Is it just our house or has everyone gone crazy for Moana?  You only have to say the word 'Moana' or 'Your Welcome' for Ethan and Ivy to burst into songs from the soundtrack anytime of day (I swear they sing those songs in their sleep sometimes!)  So of course we've been inspired to create a Moana themed craft that is fun and easy to make and can also be worn for some imaginary play or to a Moana party.

What you'll need to make a Moana Inspired Te Fiti Flower Headband

• green pipe cleaners
• green crepe paper
• paper flowers
• fabric flowers
• Bostik Glu Dots
• Bostik Clear Glu Pen

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* This is a review post, we were sent a box of craft supplies from Bostik in order to create a flower themed craft.*

We are making the most of sunny days and taking our playing and learning outside!  I set up a super quick number activity for the kids today in the sandbox, but this could easily be done indoors in a small bin with sand (or other sensory material).  

What you'll need to Dig for Pirate Treasure Numbers:

• sandbox or sensory tray
• small shovels / spades
• pirate coins
• sharpie

This post is part of a fun kids' activity blog hop of pirate themed activities, check them out!






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Isn't watching children learn the most incredible thing in the world?  This year Ethan has learned to read and write and to add and take away numbers and even after years of being a teacher and seeing this happen I still sit in awe as I watch what he can do.  So of course I was very excited to review this new game from Orchard Toys called Magic Maths.


Ethan absolutely loves this game, it's such a fun and unique way to work on sums and really got him thinking about all of the different skills that he needed to find the answer.  He was so excited to be discovering the answers hidden under the stars and when we finished he couldn't wait to play again!
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* This is a review post, we were sent Magic Maths to play with and write our honest opinions about.*

I love warm afternoons and how easy it can be to keep the kids busy and happy playing outside after school.  Sometimes all it takes is one little thing to give them and they are off creating all sorts of adventures.





I picked up these cute little bug lockets (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US) for them the other day, and they were so excited to get them on go on a bug hunt in the garden.  They set off straight away, spotting flies and trying to jump up and catch them.



When that didn't work we started to talk about where they might find bugs that they could catch and where they would live.  So we were moving leaves, sticks and rocks around to look underneath them and we found lots of bugs crawling around.



Then it was fun to try to identify them and of course to try to catch them!  That was definitely not easy, but we used leaves and sticks to lure them into our bug lockets and then carefully put the lid on.



The lid has a magnifying glass on top, so once we had a bug inside we could examine it and talk about the way that it crawls around and how many legs it has as well as its other features.



The kids had so much fun and learned loads about bugs at the same time, I see a lot of bug hunts in our future!



This post is part of the A-Z Play at Home series for the letter B, check out all of these other great ideas:





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The weather is finally warming up and we're ready to move some of our fun learning activities outside!  This is great for kids because they get to use some bigger movements to work on all sorts of different skills, and today we're learning and reinforcing the letters of the alphabet.



We've got a large alphabet mat with interlinking letters which is perfect for this activity, but it would work equally as well with a large piece of paper with letters written on it, letter cards stuck to the ground or letters written onto the patio with sidewalk chalk.  Any large letters that the children can hop around on will do!



Once our alphabet was all set up we were ready to play.  Ivy couldn't wait to get hopping!  At three years old she is just starting to identify letters, so this was a great way for me to see what she knows already and to extend her learning to teach her a few more letters each time as well.  I would simply call out a letter and she would hop over to it.  It's such a simple way to get her mind and body working together.  She really impressed me with how many letters she already knew and how willing she was to learn more of them.  The fact that we were outside and jumping around definitely had an effect on her enthusiasm to learn!



Then for Ethan this game could easily be adapted to challenge him as well, at 5 he knows all of the letters and is now spelling words.  I called out a variety of different phonetically spelled and tricky words to him and he hopped from letter to letter spelling them out.

This activity can be changed in a variety of ways to make it different or more challenging for children.  This time around I've set up the letters in alphabetical order, but again this can be changed to make the activity more challenging or if you're working on letter sounds in a specific order that they are more familiar with (like in the Jolly Phonics program).  I've also been calling out the letter names, but phonetic letter sounds would be another way of doing it.



This post is part of the A-Z Play at Home series and this week all of the bloggers are writing about fun activities to do with the letter A.  Check them out!



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