5 FUN Ways to Learn the Alphabet – Tuesday Tots

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Ness

Welcome back to another week of Tuesday Tots, the weekly link up of activities especially suited for the under fives! It is a fantastic resource of ideas for kids to play and learn and is co-hosted by Rainy Day Mum , Learn with Play at Home, Growing a Jeweled Rose and me, One Perfect Day! Each week I feature posts that were linked up in the previous week. This week I am featuring:

FUN Ways to Learn the Alphabet

1. An Outdoor Alphabet Hunt from My Little Bookcase.
2. Top 10 Ways to Remember the ABCs from Fantastic Fun and Learning.
3. Lego Animal Alphabet from Play Learn Love.
4. Learn with Playdough and Magnetic Letters from Learn with Play at Home.
5. Free Montessori Language Videos from Living Montessori Now.

Thank you to everyone who linked up and congratulations if you have been featured this week. Please feel free to grab a “featured at” button from my sidebar.

Here are some more alphabet learning games that we’ve enjoyed recently:

Now it’s time to link up your fabulous play ideas for the under fives!

Guidelines for Tuesday Tots
1. Posts should be suitable for 5 year olds or under.
2. Link as many posts as you like, either new or from your archives.
3. Please don’t link give aways unless they have a specific under 5s focus which the give away is not the main focus of the post.
4. Once you have linked up, we ask that you visit a couple of the other posts that have linked up and leave a comment – we all love reading comments.
5. Please also grab the Tuesday Tots badge from my sidebar or leave a text link either in the post or somewhere on your site to let others know about this great Linky. Thank you!
Finally, please note that linking up to Tuesday Tots gives One Perfect Day, Rainy Day Mum, Learn with Play at Home and Growing a Jeweled Rose permission to feature and share your post via several social media channels, including Pinterest. If you are featured, we may also grab a photo from your blog for use in the post but of course will link back to your site.

Walnut Racing Mice from Red Ted Art

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Ness

Make these super cute, super simple, racing walnut mice from Red Ted Art. They are a quick and easy craft for kids and would be perfect for story telling, small world play, and imaginary play. Keep reading to download a FREE excerpt from the fabulous new book Red Ted Art – Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids by Maggy Woodley!

If your kids love to craft and you need projects that are straight forward, simple to create and use items you can find around the home, then look no further Red Ted Art. Maggy Woodley’s amazing website is full of crafty inspiration. When I heard that Maggy had written a book, sharing over SIXTY brand new crafts for kids that are cut and simple to create, I couldn’t wait to read it.

We were thrilled to receive a copy of this gorgeous book to review and we haven’t stopped pouring over it’s pages since it arrived. With every turn of the page, R (4 yrs) exclaimed “Let’s make that! Oh, let’s make THAT!” The adorable pipe cleaner and gumnut octopus that you can see on the front cover was his absolute favourite project and he was so motivated by the book to get crafting and be creative that we went for a walk to collect gumnuts the very same day the book arrived!

I can tell I’ll be referring to this book a LOT. There are more than SIXTY projects to choose from and every single one uses every day items found around the home or garden. Each project is achievable for even the most craft-challenged amongst us and almost all of them can be completed in five or less simple steps. Got some toilet roll tubes? Make a zoo full of animals! Got an empty egg carton? Make a string of blossom fairy lights! Got rocks and crayons? Make some colourful paperweights!

This is the sort of book that R can just pick up, flip through the pages, choose something to make and within ten minutes I can set up an activity for him to do while I ~~get on with some housework~~ enjoy a nice cup of coffee!

Red Ted Art – Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids is available to order through Fishpond with FREE WORLDWIDE POSTAGE and you can also purchase it at all good independent bookstores here in Australia. As a special treat for One Perfect Day readers, Maggy Woodley is kindly sharing an excerpt from her gorgeous book. Below are the instructions for making these adorable racing walnut mice.

You can also click on the photo to download and print this excerpt.

Red Ted Art Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids – Australian Blog Tour
Love the racing walnut mice? Want to see more projects from this fabulous book? I am thrilled to be part of a fun Australian blog tour for Red Ted Art – Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids. Check the list below to see all of wonderful blogs taking part, and you will be able to view other cute projects from the book!

Sunday 16 June: Laughing Kids Learn’s Book review
Monday 17 June: One Perfect Day
Tuesday 18 June: Triple T Mum
Friday 21 June: Picklebums
Saturday 22 June: Mummy Musings and Mayhem
Monday 24 June: My Little Bookcase
Tuesday 25 June: At Home with Ali
Wednesday 26 June: Everyday Story
Thursday 27 June: Learn with Play at Home
Thursday 27 June: Lessons Learnt Journal
Friday 28 June: Wildlife Fun 4 Kids
TBC: Learning to Play and Playing to Learn

Thank you for visiting One Perfect Day! Follow us on Facebook for lots more fun and simple activities for kids!

You can also ollow One Perfect Day on Pinterest, Twitter or Instagram for creative ways for kids to play and learn, family recipes, and much more.

Simple Play: Fine Motor and Sensory Fun

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Ness

Set up a simple sensory tub filled with just one material and a few vessels for scooping and pouring. This open ended activity will keep kids entertained for hours as they explore, experiment and learn!

Play doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s often the activities that take the least amount of time to set up, and that involve the most basic of materials, that engage kids the most. The reason? Simple activities are open ended. Kids are free to explore and experiment in whichever way they choose and kids have such fabulous imaginations so the possibilities are endless.

So many times I’ve set up what I thought was a fabulous sensory tub for R (4 yrs) and he will inevitably remove all of the carefully selected elements and simply play with the main “material” and a few cups and spoons. So this time I simply filled a plastic tub with split peas, threw in a few plastic cups, a funnel and a couple of lidded glass bottles. This tub stayed out for an entire week and held R’s attention for up to an hour at a time – no small feat for a 4 year old with boundless energy who usually finds it impossible to sit still for five minutes!

The dried split peas are such a lovely material for sensory tubs. They are smooth and silky to touch, the glide between your fingers and make such calming sounds as they are scooped and poured. I think this may be why R enjoys this type of play so much. It is very calming and relaxing. He engaged in lots of fine motor practice with this tub, scooping the split peas into the small cups and then pouring them through the funnels.

He had fun making patterns and formations with the coloured plastic cups. First lining them up together….

….then pair by pair moving them to the sides of the tub….

…until they were all lined up again.

Much time was spent filling the glass bottles and pouring the contents out again between his fingers – such lovely sensory play. There is so much being explored and discovered here about volume, sound, velocity and weight.

R’s extended the activity by filling the vessels with split peas and then building structures with them. He constructed some very tall “buildings” and even topped one of them with an upturned funnel and declared it to be a house with a chimney on top!

Why we love this activity!

1. Open ended – R is free to let his imagination run wild and play in whichever way he wants.

2. Calming – perfect for when things are getting a little crazy and we need to slow down a bit.

3. Learning opportunities – mathematical concepts like volume, capacity and velocity.

4. Fine motor skills practice.

5. Concentration and attention span – this kept R happy for very long periods at a time.

6. It takes all of five minutes to put together.

Just a couple of notes about the split peas. At 4 years old, R is obviously past the point of putting things in his mouth but I still SUPERVISE HIM AT ALL TIMES when doing this activity. I bought several packets of split peas from the supermarket back when R was just two years old. He is now almost five. We’ve had the same split peas for almost three years now and they are still being used. A few dollars very well spent! If however you prefer to not use food in play then the split peas can be substituted with many other materials. The point of this activity is not which material you use, it’s about keeping it simple and using what you have on hand.

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Follow One Perfect Day on Pinterest, Twitter or Instagram for creative ways for kids to play and learn, family recipes, and much more.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links for your convenience:

4th of July Games and Activities for Kids

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Ness

Welcome back to Tuesday Tots! There were so many fabulous ideas linked up last week, thanks to everyone for joining in. The fourth of July is just around the corner, so, especially for my US readers, this week I’m featuring patriotic crafts and games.

Here are three fun and simple activities to try with your little ones.

1. Patriotic ribbon wands from Buggy and Buddy

2. 4th of July printable teaching pack from Gift of Curiosity.

3. Red, white and blue sensory bin from Little Bins for Little Hands.

Thank you to everyone who linked up and congratulations if you have been featured this week. Please feel free to grab a “featured at” button from my sidebar.

Last year, we made some sparkling 4th of July fireworks pictures. You can read how we did it by clicking on the picture below.

Now it’s time to link up your fabulous play ideas for the under fives!

Please read the Tuesday Tots guidelines before linking up.

Fun and Simple DIY Games for Kids

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Ness

Welcome back to Tuesday Tots! There were so many fabulous ideas linked up last week, thanks to everyone for joining in. This week I’m featuring fun and simple DIY family games.

Here are 20 fabulous, fun and simple games to try with your little ones.

1. Rock Stamps from Thrive 360 Living.

2. Tin Can Indoor Golf from The Craft Train.

3. DIY Board Game from Octavia and Vicky.

4. Magna Doodle Learning Activities from Happy Hooligans.

5. Color Matching with Painted Garden Stones from Twodaloo guest posting at Train Up a Child as we Grow.

6. Lego activity for tots from Laughing Kids Learn.

7. There are loads of ideas for fun family games at My Little Bookcase.

8. DIY Walking Balloon Pet from Green Owl Art.

9. Family Dice Game from Adventures at Home with Mum.

10. For some Fourth of July fun, here is a fab list of Patriotic Activities from B-Inspired Mama.

11. Party Blower Frog Catching Game from J Daniel 4′s Mom.

12. Dinosaur small world play travel box from The Usual Mayhem.

13. Pretend Play Driveway Town from Me and Marie Learning.

14. Pool Noodle Games from Play Eat Grow.

15. DIY Felt board weather game from The Good Life Mum.

16. DIY Mix-and-Match Robots from The Kavanaugh Report.

17. Fun and simple Improvisation Game for Kids from At Home With Ali guest posting at Octavia and Vicky.

18. Alphabet Rocks from Mum of One.

19. DIY Connect the Dot Game from Adventures at Home with Mum

20. Pirate Treasure Map from Tutus and Tea Parties

Thank you to everyone who linked up and congratulations if you have been featured this week. Please feel free to grab a “featured at” button from my sidebar.

Now it’s time to link up your fabulous play ideas for the under fives!

Please read the Tuesday Tots guidelines before linking up.

Playful Storytelling: A Story Basket for One Snowy Night

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Ness

Story baskets offer so many possibilities for creative, open ended play. They are quick and simple to put together using items collected on nature walks, favourite toys, blocks and felt scraps. After seeing the beautiful fairytale story basket created by the lovely Anna at The Imagination Tree as part of our joint Playful Storytelling series, I was inspired to create a story basket for one of R’s (4 yrs) favourite books – One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth.

One Snowy Night is part of the Percy The Park Keeper series. In this sweet tale, full of the most delightful illustrations, Percy finds his animal friends need his help on a cold and snowy night, and one by one an entire menagerie come to his hut looking for shelter from the freezing weather.

I filled our story basket with a few scraps of felt and some felting wool, pine cones and natural wood blocks, a mirror (to represent a frozen pond in the park), popsicle sticks, a plastic toy from R’s train set to represent Percy, and some animal finger puppets. (Our finger puppets were purchased from IKEA. I bought them a couple of years ago but I think they do still stock them).

R spread out the white felt to make some snow covered ground and added the pine cones, wood blocks and other elements to make the snow covered park in the story. We use these natural elements all the time in our imaginative play – they’ve been used for everything from a dinosaur world to a frog pond. He then began retelling the story of One Snowy Night adding in his own stories – such as the photo above where he’s taking the duck for a swim in the pond.

Story baskets are such a lovely way to encourage language development, imagination and creative thinking. This was a wonderful quiet time activity for R and he sat contentedly creating stories and new characters to add to the original tale.

In the story, all the animals pile in to Percy’s bed to keep warm and it soon gets a bit crowded! I simply cut one large and one small rectangle from felt, and voila! Instant bed. The animals in our set of finger puppets are not the same as the animals in the story but that’s the beauty of this kind of play. Things don’t need to be perfect. I find that if I just provide R with a starting point, he’ll take things in his own direction. It made no difference to him which animals we used – he even added the giraffe and elephant finger puppets to his story!

At one point in the story, all the animals become frightened by strange noises coming from beneath the floorboards of Percy’s hut. Much to Percy’s amusement the noises are not a monster, as imagined by the animals – it turns out to be a sweet little mole. I added popsicle sticks to the story basket and R used them as the floor boards. Our finger puppets don’t include a mole so a little bear came up through the floorboards!

I adore the open ended nature of story baskets. While the initial idea behind this basket was for retelling the story from a favourite book, the elements can all be used in so many ways. The felting wool can be snow, clouds, rain or even wind. The wood blocks can be used as trees, or stacked together to make a house. The felt can be blankets, picnic rugs or snow. So many hours of creative play to be had!

Don’t forget to pop over to The Imagination Tree to see all of the wonderful Playful Storytelling ideas that Anna is sharing.

You can also follow all the fun via our Playful Storytelling Pinterest board.

You can see all of my Playful Storytelling posts here.

If this is your first time visiting One Perfect Day – welcome! If you like what you have found, please join us on Facebook or follow us on Pinterest or Twitter where you will find lots of ideas for fun kids activities, thoughts on parenting, family recipes and more.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links

Outdoor Play Ideas for Kids

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Ness

Tuesday Tots is returning to One Perfect Day! I am absolutely thrilled to be co-hosting Tuesday Tots once again after a short break. Tuesday Tots is a weekly link up of activities especially suited for the under fives. It is a fantastic resource of ideas for kids to play and learn and is co-hosted by Rainy Day Mum , Learn with Play at Home and Growing a Jeweled Rose.

Each week I will feature posts that were linked up in the previous week. This week I am featuring outdoor play ideas.

1. Have some musical fun with a homemade rainbow xylophone from And Next Comes L

2. Make a giant chalk keyboard also from And Next Comes L

3. Explore painting with nature from The Usual Mayhem

4. Make a gorgeous beachcombing treasure tile from The Boy and Me

5. Enjoy some playful science with water, mirrors and reflections from My Nearest and Dearest

6. Introduce kids to gardening with recycled container gardening from Inspiration Laboratories

7. Get creative with some ice chalk from Reading Confetti

8. Draw some cool self portraits with chalk shadows from Reading Confetti

9.Have fun with 20 ways to play with bubbles from Blog Me Mom

10.Try painting with toy trucks and feet from Sugar Bee Learning

11. Enjoy a game of water bottle skittles from Poppet and Little

12. Have fun at the beach from Nothing if not Intentional

13. Have fun at the park with these 18 ideas from KC Edventures

14. Make cookie cutter bird feeders from We Made That

15. Explore the outdoor activities list from Early Play

Thank you to everyone who linked up and congratulations if you have been featured this week. Please feel free to grab a “featured at” button from my sidebar.

Here are some more outdoor play ideas that we’ve enjoyed recently:

Now it’s time to link up your fabulous play ideas for the under fives!

Please read the Tuesday Tots guidelines before linking up.

Playful Storytelling: Itsy Bitsy Spider Story Box

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Ness

Incy Wincy. Itsy Bitsy. Eensy Weensy. However you like to sing it, the traditional nursery rhyme about the little spider climbing up the water spout is a huger favourite in our home. Here in Australia we sing it as “Incy Wincy”. How do you sing it in your home or class room? We made a simple story box using recycled materials to go along with the song and R (4 yrs) has been thrilled with it. It was actually very quick to make and because it’s in a box, all the elements pack away neatly inside the box for easy storage – you have to love that!

We painted the inside of a cardboard box blue and green to represent a garden, adding some flowers at the front. On the top flap of the box, we glued on some cotton wool for clouds and a felt sun. To retell the nursery rhyme, we needed rain that could appear and then be taken away again so we painted a cardboard tube blue, and glued on some strips of blue tissue paper. The tube can be balanced on the two side flaps of the box at the appropriate part of the song, and then be taken away again as the sun comes out.

We painted one inside wall of the cardboard box to look like the wall of a house and added a water spout made from a cardboard tube covered in kitchen foil.

For our spider we cut a section from an egg carton and painted it black. For the legs, I used two black pipecleaners. I cut them in half to make a total of four lengths of pipe cleaner. Next, I made a hole on each side of the spider’s body, and threaded all four pipe cleaners in one side and out the other. I bent the ends of each leg to form a foot. To finish, we glued on two googley eyes and our spider was done.

Then it was time to play! Incy Wincy spider, climbed up the water spout….

(Enter the cardboard tub of “rain”) Down came the rain, and washed poor Incy out….

(Lift up the top of the box) Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain, so Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the spout again!

Don’t forget to pop over to The Imagination Tree to see the absolutely adorable Fairytale Storytelling Basket that Anna is sharing this week.

You can also follow all the fun via our Playful Storytelling Pinterest board.

You can see all of my Playful Storytelling posts here.

A Delicious Giveaway! #Mums4cake

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Ness

Sponsored By Nuffnang

What does Mother’s Day usually look like for you? For me it’s often a bit of a non-event because it’s right after my birthday so I’ve already had a “special day” and we usually spend the day travelling long distances to visit my Mum and Mark’s mother as well. It’s often rush rush rush, and busy busy busy. So when we were invited to try one of the amazing ice-cream cakes from Baskin-Robbins, I thought it would be a wonderful chance to enjoy a relaxed early Mother’s Day celebration. We enjoyed a very special (and absolutely delicious!) morning tea together, free from other commitments and with nowhere else to be but enjoying each other’s company.

My favourite sweet treat is ice-cream. I’m not fussy with flavour either. Give me strawberry, give me choc chip or cookies and cream, hey, give me vanilla and I’m happy. My other favourite dessert is cake. Who doesn’t love cake? Can you imagine what kind of Heaven I’m in then when my two favourite things are combined into one sensational combination? Ice-cream cake is where it’s at!

As we were tucking in to our special Mother’s Day cake, it occurred to me that we Mums always arrange cake for birthdays, christenings, anniversaries and Christmas but not on Mother’s Day. Why is that? I guess it’s because, we don’t really want to be baking for ourselves on our special day – we’d rather put our feet up! The custom ice-cream cakes from Baskin-Robbins make it easy to have your cake and eat it too! Ordering our cake online was quick and easy – oh except for choosing a style and flavours. They ALL looked incredible and it was so hard to choose! In the end, R made the final choices. He was thrilled, not only because we were ordering ice-cream (he takes after his Mum, it’s his favourite dessert as well!) but because he was able to feel independent and choose a present for me all by himself.

If your family is anything like ours, everyone has a different choice when it comes to favourite flavours. Mine is well, anything (ahem) but Mark loves chocolate and R adores strawberry. The Baskin-Robbins premium custom cakes are the perfect solution because they can be ordered with up to two flavours so you’ll be able to satisfy everyone’s tastes. R selected Chocolate Mousse Royale (I KNOW! It tasted as good as it sounds!) and Very Berry Strawberry. So fabulous.

Hello! Look at that. So pretty. So yummy!

What could be more lovely for Mother’s Day? Hand made gifts from your little one and ice cream cake.

This was such a special way to celebrate Mother’s Day. We all love ice-cream cake and why shouldn’t we Mums have our cake and eat it too! You can view the entire Baskin-Robbins Mother’s Day icecream cake range, find your nearest store or order your very own premium cake by visiting www.baskinrobbins.com.au

WIN your own Baskin-Robbins custom ice-cream cake!

The lovely people at Baskin-Robbins are very generously offering the following to ELEVEN (yes eleven!) lucky readers.

1 x $50 Premium ice cream cake
10 x $20 Baskin-Robbins vouchers to spend at your local store

How to Enter

Entry is easy! Just three simple steps:

1. Please “like” One Perfect Day on Facebook

2. Visit Baskin-Robbins and then come back and leave a comment under this blog post, letting me know what is your favourite Baskin-Robbins ice cream flavour and why. I dare you to pick just one! They are all so good it’s not that easy!

3. Please share this blog post once via Twitter or Facebook.

This giveaway open to Australian residents only. The competition ends Friday May 10th 5pm AEST. You can view the terms & conditions here.

We will choose our favourite responses and the lucky winners will be notified by email. This post will be updated to announce the winners and it will be shared on Facebook as well.

GOOD LUCK!

DIY Lego Magnets

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Ness

These DIY Lego magnets would have to be one of the easiest crafts we’ve ever done. A few Lego bricks, some hot glue, a couple of magnets and voila! Instant colour and fun for the fridge. They’ve been a huge hit with the little Lego fan in our family.

MAKE DIY LEGO MAGNETS

Supplies:

Lego bricks

Strong magnets

Hot glue gun

Note: Self-adhesive magnet tape that you can buy in a roll won’t be strong enough for fridge magnets. You need something fairly strong if you want these to be practical and not just decorative. Having said that, I didn’t buy anything special for these. I used very inexpensive magnets from our local $2 shop (for my US and UK readers, that’s the Australian equivalent of the Dollar Tree). As for the glue, I used a hot glue gun and our magnets have held together perfectly. You could also use super glue or any strong glue of your choice. Regular craft glue won’t be strong enough though.

To make your Lego magnets, glue the magnet pieces to the back of the Lego bricks. That’s it! Pretty tricky right? Wait for at least 24 hours before using them. They’ll stick to the fridge just fine before then, but you don’t want to put any pressure on them to hold things to the fridge until the glue has completely dried, so it’s best to wait.

These magnets are so fun and colourful. They’ve definitely brightened our kitchen. They’d be a fun addition to a magnetic board in a home office or play room.

The magnets would also make a quick and simple DIY gift – perfect for a Lego fan – and who doesn’t know at least one? They would also be a great party favor for a Lego themed birthday party.