We live very close to the solar eclipse path of totality, so Monday will be a big event. The kids (3 and 5) have been talking about the eclipse at their schools, but I wanted to do something a little special at home as well.
I used items we had around the house to make an eclipse trofast insert for our IKEA Flisat table and then added a tray of sensory material.
The eclipse trofast bin insert was made with cardboard. I traced an existing insert we had, cut it out, used a bowl to trace a circle in the middle and then cut that out too. Then I painted it all black. I taped one of our magnetic tile base plates on the back of the insert and placed a puck light in the bin before fitting the insert on top. It’s simple, but I liked that we could move the moon piece over top of the “sun” circle to block out the light.
I took a couple books out of the library, so we could learn about how the eclipse will work while the kids played with the insert. I ended up reading the books to them while they played.
For some added sensory fun, I also put out a tray of material intended to represent the moon. I had some epsom salts that I had tried to dye purple for another activity and it hadn’t resulted in the colour I wanted. However, I thought the grey colour it ended up being looked perfect for some moon dust. I put the epsom salt in the tray and added a few dabs of grey decorative gravel to give it a moon effect. For some added space fun, I added in some glow-in-the-dark meteor rocks and resin stars, bowls and scoops.
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This activity worked out great. it was the perfect catalyst for talking about the solar eclipse with my young kids. We are excited for Monday. Will you observe the solar eclipse?
Even though the ground is covered in snow outside, we are ready to think about all things spring. One of our favourite spring activities is our Pretend Play Flower Shop. The kids (3 and 5 years old) love all the different elements to it and it makes the playroom feel cheery.
I’ve reused things we already had to make the shop structure. I emptied one of our toy shelves to be the store front and set up our Arches Magoo Slippery Wedges beside it with a table cloth overtop to act as a counter. Foam takes up a lot of space in our little playroom so it needs to work pretty hard. The Slippery Wedges definitely fit that bill.
Then I used the Easy Connect Fort Set (from the Lovevery Storyteller Play Kit) to make a canopy over the shop. A Sarah’s Silks play silk is clipped to the top. Making shop canopies is probably what we use the Easy Connect Fort Set for the most. I love that it gives a bit of a play stand feel, without taking up too much space. Plus, I can take it apart and store it away when we’re finished with this play scene. I wrapped a few lights around the front for a little extra special touch and then added in the flowers.
Most of the flowers are from Dollarama. I cut the plastic bouquets into individual stems and put them in tin pots (also from Dollarama). Some of them have floral foam in the bottom to help the stems stand up. However, if you have small children, I recommend getting some styrofoam or craft foam instead. I plan to switch mine out soon. My kids have in the past taken the green floral foam out of the pots and it makes a huge green, smeared mess everywhere.
The felt lily flowers on the back ledge are from Lovevery and the tulips in the felt pot are from Sewing Seeds Play. I made some simple picture labels for each pot and the price, in case the kids were feeling in the mood to do some math.
For accessories, I included our Goki cash register and a clipboard with some Order Forms. I just drew and hand wrote the form myself, but you are welcome to download it here if you’d like. I put out some pencils, extra pots, and ribbons and paper for wrapping up flower arrangements. My daughter added some self inking stamps so she could “approve” payments and the grass on top of the counter.
To add a little extra sensory element to the play, I put out some dry black beans in the IKEA Bastua side table along with a few pots and garden tools. I’m experimenting with leaving sensory material in the Bastua. So far the kids have been good about keeping the material in the tray; however, pots filled with beans have tipped over a few times by accident. Luckily, beans are pretty easy to scoop up off the floor so it hasn’t bothered me too much… yet.
And finally, the most popular element of this play activity – the delivery truck. By far, this is the thing my kids enjoy most about the shop. They love to take orders by phone, prepare them and then deliver them. The delivery truck is a Hape toddler bike that we’ve had for years with a basket strapped to the front. It’s too small for both kids now, but they don’t seem to mind.
We’ll be playing with this shop all month. It has so many fun learning opportunities: vocabulary, colours, counting, fine motor skills, writing, math, etc. I don’t push any of these learning concepts and follow what my kids are interested in at the time. If my daughter becomes interested in the math aspect of the activity I may develop that a bit more, but I will wait to see how it goes. My main goal is for them to have fun!
Materials
Canopy – Lovevery Easy Connect Fort Set and Sarah’s Silks play silk
It’s the beginning of a new month and time for a toy rotation. We’ve had our Easter toys, decorations and activities out for almost a month now, so it’s time for a refresh.
I started with the cubes in our IKEA Kallax shelf that house toys I rotate monthly. However, I plan on doing a larger reorganization of the toys in our playroom this week, so stay tuned.
My approach to toy rotation is to remove all the toys from the cubes that are no longer getting attention. This resulted in taking away everything but the Schleich farm animals, Ostheimer Wood Fences, Fisher-price Barn and Schleich Chicken Coop. If you’ve seen some of my other posts, then you may know that my 3.5 year old son is farm obsessed and plays with these items all the time. I wouldn’t dare take them away from him.
The next thing I did was to pull out toys that are topical for the month or in-line with my kids current interests. So this month I put out some toys with a spring feel to them and things the kids received in their Easter baskets this past weekend. If you are curious about what was in their Easter baskets, see here. I don’t have an endless number of spring toys, and we also had some out last month, and so I added in a few other items that the kids haven’t seen in a while.
I try to keep a rough balance between different types of toys, puzzles and games so that there is something about language, something related to math, building, pretend play, small world play etc. I also try to keep a rough balance of items for my 5.5 year old daughter and 3.5 year old son. Although as they both get older, I am finding they both play with everything.
Keep in mind we also have a number of toys that are not rotated. I’ll include a list at the bottom of toys that remain out all the time.
Crocodile Creek Unicorn Dreams Floor Puzzle (Dilly Dally)
Janod A Day at the Farm Puzzle
Goki Life Cycle of a Chicken Puzzle (Sewing Seeds Play – save with code HOUSEOFPLAY10)
Peaceable Kingdom Snug as a Bug in a Rug Game (Amazon)
Lovevery Letter Sounds Animal Puzzle from the Storyteller Play Kit
2 Jeux Mômes Jeu Éducatif Métiers + Chiffres (3 part cards – jobs and numbers)
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The white bins on the top level of the Kallax shelf hold items out of rotation and the toys in the bottoms baskets do not get rotated. The bottom baskets include
Balls and soft objects the kids can throw inside, and
Vehicles.
We also have wooden building toys, musical instruments, large vehicles and a play kitchen that remain out.
I find rotating toys helps refresh the kids’ interest for their toys and also keeps some of the clutter down. It does take a bit of effort on my part, but I always find it’s worth it when I see my kids’ enthusiasm and engagement with the “new” toys.
We’ve been having fun with all kinds of Easter play activities this past week. Here’s what we’ve been up to.
Easter Bunny Express – Easter Train Track
For this activity, the kids help the Easter bunny dig up the eggs and deliver them to the correct houses on the Easter Bunny Express train.
My 3 year old son loves his wooden train tracks and my daughter wanted an Easter themed activity so we did an Easter, construction, counting mash-up. I added in some learning elements that I thought would appeal to my 5 year old daughter. Honestly, my son would have been content driving the train around the track for hours, he didn’t need any extras
I made 21 cardboard eggs and 6 cardboard cup baskets. The kids could work on 1-1 correspondence (there are enough eggs for 1 to go to house number 1, 2 for house 2, etc.) and for a little extra challenge for my 5 year old, I added dots to the backs of the eggs for matching with the correct number.
I also intentionally left the egg design uncoloured so my daughter could colour them. She likes to add colour to anything neutral.
Materials
Train Tracks & trains – Brio
Tuff Tray – Scholar’s Choice
Felt Easter bunny – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
Grimm’s Rainbow & Semi Circles
Grapat Spring Nins & Fancy Nins – Nest.ca
Grapat tools & felt pond – Sewing Seeds Plau
Wood bunnies and flowers – Tiny Fox Hole
2. Easter Play Dough
Play dough is always a winner for us. I ordered some new, super squishy and enticingly scented play dough from Readymade Play Canada . I have become a fast fan of this dough. I do sometimes make my own, but it doesn’t compare to the very soft and silky texture of this dough. And we loved the unique scents – dirt, fresh cut grass, lavender & rain!
I brought out the rest of our Easter play dough trinkets and accessories for some perfect Easter and spring play. Only the little Play-doh bunny stamp roller is new.
Materials
Easter trinkets and add ins – The Creative Mix Shop (from previous Tinker Tubs)
Acrylic flowers – Eye Spy Club
“Basket” tray (Cauldron/ Pot of Gold Tray)- AW and Co. (save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
Easter resin paintables – Playspiration
Wood letters – Birch and Bark Natural Wood
Wood stamps – DIY
The kids love to make cakes, small world scenes and whatever else they can think of. I will leave this playdough activity out in our Art Center area until Easter so they kids can continue to create.
3. Fill an Easter Basket
In this activity, the kids could pretend they’re the Easter Bunny and fill a basket!
I love this activity – we do it every year. It’s so easy, it gives a purpose to the Easter trinkets you’ve collected over the years and it’s a fun sensory and pretend play invitation. This year I used my new Grapat Tinker Tray to organize all the trinkets, but in previous years I used a basket and filled it with whatever Easter stuff we had. The kids love to make up their own little Easter baskets and deliver them around the house. My 3 year old also thought it was fun to hide things in the crinkle paper and pick them out with tongs.
Materials
Felt carrots, chick, bunny feet, Boho Easter Bunny, felt balls – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
Folkmanis puppets – Nurtured.ca
Resin bunnies – The Creative Mix Shop
Acrylic flowers – Eye Spy Club
Grapat mandala – The Bohemian Collective
Bunny bag – handmade gift
Everything else is from the dollar store or Michaels.
4. Easter Bath Surprise
We’ve also been having a little Easter fun in the bath. I added some giant pom poms, plastic eggs, silicone moulds, tongs, egg cups, straws and a strainer into a bubble bath. The kids hopped right in the bath and enjoyed all kinds of festive fun scooping and playing. Anything that helps gets the kids in the bath quicker is good for all of us, so I try to do special baths sometimes.
Materials
Everything is from Dollarama. I will add our Glo Pals light up cubes in the eggs once the kids get them on Sunday.
5. Easter Chick and Sensory Egg Puzzle
I won a beautiful sensory rice mix from Kidfolk & Co. in a giveway and wanted to think of a fun way we could use it. Since it’s bright yellow, it made me think of Easter chicks.
I used our peg board from Eye Spy Club and wove a yellow pipe cleaner through it to make the outline of a chick. The chick needed an egg and since I don’t have a cracked egg tray (although I would like one-lol) I made one out of cardboard.
I added the beautiful mix to another trofast bin along with some yellow flowers, included scoops and a nesting wood egg set. The kids can post the feathers through the peg board to make a fluffy chick, fill the cardboard egg tray with sensory mix and experiment with the materials and wooden egg containers. It will be a bright and cheery activity to leave out for the weekend.
Materials
Easter Sensory Rice Bin Filler – Kidfolk & Co.
Wood Peg Board – Eye Spy Club
Feathers, pipe cleaners – Michaels
Felt chick – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
We have the Kinetic Sand Ice Cream set and it is a big favourite here. So, when I saw Eye Spy Club’s new Ice Cream Play Kit, I thought it would be the perfect compliment to what we have. I added in a few other supplies we already had: toppings, bowls, a cake tray, and a few Easter eggs to make it festive.
I put everything in our Tuff Tray. I only do Kinetic Sand in the Tuff Tray now. The sand doesn’t stick to it, there are no crevices for sand to get stuck in and there’s lots of space for the kids to make their creations IN the tray.
My kids loved this soooo much!! My son cried last night because he thought I had put the activity away (I didn’t). We will certainly be bringing out this activity again.
I made some simple and inexpensive DIY trofast bin covers for my IKEA flisat table. I wanted to make a fun Easter sensory activity for my kids, without a big price tag. I ended up making a garden where they could harvest flowers and arrange them in an Eater basket, harvest carrots, and even plant new seeds in the carrot holes or in the pots.
Here’s how I made the cardboard covers:
I cut the covers from cardboard and for the first one, simple cut x’s in the cardboard so a carrot could either be “planted” or “harvested”.
I also wanted to make an Easter basket cover that the kids could post fake flowers in, but since my drawing skills are not the best – I used a felt Easter basket from the dollar store. I simply cut the basket in half, removed the bottom and handle and then reapplied the handle to the two corners at the top of the basket. Then I glued the felt basket piece to the cardboard and poked a few holes around the top of the basket (some larger to accommodate the larger stems) .
On the other side of the table I filled a bin with dry black beans for “soil”. Black beans have to be one of the most versatile sensory materials you can use. I cut some fake flowers with wire cutters, separated them into individual stems and “planted” them in the black beans.
Finally I put out some small garden hand tools, some pots and a small bowl of felt balls for “seeds” in case the kids wanted to do some planting.
The kids can harvest flowers and carrots, make Easter basket arrangements and even plant new seeds. Lots to do! It’s a fun, easy and budget-friendly sensory bin.
Everything except the felt balls (Sewing Seeds Play) and the carrots (AliExpress) are from the Dollar Store (Dollarama).
The leprechauns and bunnies have being coexisting pretty peacefully in our house, but it’s time to switch into the full Easter swing of things.
I did a little refresh on our play kitchen with some Easter goodies. The kids love to play in their kitchen and having holiday themed food seems to enrich their play. They have been making Easter smoothies, delivering yummy Easter treats to their dad and I and baking bunny cinnamon roles in the oven. There is no lack of treats for them to enjoy this year.
Easter themed food
Large carrots (AliExpress)
Felt small carrots, pastel balls, bunny feet, fruit slices, boho Easter characters (Sewing Seeds Play – save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
Ok, I half did this because I thought my kids would enjoy this little surprise scene when they got home and the other half was because sometimes I like to play with the toys too. lol
I had a lot of fun putting this together with toys we already had. Only the little Ambrosius felt clover doll is new.
It’s the week before St. Patrick’s Day, and we’re getting into the lucky spirit with a few themed activities. My kids love celebrating holidays and special activities add to the fun. Here are a few we tried that were hits with my 3 and 5 year old.
Magnetic Sensory Treasure Hunt
For this activity, I included some magnetic items (magnetic bingo chips, pipe cleaner shamrocks) and non-magnetic items (felt balls, tube ribbon pieces, acrylic gems) in a bin filled with shredded accordion paper. The kids used the magnetic wands to hunt around in the bin and find treasures. My 5 year old loved experimenting with magnetism and was very focused on what items were attracted to the magnetic wands.
This was our first time trying chick pea foam (Aquafaba) so it was new, exciting and tons of fun for the kids. I hid the gold coins and gems in the foam so the kids could hunt around for them with tweezers and fill their cauldrons.
Aquafaba is a fantastic sensory base. I was inspired by @lifewith3men on Instagram to try this and followed her instructions (whip together juice from 2 cans of chick peas + 1/4tsp cream of tartar). It was so easy and the kids loved it. I was also super surprised that it didn’t end up being messy at all.
The tweezers were great for their hand muscles and fine motor skills.
Another thing I loved about this activity is that it is very inexpensive. If you’re having chick peas in your dinner and save the juice, it’s practically free. All the other materials, including the trays, are from the dollar store (Dollarama), except the gems (AliExpress).
3. St. Patrick’s Day Rainbows & Rice Sensory Bin
The third activity was a sensory rice bin. I love a bin like this with lots of different things to discover because I will leave it out for at least a few days. That way, the kids can explore at their own pace. Over the past few days, they have been enjoying scooping rice and filling up little cauldrons with all kinds of treasures.
Materials
Rice with sequins
Rainbow wood insert & rainbow tray – Eye Spy Club
St. Paddy’s trinkets and loose parts – Eye Spy Club and Highway to Railway (Instagram)
Wood cauldron tray – AW and Collective
Felt balls – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code: HOUSEOFPLAY10)
Bauspiel lucent cubes – Scholars Choice
Resin containers – Playspiration (Instagram)
Wood rainbow – Tiny Fox Hole
Grimm’s Giant Gems – Sewing Seeds Play
Acrylic small gems – AliExpress
So there are 3 ideas for St. Patrick’s Day sensory and messy play. Would you try any of these activities? Let me know in the comments.
My daughter wanted to make an Easter craft, so we came up with these very cute Bunny Wands. This craft required my assistance, especially for the hot glue steps, but my 5.5 year old daughter was able to manage the rest. She especially loved choosing ribbons, bells and gems to personalize her bunny.
Materials
cardboard
egg carton
yarn (i used furry yarn and thick white yarn)
dowel
beads (1 pink for nose, 2 black for eyes)
tulle ribbon
ribbons
bells
optional: flower or gems for decoration
Steps
Cut out 2 bunny heads from cardboard. Hot glue a wood dowel to 1 bunny head. Scrunch and glue the tulle ribbon to the dowel at the bottom of the bunny’s head. Glue the other cardboard bunny head on top of the dowel, so the tulle is sandwiched in between.
Cut 2 pieces of yarn. Glue an end of each piece at the tip of each bunny ear, in between the pieces of cardboard. Wrap the yarn around the bunny head until the cardboard is covered.
Cut one egg compartment from the egg carton and trim until it is approx. 1.5″ tall. Make a hole through the end of the egg carton piece. Cut another piece of yarn and thread through a large needle. Make a knot at one end or glue the yarn to the inside of the egg carton piece. Sew through the hold and around the egg carton until the carton is covered with yarn. Thread a pink bead and pull until it rests over the egg carton hole. Sew around the carton 1 or 2 more times and tie off.
Hot glue the ‘nose’ (egg carton covered in yarn) onto the bunny face. Hot glue 2 black beads above the nose for eyes.
Tie 3-4 pieces of ribbon around the base of the bunny’s face. Thread bells onto one of the ribbons.
