Paper Plate Seahorses

Today we reread Secret Seahorse, which the children really love and then they enjoyed painting some seahorses that I had cut out of a paper plate.

I think they turned out very well, now just need to find some space on my wall for them and discovered that a group of seahorses is called a herd.

I attempted to make a jelly fish in a bottle, I'm not sure how well it worked but the children loved it.

I had sorted out one of the water tray before the little ones arrived and had put some small foam creatures (that should get bigger throughout the day). I really loved the way one little one found the shells and put the crab in the shell. Then came and showed me saying "Look just like the story crab"  remembering the story A House For Hermit Crab, from the other week and of course lots of fun was had.

Lolly Recipes

Well with the week looking like it is going to be hot to say the least my thoughts turned to making some yummy lollies. I have a little one with multiple food allergies, so most shop bought lollies are out of the question. So I thought I would add a couple of my favourite lolly recipes that I have been making for a long time,  not going to think about how many years though!

                                               Apple and Mango Ice Lolly

                                                       100ml water
                                                       200ml apple juice
                                                       80g fresh mango

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend, then freeze in lolly pop moulds.

                                            Orange and Pineapple Ice Lolly

                                                        100ml water
                                                        200ml orange juice
                                                        70g fresh pineapple

  Place all ingredients in a blender and blend, then freeze in lolly pop moulds.

             
                                                    Coconut Ice Lolly  

                                                    1 x 400g tin coconut milk
                                                    40g caster sugar
                                                    5ml vanilla essence

 Mix all the ingredients together, then freeze in lolly pop moulds.

I use the same recipe that I use for the coconut ice lolly to make ice cream in my ice cream maker, which is very yummy.

Wet Felting Starfish

The children have thoroughly enjoyed this mornings activity, they really appreciated the different textures, the softness of the wool, the roughness of the netting, how the bubble wrap felt etc. Then the fun of all the foamy bubbles they made, followed by rolling and squashing the bubble wrap.

First we looked at some pictures of starfish and counted how many legs they had, then they choose the colours they wanted to use. We used a mixture of blues for the background, they loved pulling the wool apart and laying it down.

When we had created our picture we covered it with some netting

and poured some hot water mixed with lots of washing up liquid on them, obviously only as hot as is safe for the children to touch.

Then lots of rubbing to mat all the fibres together.

When we had rubbed enough and the fibres were nicely matted together, we rolled our pictures up and spent time rolling and squishing them.

Rinse in cold water and leave to dry.

Children then decided to have their snack in our tent.

5 Little Fish

 Last night you would of found me gluing together some colourful lolly pop sticks into fish shapes and cutting up some kite paper into backing sheets and smaller pieces for the children to stick with. Kite paper is a waxy paper and I tend to use it in place of tissue paper, as it holds glue better, doesn't become a soggy, gluey mess, doesn't rip as easily etc and therefore easier for little people to use. We also sang some little fish counting songs, words are at the bottom after the photos of our fish.

Two variations of five little fish rhymes, we really enjoy the first one as all the little fish coming home, you repeat each verse until you have no fish coming back and of course we also sang 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive.

5 Little Fish

5 little fish went swimming one day

Over the sea and far away

Mummy fish called "comeback, come back"

Only 4 little fish came swimming back

No little fish came swimming back

Then a big whale went swimming past

and five little fish came swimming back

OR

5 little fish

Swimming out to sea

Teasing Mr Shark

"You can't catch me"

Along came Mr Shark

As quiet as can be

SNAP!

4 little fish etc

Bubble wrap Printing

The children had great fun exploring the texture of bubble wrap and popping some before we started painting. They really seemed to enjoy the way the paint went on the bubble wrap and mine love anything that gives that magical reveal moment, e.g. painting with stencils, printing, butterfly printing etc. We will be doing bubble wrap painting again very soon.