In the past T and I have often themed our week of play as I find it helps me to be a bit more intentional and creative about how we spend our time together. Recently though, I haven’t been great at getting my act together and taking the time to plan ahead. However, after reading […]
learning
Make Your Own Music Maker!
Have some fun exploring how to create and change sounds with this fun music maker craft! You will need: * Two small containers (we used empty baked bean cans) * Two balloons * Dried food such as corn, rice or pasta * Scissors * Sticky tape Any guesses what we're making today? A post shared […]
A Tisket, A Tasket, Here is my Rhyming Basket!
One of the things we’ve enjoyed doing with T for a while is singing nursery rhymes and reading rhyming stories or kids poetry. Recently she has begun to notice rhyming words around her and to make up her own nonsense rhyming words, so off the back of this sudden interest, I decided to create a simple rhyming activity for […]
Top Toys for 3-7’s this Christmas
It’s so easy to get stuck trying to think of ideas for your children at Christmas. While enjoyment is obviously the key thing I’m looking for when finding gifts for T, I do have a few other criteria… Longevity. Most of the toys T has received since her first birthday are things that will last. […]
Brilliant Books: A Library Book for Bear
As I’ve said many times before, we love going to the library and are very lucky to have one just at the end of our road, which we can visit regularly. While there are always going to be the books T begs me to read which I wish had never been written (a certain Princess […]
Brilliant Books: My Body Book by Mick Manning and Brita Granström
The human body – a weird and wonderful thing! Recently T has become very interested in her body and how it works. We’ve been doing a few related activities but I wanted to find a couple of books from the library which would enable me to discuss a bit more with her. There are quite […]
Make Your Own Storytelling Puppets
Recently, we went to see The Tiger Who Came to Tea at the theatre. T already loved this story but this added a new dimension. After seeing our (frankly brilliant) tiger impressions, T’s auntie suggested we should put on a show of our own – and I decided that is exactly what we would do! […]
Top Toys: Ten Toys for a One Year Old
Welcome to my first Top Toys post! In these posts I will be sharing my favourite toys, by age, and writing about my reasons for choosing these toys. Since T was born, I’ve always tried to think fairly carefully about which toys she would get the most out of. As a teacher, and a firm advocate of play-based […]