Monkeys Doodles Themed Fun- Transport.

This months theme is transport, it has always been a great topic for children in nurseries and very popular of course with boys. The link as always will be open here from the 1st of the month and will close on the last day on the month. Please feel free too add as many activities as you like old or new. This months prize is a build a bear doggy and the winner will be picked at random. 
Here are some songs and rhymes we love in our family.

A Sailor Went to Sea

A Sailor went to sea, sea, sea
To see what he could see, see, see.
But all that he could see, see, see,
Was the bottom of the deep blue,
Sea, sea, sea

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.


Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
If you see a crocodile,
Don't forget to scream

Puff-a-train

Puff-a-train, puff-a-train
Noisy little puff-a-train
If you're going to the sea
Puff-a-train, oh please take me
Sh, sh, sh, sh .
Noisy little puff-a-train

The Pirate Song

When I was one,
I banged my drum.
The day I went to sea.
I jumped aboard a pirate ship,
And the captain said to me.
We're going, this way, that way,
Forwards and backwards,
Over the Irish Sea.
A bottle of rum, to warm my tum,
And that's the life for me.


When I was two,
I buckled my shoe.....


When I was three,
I banged my knee....


When I was four,
I knocked on the door....


When I was five,


I learned to dive.....

To be in with a chance to win this months fantastic prize from Build A Bear simply add your link. FOR EXTRA  ENTRIES tweet the following 'I have entered @mamummyblog  transport craft competition to try and win a build a bear http://t.co/jCuaZCF '. and add our themed fun badge to your transport posts.
This competition is only open to the UK I'm afraid and the winner will be announced on the 2nd Feb.

Recycled wrapping paper roll

Why throw away your left over rolls when you could turn them into something fun and festive. Little lady had great fun making this reindeer with just some added cellotape, ribbon, an old red envelope and a felt tip. It made a great fun for half an hour while I wrapped presents.

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Christmas Pudding

We had great fun doing these. A simple craft which can be used to make great banners or wall decorations. The photos are a little dark sorry.

Little man decorated a paper plate with a paint brush and his hands, just make sure you check that the paint does not stain (we learnt this the hard way).

Once the paper plate is cover and little man we left the plate to dry.

We then cut out another paper plate to look like the cream for the top and little man covered it in glitter paint using his hands (I had given up with paint brushes by this point).

Once everything is dry the cream can be stuck onto of the pudding and decorated with a bunch of holly. If you have more time on your hands you could make the holly using hand prints.

We hope you like this craft idea and would like to share yours below. It can be any thing you like, it doesnt need to be Christmas themed.  If you wouldn't mind I have added a badge below for you to add to your post or blog.

 

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If you love doing crafts you can join in this months Monkeys Doodles Themed fun competiton here http://monkeyingaround1.blogspot.com/2010/12/monkeys-doodles-themed-fun-christmas.html

Next month our theme will be Transport and our prize will be a great Build a Bear Doggie!



Rock Cake Recipe

Rock cakes are a must have to me, every mum should have the recipe at the front of the cook book. When we make rock cakes I will usually make two batches simply because they do not last long in our house. This can also be a great activity for children to help out with the recipe is simple and involves getting messy hands.

Ingredients

200g Sultanas or raisins
100g Margarine
75g brown sugar
200g Self raising flour
1 Egg

Method

1. Heat up the oven to 200°C.

2. Rub margarine and the flour into a mixing bowl. Repeat this until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.

4. Mix in the rest of the ingredients

5. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

6. take the mixture and make a number of small balls and place these on the baking tray (should make roughly 6).

7. Bake for up to 25 min. To make sure the mixture is cooked, push a skewer into the middle of the cake, if it comes up with no dough stuck to it then it is ready!

Posting this recipe was inspired by Beckicklesie and their Oui Chef monthly challenge which this month was Cinnamon and Red wine. We are not great fans of red wine which is why we avoided it however Im sure you could eat a lovely rock cake while cuddled up with a glass of red wine.

If you love baking for your children why not try macarons? fab snacky biscuits for children but posh enough for those Christmas parties too. Cheffy Daddy has a great recipe just click here.

Guest Post- Christmas Craft

This week we have a  Christmas craft guest post. Kay Fisher is the editior of Essential Childminder magazine and joins us this week to share an activity her mindies have had fun with this year.

Here at The Essential ChildMinder we have been making Christingles as a special table decoration to give to our Mummies and Daddies. Christingles are most commonly made for Christmas church services, they are made and lit to remind children of the true meaning of Christmas in a practical and visual way.

Christingles are made by placing a candle in an orange, sticking 4 cocktail sticks with dried fruits or sweets into the side of the orange, then wrapping a red ribbon around the centre. The orange symbolises the world, the candle is Jesus’ light, the red ribbon is the blood he sacrificed and the cocktail sticks represent the fruits of the earth.

We placed ours on cut toilet rolls to allow them to stand up, however you could use coloured card for a better effect. If you would like to see more ideas from Kay and the team please click http://www.essentialchildminder.co.uk/

Easy Peasy Yummy Fun

Last night we tried this easy idea for a Yummy snack. All the ingredients can be found in most peoples cupboards and it is quickly set up, perfect for when you need to calm down the little munchkins.
1.Simply get them to ice the biscuit, you could even get a bit adventurous with different favours and colours we tried chocolate!
2.Then get out all ur Sprinkles and let them go crazy.
3.Finally scoff the whole lot (of course the best bit).

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Homemade Christmas Decorations

This weekend I thought it would be nice to add a personal touch to the Christmas tree. P decided she would like to make some ginger bread men to put on the tree after seeing some ornamental ones in the shops. We made ours using salt dough, the recipe is below and all the ingredients can be thrown in together and kneaded until it resembles dough.

P helped to makes the dough and added the ingredients her self, she loved getting messy hands and seeing it coming together. While she did this I popped the oven on 100 c.

The next stage was to roll out the salt dough on to a flat surface, we found it best to flour the work top before you start. The dough needs to be rolled until it is the thickness of a £1 coin or maybe a little thicker.

P cut out the gingerbread men her self with a cutter and needed just a little help because of the floppy arms and legs. These were then placed on a oven tray lined with baking paper. Our needed to be cooked for 2 hours and flipped over half way through.

Once baked they looked like this. I should add that before we cooked them we made a hole for the ribbon, we used a cutter but a straw would do the same trick.

Each ginger bread man was then painted with acrylic paint but you could use poster paint. Then they coated them in 2 layers of PVA glue to protect them in case they got wet and to help them last longer.

When they were completely dry P poked the ribbon through the hole and I knotted them ready for the tree. P decided where she wanted them on the tree and I must say it look so much better now.

Have you been up to any crafts this week? feel free to share them here and dont forget out Christmas competition. http://monkeyingaround1.blogspot.com/2010/12/monkeys-doodles-themed-fun-christmas.html

Our Home Made Wreath

What do you do with a collection of little green hand prints?

Well we decided we would cut them out (well at least mummy would)...

Cut the circular section out of a paper plate, then using glue fix the hand prints around the paper ring from the centre outwards leaving a gap for a second layer...

Which we added here, once it was dry we added some red pom poms for berries and...

Here we are the finished wreath. It is so beautiful that our neighbour has asked if the children could make one for their door as well.

Happy Christmas!

stained Glass Candle Holders

Last night we sat down and tried to think of a Christmas activity we could do. P loved the Christmas lights and had wanted to keep the main light off all evening so we decided some extra mood lighting was needed.
I had already saved one jar for another project and we used an old glass out of the cupboard (baby jars would be great for this). P decorated the glasses using acrylic paint which dried rather quickly. You could do it with tissue paper as an alternative. P decorated one with hearts and the other with snow men. They looked great once lit! what have you been up to this lately add you link here.

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Happy Reindeers

Tonight we tried a design I was hoping to use for our Christmas cards , I think we may need a little more practice as little man kept wanting to curl his hand up but we sort of got there in the end. Can you tell what it is....Rudolph the red nose reindeer?

Incase you can not tell how we did it we started off by getting Little Mans toes all gooey and printed with his foot. After that we used his hands and *slap* you have two anterlers. Of course he was too young to paint the face so that is where is sister P came in handy.  

Monkeys Doodles Themed Fun- Christmas!!!

This month we decide to forget focusing on an area of development and to pick a theme which is on every ones mind at this time of year. . . CHRISTMAS!!

Of course every one loves this time of year and one of the reasons we love it is for the home made crafts, the ideas are endless and we will be adding lots of pictures through out December. Here is a couple of bits we have been doing already.

This is a Christmas picture drawn by Lady P,  she drew this picture to hand to Santa when we go to see him and I'm not sure if you can see it but this is a picture of Santa's workshop. 

This is little mans Christmas picture we went for a snowy theme here. Simple but very messy with a 14 month old.

So this month why not add your Christmas craft links to the blog hop and share your ideas. This months prize has been donated by the fab company Budding Little Artists. They specialise in fantastic educational toys for young children from art and crafts to wooden toys. The family run business offer a great selection for children this Christmas which have all been hand picked to ensure they are great quality and long lasting. So take a peek at these fab prizes for two lucky winners:

http://www.buddinglittleartist.co.uk/

The competition will run between 1/12/10 and 31/12/10

All you have to do to enter is follow our blog and link up your christmas craft. For an extra entry please tweet ' I have entered @mamummyblog 's Crafty blog hop competition http://t.co/v9cPRO2  '.

This competition is for the UK only guys sorry.