Invitation to Play: Handkerchiefs and Ribbons

This is a little invitation to play I set out for the girls; the idea is to provide a random selection of materials/items and let the children play with them freely i.e without direction or a specific end goal. It can be hard at first to sit back and let them discover on their own but it can also be great fun seeing what they come up with from what you have provided.

On this occasion I had a bundle of 20 beautiful vintage handkerchiefs that I bought on a whim from Ebay for very cheap (I had vague plans to do something crafty with them one day), so I put them into a basket along with our ribbon collection to see what the girls would come up with (I say girls, I mean Poppet, as I can be pretty assured that Little will just try to eat anything I give her).

I had guessed that Poppet might use the ribbons in her hair and so on, and that the handkerchiefs would become bedcovers for teddies as that is what she normally does when she finds a scrap of material, but no, Poppet had other plans. As soon as she saw the basket she exclaimed "Presents!". I had not seen that coming and it was lovely seeing her put the basket to use as she set about wrapping things up from around the room. She even had a go at wrapping up her car.

She concentrated so hard on wrapping the handkerchief around an object (here she is wrapping up a saucepan lid) and then very carefully laying the bundle on top of a ribbon and trying to tie it up. She would cross the ends over and fiddle with them for ages and I don't know how but she did manage to tie a few 'knots'.

A Poppet knot

Then she very kindly set about distributing her presents, giving them to Little and to me, but she also wanted to give some to some far away family members!

Giving her little sister a present

She didn't get bored of the present wrapping all morning, it kept her occupied and engaged for ages. This activity was also great for strengthening those all-important fine motor skills.

She may have got her own way and family-members, if you are reading, a couple of these 'presents' may have been posted and could be winging their way to a letterbox near you! If you are not reading then you might be wondering who on earth has posted you a conditioner sample wrapped in a handkerchief.

A posted 'present'!

And here is a shot of Little, who didn't do anything creative or imaginative with the handkerchiefs and ribbons but looked really cute.

Poppet: 2yrs 8mos

Little: 11 mos

DIY Garden Train

Poppet and Little are pretty lucky to have a grandad who is also a joiner - this means that they get cool wooden toys to play with! 

At the weekend we were at Grandad (and Nana's) holiday cottages, which were formally two derelict cottages and after a lot of hardwork from Grandad and Uncle Mike are now two pretty snazzy holiday cottages! They are in the middle of beautiful Perthshire farmland so great for the little ones to explore the outdoors. Take a peek at their website www.cambusmichaelcottages.co.uk, they have just started to rent them out (shameless plug over)!

Poppet and her Grandad

We introduced Grandad to geocaching while we were there (and got him hooked I think!) although I have my doubts as to whether he will ever figure out how to download an app on to his Iphone.

Anyway, back to the subject of this post, Grandad's latest creation! He had a whiskey barrel, and so did what any normal person would and turned it into a train at the bottom of the cottages' garden.

I think it is safe to say that it is popular with the girls (well more so Poppet than Little but give her a few months!).

It has a bell to ring, windows to stick your head out of, a coal cupboard (I'm sure this has a more technical name) to open and shut, and a ladder to go up and down so is perfect for hours of imaginative play outside! Grandad has plans to add in a bench and some levers and buttons so there will be even more to keep them entertained. C'mon grandad what about some working headlamps!

We were kept up to date with the train's progress while Grandad was making it with picture messages that I had to show to Poppet for creative input and approval. When Poppet saw the circular windows at the front she exclaimed 'It's got eyes!', then 'Where's eyebrows?', so Grandad dutifully obliged and the train gained some eyebrows and a mouth to boot. 

A friendly sort of fellow

You have no idea how long it took to coordinate this photo

Little figuring out the bell

I'm looking forward to giving the girls a picnic lunch onboard the train one day, hiding out in it during a rainy day, seeing them play on it in the snow - I think it will be getting a lot of use over the years!

Thanks Grandad!

Shoulder-carrying is obviously quite an important Grandad function as well

Poppet: 2yrs 8 mos

Little: 11 mos

Our First Geocaching Adventure

If you haven't heard of geocaching before, it is an exciting way of exploring the area around you, finding new 'secret' spots, and getting the kids (and husband) excited about going on a walk!

Geocaching is a world wide treasure hunting game where you use GPS to locate hidden containers called geocaches. Geocaches are hidden from plain view all over the country ready to be found. Non-geocachers are called 'muggles' and you have to make sure a muggle doesn't spot you finding the cache (it really appeals to my inner dork.... who am I kidding my outer dork as well). Poppet loves going on a 'venture' to find 'treasure'!

 All you have to do is find a geocache near you using www.geocaching.com, download the details to your GPS device (we use an IPhone), and find it! The cache can be any sort of (waterproof) container, and has a logbook in it for you to record your find, and sometimes a selection of 'treasures' for you to choose from (and replace with a treasure of your own).

Our geocache coordinates led us to a brilliant woodland park really close by to our home that we didn't even know existed. It was a lovely walk on its own but the added element of finding the geocache made it a great walk. We had the pushchair with us but had to abandon it eventually as the GPS led us down a trail through some bracken that got denser and denser and higher and higher. It was a proper adventure. The girls had certainly never gone that 'off-road' before! 

Poppet came prepared with her explorer handbag; she had a pen in it to write in the logbook and a treasure to exchange (a little tin box with her prized shell collection - whoever gets that may be a little disappointed!).

We found the geocache hidden under a big old sycamore tree; it was a Tupperware box inside a camouflage bag (I've blacked out the name of the cache so it stays a secret!).

Poppet chose a little green clipboard from the selection of treasures in the box,  this is now her most prized possession! She even slept with it for a couple of nights.

While daddy filled out an entry in the logbook, Poppet carefully put her own entry on her clipboard.

Little just loved the whole walk apart from maybe the mouthful of bracken. 

In conclusion, try geocaching it's brilliant!

Poppet: 2yrs 7mos

Little: 11mos

Homemade Rainstick

This is another addition to our do-it-yourself musical instrument collection - Poppet got FAR more enjoyment from making this than she does from actually using it so it tends to stay sat up on the windowsill but it was still worth it for a day of crafting activity!

I saw the instructions for how to make a rainstick over on The Imagination Tree ages ago and kept it in my mind for such a time when I had a cardboard tube available; well I finally framed and hung up a print that had been languishing in a tube in the cupboard for a long time so we gathered our materials together and got started! We used

• 1 cardboard tube (thick type)
• small nails (type for hanging pictures)
• hammer
• glue
• craft paper
• collage bits to stick on
• split peas and peanuts for the inside (you could use anything you have to hand - lentils, dried beans, rice, pasta etc...)

To start off you simply hammer in the nails at random intervals all around the cardboard tube - the more you use the better it will sound. Poppet was very insistent that she have a go at banging some in so I started them off for her then held the tube while she hit them, being careful to keep her hands away from the nail. She LOVED this.

Once we had finished the inside of the tube looked like this:

We filled the tube up with some nuts and some yellow spilt peas and made sure the lid was sealed very securely. We tried it out and they gave a good sound but I think you would get an even better sound if you used shiny, hard, dried beans like kidney beans or something. We will definitely try this again once I get around to framing some more prints that I have lying around! Then Poppet covered some pieces of paper (she chose pink and purple) in glue and rolled them around the tube to cover it and pressed it all down. It doesn't really matter if it creases as it will get covered in collage bits anyway.

We left it to dry (as usual, copious amounts of glue was used), and then in the afternoon Poppet decorated it with some torn up tissue paper, feathers and foam shapes.

And here she is trying out the finished product. The girls were distinctly underwhelmed by the noise it makes in comparison to the drums we made! But it was free and we had great fun making it!

Poppet : 2 yrs 8 mos

Little: 11 mos

Dinosaur Small World Play

Our local sells-everything-under-the-sun shop had a box of toy dinosaurs when we visited it earlier in the week; Poppet spent a long time rifling through it, comparing dinosaurs, trying to find a 'nice' one. She eventually settled on a quite friendly-looking brachiosaurus (they have their names helpfully printed on the underside). He still had a bit of a fearsome toothy grin so she obviously felt she had to confirm with me - "izzat a nice one?", before she was satisfied enough to take him home. We were en route to the library so picked up a dinosaur book while we were there, and thus a dinosaur enthusiast was born.

At home, we made a dinosaur small world play scene using a large garden sieve. We filled it with sunflower seeds and split peas, and then used greenery from the garden stuck into lumps of playdough to create trees and bushes.

It smelled really good! The playdough was eucalyptus scented and the foliage included rosemary and sage. I also discovered some mini dinosaurs in our job lot of plastic animals we got from eBay, so these became 'baby' dinosaurs.

We attempted to match the dinosaurs up to the pictures in the book.....

Later on I discovered that what I thought was a dinosaur was actually a kangaroo, felt a bit stupid. Should have noticed the ears......

We have had a couple more dinosaur books out now and they have really highlighted my terrible dinosaur-related knowledge! For instance, did you know that not all dinosaurs were wiped out?! Some survived and evolved into birds! Blew my mind! Poppet mainly likes going through the books and labelling all the dinosaurs as "good" or "bad". Most are bad.

I hope this dinosaur interest continues as I would love to watch The Land Before Time again!

Parcel Tape Drums

I was going to send a copper lampshade we weren't using to the charity shop but thought it might be able to become quite a good drum instead. I have been eying up toy drums online for a while as whenever the music box comes out at our toddler group the drums are the most popular instrument, but this alternative cost me nothing and has given the littles just as much enjoyment!

We had to experiment a bit with potential drum skins - starting off with a sheet of baking parchment secured with cellotape. This worked and produced a sound like a snare drum but was too fragile and tore after some enthusiastic drumming. 

We then tried some vinyl tablecloth but it was too thick and we tried cling film too but that didn't work at all. Throughout all this Poppet was excitedly declaring "lets make a drum mum!" And had a great time going mad wrapping cellotape around things she found lying around trying to make her own one "I making a drum!"

Making a 'seat-belt' with the tape

I did a bit of googling and came across this youtube video from Child's Play Music which shows you how to make a drum using parcel tape (I also really liked the video they had on water play and music exploration and plan to do this one day). The parcel tape worked really well and produced a great sounding drum. Poppet loved helping. We stuck down strip upon strip of parcel tape, crossing them all over in the centre until every inch was covered in at least two layers. Then we pressed it down all over to make sure all the strips were stuck together.

Finished drum!

We were on a drum roll (gettit?!) so we also made a smaller one using a cake tin with the bottom removed. We learnt that a drum needs air underneath it to allow it to vibrate, so when the drums were flat on the floor they didn't sound as good as when they were raised up. With this in mind we raised them up using crates or books to improve the sound. We used chop sticks for drumsticks and set the drums up along with the other instruments we own (an xylophone and a set of maracas) to create a complete music station!

Mid-song

Both girls loved it and so did I, you could make some really good beats with them (is that even the correct terminology?! I have no idea!). We have played many different games using the drums. Poppet was really good at banging along in time while singing, although if I attempted to join in she would yell at me "no, I sing it!". We also explored tempo and volume by pretending to be dinosaurs (big, loud, slow thumps of the drum) and mice (little, light, quick taps of the drum), rhinos and rabbits, elephants and spiders.

We used them to explore numbers and counting, with me counting out a certain number of beats and then getting Poppet to copy me. We used different utensils for drumsticks to see what sounds they made - whisks, wooden spoons, plastic sticks etc... The drums have been really popular toys, even with Little!

Poppet: 2yrs 7mos

Little: 11 mos

Playing Cars

Poppet requested that we "make a car", so using some odds and ends from the garden and from our box of recycling, we managed it. When she first asked, I was thinking out loud to myself "How am I going to make a car?" and she heard and replied with "Don't worry mum!". Nice to know she has such faith in me!

I found an old key (at least I think it's old, I have no idea what it is for) and gave it to her. She loved this key, loved finding little holes to stick it into, carrying it about everywhere, losing it then frantically asking "where's my car keys?!" (I think she must have learnt that from her daddy!).

Lunch was a drive-through that day, she did not want to leave her car. I was told to come in quite a lot, first of all squeezed into the passenger seat, later on I was relagated to the back seat after monkey took my place.

The car had to be quickly dismantled during a sudden rainy spell, but the bare bones of it were left out and continued to be used as a car for a few days. Poppet took Little to the shops a few times, even opening the car door for her, entreating her to "get out", and then telling her she had to "hold hands, busy road".

They are really beginning to play together now!

Poppet:2yrs 7mos

Little: 10mos