Looking for some small on cost but big on fun activities to do this summer? Look no further! Here are ten activities you can do with things you’ll probably already have at home!
imaginative play
Make Your Own Shadow Puppet Theatre

In November as part of T’s home education, we spent a couple of weeks exploring and investigating light and shadow. As part of this, we created our own shadow puppet theatre! Here’s how we did it. Choose a story First thing is to pick which story you want to perform at your theatre. This can […]
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Arctic Playdough

A couple of weeks ago, T and I did a few activities around the theme of the Arctic. Playdough is always a popular choice of activity in our house and I love that it keeps both children entertained in different ways. I decided I would put together an Arctic Playdough invitation for them. When it […]
51 ideas for #30DaysWild

June has arrived and this marks the start of #30DaysWild. If you haven’t heard of this before, #30DaysWild is an annual campaign run by The Wildlife Trusts, which encourages young and old to get outside each day in June and find some small way to reconnect with nature. It’s a campaign which has been on […]
Baby Play: Farm Animal Book Basket

Recently, A has become so interested in books. If he sees one lying around he’ll often go over and have a look at it – and of course, a good chew on it too. Because we already had a consistent bedtime routine in place for T, A has heard books being read nearly every day […]
Messy Play: The Beginnings of a Mud Kitchen

I’ve been keen to make a mud kitchen for T for a long time. They’re such a fun way to spend time outdoors, and are brilliant for all kinds of learning opportunities: sensory development; imaginative play; language development; learning about capacity and measuring; and scientific exploration as they mix different materials. When T started at […]
Bread Making with Playdough

I love finding different ways for T to play with playdough. Playdough is so much fun; great for keeping kids entertained; and helps improve fine motor skills by strengthening hand muscles. While the usual play dough cutters and tools are fun, I really like to incorporate different elements in to our dough play, such as toy […]
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Sweet Shop Role Play

Role play is a brilliant activity for children as it promotes the use of language; applying specific skills (such as counting or writing) in context; is great for social development; and best of all is lots of FUN! For T’s 4th birthday we gave her a ‘shop front’, and for one of her party activities, […]
BFG Dream Potions

For her last birthday, T had a ‘story’ themed party. The children came dressed as book characters and we had several activities based around some of T’s favourite books. My favourite of all of these was making dream potions, inspired by The BFG! I have to admit that being 4, we haven’t actually read the […]
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Make an Arctic Small World

Last week, I wrote about how to Make Your Own Small World Scene. Small worlds are SO much fun and can while away far too many hours on Pinterest and Instagram looking at ones which other people have put together – so many inviting scenes just waiting to be played with! This week, we have […]