into the lookout! We did this really simply by cutting a piece of blue foam sheet and a piece of red foam sheet into a circle slightly larger than the middle of the hat. Then we stuck a small clear yogurt pot onto the blue foam circle and stuck a chick (that's Chickaletta) and a bunny (the Easter Bunny) inside the yogurt pot with glue and left them to dry. Then I poked a small hole in the middle of the red foam circle and Ethan stuck a yellow bendy straw through it to look like the periscope. We then glued all around the yogurt pot to stick the red foam circle to the top.

Finally we used this very strong spray glue (super glue would work as well) to stick all of the different elements to the hat so that they won't fall off too easily, and left it to dry.