playing shops

I thought I'd share an easy peasy little activity I'd been saving for a rainy day and we've had lots lately. We've been collecting empty food boxes and pricing them with a sheet of 'prices' I found at the 123 mart. T has been very cute- as soon as a box of something was empty ( like raisins)  he'd tape it up, price it and put it in our 'shop box'. I made coins from cut circles of card for the kids to spend too.

We set up a shelf on the couch and a counter using a little table. This kept both kids amused for ages, I've said it before and I'm saying it again- so much better than t.v.

Since we have close to zero storage space at our house the boxes will go to Kindy when we've finished. I'll keep the coins and in a few weeks time will start collecting food boxes again for next time.

Excuse the bad photos- it must've been sale time as this shop was VERY busy!

a play shop

One of my favourite little people has his 4th birthday next weekend. He's been pointing out play shops in brochures and asking his mum to please buy him one. She ( one of my besties) wasn't as keen and said her preference would be for something that's not plastic and a bit more robust- so I offered to make him a wooden one.

I had an old wooden bread bin in the garage ( as you do lol!) which I thought will make a nice- sliding up- feature on the counter top. I 'rescued' two wooden drawers from our demolished rental property and used them back to back as frames for the shelves. I gave everything a light sand and used liquid nails and tacks to join the parts together. I painted it with an undercoat of white and two top coats of a nice pale blue ( given to me by my dad). I used some of our chalkboard paint on the front of the bread bin for him to use as an open/ closed sign and also put chalkboard paint on sheet of hardboard that he can use to display the weeks 'specials'.

To stock the shelves I've collected empty food boxes and packets and bought a set of life sized fake fruit off trade me for $5. I bought a till, some play money and some price stickers from a 2cheap shop for $2 each. On the side of the shop I've glued a slatted box lid, he can hang and peg things off there. To stock the shelves I've been collecting empty food packets, washing and drying them, filling them with paper towels and gluing them closed.

The bunting is made from some red ribbon and some red and blue felt from my stash. This little project cost me about $15 and my time as I used things I had already- an upside to being a bit of a hoarder! I hope he likes it and that his mum and dad have lots of time to play shops in future : ).

coloured rice

There's a bit of talk recently about using food for play, I can see both sides of the debate so from now on will be more aware of how often we use ingredients like rice, salt and flour for play. A few months ago I made coloured rice for a ' finding bottle' similar to the blue and yellow one pictured. To make it, put white rice in zip lock bags, add food colouring, shake to colour and then pour the rice out onto a tray lined with paper towels to dry ( I put ours up in the hot water cupboard).  I had a small amount of left over rice so thought we'd use it for play today. M and T enjoyed it with their tea set using it as sugar- there was a bit of a mess but it was easily vacuumed up later ( which they also liked doing).

Here's some more ideas:

our rice

glued on to card

finding jars- see if the kids can find the things you name. I like the use of baby food jars.

pretty 'playscapes'

using it with our tea set as 'sugar'

with a spoon and funnel- fun!

another 'finding' activity but in a bag

finding in a large clear bottle

art works ( just sprinkled on a surface to be re used another time)

Here's a link to how to make colourful and edible rice ( obviously not after being played with!)  http://justbento.com

make a play pizza

This idea came from M and T getting a parcel today from Pop and grandma Bev. M took off with the box and came back asking for scissors so she could make it into a pizza box. I made them up a pizza each on card using a plate as a template.

They enjoyed talking about what they were going to draw on their pizza and M cut hers up into slices. T wanted his to stay as one big piece.

I love making this sort of thing. We played for ages. Some ideas we played with were to:

- pretend to call up and ordering our pizza on an old cell phone

- take turns being the delivery person and paying for the pizzas at the door

-pretending to eat pieces with really streeeeeetchy cheese

-play pizza restaurants

-host a pizza party for the toys

you couls aldo:

- draw up paper ingredients to add to the card base and play pizza chefs

- make up the same sort of thing but in felt so that it's more durable

-they'd make a cool pizza party invite (made smaller scale of course)

chocolate icing and onion flavour

onion, tomato, salami and cheese flavour

a squashed box from lots of playing

You could also go really fancy and make a paper mache pizza, here's the link thanks Molly Moo : papier-mache-pizzas

sorting animals

We have a heap of plastic animals. I've collected them for a long time. I started when I was teaching full time and our class were pen pals with another junior classroom in Canada. They posted us some really neat things from their country including plastic models of all of the natives animals of Canada. We sent them posters, toy kiwis, NZ coins, a buzzy bee, pineapple lumps and a copy of the Kiwi version of The Night before Xmas : ). Anyway over the years I've added to our collection by buying up most bags of animals that you can get from $2 type shops and coming across some in gallery stores,  tourist shops, fairs, op shops and garage sales. Both children love playing with them and last night we made up a fun activity I thought I'd share. We used the box the animals are stored in as a sort of 'stage'.

It's simple, I just asked them questions, the options are endless:

Show me some animals that can fly:

Can you find some animals that have pincers?

Find some animals that don't have legs

Show me some animals that live in Africa

yes T, there are caterpillars in Africa I'm sure

Show me some animals that are gentle to people

and some animals that could hurt you

scary dinosaurs

Animals that could live at our house

We also found and talked about:

animals that live in the sea
mammals
cold blooded animals
reptiles
insects
animals that lay eggs
animals with shells ( exoskeleton)
animals with 4 legs
animals with LOTS of legs
poisonous animals

sand trays

Sand trays are a Montessori tool that I love. I saw them being used in a new entrant classroom today so thought I'd make one at home. I'd love a wooden box and fine, yellow sand ( like in the bottom picture below) but we didn't have those, just a tray and some sand from the old sand pit. It still had the desired effect though- the kids loved using their fingers to form letters, numbers and pictures. I might make up letter and numeral some cards similar to those shown in the last picture. The dot shows the starting point which I like. Once the shape etc is drawn you just give the tray a light shake and start over again. The video I made of M was on the wrong setting and is a horrible coloura nd quality- but still has cute factor so it made it on here : )

playsilks

I've looked at the beautifully coloured playsilks available online for years now, never having enough money to buy them. They sound like something my kids would enjoy playing with as they're described as an 'open ended toy'.

Do you remember being a child and running free in a field with the wind all around you? Think about being on a swing and feeling the wind rush past your face as you pump to get as high as you can. The urge to run, skip, hop, and stand still in the breeze is inherent to a child. You might say it’s their job to be curious about the world and find joy in experiencing it. 

Our job’s as parents, educators, and care givers is to support that desire and to encourage it. It is our job to instill a sense of wonder so that further development can take place. Growth is then stimulated in terms of gross motor (physical), emotional, intellectual and spiritual development.
 

Playsilks are a simple piece of cloth to adults. Something that at first glance is pretty but not as flashy as a video game or other electronic device. I would encourage every family with pre-school and/or young school age children to own a playsilk for their toy box/dress-up area. Playsilks are colorful, soft to the touch and are light as air as you float and soar like a butterfly or eagle. 

Stimulating a child’s visual and tactile senses is a positive and beneficial thing to do as a parent. Playsilks also offer a world of creative opportunity. The cape, wings, veil, skirt, shawl, or other object the silk transforms into is the basic activity you want to happen.

From this blog happyhousequilts.blogspot.co.nz

original ( beautiful I'm sure) playsilks available here http://sarahssilks.com/

 
One of my best friends gave us a gorgeous wide and 8m long piece of silk sari material yesterday. It's the perfect size to be used as a river, tent or shop awning : ). I realised that I don't really have to pay for 'proper' playsilks but instead decided find some more silk fabric to build up our collection. We went to an op shop today to look for fabric for M's 'super girl' super hero costume (a future post) and I found large square 100% silk scarves for $1.99 so I got some. At home I spread them out on the floor  and watched M and T decide what they were all about- lots of fun. Before long M was wearing some and draping one around the teddy before giving him a haircut. I'm looking forward to seeing what other play ideas they come up with. In Summer they can use them outside- they'll look beautiful in the sunlight.

the sari- such fun colours

fashionista

the boy peek a booing

 

fun as a tent!

inside play forest

I pinned this a few weeks ago and when I saw the husband throwing out some lengths of chipboard I decided to try it. You drill holes into the wood using different sized bits for different sized branches and poke the branches in. Please excuse the drill it was in an earthquake!