Play Clay

Here’s a fun and different twist on traditional playdough. This clay has an interesting consistency, almost like stretchy plastic. And like all really great kids craft recipes, it is safe for little ones as it is entirely edible (but tastes awful!). To add this recipe to your joyful mommy repertoire, you will need…

1 cup corn starch

2 cups baking soda

1 ½ cups cold water

Few drops food colouring

Combine ingredients in a large saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. Transfer clay into dish, cover with a damp cloth and allow to cool. When mixture has cooled, knead until it becomes stretchable. Then have fun creating and exploring together with your child!

Helpful Hints:

·    Play clay dries out quickly, so store clay that you are not using in an airtight container with a lid.

·    Use a little bit of water to join pieces of clay together.

·    Play clay is sticky! Wax paper taped securely to the table surface makes clay a little easier to work with.

Happy clay playing, everyone!

Endlessly Entertaining Easter Eggs

While Easter basket fillers are still available in stores, I thought I’d pass along this fun activity suggestion that can be used any time of year. This twist on the traditional Easter egg hunt is a fabulous activity for promoting fine motor skills, language learning and sensory exploration with your little one. Simply find a large container and fill it with multicoloured Easter basket hay (you’ll find packages of this thinly shredded paper or plastic anywhere Easter baskets are sold). Then use an assortment of plastic Easter eggs (also usually available in bulk packages in the Easter basket aisle) and hide them in the hay. Throw in a few clean sandbox toys, such as buckets, rakes, and shovels, and you’ll be surprised how long your kids will be thoroughly entertained! (Be sure to supervise  little ones, as you don’t want them trying to eat the hay or mouth the eggs).

As with all great play activities, there are endless variations you can make to this game…

·   Pulling the plastic Easter Eggs apart and putting them back together (tricky!) is a fantastic way for kids to strengthen fine motor skills.

·    Try hiding little toys and other objects inside of the Easter eggs for a great language building game. Little ones will be fascinated as you pull toys out of the eggs and tell them the names of the things you find. Beginning talkers will delight in telling you what they’ve discovered. And older kids will love the challenge of trying to guess what’s inside the egg before they open it.

·    When your munchkins grow tired of playing in the hay, throw in a fun sensory twist. Try hiding Easter eggs in a container full of uncooked rice, cornmeal, puffed wheat, or even some fabulously fun and slimy goop (click here for goop recipe). Happy Easter egg hunting, everyone!

Lovely Leaf Painting

My munchkin and I attended one of our favourite playgroups this morning, and she had even more fun than usual thanks to the fantastic art activity we had the opportunity to participate in. It was one of those oh-my-goodness-this-is-so-simple-I-can’t-believe-I’ve-never-thought-of-it moments for me, so just in case you haven’t thought of it either, I’ll pass it along to you…

You will need:

Washable, non-toxic paint (any colour)

Large, shallow dish for paint (a disposable lasagna pan would work well)

Large pieces of paper

Assortment of small branches and twigs with leaves attached

Simply put a shallow layer of paint at the bottom of the container, then show your little one how to dip the twigs, leaves and branches and use them to create a work of art on the paper. Gathering twigs and branches together may well be the very best part of this activity, so bundle up and head out for a walk. As spring approaches, leaf hunting walks could become an entertaining and ever-changing part of your week!

Helpful Hints:

·    This is a messy activity by nature, so depending on the set up of your art area (and on your tolerance for mess!) you may want to take steps to protect your table from becoming part of the masterpiece.

·    To prevent art paper from sliding around, try taping the paper to the table with a little bit of masking tape. You’ll reduce the amount of mess while at the same time reducing the frustration level of very tiny artists.

·    This is a lovely multisensory experience for kids! Don’t miss out on the opportunity to promote your child's language development by talking about the colour of the paints and the leaves, the look of the patterns created by different kinds of leaves, the feel of the twigs, and the smell of freshly picked branches. Happy creating!

Perfect Puffy Paint

My daughter and I used this super fun, sparkly puff paint to decorate our Valentine’s cards this year. And while I intended to post this recipe before Valentine’s day, alas it did not happen. But this craft activity need not be Valentine-specific, and can be enjoyed any time of the year. Like all craft recipes that I love, this puffy paint is easy to make and entirely safe and edible (they’ll taste it once but never again) for little ones.

Puffy Salt Paint

¾ cup salt

½ cup white flour

½ cup water

Food colouring

Combine salt, flour and water in a mixing bowl, adding food colouring until paint reaches your desired colour. Spoon paint into a clean plastic squeeze bottle, then show your little artist how to squeeze puff paint onto paper to create a puffy masterpiece. The salt makes the puff paint look sparkly when it dries.

Helpful Hints:

·        Empty ketchup and mustard bottles work well for this project, and leftover paint can be stored in the fridge for future projects. Just be sure to label the bottles with a felt marker (lesson learned the hard way!).

·        This paint is quite thick, and works particularly well on sturdier paper such as cardstock or cardboard. Try raiding your recycling bin and cutting up old cereal or cracker boxes for use as inexpensive art supplies.

·       Allow paint to dry overnight. Happy puff painting!

Great Gobs of Goop

So here’s an activity not for the faint of heart. It’s probably the messiest adventure you’ll ever have inside your own home. But it is totally worth the mess…

“Goop” is the perfect activity for Halloween, but once you try it, you’ll come back to it again and again. It’s safe for babies and toddlers, but big kids, teenagers and adults will love it too! Goop is an amazing shape-shifting substance that changes from a liquid to a solid and back again right in the palm of your hands. Add a little green food colouring and you have the best ever ooey-gooey bowl of slime. My daughter and I played with our bowl of goop for nearly forty minutes this afternoon, and were both totally mesmerized by this super-cool, almost magical substance.

Goop Recipe

1 ¼ cup cornstarch

1 cup water

Few drops green food colouring

Combine cornstarch, water and food colouring in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly using your hands. If more than one child will be playing with the goop, simply double the recipe.

Playing with goop is a wonderful sensory adventure for little ones, as they explore the very unique textures of this ever-changing slime. And as this is an adventure best enjoyed together, playing with goop is a wonderful activity to promote language learning and togetherness.

And yes, goop is messy. Super messy. But so many great things about childhood are. To save yourself a lot of clean-up time, I’d highly recommend using the No Stress Mess strategy. The great thing about goop is that even if gobs of it do end up on your floor, it turns into a pasty/powdery substance that vacuums up quite easily. And little hands will come clean in just seconds when rinsed with water. So bite the bullet. Be a super brave mommy. And have FUN!

Indoor Sandboxes

Not wanting to say goodbye to autumn too soon, we spent the afternoon participating in one last muddy-booted, pumpkin-dotted, farm-scented, outdoor activity. And what an adventure it was! Friends invited us to join them on a trip to the corn maze – a family activity I’d highly recommend if you still have a chance this season. Initially we thought we’d forgo the maze in favour of the other little attractions – the petting zoo, mini hay bale maze, and wagon rides to the pumpkin patch. But we did venture briefly into the maze, and our little ones loved it. Tons of mud, fresh air, and wide open spaces for running around – and two nap-skipping toddlers were as happy as piggies in a cornfield.

One activity at the corn maze – a sandbox filled with dried corn (see dusty but delighted toddlers in picture, attached), reminded me of a great indoor activity that we’ll be setting up in our house as the weather turns dreary…An indoor “sand” box! Sounds messy (and truth be told, it will be, at least a little), but it’s not nearly the disaster you might think it will be. And this is one activity that is guaranteed to keep your kids happily occupied as the changing season means more time spent indoors. 

Choose a large but shallow plastic container (i.e. an “under-the-bed” type plastic storage bin) to use as your sandbox. Then clean up your child’s outdoor plastic swimming pool and bring it inside. Fill the shallow plastic bin with uncooked (okay, that should go without saying, but you never know!) rice, then place the bin in the middle of the pool. Have your child sit in the pool and play in the rice like a sandbox, using either a clean set of sandbox toys or an assortment of plastic bowls and spoons for scooping and digging in the “sand”. The pool will catch most of the rice that spills out of the “sandbox”, making cleanup a lot easier. Helpful Hint: At least some rice will likely end up spilling out of the pool, so try setting the pool up on a floor space that is easy to sweep.

Small Space Twist – If you don’t have room for a full-size “sandbox” in your home, you don’t have to miss out on the fun! Give your child a small bin of rice to dig and scoop in while sitting at a table. To save yourself a bit of clean-up, try the No Stress Mess strategy.

Other Sandbox Fillers – Instead of rice, cornmeal, dried beans, or dried lentils are other fun options.

This is a fabulous play activity to promote sensory exploration, fine motor and cognitive development. And as you sit and play together with your child, opportunities for language learning and imaginative play will abound. Happy digging!

Smelly Masterpieces

In my years of hunting for safe and simple craft activities, I think this discovery was one of my all time favourites. Incredibly simple to make and safe for even the tiniest artists, even just the idea of this is delightful. What could be cooler – than scratch and sniff paints!

Scratch and Sniff Paints

Several packages of Kool-Aid (or any packaged drink crystals) in a variety of colours

Water

Ice cube tray

Combine equal parts Kool-Aid and water in one section of an ice cube tray, stirring well with the end of a spoon. Repeat with different colours of Kool-Aid in each section of the ice cube tray to create your palette of paints.

These paints work like watercolours, so provide your little one with some big sheets of white paper and a few paintbrushes. Allow your child’s artwork to dry overnight. Once dry, your child can scratch and sniff their works of art! Older kids will enjoy trying to guess which flavours they are smelling.

Helpful Hint: To prevent excessive amounts of paint on your table and to reduce frustration for budding little artists, use masking tape to tape the edges of your child’s art paper to the table. The paper won’t slide around, making it much easier for young children to just focus on and enjoy creating their masterpieces.

Tiny Chefs

Sometimes the most fantastic little moments happen when all of our best laid plans have gone awry. And that’s precisely what happened at our house this afternoon. My little one has a terrible cold, and I thought that trying a new craft activity would be a fun way to spend the afternoon. I planned to make some homemade craft glue during nap time (recipe to follow – check back soon!), but my daughter had other plans. Terribly congested, she refused to nap, but I decided to attempt the craft anyways. And trying to keep her occupied while preparing the glue, I stumbled upon an activity she loved more than any I had planned…

I often let my daughter “cook” while I am cooking – giving her an assortment of pots, bowls and utensils and watching her imagination bloom. But today I took it one step further and actually gave her ingredients  - a little bowl of flour, a little bowl of water, and utensils for scooping, pouring and mixing. Was it messy? Absolutely! But my daughter sat happily in her highchair, totally absorbed in her play for a good twenty minute stretch (and this in spite of having a cold and missing her nap!). The disaster I cleaned up afterwards was so small in comparison to the enormous smile on her little face. It was absolutely worth the effort.

Cooking with kids is a wonderful learning activity, and can be adapted for little ones of any age…

·        Little Babies – Position your little one somewhere where he can safely watch as you prepare dinner. The sights, sounds and smells of cooking provide a wonderfully rich sensory experience, and your little one will be learning language as you talk and sing to her while you cook.

·        Older Babies – When your baby is able to sit supported in her highchair as you cook, give her an assortment of safe plastic utensils, small bowls, storage containers with lids, and measuring cups to play with. Your baby will develop important fine motor and relational play skills - banging toys together, taking objects out of containers and putting them back in, and stacking and nesting, to name just a few.

·        Toddlers – Bite the bullet and give your little one some real ingredients to explore while you are cooking. It will be messy, but this is a great multisensory play activity that will spark your child’s imagination and lead to wonderful opportunities for conversation and language learning.

·        Older Children – Have your child actually help as you cook. Depending on their age and level of development, this may mean stirring (fun even for toddlers), measuring, or even reading the recipe for you. Cooking is a fabulous activity for learning to follow directions and understanding concepts of quantity and measurement. And there is no better way to get finicky eaters to try new things than to actually involve them in the cooking process.

And as an added bonus…

·        Cooking with your child, at any age, is a wonderful way of teaching healthy eating habits and important lessons about nutrition. You’ll also have opportunities to pass along your cultural heritage and family traditions!

Some of the most vivid and wonderful memories I have of my own childhood are of cooking with my mom. The sunlight streaming through the kitchen window, the feeling of warm, gooey dough in my hands, and the smell of cinnamon and apples emanating from the oven all come back to me as though it were yesterday. I’m looking forward to making those memories with my own little one, and there’s no reason to wait until she’s older…

Our Colourful World

My daughter and I spent this morning strolling through a nearby park, together admiring the autumn brilliance of leaves in bright red, fiery orange, and burnished gold. My daughter delighted in stomping through the leaves and picking out the most vibrant ones, then holding them high above her little head while shouting “Look Mommy! A RED one!”. No small feat for such a little person.

Did you know that identifying and naming colours is actually a far more difficult task than most parents assume? The next time you are out walking in the autumn leaves, pay attention to the colours that you see. Is that really a red leaf, or is it closer to being orange? And that orange leaf you are holding – Is it truly orange, or is it closer to being yellow? Think about the last time you selected a paint colour in the hardware store – How many shades of blue did you see on those paint chips? Hundreds, most likely. And in real life, the variations are literally endless. Now imagine your child’s little mind trying to make sense of it all, and to figure out which of those endless shades are called “blue” or “red” or “green”. There is nothing at all simple about learning colours - And yet our little ones do it!

Did you know…

·        The very first colour that babies are able to see is red. Young babies will be most attracted visually to pictures or toys featuring bold black and white patterns and/or the colour red.

·       It will be easier for your child to identify colours (“Can you find the red leaf?”) than to name them (“What colour is that leaf?”).

·        On average, children are able to identify two or more colours by their third birthday, and to correctly name several colours by the age of four. There is great variation, however, and some children will begin identifying and naming colours even before their second birthday.

·        Boys are more likely to be colour blind than girls. However, being a little late to identify or name colours isn’t necessarily an indication of colour blindness. If you have any concerns about your child’s vision, speak with your doctor and arrange to have your child’s vision tested.

·        All children should have their vision tested by the age of two, and many experts recommend vision testing even earlier – by six to twelve months of age (Yes, it is possible!). Speak with your doctor or contact your public health unit to find a good pediatric optometrist in your community.

The world is alive with vibrant colours, at this and every time of year. And it is never too early to begin talking with your child about their colourful world. When your child reaches that delightful stage of identifying and naming colours, I hope you’ll stop to think of that array of paint chips in the hardware store, and to celebrate the true wonder of their discovery!

Starting with the Basics

So where do I start when looking for an idea to share, from all of the hundreds of tips and tricks stored throughout the years in my memory? I guess the best place to start is with the basics – the staples that every joyful mommy needs in her tool kit. And what could be more basic, or more wonderful, than a great playdough recipe! Playdough is the perfect indoor activity for rainy autumn afternoons, and great for a wide age range. Babies as little as 8 or 9 months will love poking and pounding, while kids up to school age can express their creative side.  And the developmental benefits of playing with playdough are almost endless!

Playing with playdough promotes:

·         Development of fine motor skills including dexterity and hand strength, needed for skills such as drawing, writing and cutting with scissors.

·         Sensory exploration – learning to process and integrate information received through the senses. Playdough can be particularly helpful for children who are reluctant to touch new things or get their hands dirty – a fun way to help ease them into sensory play.

·         Language development – playing together with playdough provides endless opportunities for parents to model language and have conversations with their children.

·         Concept development – playdough provides great opportunities to talk about concepts such as size, shape, colour and texture.

·         Creativity and imagination – if you can dream it, you can create it! Be sure to provide some playdough toys, such as plastic cookie cutters and rolling pins.

·         And of course, fun and togetherness – the most important part of all.

This is my favourite playdough recipe of the many I’ve tried over the years. The Kool-Aid adds vibrant colour and  makes it smell absolutely yummy, but it still tastes awful which discourages most little ones from eating it. And if they do eat it – don’t worry! It’s entirely edible…

Scented Playdough

2 cups flour

1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid

1 cup salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups boiling water

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, Kool-Aid powder, and salt. Add oil and boiling water and stir until well combined. When mixture has cooled slightly, knead until smooth. Store playdough in an airtight container in the fridge. Enjoy!