Autumn Sensory Bin

We have been collecting lots of conkers, acorns, pine cones and leaves over the past few weeks.  I emptied the sensory bin of the coloured rice that we have had previously been playing with, and J helped me to re-fill the bin with our Autumn treasures, plus a few bags of dried beans and corn.  The children loved swooshing their hands through the beans.  The children added the diggers and dumper trucks themselves.  

Twinkly Spiders Webs

There are lots of spiders webs in the garden and in the trees and bushes as we walk to school.  I point them out to the children as we walk, sometimes we are lucky enough to see a spider in the web doing their work.  The other morning was a rainy morning, with that fine rain that soaks you through!  All of the spiders webs were beautiful and looked like they were covered in the tiniest of jewels.  When we got home from the school run (after I got dry!) I got out some black card and our lovely multicoloured glitter glue and sprinkly glitter.  The children had lots of fun creating colourful sparkly pictures - I'm not sure they look much like the webs we see on our walks, but I am sure you will agree that they are just as beautiful!

Marvellous Medicine

Tuesday was Roald Dahl's birthday, in honour of this the children made Marvellous Medicine!


I set up the play table with towels, tubs, jugs, funnels and scoops before the children arrived - they were immediately intrigued as it was different - I did not provide medicine (coloured water) until after the older children had gone to school - I did not want to be responsible for soggy school children!


With just the pre-schoolers at home, I stripped the boys off to their nappies, put extra towels on the floor, gave them bottles and jugs of different coloured water and left them to their own devices.


M was not impressed and did not want to join in.  J got stuck in straight away pouring the water from the bottles into the tubs with surprising accuracy.  J had soon poured all of the water out of the bottles and jugs, he asked for more so I re-filled them once more.  After pouring out the second lot of water J again asked for more - I told him he would have to fill the bottles himself.  I showed him how to scoop up the water and pour it through the funnel into the bottle.  J spent the next 2 hours pouring and scooping the water.  After a while J squirted in some washing up liquid and I gave him a whisk and encouraged him to whisk it up to see what would happen.  J made lots of bubbles and was very excited.


The floor and the table were completely drenched, but due to the gale force winds outside the towels were all dry within an hour.  Once all the water was mopped up and the pots put away there was no mess at all.  And best of all I didn't need to wash the children's hands!

Only Boys Allowed!

The other day Albie, T and J found a set of Toy Story cars, locked themselves in the kitchen and T told me in no uncertain terms "only boys allowed in here!"


The boys had a wonderful hour screeching their cars around the kitchen, crashing them and making them do wheelies!  It was a delectable experience for me to watch the three of them playing so well together, having SO much fun!

Spray paint

I inherited a huge piece of plain billboard paper that was going to end up in the bin, thankfully my wonderful sister rescued it for me!  I thought long and hard about what we could do with the paper - we decided on a large scale spray paint activity!


I mixed fluorescent tempura paint with water and put it in trigger spray bottles, then I attached the paper onto my garden fence.  An old painting sheet (sort of) protected the decking!

The finished picture was very pretty!

Sticky fingers!

Both Albie and J love to glue!  It isn't important that they stick things together or create something to look at, they love the process of drizzling glue, sometimes onto paper, sometimes not!


I gave Albie and J individual bottles of PVA glue to squeeze out onto the paper, this develops their muscles as well as their hand-eye coordination.  I also provided a selection of different things to stick onto the paper if they wanted to.


Initially they both drizzled the glue onto the paper.  After a few minutes I pointed out the paper, pom-poms, feathers, sequins etc and asked if they would like to choose something.  Albie decided to build a 'tower' of different things.  J put something onto the paper and then glued over it! 


I gave M some PVA glue in a pot with a spreader, initially he used the spreader but very quickly he used his fingers instead.  M enjoyed squidging the glue in between his fingers, he did become a little frustrated when the paper and feather stuck to his fingers!

Here are Albie's and J's finished pictures, aren't they lovely!