Glow in the dark tin foil Xmas tree

Loads of glitter, sequins and GLOW IN THE DARK PAINT ON TOP!

Baby Jesus cakes!

The children loved making these today! so very easy!
Melt the chocolate and mix with shredded wheat and syrup.
Put into paper cake cases then add a jelly baby for Jesus and ready to roll icing for his blanket!

Ice outdoor decorations

The children collected lots of leaves and flowers from the garden this morning.
We then put them onto plates added string and filled plate with water, popped in freezer and a few hours later we had our Ice decorations!

Chocolate Playdough

This has to be THE BEST play dough that we have ever made!

The children have absolutely loved playing with it!

It smells delicious!!!

And even better the children haven't put it in their mouths! We've made playdough sweets and cakes and so much counting too!

The very hungry caterpillar at snacktime

Yesterdays snack went down well with my Hungry caterpillar fans!

Santa Salt dough handprints

 Salt dough must be the easiest thing ever to make!

2 cups plain flour
2 cups salt
1 cup water

mix into a dough!

we rolled the dough till about 2 cm thick then pushed our hands into the dough

put on grease proof paper on baking tray and bake in oven at 100 for about 4-5 hours (turn over for the last hour)

paint with acrylic paint for best results!

Glow in the dark playdough

Today we made our own glow in the dark playdough and had some very excited kids when we turned off the lights!

sensory gloves

They dont look very special but my kids are loving squeezing the gloves and talking about what they think is inside!

We've filled gloves with-

shells

cotton wool

cooked spaghetti

seeds

playdough

moon sand

tinsel

and lots more!!!

Alternative sensory bottles! for Halloween!

Such a simple idea and they look fab! kids can fill their own...

all you need is Laminating pouches, water, fillings , baby oil.

Iron 3 sides of the laminating pouch.

Choose your fillings. We did a Halloween one with glitter, orange and black beads and spiders!

Add water - half fill pouch. add a squirt of baby oil.

Iron the open side and its done!

salt dough light holders for Diwali

Another  easy thing to make. A just 2yr old made this one!

Saltdough - 2 cups flour
                   2 cups salt
                   1 cup water
                   tbsp cream of tartar

mix it all together. Knead dough for quite a while.

We added Sequins then cooked for 3 hours on very low temp. Some fell off while cooking but just put back on when glazed with PVA/Water mixture.

Home made moon sand

So easy to make!

All you need is Flour (plain or SR)

a few spoonfuls of baby oil

food colouring.

The children mixed the ingredients together then  spent hours playing! The cupcake cases worked a treat and a few candles added to their play. In no time at all they were counting candles and singing Happy Birthday to the teddy bears!

Kite Making

Windy Day!

It's amazing how easy it was to make this kite. A couple of sticks and a bin liner !!!!

Treasure Basket

Treasure Basket

We went to the Children's centre  this week. The children loved looking through this treasure basket!

Thorndon Country Park Essex - The Gruffalo!

The Gruffalo

Any Gruffalo fans should visit Thorndon country Park in Essex. We had a great afternoon walking through the woods with our map on our Gruffalo hunt. My eldest surprised me with her map reading skills and she successfully led us to the Gruffalo, the Gruffalo's child, mouse and owl. 
A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Rangoli Patterns using lentils

Rangoli using lentils

My 7yr old has been talking about Rangoli patterns at school. I've been finding dozens of scraps of paper around the house where she has been drawing little designs. Some of them were really good so I suggested we make them even better and use seeds / lentils. She spent 2 hours very patiently sticking lentils onto her design that she had drawn onto card.
It looks lovely and kept her quiet for a while!!!

Conkers!

We have 100's of conkers that we collected yesterday. The children enjoyed playing with them in the playdough.

Foam Autumn leaves

Fun with foam!

After our walk in the park today we looked at the leaves that we had collected. Then made our own!

With shaving foam and paint mixed on top we cut out leaf shape paper and placed on top of the foam.

Peeled off carefully and we were left with some beautiful patterned Autumn  leaves. (which were quickly pinched by my 4 yr old so he could show his teacher at school!)

Sensory play

Spaghetti

As well as being great to eat, kids love playing with spaghetti! I coloured it with food colouring which was added to the water when cooking.
I put plastic letters amongst it for the children to find and they LOVED it!
Once they had finished playing the pasta was put into a bag and will still be ok to use tomorrow.

my first blog!

OCTOBER 11th 2012
My favourite photo of my three gorgeous children. I'm starting my blog today which hopefully will show all the fun things that we get up to when childminding!
I am an ex teacher and taught in a brilliant village school for 14 years. Now I am a childminder and just love all the things that my new role allows me to do. Days out to the park, beach, play centres etc. And I can even take and collect my own children from school and attend events such as sports day! Definitely a great job!