Sewing Time

We love any kind of threading at the moment and sewing has just become a new favourite especially since purchasing some kids safe sewing needles.
This was very easy and lots of fun and the best bit you can always undo it and start again!

We started with:
Foam sheets
Curling Ribbon
Hole Punch
Scissors
Sewing Needles (Kid friendly ~ I got ours from RIOT)

There is a bit of preparation needed with this activity, but very easy. Firstly I cut the foam sheets into various shapes, then used a hole punch to punch holes all around the edges of the shapes. Cut lengths of ribbon and tied them to the shapes so there was an easy starting point and also tied a needle to the ribbon. All set to go!

Miss G busy with her sewing.

Miss A thinking very hard.

Miss G busy going in and out of the holes, great for fine motor and hand eye coordination. 

Master J working out where to go next.

Miss M working out how to go in and out with the needle.

Miss O all finished and created a handle for hanging.

Miss A and her finished creation.

Master E super impressed with his efforts.

Even Miss S who has just turned 2 was keen to have a go!

The kids all had fun with this one and it is a great way to work on fine motor and hand eye coordination.
Hope  you enjoy it too!

x

Incy Wincy Spider

Winter is well and truly here so out come the Winter Crafts. We have been singing lots of Winter inspired songs lately and Incy Wincy Spider is one of the most popular. Whilst spending lots of time on Pinterest I came across a lovely Incy Craft (unfortunately there is no link for it). Here is our version.

You will need:
Paper Rolls (we used ones from paper towel)
Egg Cartons
Pipecleaners
Foil
Wool
Paint
Hot Glue Gun

A little bit of preparation is need for this craft. I pre-cut lengths of wool, sections of foil and cut the egg cartons. I also used the hot glue gun to join two pieces of egg carton together to make the spiders body.

We started by painting our spiders bodies. There were some very unusual coloured spiders!

Miss L busy painting.

Miss O and her spiders body.

Miss G and her spiders body.

Miss A with her painted spider.

Once we had painted the spiders bodies we wrapped our cardboard tubes with foil to make it look like the water spout. We just tucked the ends down inside the tube so no gluing was needed.

Then came the tricky adult help need part. The mummy's threaded some wool through the cardboard tube and then through the egg carton. We used scissors to poke a hole in the top and bottom of the egg carton, then tied off the wool, so that when you pulled on the wool Incy Wincy would climb up and down the water spout. The children chose 4 pipecleaners to thread through the egg carton to create the spiders legs, the pipecleaners we used were quite thick which meant some of the egg cartons came unglued. We just glued these back together with the hot glue gun.

Miss L with her completed Incy Wincy.

Incy Wincy ready to Climb up the Water Spout.

These were a great hit with the kids they all wanted to play and run around with their spiders. It did take a fair bit of preparation and adult help though, but they were super cute and well worth the effort.
Enjoy x

Lemonade Scones ~ Easy Kid Friendly

Mr Toddler Time loves to cook and has been home since the arrival of our newest family member Miss P. He has been busy doing lots of great activities with Master E and Miss M including making scones for our Mother's Day Morning Tea.
This is a super easy and kid friendly recipe. We hope you enjoy it xx

Lemonade Scone Recipe

This very quick and easy recipe produces lovely light scones.

Makes about 12-14 scones.


2 cups + 2 tablespoons self-raising flour
2/3 cup cold lemonade
2/3 cup thickened cream

Preheat oven to 205 degrees Celsius fan-forced. Line a baking tray
with baking paper.

Sift flour into a large bowl. Combine lemonade and cream in a medium bowl. Add
lemonade and cream mixture to flour and stir until just combined. The dough
should be soft and sticky.

Place dough on a lightly floured bench, form into a dough and press out to about 3.5cm
thickness. Cut scones using a floured 5cm diameter cutter (we used an unturned glass).

Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until pale golden and cooked through.

Rainy Day Umbrella Craft

It was raining this morning and Master E wanted me to sing him a rain song. All I could remember at the time was this one:


Rain is falling down, 
Rain is falling down, 
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, 
Rain is falling down.

He was suitable impressed, (luckily for me!) and we have been singing it on and off all day. Which is where the inspiration for today's craft came from. I have been thinking about making umbrellas for awhile and today's weather really did lend itself to making them. They are super easy and we used all things we already had.

We started with

Paper Plates
Dot Painters
Pipecleaners
Sticky Tape (I intended on using staples but the kids were have too much fun with the sticky tape!)
Ribbon Scraps
Blue Card
Scissors

Before we started I cut a paper plate in half with a zig zag pattern to form the top of the umbrella.

We then used the dot painters to decorate our umbrellas. I love these as they are technically still painting but there really is hardly any mess and set up is so quick.

A decorated umbrella. While Master E and Miss M were busy decorating I cut some of the card into rain drop shapes. I wasn't very fussy so the shapes and sizes were rather varied.

While we waited for the umbrellas to dry we used sticky tape to tape raindrops onto pieces of ribbon. Master E loved the challenge of using the sticky tape.

Once we had taped a number of raindrops onto each ribbon we taped the ribbons to the back of the umbrellas and added a pipecleaner for the handle. 

Miss M's finished umbrella. 

And Master E's.

We would love to see any of your rainy day crafts!

Threading with Leaves ~ Simple Cost Effective Crafting!

We had a visit to a lovely park this week and managed to come home with a great collection of leaves. I had previously seen a wonderful post on threading with leaves from A Little Learning for Two and decided we would have a go too!

We used:
Leaves
Curling Ribbon (I seem to have an abundance of this!)
Child friendly Needles 
Scissors

We started by removing all the leaves from the twigs we had collected. 

I cut off lengths of curling ribbon and tied a knot at the end to prevent the leaves from all slipping off and attached the child friendly needle at the other.

We then got busy threading, the needles pushed through the leaves quiet easily and is great for fine motor development and hand eye coordination. We used eucalyptus leaves so there was also a lovely scent when the leaves were pierced.

Once we had enough threading I tied the ribbons off to make a necklace. This is Master E with his beautiful necklace.

A very proud Miss M showing off her necklace.

We had lots of fun with this one and it was soooo easy and very cost effective too. Next time we might add some flowers into the mix!

Super Cute Easter Bunny Masks

Easter is fast approaching and the Toddler Timers and their friends are super excited, so there are lots of Easter Crafts happening. Today we made some very cute Easter Bunny Masks.

We started with:

Cardstock
Coloured Paper ~ Cut into shapes to place inside the ears and strips for whiskers.
Thin Elastic
Cotton Balls
Pom Poms
Glue Sticks

I did a fair bit of preparation for this craft. I started by creating a rabbit mask template. I cheated a little bit and found a mask the Toddler Timers had in their dress ups and used this to get the face and eye shapes, then I just added the long ears to make rabbits!

I precut the masks all out as this would take too long and be too difficult for most of the kids. I find using a scalpel much easier than scissors when cutting out inset shapes, like the eyes

I also had hole punched and threaded elastic into the masks. 

The Toddler Timers then choose a colour to paste into the ears and covered their masks with cotton balls.

Miss M carefully adding the colour to her bunny's ears.

Miss A working hard.

Miss A using her fine motor skills to separate the cotton balls ready to paste on to her mask.

Master E stockpiling the cotton balls.

Little Miss S keen to have a go like the big kids.

Miss A deep in thought.

Master S trying his mask on for size.

Miss L hard at work.

The gorgeous Bunny Miss L. Once we had finished adding the cotton balls we added some strips of paper for whiskers and  a Pom Pom for a little Bunny nose.

Master J making a super cute Easter Bunny.

The lovely Bunny Miss O.

The cheeky Bunny Master E.

The gorgeous Bunny Miss G.

Little Miss M having a turn of her big Sister Miss A's mask.

Miss A making a lovely Easter Bunny.

Miss M very proud of her mask.

The children really enjoyed making these and when we were finished there were some very cute little Easter Bunnies hopping around.