Making playdough

Making playdough with an easy no cook recipe is a great activity on a rainy day!

E loves the process of making the dough and then playing with it in different ways, such as pretend baking, making figures and just exploring using different tools.

Ingredients
1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour
2 table spoons of cream of tartar
1 table spoon of oil
1 cup of water – boiled in the kettle
Food colouring – gel is the best as it’s so vibrant

Method
Just mix all the dry ingredients, add the oil and slowly add the water. Stir together and add a big squirt of the food colouring. Once it’s started to bind together knead it with your hands. Add flour if needed. Store in an air tight container for several weeks (I wrap in cling film or sandwich bags first)

Sparkly sea creature

A cutting and sticking activity, great for strengthening fine motor skills. I cut shapes out of old food packaging for E to decorate.

She then cut up some shiny paper, which is a skill she really enjoys practicing at the moment. She then used children’s PVA glue to stick paper and sequins onto the card cut outs.

I always save wrapping paper and ribbons from gifts to reuse in our craft activities, cutting them into really little pieces is a great way to make a sparkly collection for collages like this.

E was really pleased with the final result and so proud to put it up on the wall!

Little ladybirds

Model making insects with recycled materials

We’ve been having fun making model ladybirds from old food packaging.

Using old egg cartoons for the body, E took the lead painting them red.

Meanwhile I drew and cut out the heads and legs from another recycled box. It was easy to stick the prices together using sellotape.

E painted the spots once the red paint had dried. We enjoyed talking about how many spots ladybirds have and reading more about them in our bug book.

Once the paint had dried I taped all the pieces together and then we could play with them. E loved finding places for them to hide around the house and garden.

Music sessions

Using instruments along with pots and pans

We’ve been joining in with ‘Little Star’ free online music sessions with the wonderful Curly Cath!

She has been uploading music and movement sessions to her YouTube channel during the lockdown. We have really enjoyed singing, dancing and discovering new ways of making music.

We’ve had fun trying some of her ideas for homemade instruments, such as using an old tin can and a pencil to make a great guiro.

Painting shapes

E really enjoyed this new way of painting on cardboard shapes. These came from a craft shop (but we have since made our own, see below). Using little paint pots and a little brush really encouraged her to paint delicately and concentrate on detail. Old yogurt pots would work well for paint pots too.

E particularly liked painting the figures and we decided to make extra clothes, hats and sunglasses for them to wear which we cut out of cardboard and glued on to the figures.

Here I have used old food packaging such as biscuit or cereal boxes and used the card to make our own shapes for painting. This is a great way to recycle stuff at home rather than having to buy paper or card for painting.

Making instruments

We’ve been making instruments with things from around the house. Here we have little snack pots which we are filling up with rice.

Here we have used old take away boxes for drums and a selection of spoons, pens and pencils to try making different sounds.

This worked surprising well! We’ve used a take away box but any similar box would work such as an egg carton or old ice cream tub. We used different elastic bands for guitar strings which make a great sound when strummed.