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Archive for the ‘toddler activities’ Category

So what else is afoot in the great outdoors?

birdfeeder

Miss Emily and Friends spent a considerable amount of time this weekend threading cheerios onto pipecleaners.

birdfeeders3

It’s good for fine motor control and, when hung up in the garden, the birds think it’s yummy.

birdfeeder2  birdfeeder3

I do remain a little sceptical about what will happen when it rains though.

If we did it again we would try to get some duller coloured pipecleaners as daddy thinks the brights are ugly (and he’s not wrong). I guess I’ve created a chore for myself as once they are empty, one way or another, I’ll have to go and collect them. Will let you know if the birds actually eat them!

We also planted seeds. Yes, quite possibly they won’t survive, but we planted them anyway!

We filled some seed trays with sieved earth that Oscar has been digging out of his race track site (I’ll show you when he has finished but there’s nothing to see yet). Actually the sieving was a fun activity in itself, must remember to provide an earthy digging area with sieves and trowels and stuff once the rest of the earth works are sorted and there are no spots left for the kids to casually dig in.

Seed packets were read and small fingers planted. This may not sound much to you, but its huge progress in our sensory defensive household.

plantingseeds

There was a little disappointment the next morning when nothing had grown. I blame pepper pig and her amazing overnight vegetables for that!

plantingseeds2

I might even keep you updated on sprouting progress if we manage to keep anything alive!

We planted 4 types of sunflower, peppers, chillies, tomatoes, chives, basil, rocket and something called spicy Chinese leaves. So presumably *something* will grow!

I have no clue where we will plant any of it if it survives!

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Spring has truly sprung at last and things are afoot in the garden here at number 29. Having moved house there are definite out of control issues in the garden here, despite this being our second spring living in it.

With both the garden and the blog (and I suppose the house itself in a way) I have decided to actively not left the perfect stand in the way of the good. It’s a project house with a wasteland of a garden that is far from the top priority but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have little bits of funky cool cuteness spread around the place now does it??

Well of course not, what would number 29 be if we didn’t have the occasional oasis of cool amid the chaos? Just Mess and chaos is what! And we can’t have that, can we?

One of the little coolnesses that is brightening our garden this spring is the mud kitchen.

mud kitchen

Miss Emily and Friends have been cooking up a storm in a kitchen made from a few bricks and bits of wood from the burning pile and some tin plates and old saucepans that Oma donated from her garage. (Thanks Oma!)

Various muddy leafy concoctions are served on a regular basis!

mud kitchen2

If you have small people it’s well worth trying. Hours of fun have come from 10 minutes set up using only stuff we already owned or were planning to throw out! It’s not all that pretty and perfect to my eyes, but to a nearly-three-year-old with a big imagination and a lot of people to feed, it’s awesome!

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Miss Emily made these at mum and toddler group recently, this post is therefore a little bit “cool idea, I should have thought of that” crossed with a bit of “my baby is an actual artistic genius, phone the Tate Modern immediately!” It is a little similar to the flowers that Oz made as teacher presents one year with fun foam, yet looks so completely different.

lolly stick flower

lolly stick flower

lolly stick flower

lolly stick flower

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baking with Mummy baking with Mummy

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There is a long tradition of cardboard box creations here at number 29, and Miss Emily is just big enough to get on the act, so here, inspired by Edward and Christopher’s Grandparents is….. [insert drumroll please] ….. The cardboard box house!

cardboard box house cardboard box house cardboard box house cardboard box house

The letterbox has caused a resurection of the family postbox. did I post about that? Aparently not! I’ll take some photos in this iteration then. 😉 lets not spoil the surprise.

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Last week we changed our Summer Fun wall to an Autumn Activities wall. It’s kind of a bucket list/boredom buster list combined. Here are the photos of the changeover. I wont bore you with listing the individual activities as I’m sure I’ve either told you about the exciting ones or I’m about to! Most of them come fom my overtaxed brain, but of course pinterest and the blogosphere continue to be a great inspiration. 🙂

It’s so hard to take photos of this stuff. Each circle is 3″.

summer bucket list

summer bucket list

summer bucket list

 

After each activity we put a sticker on the circle. This meant that we could do our favourites a lot without them being crossed off. Also nice to see what is most popular!

summer bucket list

Our Autumn activities is very similar (in fact many of the favourites are up there again). We did them on leaf shapes. Oscar wrote quite a few himself. We have left a lot of blank ones too in case of later inspiration. (I wonder is it too early to put Christmas craft on the list? When will we swap to winter????)

autumn bucket list

autumn bucket list

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Miss Emily and I made this sometime in June!

sparkle bottle

Inspiration was simply Miss Emily playing with a water bottle when she was bored spectating at the previous race meeting. When we got home we added all kinds of sparkly stuff to make it more interesting. I guess it’s a sensory toy! She thinks it’s awesome. All it took was 10 mins and stuff we had lying around the house… we used beads, sequins, a pipe cleaner and a quality street wrapper or two (the see through jewelly bit).

sparkle bottle

Emily had fun putting the bits in. fine motor control skills?

sparkle bottle

sparkle bottle

sparkle bottle

Note: I taped the lid on, also with having an older one in the house I’m quite realistic of the stuff that Miss Emily gets her hands on anyway. Either way, do watch the baby!!!!

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