The Hungry Caterpillar

P absolutely Loves this book, after reading it to her tonight after tea P wanted to make her own caterpillar. I have been saving up my junk modelling materials to make some goodies with the children for The Play Academy's theme this month and so I had some egg boxes to hand.

P created this lovely little caterpillar. First of all she cut down the centre of the egg box top create to sets of humps. These were then cellotaped together and P decorated them using felt tip pens, alternatively if you had more time some sequins or paint would liven him up. The antennas were made with pipe cleaners and yes this little man is in fact wearing glasses.

We love joining in Linky's for craft blog hops and if you do too check out Beckicklesie's 'I Got Crafty' post using the link below.

Pumpkin And Honey Soup

After Halloween we have been experimenting with pumpkins. We roasted some pumpkin seeds which surprising tasted like popcorn to my daughter and she has insisted on wanting them in her lunch box ever since. Another thing we tried was pumpkin soup, I am not a veg lover but now that I don't work I refuse to waste any food and I like to encourage the little ones to try new foods. This is the recipe that we tried I'm not sure if this is the best recipe available but it was a hit in our house.

Ingredients

4 tbsp olive oil

2 onions , finely chopped

1kg pumpkins or squash, peeled, deseeded and chopped into chunks

700ml vegetable stock or chicken stock

142ml pot double cream

we also added 2 tbsp of Rowse's honey (its full of flavour and gave added sweetness to the soup)

Method

1. Heat half the olive oil in a large saucepan, then gently cook the onions for 5 mins, until soft but not coloured. Add the pumpkin or squash to the pan, then carry on cooking for 8-10 mins, stirring occasionally until it starts to soften and turn golden.
2. Pour the stock into the pan, then season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 mins until the squash is very soft. Pour the cream into the pan, bring back to the boil, then purée with a hand blender. For an extra-velvety consistency you can now push the soup through a fine sieve into another pan. The soup can now be frozen for up to 2 months.

 Give the recipe a try while pumpkin is still easy to find it the shops

Guess what we will be making in time for Christmas. Homemade in the shape of butterflies and teddy bears, very exciting!!!



spaghetti play

This afternoon we got out some blue spaghetti for the little ones to play with. The children loved squashing the spaghetti in between their fingers and stacking on top of each others hands.
Yes i know this activity looks messy but children love feeling different textures and even with older children this can extend their vocabulary and thinking skills. By the end of it my floor was a mess and both of them needed a good soak in the bath.

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Poppy Salt Painting

Today P made a poppy using salt paint. All week she has been asking for a poppy and today we finally got round to buying her one. As soon as we got it home P went and got out the making boxes but she struggled to find a material exciting enough to design her own poppy.

So she helped make up a mixture we used at nursery when we were all out of coloured sand.

The recipe is really simple:

1/4 cup of salt

Food colouring (just enough to colour the salt with out it becoming wet).

P drew the outline of the poppy a filled it in with glue and sprinkled on the salt section by section. Sorry about the pictures bad lighting today.

 

Monkeys Doodles Themed Fun

Every month I am going to be running a blog hop to bring together peoples ideas for activities to do with children. These ideas will be kept on the blog as resource for parents and child care professionals to refer to. To get every one started this month the bog hop will also be a competition, Lady P will be picking the activity she like the look of most and the lucky winner will recieve a Sheer Cover Beauty Kit. A nice little prezzie to yourself which could always come in handy for them Christmas nights out.

So where do you begin?

1. simply add a link to your activity which covers this months theme: Creative Play using the tool below.
2. Follow the blog
3. Tweet 'Ive joined in Monkeys Doodles blog hop competition http://t.co/QgUa9FL '.

The competition ends on 1st December. Have fun, we cant wait to see your ideas!

Congratulations Artful Kids you have one this fantastic Prize please contact us with your details.

Fire Work Pictures

On Sunday we spent the day making fireworks pictures. In the evening we were going to watch fire works so I thought this would be a nice way to spend the day leading up to it.

Lady P enjoyed making the pictures so much we ended up doing them in several ways.

These two were made by drawing the fireworks in crayon and then painting over them with black water colour paint. P loved doing these ones she was amazed at the way the crayon shines through.

P made this one by straw blowing the paint and then dabbing in glitter paint to make it look like the fireworks have exploded in the sky. 

P loved making this one. We dipped a wet tea bag in the paint and dropped it from P's head height. She loved the sound it made when it hit the paper, P thought it sounded just like fireworks.

Home Made Pizza

I hate the little ones always having the same thing for lunch. I think it is really important they have a varitey of foods in their diet. So today I ask P to look through one of her book and decide on something we could make instead. P decided on making pizza some thing she never used to like due to the tomatoes!

We got to work with P measuring out the ingredience out herself and kneading the dough. Unfortunalety we didnt have much in the way of toppings but P choose ham and cheese. We stuck the pizzas in the oven and it was quickly dished with in 15 minutes. This was a great activity to develop P's counting skills of higher numbers when weighing the ingredience and descriptive language when kneading the dough. 

If you have made some lovely lunches why not add a link to you blog below.

Diwali Diva Lamp

Last night when Little man was put to bed lady P started discussing Diwali which they had been talking about at school. So with half an hour till her bed time we made some pink salt dough and and got making a diva.
The salt dough recipe is simply
1 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1/2 a cup of water
1 tea spoon of food colouring

Once mixed together P took a handful of the salt dough and pushed the candle into the dough. P then decorated it before it was left to dry out.
Lady P loved poking in the beads and sequins and we then left it to dry over night.

This five day festival honours Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Diwali is perhaps the most well-known of the Hindu festivals. The word Diwali means 'rows of lighted lamps'. Diwali is known as the 'festival of lights' because houses, shops and public places are decorated with small earthenware oil lamps called diyas