Loose Part Play: Dried Oranges, Pinecones & Coasters

The girls love having new play ingredients to use in their kitchen, and these loose parts fitted the bill perfectly. I originally made these intending them to become a christmas table centrepiece and wreath and so I didn't really want them played with and damaged. But Poppet must have really liked the dried orange slices as I would keep finding them missing from the bowl, and usually fed to her dinosaurs. She is being very attentive to her dinosaurs as of late, perhaps due to Dinovember that we are currently participating in! (blog post to follow!)

We collected our pine cone collection from the garden and laid them out on a baking tray. They were mostly all closed up, but after an hour or so on a very low heat in the oven they all opened up and are happily now free from all insects which is always good. I sliced up a couple of oranges into 1cm pieces and laid them out on a wire rack (apparently better than a baking tray as it helps prevent them sticking) and baked them at the same time until they had all dried out.

After a couple of days of Poppet stealing the orange slices I gave in and set up an invitation to play using them. I went for a natural theme with a wooden placemat, wood-effect coasters, a bowl of dried oranges and a bowl of pinecones (I was sticking to the Magic Three Formula of loose part play).

My pictures of them playing with them were mostly blurred so I only have one here, but I can vouch that those oranges got a lot of playtime! They did not touch the pinecones at all (have had some up on the windowsill all month so these are no novelty) but the orange slices were cooked, and served up, and cooked, and served up, time and time again. The coasters became little serving platters that Poppet would arrange the oranges on and then hand out to me, or to her little sister.

I will give you one guess as to what Little did with the oranges! Even Poppet had a little experimental nibble. I have now managed to rescue all of my precious oranges slices and have them up out of the way until we can try our hand at making some decorations in the not too distant future!

Poppet: 2yrs 10mos

Little: 1yr 1mos

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

When Life Gives You Playdough Lemons

I've been going through a bit of a homemade lemonade phase recently, it's the perfect drink for this scorching hot weather we've been having - ice cold, refreshing, sweet, sour and just a tiny bit salty. I'm addicted. And Poppet has been avidly watching me squeeze lemon after lemon in our lemon squeezer, pleading to have a go. Helping me pour it through the sieve. Picking out stray pips. Mixing in the sugar. She loves the whole process (and the end result even more!). 

To let her have a go at making it herself without running the risk of squirting herself in the eye with lemon juice (been there, done that), I set up an invitation to play using playdough lemons and my lemonade making equipment. We scented the playdough using lemon essence so it releases a lovely lemony smell as you play with it.

We made a batch of 4 minute no-cook playdough together using this recipe, adding yellow food colouring and lemon essence to the boiling water. And adding more food colouring and lemon essence at the kneading stage too as it wasn't quite lemony enough. It would have been good to add some lemon zest to it as well but I didn't think of it at the time.  It was particularly good playdough, really soft and mouldable. If you haven't tried making playdough yet I would urge you to give it a go, it's 100 times better than the shop bought stuff. Although the colours sometimes aren't as vivid, you can play about with scents and textures which makes it more than worth it.

I moulded it into lemon-like shapes and put them into a bowl along with a real lemon so she would get the idea. I also put other lemonade-making paraphernalia on the tray - juicers, a jug, cups, straws, a little sieve and a knife. 

First she tried to cut the real lemon but soon transferred her attention to the playdough ones and got into the swing of it. She loved the lemon squeezer and the playdough was so soft it oozed out in long strands really easily. This was a good activity for strengthening up her hand muscles which helps get them ready for pencil control later on. This is a really great post on all the benefits of playing with playdough.

She loved cutting up all the lemons and then squishing them through the squeezer, collecting the long strands in her jug to make her 'lemonade'.

She also liked pressing the lemon halves into the lemon juicer and seeing the imprints it left behind on the playdough. Afterwards she had some more fun with making imprints using her magnetic letter set, pressing the numbers in and then picking them out again to see the shape they left behind.

Glittery Play Dough Fairy Cakes

One of Poppet's favourite ways to play with play dough and guaranteed to keep her occupied for a wee while so that I can sit and have a cup of tea finally unpack that suitcase that has been sitting there since Monday.

I gave her pink (ish) raspberry scented playdough, a couple of playdough knives, candles, heart shaped silicone fairy cake cases, a bun tray, biscuit cutters, silver glitter, and my rolling pin ( I have tried to use her little one and it is rubbish, you can't roll the dough out very easily with those little ones so I just give her mine, she gets on much better with it).

Obviously the glitter was very quickly poured out and copious amounts sprinkled about. She attempted to fold the dough over and knead the glitter in like she has seen me do before which I thought was clever.

Then it was over to the important task of cutting out the cakes. She is very pleased with herself that she can manage this by herself now (unless it is a particularly thick wedge of playdough in which case I am needed to assist). She knows to wiggle the cutter about to cut right through to the bottom.

Once her cakes were done, she realised her bun tray was too big to fit into her play oven so insisted that I put them in my oven instead. The addition of glitter to the playdough cake play definitely went down well although she does still have glitter on her scalp despite me washing her hair. And our bath is a bit glittery.

Poppet: 2yrs 4mos

Little: 8 mos

Playdough Spiders

Poppet has a thing for spiders just now. She is constantly pointing out "inchy spiders!" to me which gives me a little panic until I discover it is actually a fly she can see. Then there was the incident with the massive spider we discovered in the bathroom that I bravely captured. I set it down in a plastic tub at the top of the stairs, ready to set free outside once we were dressed. I was busy dressing Little, then came out of my bedroom to be greeted by an empty tub and a gleeful Poppet, proudly informing me that "Inchy Spider" was in her bedroom now. He never was found. So with her love of spiders in mind I set out an invitation to play with playdough spiders. There was playdough, goggly eyes and pipe cleaners, plus one spider that I made earlier.

She started off by getting the spider to crawl all over her little sister.

Of course all this had to be done while 'Inchy Winchy Spider' was playing in the background on a loop. That wasn't annoying at all.

She starting trying to make a spider of her own. Apparently this was mummy spider. We talked about how many legs spiders have. She still counts "1,2,3,4,9"! We also then had to make a daddy spider.

We made a water spout from some toilet tubes secured with playdough. The spiders each had a turn dutifully climbing up then being washed out in time with the song. She had a great time.

Poppet: 2yrs 4 mos
Little: 7 mos