a stick and wool mobile

It rained when we visited my mum in Wellington recently. I knew T would enjoy this craft as it involved wrapping sticks with lots of different coloured wool- it really is as simple as that. Once they're all done, tie them together, hang a rock or other type of weight on the end and find somewhere to hang it. We've hung ours at the front door. I like how it spins in the breeze and adds a bit of colour. Things are looking a bit dreary in the front garden right now- Winter is coming.

You can see on our mobile that it's unraveling a bit- we probably should've glued the wool ends down when we made it ( we just knotted it instead). I will fix it one day.

Ninja turtle ooze

T has a Ninja turtle themed party next month. Today we made the ooze as favours for the kids from his class. Here's the recipe:

- PVA glue- either two small 4 oz bottles, or one large 7 oz

- 1 Teaspoon of Borax - found in the laundry section ( I got my bag off trade me)
- Green Food Coloring
- 1/2 Cup Warm Water
- Large Mixing Bowl and Spoon
- Air-tight Container
- Labels

1. Squeeze the glue bottles into the large mixing bowl.  

2. Fill the empty glue bottles with water, swish it around, and pour into the bowl with the glue.

3. Stir well and add food coloring to create desired color.  In our case, of course, that color is GREEN!

4. In a different container, spoon 1 tsp of borax into 1/2 cup warm water and stir.  There will be some borax in the bottom of the water, that’s ok!

Step 5: SLOWLY start to add the water to the glue mixture-make sure none of the borax granules get into the mixture. Add a little, mix with your hands, add a little, mix with your hands. You’ll be surprised how quickly it starts to form, so don’t add a lot of water all at once. Keep mixing with your hands until it isn’t sticky anymore. 

cotton ball/ marshmellow shooters for inside on loooong rainy days

2 empty and clean yoghurt pottles, 2 balloons, 2 marshmellows/ cotton balls

cut the bottom out of the yoghurt pottle

tie a knot in a balloon

cut the end of the balloon off and stretch it over the the squarer end of the pottle

put the marshmellow inside, pull the knot back and let go of it to shoot!

inside tent

It rained all day yesterday. I love rainy days, I always have. Even now if there's a good storm my mum expects  phone call from me! Making tents with the kids made me want to be a kid again myself, it gave me that warm comfy feeling inside and I loved watching their faces as they dragged blankets, pillows and toys in there. Dad ( who was rained off from work- another bonus) even gave them a hanging torch for inside- oh the joy!

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!

green

One of my favourite blogs http://www.lilmagoolie.com/ has started setting colour challenges each month to add a bit of colour to our lives and encourage a bit of creativity. This is what I did for this month's green theme. Some grass grew 'accidentally' in our sandpit recently which gave me the idea. I grew some grass in a seedling tray and on a rainy day brought it inside for the kids to play with. They loved hiding their insects and dinosaurs in it- it keep them both busy for ages.

loosing your marbles

I thought I'd post this idea for people who enjoy picking up after their kids as much as I do ( heavy sarcasam). It astounds me how much mess mine can make in a day! Anyway, this is an off cut of plastic tubing from hubby's work that we cut to length ( we wanted a big circle) and joined together with a short stick of dowel and some glue. We store it behind the boy's wardrobe for when he wants to play with his marbles. It saves us having to look under everything to find them and having them make that horrible rattly sound when they go up the vacuum.  I'm going to do an internet search for marble games now. I remember as a kid a group of boys played marbles at the back of the field and there were rules and 'special' marbles. T just lies and looks at them and uses his digger and dump trucks to move them around.

 

brrr chilly days

Lately we've had some colder days so I've lit the fire and thought about how to keep the kids happy as well as warm for the day. A few days ago I remembered we'd kept the box from our new tv so after a bit of hacking with a bread knife ( by me!) we got out the tape and started building bridges, tunnels, car parks, race tracks and garages. The kids spent about an hour playing with it and when they're finished it will just go into the recycling ( or be used for something else!).