Goldilocks and the Three Bears Sensory Play

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Poppet favourite book just now is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The version we have is by Lauren Child (who is also behind the Charlie and Lola books) and it is a beautiful retelling of the classic fairytale. The pictures are amazing -real teddies and dolls are placed in elaborate miniature scenes and then photographed which give it a magical feel and set it apart from other storybooks. Poppet is captivated by it and requests it daily since we got it nearly two weeks ago and I really enjoy reading it to her. It is definitely going to be one of our most treasured storybooks.

Inspired by the book I decided to set up some Goldilocks sensory play. This sensory play is fantastic for exploring textures, strengthening hand-eye coordination, developing language and introducing simple maths skills. 

I found a large, medium and small teddy to play the role of father, mother and baby bear, and put them on three different chairs (I even managed to give father bear a 'too hard' chair and mother bear a 'too soft' one). Father bear held our Goldilocks and the Three Bears book and mother bear held another  book called 'A Bad Week For The Three Bears' which is about the week leading up to the incident with Goldilocks. A doll with yellow hair became our Goldilocks.

In an under-bed storage tub I put a big bowl of dry oats along with three differently sized bowls and various spoons and scoops to explore it with (the under-bed storage tub was a vain attempt to contain the oats somewhat -in reality I had to hoover the entire room up after this play session!). I went to bed excited to see their faces in the morning when they saw the bears!

In the morning however, the girls walked straight past the set up and didn't notice it at all! It had to be pointed out to them at breakfast and then they were very keen to investigate. Poppet excitedly recognised father bear, mother bear and baby bear and was very focussed on filling up the bowls with 'porridge'. 

Little, meanwhile, just ate it. Even thought she had just finished her own breakfast she still managed to squeeze in some more. She prefaced each wooden spoonful with "no no no no no no!", so used is she to being told that when she eats things! It was such a novelty for her to actually be allowed to eat something she was playing with.

Poppet made sure everyone got their bowl of porridge; baby bear had the smallest bowl and she helped him eat it.

She also displayed excellent conflict resolution skills by giving Goldilocks her own bowl of porridge, thereby avoiding any porridge theft on this occasion.

After a while the porridge was taken over to the play kitchen and put on the hob. Poppet carefully counted in spoons of water and did a lot of mixing.

The girls loved their play session; the enjoyment they got from it was more than worth the 10 minutes of clean up that it required afterwards! While they were not really interested in the books at the time of playing, we sat down to read them in the afternoon together.  I'm hoping to bring more books to life like this in the future - I have my eye on Lauren Child's The Princess and the Pea for some dried pea sensory play!

Poppet: 3yrs 2mos

Little: 1yr 5mos

The Paper Dolls

I think I've found my favourite children's book.

We have quite a few Julia Donaldson books (she of Gruffalo Fame). One of Poppet's favourite books is Monkey Puzzle. So when I saw one that I hadn't heard of before at the library we checked it out straightaway and took it home.

It's a beautiful story with the message that even when precious things are no longer with us, they can live on in our memories. It's the kind of children's book that will put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye (Guess How Much I Love You anyone?)

It is about a little girl who makes some paper dolls with her mum and then they go on some adventures, and I won't tell you anymore because I don't want to spoil the ending. And I have a bit of a habit for spoiling endings. I will just say that the last few pages are incredible. Because of the message of this book it would be really good for a child coming to terms with any kind of loss (be it a favourite toy or a grandparent) or at the stage of questioning the circle of life.

I will be buying our own copy to keep I love it so much and it would make a lovely present.

Inspired by the book, we sat down one morning to make some paper dolls. I am not very craft-minded so my first attempt didn't go too well! To make them you need to accordion fold a sheet of paper, draw a doll outline on the front then cut it out. Making sure the dolls arms go right to the edges of the paper on each side to make sure the dolls are 'holding hands'. I only did it on one side the first time which resulted in a couple of twosomes.

I finally got it right and let Poppet unfold it to find the dolls holding hands which she was pretty impressed with. 

Then I blu-tacked the dolls to her desk (to stop them moving around) and gave her some paint to decorate them with. She painted some 'dresses' on them all and we left them to dry till the next day (she used a lot of paint!).

The next day she coloured in one of the twosomes with her felt tips and then we taped them to the painted ones so we had a very pretty six-some. But I never got a chance to take a photo because while I was making dinner this happened. 

Poppet took it upon herself to reenact the book. Oh dear I might have just spoiled the ending.

Poppet: 2yrs 7mos

Little: 10 mos

*Update* 2/10/13  I'm not the only one who loves this book, as I discovered the other day that The Paper Dolls has won a Scottish Children's Book Club Award, and free copies are being given to P1 pupils as part of BookBug. It is a really lovely book.

Tea Party in a Tent

I've been taking a walk down memory lane recently, buying Poppet books that I remember reading as a child. It's funny the ones that you remember. There was one in particular I really wanted to find, all I had to go on was a memory of a little girl having a tea party in a bush at the bottom of the garden. The image had stayed with me all these years, and finally after quite a bit of google searching I found the book.

It was called Sally's Secret, and the illustrations are beautiful. It's about a little girl who makes houses in all sorts of places, and one day makes a house in the middle of a bush and has a tea party in it. Our second-hand copy arrived a few days ago. We've been reading it a couple of times every day and I can still see why I loved it so much when I was little. Poppet has been as enamoured with it as I was/am, and it inspired us to have an old-fashioned style tea party in an old-fashioned style tent.

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I made a simple A-frame tent using bamboo sticks stuck into the ground tied together with twine, and a large sheet secured with clothes pegs. It wasn't the sturdiest tent in the world and was a bit vulnerable to the wind but it managed to stay up for the day.

It looked charming once it was up and was the perfect setting for an old-fashioned style tea party complete with homemade lemonade, china cups and saucers and ham sandwiches, all served on Poppet's tea set ('her best rose-patterned teaset, with all the handles still on it'). Very Famous Five. Poppet also insisted they both wear 'pretty dresses'. Yeah sure the dresses are pretty but they dyed everything in my laundry pink so they are not my favourite just now! Thanks Aunty Anna.

I left the serving of the tea party entirely up to Poppet. She loved being in charge. My tea cup was kept topped up with lemonade at all times but she ate both the jammie dodgers for her lunch which I should have anticipated happening.

It was a beautiful tea party. One day I would love to recreate the actual tea party from the book - 'some plums and tiny biscuits with pink and white icing, and some real milk and lump sugar for the tea set.' But I don't know if that is for my benefit or for the girls!

Also if anyone knows what this book is, please let me know! It had a little girl in it who I think was called Anna who had no friends and wrote letters that she posted.

Poppet: 2yrs 6 mos
Little: 9 mos

Book display for toddlers

When we moved into our new house I spent a lot of time researching book displays for Poppet's new bedroom, she had just turned one and loved being read to so I really wanted to nurture her interest in books.

I wanted her books to look inviting and approachable and for her to be able to choose what she wanted to read. I started off looking at shelving units where the front of the book faces you rather than the spine, they were out of our price range though. Eventually, somewhere on the internet ( I am going to guess it came from the pages of Apartment Therapy), I saw some people had used Ikea Ribba picture ledges for their children's books. It was just what I was after and at only £8 a ledge, the whole thing only cost us £32.

I love how the book fronts make the room look so colourful and it really makes a feature out of them. The only drawback is the capacity as they can only hold so much but we keep all the rest of the books in plastic storage boxes and rotate them regularly. She can't reach the higher up ones yet but can point out to us which ones she wants. Her little book shelves and bed corner is my favourite part of the house (mostly because we have not yet finished decorating most of the rest!)

A Fairy Garden

I remember creating little gardens in seed trays when I was little, so thought it would be a nice thing to try with Poppet. I had all of the things already apart from the glass beads which I picked up in town this morning for  £1.50.

We started off by sitting down together and reading some of Flower Fairies to set the scene, this got Poppet pretty excited about the prospect of a fairy garden but I have to say she did seem pretty disappointed at the lack of actual fairies when we were finished!

I laid out a seed tray, bucket of compost, trowel and rake, glitter, already painted shells, green glass beads, little bird house and some flowers from around the garden. We did this in the back garden, it's been another lovely warm day.

She started off filling the seed tray up with compost but lost interest so I finished filling it for her. I gave her a bit of direction as to where the fairy house should go and started off the garden path and she was away. 

For some reason she buried a lot of the glass beads. I can't remember if I did any seed planting with her last year which she might be remembering,  I don't think we did, but it seemed very much like she was treating them like seeds. The glitter as ever was very popular. The finished garden looked very pretty!

Ideally it would have been finished off nicely with a couple of toy fairies but unfortunately I don't have any so the garden is currently home to a panda and a horse. The fairy garden now has pride of place in her play garden. I'm hoping to sneak some fairies in there at some point to surprise her!

Weather Dressing Up Box

With the weather changing so quickly at the moment (one minute we are enjoying the sun having a picnic in the garden, the next we are caught in hailstones!), Poppet's weather vocabulary is getting a good workout, and she is especially enjoying her Maisy's Wonderful Weather Book. I think the only weather she hasn't experienced since learning to talk is a thunderstorm, I'm really looking forward to showing her that!

So to expand on the weather theme, I went through the house and gathered lots of weather related dressing up things - I got Poppet's sunhat, sunglasses, swimming costume, my scarf, her raincoat and wellies, suncream, a paper umbrella/parasol, mittens and woollen hat and put them all into a basket.

I then read her the book (in which Maisy the mouse gets appropriately attired for a sunny day, a snowy day, a rainy day, a windy day, a storm and a rainbow day, sorry if I have just ruined the ending), and encouraged her to get dressed up to suit the weather. I think she was just a little bit too young for this activity, it took a lot of coaxing for the first weather before she got the idea. Her very favourite thing to put on was the wellies and raincoat, once they were on they were not coming off.

A Rainy Day

In fact the raincoat was still on 4 hours later, sitting on the sofa watching Brave. Because it was raining outside.

A Windy Day

       A Snowy Day

She was also really keen to get Little in on the act. I'm not sure what weather they were going for here.

She ended up just freestyling for the rest of the morning. I really need to get a proper dressing up box organised as she as at that stage where she loves taking clothes off and on. I often put her down for her nap in one outfit and when I go back to get her she is wearing something completely different!