Messy Play: Spaghetti

We have been using spaghetti  in our craft activities this week.  Yesterday I tried making Rainbow spaghetti after I saw a great post on the Imagination Tree.  Unfortunately it didn't turn out quite as well as theirs.  My spaghetti didn't go as bright and once mixed together, it all went the same orangey colour and stained our hands.  Maybe I will try draining it and leaving it to dry a bit longer next time.

The kids enjoyed playing with it nethertheless and got stuck in feeling the squidgey, slippery texture.

Today we did some spaghetti painting.  I filled some old takeaway tubs with long cooked spaghetti and mixed each one with a big blob of paint.  Then the children put it onto their card and carefully removed it leaving curly patterns behind.  As with all toddlers, they got carried away with slapping it on and got lovely and messy! In the end the colours all got mixed together and looked like "chocolate noodles"! Don't you just love the things children come out with?



Pepper Printing

Today's planned activity was pepper printing. I thought it would be nice for the children to do it in the garden this afternoon as the sun started to come out.  I got everything set up outside, the children got their shoes on and got stuck in, printing peppers onto card, getting very messy hands in the process. Then all of a sudden it started spitting with rain, but the sun was still out, so we stayed outside.  Then the sun went in and the rain began to get heavier and heavier!  I grabbed a garden umbrella and held it over the children and their paintings which were starting to get wet while Paul ran to get a bowl of soapy water to wash their hands.  We must have looked a picture!  I just hope none of the neighbours were looking at us out of their windows! Unfortunately I didn't catch the rainy moment on camera, but here are some of the children's master pieces!

Seashell Shortbread

The children we care for just love baking and shortbread is a lovely pliable dough that can easily be moulded into different shapes.

To follow on from our Seaside theme, we are making seashell shortbread this week using a cutter I bought recently.  Here is the recipe I have used for years and is very popular with my friends and family. 

100g (4oz) butter, softened
50g (2oz) caster sugar
150g (5oz) plain flour
25g (1oz) semolina
extra caster sugar for dusting

1. Cream butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Using a fork, gradually stir in flour and semolina.
3. Draw mixture together with fingertips.
4. Roll out dough to 1-2cm thickness and cut out using a shaped cutter of your choice.
5. Place on a greased baking sheet or parchment and cook for about 15-20 minutes or until the colour of pale straw.

We made the dough using a fork 

The mixture smelt delicious!

Our Seashell Shortbread

I bake shortbread a lot at Christmas time.  Cut into rounds with a hole in the centre, tie ribbon around them and hang them on the Christmas tree.  They never last longer than an hour in our house though!

Row Row Row Your Boat...

This month our theme is the Seaside.  I couldn't resist this little boat sand pit when I saw it in Clearance Bargains yesterday.  It really was a bargain too at just £13!  Paul assembled it and I filled it with 8 bags of sand.  We had trouble getting the children out of it at dinner time!

They enjoyed hunting for shells which I hid in the sand.  They collected them all up in a bucket.  Then we had fun burying each other's feet and making sandcastles before the toddlers knocked them down!





I am hoping to get a large piece of wood and attach it to the back of the boat and the children can help to paint a seaside scenery on it.

Sunflower Painting

It has been a lovely day today and we have spent most of it in the garden.  We went to the shops this morning and bought some more sand for the activity table as it seems to disappear every week!

This afternoon's activity was hand painting.  We all painted our hands yellow and the children squidged and splatted  their hands in the paint tray before printing them onto paper.  Later this week we will be cutting them out and  making a big sunflower display.








When we had finished painting our hands were very messy!  Amelia even had paint in her hair!  So we washed our hands in a bowl of warm soapy water. 





The children loved the bubble water, so I got out a big bottle of bubble mixture.  The children got plenty of excerise, stretching and jumping to catch the bubbles and developing problem solving, reasoning and numeracy by looking at the varying shapes and sizes of them.