We made sparkly gifts to hang on the wall

PHOTO thanks to Natalie

We decided it was the right time of the year for the kids to start making gifts. This simple and stylish idea required the purchasing of some cheap craft products, that you may already have, and some gluing by the children. I would like to have it hanging on my wall, wouldn't you?

If you don't want to purchase the canvases you could use the same idea to make cards for Christmas or other celebrations.

MATERIALS:
Large circle punch
Small canvases - 1 per child
Gold paper and cardboard with different textures and patterns
Paper glue.

We did a joint floor puzzle

We have these beautiful wooden blocks and children usually pile them up high, making towers and knocking them down.

Today we laid them flat and some of the older children started making them into a flat puzzle. More and more children joined in and some of the parents too.  We ended up with a beautiful creation but the main thing was the co-operation that happened along the way. Here is a great page of co-operative games that you could use at your playgroup.

Thanks to Teodoro for the photo

Healthy food ideas for playgroup

More healthy snack ideas here.

I love:
No. 5: Lebanese bread + avocado + grated cheese and so did the kids.
No. 15: Fruit smoothie + milk + yoghurt + honey + fruit

This is a great handout that you could use as a poster at playgroup or as a handout to all interested families on easy snack ideas for young children.

It is a PDF

These resources are from Healthy Eating at Playgroup developed by playgroup coordinators and staff in conjunction with South East Sydney Area Health and based on The Australian Guide for Healthy Eating

Thanks Vera Kratochvil for the photo.

We re-organized the morning tea box

We have a large clear morning tea box with a lid in the kitchen at playgroup with all our supplies for preparing a healthy morning tea and today we cleaned it out and replenished the supplies.

WHAT WE KEEP IN OUR MORNING TEA BOX:
20 bowls
20 adult cups with lids for tea and coffee:  we use theseas they have different coloured lids for easy identification and reuseable and BPA free
20 plastic cups: reusable
1 chopping board
1 large knife with a knife cover
Teaspoons: metal
Metal tongs for serving food
Large serving plates
1 water jug with lid
2 tea towels

WHAT WE REPLENISH:
Paper towel
Tissues
Tea
Sugar
Coffee
Plastic gloves for preparing food
Plastic bags for rubbish
Yellow sponges for kitchen
Red sponges for craft and toys

We sang multi cultural children's songs

Do you have any songs you sing regularly that are from other cultures? Each term we pick around 12 to 15 songs that we sing regularly so that they all become very familiar and turn into our favourites.
We don't sing them all every week - we sing about 4 and always include one familiar song like "Der Glumph went the little green frog". This term, for our new songs, we have chosen a few multicultural songs. Our favourite so far has been the Native American circle dance:

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the earth

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the Earth

Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly
Wearing our long wing feathers as we fly

We circle around, we circle around
The boundaries of the sky

The next week we made simple feather head dresses to dance with as we circled around holding hands.

See more multicultural songs.

See how we made our headdress.

Borrow or buy our favourite CD of multicultural songs.

Read a multicultural story: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes which has beautiful illustrations of babies from all different nations.

Be one of the first to join in our link up of play ideas

2013


Linking up is simple at Today at Play:

1. Link up your early childhood play idea from 2013 

2. Link up as many ideas as you like

3. Use the "Name" of your idea not your name.

We had a playdough bakery

Playdough is always popular and we are forever trying to find new ways for the kids to explore with it. The great thing about this sensory activity is that most children, and parents, love it and even one year olds enjoy poking their fingers in the colourful dough.
We always make playdough using the uncooked recipe so that sometimes the children can help us.

Today with the colourful playdough we provided:

• Metal cake trays
• Metal muffin trays
• A variety of plastic kitchen containers
• Spatulas
• Wooden rolling pins
• Plastic knives
• Plastic spoons
• Wooden spoons
• A variety of things to decorate the "cakes".
• A shaker of extra flour to sprinkle on top.

See more ideas for playdough activities.

Wordless Wednesday: zoo trip

Linked up at 5 minutes for Mom,   Live and Love…Out Loud,  Parenting By Dummies and Seven Clown Circus.

We did painting on the easels

We talked about water safety

Because it is hot and sunny and summery here we talked about children and water safety at playgroup today.

Unfortunately the number of people drowning in Australia has increased, for the third year in a row, making us realize that we all have a part to play in preventing drowning. Children are at greatest risk when they are toddlers and need constant supervision around water to have fun and be safe.

We talked about basic safety around water and pools and CPR and made sure everyone knew the emergency number 000. The most important thing we decided was to only allow your child near a pool if you are able to stay and supervise.

We talked about active supervision and how it means focusing all of your attention on your children all of the time, when they are in, on or around the water and how mobile phone use can distract us from active supervision.

We used the Kidsafe Swimming Pool Safety sheet.
The Royal Life Saving Society has many fact sheets on water awareness, bath time safety, home water safety, wading pools, pool toy safety and resuscitation. They also have resources on water safety in Chinese, Arabic and Vietnamese. 

We made kangaroos

Lots of brown cardboard and a little white cardboard, cut into circle shapes to create a kangaroo. We also used black stickers for the eyes. Our kiddie creations did not quite end up looking like our inspiration above but the children loved gluing the shapes and the mothers enjoyed cutting the circles, as they could still chat as they cut.

We made fruit salad

 

The parents had previously discussed trying to get their children to eat different kinds of fruit and not just stick to their one or two favourites, so this week we involved the children in making some fruit salad.

 

We found some fruit puzzles

 

and a fruit matching picture game

and we read Handa's Suprise which is a delightful book about fruit,

amongst other things

and everyone had a happy morning.

 

 

We made finger paint prints

We made our own fingerpaint using this recipe. We like it as it helps with easy clothes washing.
We placed a small amount of each colour in a tray for each child. The children played in the fingerpaint, some cautiously and some with squeals of delight.
They washed their hands and then placed a piece of paper over their tray and rubbed.
We slowly lifted the paper off and hung them outside on the line to dry.
The clean up was quite easy as we washed the trays and wiped down the plastic table tops.

We sang songs about transport

I'M A LITTLE ROCKET (sung to tune of "I'm a Little Teapot")
I'm a little rocket short and thin,
Here is my nose cone, here are my fins
When it comes to blast off, then I zoom
Off the launch pad, to the moon.

Transport is our theme this term: how things move around, how we travel on trains and buses and cars and aeroplanes, boats, helicopters and rockets.
I think the theme has been great for the parents as well as the children and they talk to each other about transport on the way to and from playgroup and during the week when they are out and about. Many families have been bringing in pictures and books to read about transport like:

We will probably go on a ferry boat as an excursion this term too.

Here is a link to some more transport songs.

Also this term we will be creating something to take home to Dad or Grandpa for Father's Day. What do you make for Father's Day?

We visited the creek

It is school holidays here and we organised a family outing so the older brothers and sisters could come a long. We are lucky to have a creek in our community and everyone wore old shoes or gumboots and we rounded up as many nets and buckets as we could find and packed a picnic lunch and off we went. The parents took turns in being with the younger kids around the creek. We saw dragonflies, butterflies and ants and tadpoles and little tiny fish.

We went to feed the birds

Today we went on a walk and as we have lots of littlies we decided to walk to the nearby plaza and feed the pidgeons. The children really enjoyed throwing the bread (and chasing birds) and we all decided an excursion does not have to be far, or in a car or bus, as long as you are with some friends

We go Green

Easy to Be Green: Simple Activities You Can Do to Save the Earth by Ellie O'Ryan and illustrated by Ivanke & Lola.

What sets this book apart from other earth day books is that it is printed on recycled materials with vegetable inks. Easy to Be Green develops eco-friendly consciousness at an early age. Besides information it has Earth-saving tips, fun facts, and easy activities kids can do to help the environment.

It explains what a carbon footprint is and why it is important to make changes. It gives ideas on what we can do with short sections on endangered animals, trash & landfills, recycling, composting and green cleaning products. Included in each section are fun activities. It is appropriate for ages 3-12. It teaches children about Earth Day and why it's important to help Save the Earth. The children aged 2 to 4 loved the pictures and were inspired to help collect the newspapers, bottles, and cans after reading it.

There are many extension activities on the internet connected to this book and other books in the series such as:

Easy Earth - saving Tips

Extension Activities PDF:

My Garden Song (sing this song to tune of Twinkle twinkle little star)
Growing, growing, little seed,
How I wonder what you’ll be.
A cabbage, a turnip, something green?
A carrot, a squash, a lima bean?
Growing, growing, little seed,
How I wonder what you’ll be.

We tried this activity suggestion:
Use an old egg carton to grow seedlings of tomatoes, beans, or other foods. Fill the carton with soil and plant a seed in each compartment. Place the carton near a sunny window and remember to water the seeds.

We decorated Easter Egg Shapes

The egg is the symbol of Easter so we decided that a simple activity for all ages would be to decorate your own egg shape.
1. We drew a large egg template on large white paper
2, Supplied - crayons, coloured pencils, stickers in simple shapes like stars and circles, easter stickers and paints.
3. Children chose their own way of decorating their shape.
None of the egg shapes ended up looking like this:

THANK GOODNESS

the parents let the children decorate their own way!

 

 

 We have linked up here:

Have a peak.

We made and decorated paper aeroplanes

This was very much a hands on activity for the grownups at playgroup. Once just one child became interested all the children came to the table. The older ones helped with the folds and the younger ones decorated their plane with large stickers. Then we enjoyed a game where everyone flew their planes around the room. We found that paper aeroplanes differ considerably in their capacity for flight depending on the design and also the weight of the paper used.
We used the instructions to the first simple plane at this site.

You can also get a book.

We are planning our new year

Always at playgroup we try to have a wide range of activities each week for children from newborn to 5 year olds. We try to ensure we have:

Outside activities

Inside activities
Sensory play

Active play

Fine motor play

Thinking play

Literacy activities

Healthy food