Reducing and Sewing

Those that know me well, know that over the past few years I have been changing the way I  work, the toys we have etc, well I am still sorting and reorganising the house but it is all finally coming together. It is not always easy to get rid of things which is why it has taken so much time, along with getting sidetracked with the garden and various craft projects. Sometimes I have just boxed things up and put them in the loft and waited to see if we really need them, observing what and how the children play. It's that difficult thing of never knowing what children or what ages I might end up looking after, so trying to reduce the toys feels more complicated than if I was just doing it for my own children. Anyway the sitting room is looking really good and it is working so well with my own children and minded children. We have reduced the toys a lot, so the cupboards only have a couple of toys to a shelf but it means they can easily find what they want and put it back. They have also at times taken every thing off a couple of shelves then used the shelves to make dolls houses with. Really noticing that they are being more creative and playing better now we have less out, rather than quickly flitting from toy to toy. So here are some pictures of our room, ok normally the floor doesn't look this clear.

The bottom of the white bookshelf cupboard, we have some jigsaws, our story basket, geo shape puzzles, bean bags and lots of books.

The other cupboard, has our block tray, bag of tree blocks and baskets of animals. Then I have been lucky enough to be able to slide 2 baskets under the unit, one has our musical instruments in it and the other is baby toys.

The other end of our sitting room, the cupboard has all our crayon, pencils, paper etc as well as more jigsaws and games, still need to sort through this cupboard.

One of the major things I did a few years ago was reducing our dressing up clothes, I still have a small box but it is normally upstairs and only comes out from time to time. I now have a basket of silk squares, scarves and coloured muslin squares

They have sparked so much creative thinking as to what and how they are going to use them for. 

They have been used for 

• Cloaks
• Baby doll slings
• Wrapped to make dresses/skirts
• Bedding for dolls
• Yellow square to make a sandpit
• Blue square to make a paddle pool
• Butterfly wings
• Fairy wings
• Hair
• Scarves

 to name a few and I have used them to create many story scenes. I have found that the children are more creative than they were with a box of dressing up clothes and they love trying to make new things with them. Don't get me wrong I do love dressing up clothes but if you haven't a lots of space you have to make a decision on what works best for you and your home/setting.

On a creative note I have enjoyed some sewing, I have only just come across the Ottobre design magazine, wondering how I have never come across them before and loving the patterns, the one that caught my eye was this one.

M and I went shopping and she helped to pick out this fabric and buttons.

Just love the delicate pleating.

Linked up with Frontier Dreams

Pattern Blocks

I know I am supposed to be reducing what we have, which I have done a lot of but couldn't resist these Geo Shapes, L and co love playing with the wooden ones we have but thought these would make a nice addition. They were a big hit and have been very well played with, there are about 20 double sided picture boards for them to use, plus they can use them to make their own pictures etc.

So these are a lot of fun to play with, great for counting, shape and colour recognition, fine motor skills - developing the muscles in their hands, co-ordination, as well as language, there was lots of chatter about what the pictures were, whether they have seen a frog, the different shapes etc.

Tower of Pisa

On Friday L and I spent time looking at the Tower of Pisa in this book 13 Buildings Children Should Know and found a couple of you tube clips to watch. She was fascinated by this one, which is people walking up all the stairs and then seeing the amazing view from the top but it gave her an idea of how high it was. I then suggested she try and draw the tower, which she thought was a great idea.

We then headed out to the sand pit to have a go at some tower building, first things first, needed to add a lot of water and mix well as the sand was very dry.

Once the sand was the right consistency for sandcastles, L set about filling her bucket to make the first part of out tower.

We talked about how difficult it would be to build a tower that leaned and why and that if we used containers that got smaller and smaller like the stacking cups do it might be easier, we did have some collapsed towers which she found amusing, especially when they buried her toes!

We did mange to build a couple of successful towers,

Then L had fun squashing them all back down and starting again.

Cornflour Gloop

We have had a loads of fun over the last couple of weeks with cornflour gloop, they mixed up their own gloop and spent time exploring it's properties.

Spreading it out over our tuff spot, making different patterns with their hands.

We went in for lunch and when we came back out the cornflour gloop had dried out, the children were really curious as to why this had happened, so I explained about evaporation and how puddles dry out and this is what had happened to out mixture. I suggested they try and make patterns in it. They spent ages making patterns in it, breaking it up and getting very dusty.

L enjoyed breaking up the larger pieces of dried gloop with her finger.

They then got the spray bottles back out and started to spray they tray.

They were amazed to see it change from the dry gloop back to runny gloop, L has added more cornflour, seen what happened and then added more water until she had the consistency. Over the week the gloop has been left to dry, broken up, more water added again and again.

Papa Piccolo

The children and I are thoroughly enjoying Papa Piccolo, the illustrations are lovely, there's lots to talk and think about, we have read the story several times. I put together a story basket for the children, L saw it this morning and said "Wow, Mummy you've made a gondola" sigh of relief from me that she recognised it, as my husband wan't so impressed last night with creative abilities!

 So this morning we reread the story again, played with the story basket, then we headed out to the garden to do some painting, we have had some new furniture for the girl's bedroom and I thought we could use the boxes to make their own play mat for Papa Piccolo, Marco and Polo to explore.

They painted a river, green sunflowers and a shop that sells shoes all in their shoe boxes .

Papa Piccolo and kittens spent time in the Gondola

as well as exploring the flowers and shops, 

they were then all very tired so they had a rest in the sun.

 Last week I made a large gondola for them to paint and play in, when I asked them where they were going one answered "We are going to Thailand to lie on the warm sunny beaches" another was of to the carnival.

On a slightly different theme but making the most of the cardboard boxes, I had originally thought we could build a house with the rest in the garden but it is rather too windy today. Then thinking of one little one who loves to throw balls etc,thought why not cut one up to make a cardboard target for them. Decided on different shape holes and then to paint different colours around the edge, to make it a bit more fun for those learning their shapes and or colours.

There were so many giggles as they missed the target completely and the bean bags landed on the slide and slid down it, then the excitement of actually getting the bean bags through a shape.

Italy

After seeing the enjoyment and interest the children had when we looked at China, I had thought of looking at another country. They had shown some interest in France and Egypt, so had thought we would head there but then the other day we were looking through Maps book and Italy caught their attention, especially the pictures of the Venice carnival, so that is where we are going.

Today we have read about the Venice and the carnival and watched some clips about the carnival on you tube here and here and then they enjoyed making lots of masks and dressing up.

Some they decorated with feathers

and others not.

Later on they asked for some more masks as they wanted to colour in some more.

Some useful sites etc :-
I found an interesting selection of nursery rhymes and songs from Italy here
Vivaldi's Four Seasons for us to listen too
Opera an audio about opera more for M than the little ones
Famous Landmarks of Italy worksheet
Other thoughts for older children would be to look at the explorer Marco Polo and ancient Rome, myths and legends.