creative projects – Page 2

Seven pros of sensory play

Sensory play is a catch-all term for activities which focus on stimulating a child’s senses : hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. It can involve messy play, singing and dancing, cooking or gardening to name just a few activities which have maximum sensory input.

Children learn best when multiple senses are stimulated. Songs are more easily remembered than poems because of the additional sensory stimulation the music provides. Memories can be provoked by smells or tastes. Sensory stimulation makes abstract ideas concrete.
Sensory play allows children to experiment. Experimentation is crucial for developing advanced cognitive skills such as analysing and predicting. It allows children to explore cause and effect and allows them to find solutions to problems.
Children control sensory play. By giving children materials which stimulate their senses and letting them get on with it they are able to make decisions and follow their own path, which gives them confidence to take control in other areas too. They may initially be afraid of slime or gloop but giving them time and space to experience it safely they are in control of the experience and will participate in their own time.
New experiences means new words to describe them. Sensory play is a goldmine for vocabulary and linguistic development. Children learn the meaning of adjectives such as warm and cold, sticky, smooth, slimy and hard as well as comparatives (bigger, smaller, runnier, rougher) and
lots of words to describe actions.
Sensory play enhances physical development. From dancing to music to trying to kneading dough or trying to pick dinasours out of slime, sensory play can be adapted to focus on specific motor skills or enhance overall motor development and hand-eye coordination.
You can do sensory play anywhere, any time. You don’t need a special table with a waterproof cloth to take part in sensory play. Even mealtimes can be an occasion to stimulate senses by identifying colours, smelling the different foods and experiencing taste and texture.
Sensory play is fun for adults and children alike. Make a bowl of gloop and try not to play with it. We dare you!

The Importance of Play in Early Years

Do you remember when you were young and the hours of fun that you had playing with a bowl of water, bubbles, pots and pans, a ball? Did you realise that you were learning?

Learning through play is one of the most important elements of a child’s development. Play encourages Language Skills, creativity, social skills, a sense of fun and the ability to enjoy time alone or as part of a group. Children often learn skills that they will use for the rest of their life and that will help them with the more academic learning they will have to undertake.

Here are some examples of how inexpensive and easily accessible playthings can help your young children learn: –

Anything physical like ball games, climbing in the park, running will all enhance and strengthen they body, help with co-ordination skills and encourage a lifelong enjoyment of keeping fit and healthy.

Board Games, Card Games, party games all help with learning to take turns, teamwork, ability to mix and socialise with others.

Building blocks, shape sorters and jigsaws help with fine motor skills, developing logic, recognising differing shapes and sizes and putting things into order, all brilliant skills when it comes to maths and science.

Singing, playing musical instruments and dancing all help with listening and hearing skills and help develop a sense of rhythm.

Play dough, drawing, painting, playing with dolls, dressing up, using empty boxes, sandpits, are great for imagination and creativity. For slightly older children writing basic stories alongside their pictures help with learning to express their feelings and language skills.

Playing with water is a great start to science and Maths, learning the difference between fluids and solids, measuring, different size containers.

What ever they do, it needs to be a fun and entertaining environment, not forced. Let children take the lead and do things their way. If the play area and equipment are safe there is no reason why they cannot find different and unusual ways of doing things and experiment. Remember children all develop at different rates and some children that can do a simple jigsaw may find it difficult to share and visa verse.

And finally, at the end of the day, when your little one is tired and exhausted from all that playing and using their imagination don’t forget to make reading time fun. Let them look at the pictures and tell the story they see.

Spending time playing either as a family or on their own need not be expensive or time consuming, a few minutes playing a card game, or kicking a football about can really help a child calm down, get them (and you) in a happy place and get on with the day. Never underestimate the benefits of having fun!

Quiet Time Activities for Toddlers

Does your toddler still enjoy an afternoon nap? Afternoon naps are wonderful, giving you and your toddler some well-needed rest from all of that energy they’ve been using throughout the day. Unfortunately, those naps won’t last forever and eventually, your toddler will grow out of their need for an afternoon doze.

However, that doesn’t mean that the quiet time you both enjoy, and need has to be replaced with noisy, energy-filled activities. Quiet-time activities can help to occupy young children whilst building their skills and giving you a little time to relax.

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How Nannies Can Help Teach Children About Nutrition

It’s never too early to begin teaching children about nutrition and healthy eating. Parents are typically the ones to begin establishing healthy eating habits for the whole family but whilst parents are at work, it’s nanny who can help to build upon this foundation and encourage children to continue eating healthily.

It’s normal for everyone, children included, to develop the occasional craving for something sweet, junk food and fast food. Think about it, how many times have you taken your child for a happy meal because it’s cheap and easy?

There’s nothing wrong with it, in moderation. But it’s also important to teach children how to moderate their cravings and why they should.

Continue reading “How Nannies Can Help Teach Children About Nutrition”

Treasure hunts

The weather is starting to look quite fine so it’s time to get outdoors! Treasure hunts are a brilliant activity for all ages. that can easily be adapted to the interests and abilities of each child. You can theme your hunt around nature or a colour, or include an element of imaginative play such as pirates searching for treasure, survivors stranded on an island who need to recover all the missing pieces of their vessel before they can leave or rescuers on the trail of a kidnapped teddy. Treasure hunts are also a very low cost activity – you just need paper and some ‘treasure’!

For tinies

Even toddlers can participate in a treasure hunt by following picture clues. They’ll obviously need careful supervision but you’ll be amazed how soon they get the hang of it. If you’re doing this alongside older children it’s probably best to have a 1 easy:3 harder clues ratio to prevent older children from racing through their clues too quickly.

For early readers

As soon as they can recognise letters you can start to incoporate them into clues. If the clue is ‘b’ then the next clue might be found near an object that begins with ‘b’. You can quickly progress onto simple words and it will give their confidence a boost too.

For confident readers

Confident readers can have more complicated words or whole phrases as clues, including simple rhymes and easy puzzles.

For older kids

Older children who may find words or phrases simplistic can be engaged by using word puzzles and riddles. Try creating anagrams of the next clue’s location, mirror writing or a secret code that they have to break.

You need a few moments in private to place your clues, so get your bosses in on the secret so you can hide them in the garden before work, or team up with another nanny and go to a park or some woodland – one nanny can look after the children while the other runs around to plant clues. Just make sure you have your employers’ permission before leaving your charges with someone else.

Treasure hunts can be a great competition with a race to find the clue or a way to encourage teamwork and get older ones to help by reading the clue but encouraging younger ones to answer the riddle. They encourage all-important problem solving skills and independence so don’t leap to give them the answer when they’re struggling and let them go off after clues by themselves.

Ready…..set…..seek!

The Pufflympics

Stuck for ideas? Why not try a themed activity week?! Nanny Claire has done weeks of activities centered around Princesses, cars and space, and here she shares her Winter Olympic theme with a twist.

I’m a nanny and look after 3 children, two girls E 12 years old and AM 6 years old and one boy AC 9 years old. My job is usually part-time, I do the school run and then ferrying around various after school activities and playdates. However, there are times that those who look after children dread…the school holidays.

I had not given much thought as to what we were going to do all week, swimming, movies and playdates were confirmed but they don’t take up the whole week. On Monday the kids were having breakfast and it just so happened that the Winter Olympics were on, so especially with sports obsessed AC, we were watching the curling. I’m usually quite strict on TV hours, switched off after breakfast until at least 4:30pm, but the Winter Olympics is not on every week so it’s an exception to the rule.

As most of us who look after children know, it’s not long before we get the inevitable phrase “What are we going to do today?”, one of the kids said that curling looking fun so I said I bet we can find something to do curling with if you get washed and dressed, at which point they vanished like speedy ninjas.

So now I had to find something to play curling with, I wandered around looking at the various toys and then I saw the puffles…If anyone doesn’t know what a puffle is, they are pets for penguins on the popular Club Penguin game, they are basically small round, come in various colours and have fuzzy hair. There happen to be quite a few in the kids collection, kind of curling stone shaped and should slide across the floor quite nicely!

The weather outside was typically pouring down with rain, so I tested some chalk on the kitchen tiles just to make sure it would come off later (not my floor after all!), no problem there so I sketched out some circles to represent the house in curling, got the brush out of the cupboard and we were ready to go! There was soon puffles flying in all directions and much laughing, arguing and cheering. We decided that scoring would be whoever got their puffles closest to the middle on their turn, I didn’t expect the game to be such a big hit and the kids asked what other events we could do.

So we looked up the other Olympic sports there were, and I tried to work out how we could replicate them at home, a brief thought of kids sliding down the stairs on trays entered my mind swiftly followed by thoughts of a trip to A & E. However bob sleigh could work, if we made them for the puffles and not the kids. So at dinner I told the kids we were going to be making bob sleds for the puffles tomorrow.

On Tuesday morning I was greeted with much excitement, “Are we still making sleds for puffles today? After breakfast I raided my box collection, always have a variety of empty boxes for such rainy days, I cut down 3 boxes to the same size for each of them, out came the glue, and various arts and crafts paraphernalia. There was much discussion about what would make it slide better, runners on the bottom, aerodynamics, making it look pretty, etc.

I fashioned a slide out of some cardboard box strips and white bin liners, and put it on the stairs, we then timed each puffle and recorded the time. The kids spontaneously decided to create a team name and made-up country for their puffles, so we then had team Fermat for E, team Mouseling for AM and team I Don’t Know for AC, they created maps for their countries and an event chart went up on the wall, all their own ideas I’m proud to say.

The pressure was now on me to come up with the next day’s event, thinking of the events involved I decided that the Ski slalom was possible with a little help from a remote control car! This did involve tying the puffle to the car under the pretence of a seat belt, and the kids made crash helmets out of craft foam for them! The kids have a building set called Cranium which is a set of poles and cloths which can be constructed to create play houses, etc. and the poles turned out to be quite useful for slalom flags. We opted for the rule of having to go around 2 poles at least and not all of them, this way they all had a good chance to get around the course successfully. They had plenty of time to practice driving the car before we did individual times and recorded them on the event sheet, needless to say puffles and poles went flying in all directions!

I went home that night and dreamt of puffles, and how to do the next event! I decided that I could recycle the bob sled run into a ski jump and use the remote control car again; we used a sun lounger cushion so we didn’t mangle the car. I admit the car was very slow but managed to construct the jump so if you lined up well you could get the car to do a small jump off the end, sufficient enough to get a small measurement anyway. The kids all got to practice again before we took some final measurements. This wrapped up the final event of the Pufflympics, the next day was Friday and the last day of the holidays.

We decided to host our own closing ceremony; a toy shopping trolley became a puffle parade float with a few adaptions of course. The kids designed their own part of the float to put their puffle on to reflect their team and country. Next was designing their own podium step, E helped me make some medals by gluing some sequins to stickers and then cutting them out. E made a party playlist on her iPod and wrote a speech, AC lined the parade route on the floor with string and AM helped me get some food ready. It was junk food heaven as I let them have full reign on what food they wanted, so we had hot dogs, pizza, chips, cheese sandwiches and squishy tomatoes (AM really really likes cherry tomatoes roasted until extremely squishy)!

So after a busy week hosting the Pufflympics the kids had been entertained all week when it was generally too rainy to go outside, and I hadn’t been driven mad by kids asking what they can do every 10 minutes. Most importantly we all learned a lot more about the winter Olympic sports, lots of fancy new words and rules and at a fraction of a cost compared to the real thing. I essentially used toys and things we had in the house, the kids had a blast and spontaneously added lots of their own ideas of what they could do. If you fancy hosting your own event you don’t necessarily have to have puffles on hand, cars would also have made great competitors for the Carlympics or a variety of cuddly toys for the Cuddlympics? You don’t need to be confined indoors or to the Olympics either. Why not host the World Cup or the Commonwealth Games outside?

9 nifty Easter activities

Welcome to our #9nifty series. We’re starting with 9 Easter activities for kids of all ages…

1. Eggs inside eggs

How to : Put little foil wrapped chocolate eggs into a ballon and blow it up, cover with the outside of the balloon with glue then wrap string/wool/embroidery thread around it (leaving enough space to take the balloon pieces out but not so much that the eggs can escape) and glue again. Hang them up to dry and when they’re ready pop the balloon and take the pieces out carefully ! Experiment with blowing the balloon up to different sizes or different types of string.

Focus on : Fine motor skills

2. Chocolate easter nests

How to : Melt chocolate, mix with shredded wheat, shape into nests and allow to cool!

Focus on : Numeracy/science – pouring and measuring, melting and solidifying

3. Silhouette bunnies

How to : trace around the bunny, or make a stencil to paint over and make a fluffy cotton tail to stick on!

Focus on : Understanding the world/The World and Traditions in other countries. Talk about the Easter bunny who bring the eggs. Some other countries have the same tradition although in Sweden, Austria and Germany it’s a hare and in France it’s the bells who bring the chocolate ! What’s the tradition in their family ?

4. Easter egg scavenger hunt

How to : Hide your Easter eggs around the house or the garden and write clues. Read the clues together and find where the eggs have been hidden !

Focus on : Problem solving and memory skills

Easter egg collage card — Upcycled junk mail makes a pretty egg!

5. Collage Easter egg cards

How to : Fold A4 paper/card into half and then half again. With a craft knife cut out a shape of an egg from one qurter, this will be the front of your card. Make a collage onto thenow exposed quarter (you might want to mark it while it’s folded) and wait for it to dry. Refold and admire the colourful egg !

Focus on : Colour recognition and decision making.

6. Hand and footprint bunny

How to : Make handprints and footprints in pink paint and cut them out, leaving a reasonable margin. Take 2 paper plates and cover them in cotton wool. Join them together to create the head and body of the bunny. Stick on some googly eyes, black pipe cleaner or strips of felt for whiskers , a pink heart for a nose, the hand prints for ears and the foot prints for feet.

Focus on : Talking about textures. This is a sensory rich activity with sloppy, sticky paint and fluffy cotton wool.

7. Easter bonnet

How to : Buy a cheap wide brimmed hat, or improvise ! Decorate the hat by painting it or covering it with fabric, cut egg cartons open and paint them to make flowers, attach ribbons and feathers, let your imagination run wild !

Focus on : Understanding the World/ People and communities.Talk about the tradition of Easter bonnets. In the past people put flowers on a hat to celebrate spring and wore new clothes at Easter. In America there were big Easter bonnet parades. In the past, people used to wear hats to church.

8. Peekaboo chicks

How to : Cut a small egg shape out of card and then cut it in half horizontally (or if you’ve made collage cards just use your pre-cut egg shapes). Attach the two halves one side of a clothes peg, one at the top and one at the bottom. Draw a small chick and cut it out. Attach it to the other side of the clothes peg behind the egg top so when you pinch the peg together to the open it you’ll see the chick!

Focus on : Object permanence for babies and Knowledge of the World (eggs hatching)

9. Bunny whiskers mask

How to : Take some pipe cleaners and attach them to a lollipop stick (or two or three taped together for stability). Add a pompom for a nose and create some adorable bunny whiskers

Focus on : Role play – make bunny faces and hop like bunnies !