Valentines Hearts and Handprints

A slightly brighter day today – in fact we managed to play out in the garden for half an hour this morning, and had to shut the living room curtain as the sun was blinding us all for a while!

Today we were putting the finishing touches to things we started earlier this week, so most of it was done by me. The kids played with their toy kitchen a lot today, with their Melissa and Doug pizza set, their paper mache pizza and making me ‘cakes’ from playdough. Harrison is getting to the age now where he really enjoys role play and pretending. A plastic seat is all he needs to become a train driver, a little bag and he’s off to play with his market so keep an eye out for future posts about role play!

On Tuesday when we made our Valentines Biscuits, we also made our salt dough. For those of you who have never made it before, it’s really easy and can be used to make all sorts of things.

You will need:
1 cup salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup water

It doesn’t matter how big the cup is as long as you stick to this ratio.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl until it forms a firm dough.

Harrison and Alex then had great fun rolling it out using their little rolling pins, and using heart shaped playdough/cookie cutters cut out heart shapes.

We then poked a little hole through them with one of our playdough tools, but a pencil or a straw would do the trick. I didn’t get a photo of the hearts at this point as my camera battery died, but we then placed them into a silicone baking tray. These can be left to air dry but takes several days. We popped ours in the bottom of the oven whilst our biscuits cooked, and then left them in the oven at a low temperature for a couple of hours. By this point it was too late to do any thing with them so they have been left until today.

We got out shades of red and pink paint and painted one side of them and left to dry. It dried fairly quickly as the dough absorbs the paint but does soften them just a little. We then turned them over and painted the other side.

Once they dried we threaded string through the holes we had made and hung them on the wall. When our ‘love’ week has finished these will make lovely little gifts!

On Monday, after painting their cardboard hearts for sewing (see what we did here), the kids painted their hands, something that they do every time the paint comes out! Whilst they played pizza shops today, I turned them into these:

This came from various ideas and pictures I’d saw on Pinterest and Facebook.
It was really easy to make – on red and pink card I drew a big heart with a black felt tipped pen. I stuck the handprint in the middle of the heart. With older kids it would look better with the handprint stamped directly onto the paper, but with toddlers it usually takes at least two attempt to get a decent print so is easier to do it on a separate sheet! I then handwrote the little poem, which is one I saw on Facebook but adapted the wording slightly.

Here’s the poem enlarged – excuse my rubbish handwriting!!

A lovely little present for someone on Valentines Day!

Valentines bits and pieces

Another beautiful day….or not! I don’t like moaning too much about the weather as living in central Birmingham we are fairly protected, especially compared to these poor people in Somerset and other areas that are pretty much underwater!

Anyway, we turned the radio on to try and block the sound of the wind and rain, cranked the heating up and made some lovely Valentines cards. We had been sent a box of craft goodies by Baker Ross, which was perfect timing for the Valentines cards I had planned.

I had originally planned to make some pop out Valentines cards, but in the box from Baker Ross was a pack of pre-cut pop up heart cards,very similar to the ones we were going to make! For a pack of 8 cards it costs £2.56 on their website, so not badly priced!

Of course, I cheated and used these instead of making them, but if you want to have a go at making your own, here is what we were going to do:

1) Fold a piece of card in half
2) Draw a heart in the middle. Make sure the crease of the card goes through the middle of the heart.
3) Cut the heart out, leaving a small piece each side of the card intact
4) Make sure there is a crease in the middle of the heart.

The ones that I was sent came in a choice of red, white and pink.

We used a selection of the embellishments we were sent, as well as some of the materials I had already put in our Valentines Craft Box.

These included:
Felt tip pens*
Sticky gems*
Feathers
Felt Roses*
Bows
Sequins
Glitter
Pearlized gems*
Buttons
Tissue paper
Foam shapes

I put the embellishments in a serving tray and let them choose whatever they wanted and decorate however they liked. The items from Baker Ross were great as they were all self adhesive – usually with similar items we use a glue stick and they drop off, so I end up using glue guns but these had little sticky pads on the back. I wasn’t a massive fan of the little bows though, as they weren’t stuck together, so one gentle pull and they come undone. I really liked the felt rose stickers !

The kids really enjoyed decorating their cards and they looked really cute. I joined in and made a Valentines Card for their daddy – I’m clearly not as artistic as my kids!

When we had finished making these ( the other four cards have been out away for next year!) Harrison asked to do some more sewing, so I quickly made a heart with holes in to sew, which after the initial knot he did pretty well independently, and I sat with Alex to make a hanging heart.
I cut out a heart shape from red card and then cut out the centre. Using the bits and pieces left over from the cards he decorated it. I noticed doing this that his fine motor skills are really coming along. He’s coming up to sixteen months old – he took the lid off the rather small glue stick, managed to put glue on the back of quite small buttons and shapes and press them onto the heart without much help, which I don’t think is bad going for his age! His pen grip is almost spot on as well, which is amazing.

We used lots of textures whilst doing this – soft foam, hard and smooth buttons, fluffy feathers which is perfect for a young toddler, especially Alex who loves using his thumb to explore texture.

We looped some red wool around the heart and hung it on the wall. Hopefully we will add some more hanging hearts the week!

Disclaimer
* denotes products that we were sent free of charge from Baker Ross for review purposes, and are available to buy on their website. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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Valentines Biscuits

Today we did some heart shaped biscuits. The didn’t turn out exactly how I planned but were really nice and easy to make. I was going to melt some white chocolate and mix in pink food colouring, then dip the biscuits in, but somehow I managed to burn the white chocolate. It went all lumpy so used dark chocolate instead. Maybe didn’t look as pretty but I know I prefer the taste of dark chocolate.

I followed a basic biscuit recipe that I’ve used before.

Ingredients

100g (4oz) butter or margarine (we used Stork)
100g (4oz) caster sugar
1 egg
175g (6oz) plain flour

1) Grease two baking sheets with butter to stop the biscuits sticking, and preheat oven to 180°/ gas mark 4

2) Sift the flour into large bowl and add the butter.

3) Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.

4) Stir the sugar into the mixture. Break the egg into a small bowl and beat well. Add to mixture in big bowl and stir until it forms a dou

5) Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour and put dough onto it. Roll the dough out until it it is about a quarter of an inch thick.

6) Use a cutter to cut out the shapes (we obviously used hearts) and carefully place onto the greased baking tray.

7) Bake for 12-15minutes or until golden brown. Leave them to cool completely on a wire rack.

That’s the basic recipe.
Like I said, I intended to melt white cooking chocolate and mix in a drop of food colouring to make it pink, but it went all lumpy. Typically, I had no more white chocolate ! We melted a bar of dark cooking chocolate in the microwave, taking it out and stirring every ten seconds or so to make sure it didn’t burn. We them had loads of fun dipping the biscuits into the chocolate and then sprinkling red sugar on to make them pretty, and left them to cool and set in the fridge.

The gorgeous Rachel at Candy Floss Cloud had a go at these biscuits with her little one, along with some other lovely Valentines activities…check her blog out here

Valentines Day hearts

We don’t really ‘do’ Valentines Day, especially since we have had the kids. I don’t really understand why anybody needs one particular day each year to show how much you love someone – what about the other 364 days? However, it is an excuse to make some really lovely things, so this week we are having a ‘love week’.  Harrison has just started to understand love and tells us, Alex, his nanny and grandad, and Bobby (the cat!) that he loves us. We have a little joke where we argue who loves who more, a bit like in the  ‘Guess How Much I Love You’ books:

Mummy: I love you Harrison
Harrison: I love you more
Mummy: No I love you more
Harrison: no I love you more
Mummy: I love you to the moon
Harrison: (looks blankly at me) I want fresh milk please

On the wall in our dining room/playroom I have written each letter of their names in hearts, a bit like we did for our Hungry Caterpillar week. It’s on the wall directly opposite where they both sit at the table so they see it all the time, and Harrison loves pointing out the letters he recognises.

Anyway, today we did some little hear decorations which in love because Harrison had a go at ‘sewing’.
I cut out a heart shape from some fairly thick cardboard (toy packaging is great stuff, and a way of recycling!) and used a thick needle to poke hearts all the way round.

The kids had great fun painting them red. Harrison painted his beautifully and took lots of care over making sure there was no cardboard showing through, before knocking the pot of water all over it!! Alex, who is fifteen months old, used a foam paintbrush to dab paint on.

Once the paint had dried we started to ‘sew’ around the edges. We used a fairly large needle (don’t ask what type, I have no idea!) that wasn’t too sharp – although I obviously supervised very closely. We threaded some red wool through the eye and I tied a knot in it. I poked the needle through the first hole and knotted the wool at the back and then demonstrated to Harrison what he needed to do, which he picked up really quickly. I knew he had pretty good fine motor skills but it surprised me just how quickly and well he did it! I know now to make up some more complicated lacing boards, which he could use needle and thread to complete, and adapt it by making holes closer or smaller. It could also be made simpler, by making bigger holes with a hole puncher and using shoe laces. It’s a brilliant activity for fine motor skills development and hand/eye coordination, as well as teaching a really valuable life skill.

Once he had finished the sewing, we got on with decorating it. I had made up a box with ‘love’ themed embellishments in to use this week, rather than digging it out our rather overfilled craft cupboard each time! In the box I’d put (all red, pink and white!) glitter, pompoms, feathers, sequins, buttons, foam shapes, felt, tissue paper, crepe paper, cellophane, pipe cleaners and paper. I wanted them to choose whatever materials they wanted to decorate their hearts. Because Harrison’s painted heart was ruined by the water, he decorated the cardboard one he sewed, and Alex decorated a paper heart. This is how they turned out!

Chinese New Year: horse pictures

As 2014 is the year of the horse, today we did some horse pictures.

I am rubbish at drawing (even my stick men look a little odd!) and I don’t have a printer to print off a template but luckily we have a play dough cutter in the shape of a horse which we used as a template.

Instead of just getting the kids to paint the horse, we did some bubble wrap printing. I’d seen this on various websites and sounded much more fun and a great way of adding texture to a picture, especially as they both love playing with the rolling pins when we are baking or playing with dough.

I taped some bubble wrap onto rolling pins and rollers and gave them a paper plate with some brown and white paint on, and some pieces of red paper. We rolled the pins and rollers into the paint lightly – just enough to cover the wrap otherwise just saturates paper – and rolled them over the paper. Because our horses were going to be quite small, I thought it easier for them to roll on bigger paper and then cut the horses out afterwards. They had great fun doing this!

Once they had dried we drew round the cookie cutter and cut them out, and then backed them onto white paper to make them stand out, and then Harrison stuck them onto red card. We made a mane and tail for them out of black wool.

Whenever we get paint out, the kids inevitably end up painting their hands – we are all a bit obsessed with handprints – and today was no exception. Turns out that brown handprints make excellent horses, with the help of a blob of brown paint for a head and a googly eye. I was going to try and write their names in Chinese on their pictures (aided by Google translate!) but the writing was way too intricate and artistic for me to attempt!

Chinese New Year: sensory play

Today we did something we haven’t done for a while – a sensory box! I tried to link it to our Chinese New Year theme as much as possible.

We used the Rainbow Rice we made back way before Christmas. Because it was red and yellow it was vaguely Chinese coloured. I added in some bits of black and red wool, red and black pom poms of various sizes, red and black feathers. I chose red and black as these colours suggest China to me. I also found some laminated red fish from the days when I was a teacher that had basic sight words on. Harrison and Alex are too young to read them but fish ate symbolic in Chinese culture so it just added to it. They also have paper clips attached to make them magnetic to play magnetic fishing games with.

I gave them the tub inside another, larger tub to try and contain the mess (still ended up everywhere!). The large tub is an underbed storage box – a smaller and cheaper alternative to a tuff spot. They had all the usual equipment that we use for activities like this – accessories from the play kitchen , cardboard tubes and bowls. I also gave them some chopsticks which our local Chinese takeaway kindly gave us for free!

Their imagination soon went wild. They had great fun trying to pick things up with the chopsticks and stirring the rice. The bits of wool soon became noodles and then we ended up bringing the play kitchen into the lounge so they could ‘cook’ the noodles and rice. (Excuse the fact Harrison yet again has no trousers on, we are potty training!)

This activity led to some maths investigation. We counted how many cups of rice it took to fill a bowl, talked about which bowl had more rice in and started to look at ‘more’ and ‘less’.

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Chinese New Year: dragons, fans and lanterns

We did a couple of things today for our Chinese new year wall today, mostly involving lots of red, yellow and orange paint!

First of all we did some lovely Chinese dragons using our handprints. We painted our hands red and did some sidewards handprints on white paper and did the same over the top with orange and yellow paint. Once they had dried we cut it out and stuck it to red paper, adding legs and head made out of paper.

To save on washing up paint trays, (yes I’m lazy!) we used paper plates for the paint. The paint had all swirled together and looked really pretty – far too pretty to throw away – so we turned the plates into fans! We spread the paint over the entire plate and then pressed the plate to a sheet of paper. This left a lovely print on the paper (which we used in our next activity!) and left a marbly type effect on the plate. We left the plates to dry and cut them in half and then the kids decorated them with black felt tips.

Using the print off the plate, we made a lantern. Once the print had dried we cut it out and stuck it to red paper, adding detail to the top and bottom with black felt tip.

Our Chinese wall is looking great!

Chinese New Year: lanterns

Today, to kick off our week of Chinese New Year themed activities, we made some Chinese lanterns. These were really easy to make and so pretty.

I had set all the things last night, including a tray with some sparkly pom poms, feathers, red and gold sequins and glitter. As soon as Harrison saw these (at 6.45am!!!) he wanted to get stuck in!

I had done the cutting of the lanterns already for Alex, and for Harrison I had folded and drew lines on it as a cutting guide, as we are working on scissor control and this was a perfect activity for doing this.

Start off by folding a piece of A4 paper or card in half to make along thin rectangle shape (heard this being called ‘hot dog fold’ – the opposite way is ‘hamburger’!).
Make a series of cuts along the fold line (we did about ten cuts) but don’t cut all the way to the edge of the paper.

Open up the paper (this is the stage when we decorated it) and then using either tape or glue stick the two short ends of the paper together.

Attach a strip of paper as a handle and there is your lantern!

Traditionally they should be red and gold, as these are the colours of wealth, luck and prosperity but we made a few in different colours as well. We used all sorts of bits from our craft cupboard to decorate it but could be as simple as drawing or painting on them. You can make them as table centrepieces, or string a few of them together to make a garland of them.

Chinese New Year

I love any thing to do with China (especially food!). I think their art, clothes, language and architecture is beautiful. I’m really keen for the boys to learn about different traditions so this year we are going to do some Chinese New Year activities.
Chinese New Year is on Friday 31st January this year, and it is the year of the horse. It’s the most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. Houses are cleaned out to welcome in a fresh start and are traditionally decorated in red and gold to signify good fortune, wealth and happiness.
I searched the wonder that is Pinterest (follow me @activities4kidz) and have rounded up five of the best activities. We are definitely going to be having a go at these.

Firstly is this lovely egg box dragon from Spoonful. How cute is he?

Next is this brilliant dragon paper plate puppet from DLTK

We love handprint art so going to be trying this handprint dragon from The Crafty Crow

This chopstick practise activity from Pre K and Sharing is a great fine motor activity.

And finally my favourite, the Chinese lantern from Red Ted Art

Enjoy!