I'll happily admit i'm not masochistic enough to even contemplate paint and babies, even the older spawn, who can now allegedly set it up and put it away themselves, reaching for paint makes me twitch.  This idea, however, I can stomach.  Just.

I know, I lied, sort of.  There's actually no paint involved in this.  All you need is a Zip-Lock bag and some glitter glue because everything is better with glitter.

That's really all there is to it.  No point over complicating things.  If a bag full of glue gives you The Fears, you can reinforce it with parcel tape around the four sides.

What you now have is a smooshy, prod-able squishy bag that glitters.  You can make shapes in it with your fingers 'drawing' then smooth them away so they disappear.  It's incredibly tactile.  Even The Dude and Things One and Two were drawn to it.  

If you have a toddler or preschooler you can tape it to a window and the added daylight makes the drawings show up better and makes it ideal for teaching shapes/numbers/letters etc.

If for a baby,` it's more of a tactile cause and effect experiment and you may want to tape it to a high chair table or something if your baby is anything like Moomin who just wants to nom on everything that isn't nailed down.  She loves to poke and slap it.

The Great Ice Rescue

I'm not terribly good at the whole play thing, even less so when I'm in pain and heavily pregnant.  The only upside is that when I do set up some kind of sensory or messy play The Spawn think it's amazing.

Thing One is out on his surprise early birthday celebration at Blackpool Pleasure Beach for the day with The Husband and Thing Two is having a sleep over at The Grandparents to minimise sulking.  So that just leaves The Preschooler and I.  He has a huge capacity for in-depth independent play pausing only for snacks, cuddles, a chat and a bit of tv yet even still he misses fighting like cat and dog with his siblings when they're not here.  So today seemed the perfect time for him to finally take part in The Great Ice Rescue, something that's been in the freezer for best part of a week.

It's incredibly easy to set up.  I grabbed a roasting tin and plonked a load of figures in it such as Moshlings, dinosaurs, fairies and other such things then poured over water mixed with blue food colouring.  This was then put in the freezer and left.  Granted, The Spawn are nosy little gits and kept opening the drawer to peek so I now have a rather fetching blue freezer drawer too.

So The Preschooler could manipulate it easier I plonked it upside down on the path and poured a jug of warm water over the roasting tin so that it lifted off, essentially leaving a frozen block with plenty of people trapped inside.

The Preschooler is crazy about rescuing things and being a hero so he was told his mission, that all these things had been trapped in a big ice storm and only he can save them.  He was given a medicine syringe, a small measuring scoop, a wooden meat tenderising hammer and a jug of warm water.  The rules were given that he wasn't allowed to just tip the jug of water over the ice block it had to be added bit by bit and that he could only smash the hammer gently to avoid hurting his fingers and flying ice.

Seeing as i'm pretty much useless physically at the moment I was able to just sit on a chair outside near him and watch.  We talked about how things freeze and we talked about how things melt.  He got to physically see it happen as he was making it happen.  He experimented and found that without trying to melt the ice a little with water first the hammer didn't do much, yet the more water he added the easier the hammer could break through the ice.  He naturally manipulated the freed yet still ice encased toys and gently hacked away at the ice whilst realising if he dunked them in the jug it came away easier.

I feared he'd grow bored before the ice even started to melt enough to rescue anything as obviously hot water would have been too hazardous so he only had warm water at his disposal yet he was fascinated and very determined.  You could virtually see the knowledge of the melting process and logistics of freeing things flow through him as he played.  I loved how he spoke to them Fireman Sam style and how he naturally adjusted his strength and dexterity between the brazen hammer smashing and the more delicate chiseling.

Naturally his favourate part was the hammer and once everyone had gained their freedom he set about smashing the remaining ice to smithereens with huge delighted whoops and shouts of 'SMASHHHHHHH!'

All in all this was such a simple activity and yet he thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was learning, problem solving, role play and sensory play all in one.  It was virtually mess free (though i'm sporting attractive blue ankles from splashes of melted ice!) as it was all outside too and minimal clearing up as the ice will just melt away.

Definitely one to try again in the future.

Fun With Water Beads

If there's one thing the local town has in abundance, it's pound shops.  They appear to be everywhere.  I'll admit to rather liking them at times, obviously some are considerably more palatable than others.  Some are a sweaty dark caverns of doom with over stacked shelves looming over you with tit and tat that you'll never need yet judging by the price you convince yourself you might need it, someday.  Yet others are simply bargain central.  I can't for the life of me remember the name of it yet there's one in particular that is light, airy, tidy and well presented.  The perfect stop for those pesky hairslides that Thing Two inevitably loses, all the time.  I refuse to fork out extortionate amounts for them when I can get 30 for £1!  Their six packs of baby flannels make excellent reusable nappy wipes and it's a little haven for cheap craft and art bits and bats for The Spawn.  It also means, after a boring shopping trip we can afford to treat The Preschooler.  He easily finds something he'd like in there every single visit and at a pound a pop, why not?

On our last visit there I was drawn to something I've been tempted to try for some time, water beads!  I'm not one for popping into florist supply shops on a whim and I never quite got round to ordering them online so this seemed almost like an omen.  I'll admit to being a trifle suspicious at what we'd get for a £1 so the skeptical side of me purchased two boxes just in case.

It's a rather simple process, you simply add the minuscule little packets of colourful doo-dahs to water.  They came with their own test tubes with the suggestion you fill it with a colour of your choice.  Sod that.  It would be akin to picking out a particular colour from cake sprinkles.  Never to do something by halves we opted instead to dump both packs into a large bowl of water.  The idea is you then observe as they grow.    I'm never quite sure who has the least spectacular attention span, myself or The Preschooler, regardless, neither of us were bored enough to stare at a bowl of water for longer than a few minutes.  Granted they did grow, yet they seemed to stop producing a deflated 'is that it?!' reaction from the both of us.  To say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.  I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt as the instructions have no indication as to how long it should take for them to expand fully.

We checked on their progress about an hour or so later and this was more liking to what I had expected, we
had a slimy bowl of multicoloured marble sized balls in water.  It's impossible to gaze upon them and not plunge your hand into them.  There is something creepy yet utterly satisfying about the slippery slime of the water and these slippery balls.  Granted the little buggers like escaping and they're an arse to pick up off the floor.





Their charm proved irresistible to Thing Two also.  She couldn't stop herself from plunging her hand into them.  In her usual effortless way she encouraged play through asking The Preschooler to find certain colours to make 'potions' as I introduced some measuring cups and the test tubes.

Seeing water slop all over the show I drained the beads so they had the shiny, glistening, oddly textured little balls of delight to play with, without the added mess of water.  This proved equally as satisfying to them and just as beguiling.  I feared they'd have a limited attraction, a mere novelty yet they audibly groaned when I told them it was time to tidy up and the first thing Thing Two requested to play with upon arriving home from school today was the water beads.






They are tempting though.  Just a mere glance of them is teasing to the senses.  I'll admit to having dunked
by hand into them on several occasions today in passing.

I think they'd look stunning over a lightbox in a dark room.  They'd also be more engaging with a longer shallower tub to hold them in.

These are sublime for sensory play and are helpful in teaching colours and the notions of absorbing and expanding. If you haven't tried them already, I highly recommend you give them a go.