Cupcake Patty Flowers

A grandparent or great grandparent's birthday always calls for a handmade gift or at least it does at our house. This week we made some 'easy-peasy flowers' for Priya's great grand mother's 76th birthday.

All we needed were some mini cupcake patties, straws (the kind with a spoon on the end), paint and a ribbon. Our first step was to dip the rims of the cupcake patties in paint. Once they were dry I snipped a hole in the middle of each one and cut three straws on an angle so they could be easily threaded. In hind-sight I wouldn't cut the straws again, I would just cut the patties twice in a cross shape and thread the flat straw end through.

 Priya threaded four patties onto each straw and we were done. Easy-Peasy!

DIY Silhouette Puzzle

This afternoon with some time to kill I turned to my Pinterest account for a 'spur of the moment' activity to throw together. A while ago, I pinned Caz from Little Learning's Silhouette Game. Perfect!

Here's my version.

I traced around 14 objects onto paper and placed them in a basket ready for Priya to match them to their silhouettes. I thought this would be a challenge but she finished in two minutes flat. I needed to make things harder.

My next move was to make new puzzles using round objects of different sizes and some letters. The circles were slightly more challenging and seemed to be the one she enjoyed the most while the letters were harder still. She needed some prompting to give them a go and just when I thought she was going to give up, I was called away and by the time I got back, she had all the letters in place.

I am now wondering how far I can take this idea as it is so easy to make at home on a rainy day.

How to Make and Play With Story Stones

I've seen a lot of different versions of story stones on the internet and have always thought that they are a great idea for fostering creativity and language development. Over the last week or so I have been busy making my own. Here are my latest of about thirty or so. I think I'll stop making them for now, however they have proven to be an invaluable play resource so I'm sure that by the time my kids are grown we'll have hundreds of story stones scattered around the house.

Our collection includes people, animals, trees, clothing, household objects, toys, food, transportation, places (e.g. park), weather (e.g. rain), elements (e.g. water) and a sun for day and stars on a black stone for night.

I haven't included any fairy tale or magical images such as wings or wands as I plan to start using this type of story telling to teach my kids how to come up with positive and realistic solutions to their problems. For instance if a character is sad because it starts raining while he is at the park, we will look for realistic solutions like sitting under a tree until it stops and then jumping in puddles rather than just waving a magic wand to make it go away. While there will always be room in our house for wildly imaginative play, I would like to model some positive problem solving skills in our story telling.

I painted our stones by hand in acrylic paint. You don't have to be an artist to do your own. Simple shapes and patterns work fine, in fact I think they look better.

Before I even had the chance to explain story stones to my two-year-old she was using them to make up her own stories. They just seem to lend themselves to story telling. In the picture above she was recounting a story about going to the park with Daddy. 

Sometimes she will bring me the bag of stones and we will pull one out at a time and make up a story using the images as prompts until the story reaches its natural conclusion. My favorite stories so far have been about her little brother getting in trouble for eating a sandwich in bed and Daddy going on a train wearing a tutu. I can't wait find out where the next stone will take us.

Duster Name Painting

Some time ago, we were in a bargain shop when Priya picked up a duster from the cleaning isle and proceeded to 'paint' the shop with it. Onlookers were entertained by her imaginative play and I was inspired to experiment.

Sadly, the duster was forgotten until last week on a rainy and miserable day. We sat together while I cut out the letters of her name and talked about them. We used blue tack to hold the letters in place and create a kind of stencil or resist for the paint.

I painted a thin layer of paint onto a tray and showed Priya how to brush the paint with the duster and gently 'dust' the paint onto the paper. This part of the activity was very tactile and everything within reach got painted including her face!

As always, her hands made it into the paint as well. Lastly, we removed the cardboard together.  The end result was great and went straight to the fridge.