The Wife Mumma Life Activity & Photo Challenge - April 2014

april

 Bring creative play to each day.

1. watercolor paint I asked him what he wanted to paint and he suggested his unicorn. So, I sat it next to his paper and talked him through the different parts of the unicorn as he painted. He did such a great job. It's so cute!!!

2. color hunt - blue Always a fun activity he searched the house looking for blue items. Sometimes the hardest part is stopping :)

3. drawing I've been encouraging my son to put thought into his drawings, to think of sizes and colors and we've been talking about it all day in preparation for today's drawing. Hmm...might have to chat some more?! At least he used his imagination and drew one of our dogs with a puppy in her belly. She's not in pup.

4. cotton bud craft First of all we painted with dots using the cotton buds but that didn't grab his attention as well as this did! He has a curiosity about bones and skeletons right now. He loved this!

5. crayon rubbings We had planned on driving about town and finding random surfaces to crayon rub, but I decided to downsize after a busy day and we just wandered the yard and house...still found some interesting patterns that he enjoyed seeing appear on the page!

6. dress-ups Today we went into outer space and my brave little astronaut discovered a new planet!! It was very exciting and dangerous but we are now back home on planet earth, safe and sound. What a day!!

7. cardboard box Although this Mumma had grand plans with this cardboard box, a tired boy (after a big day at Kindy) decided he'd just like to paint it. "No story mummy, just lots of paint." How can I argue with that? 
8. rainbows We kinda went rainbow crazy this afternoon after Kindy! Rainbow puzzle, rainbow ice block, pom pom rainbow, sponge drag rainbow, chalk rainbow word trace, rainbow bath, rainbow toast and we found a rainbow health poster at Kindy. Lots of rainbow fun!!!
9. puzzle fun We turned the painting (from the other day) into a puzzle! He loved it!!!
10. child's choice  ...and he chose to do some chalk drawings. It's a self-portrait.
11. weaving We may have attempted something a little beyond his abilities, but between the two of us we've managed to begin a little weaved floor mat, made from strips of his old t-shirts. I'd weave and he'd pull it tight. We'll work on this over the next few weeks. He really enjoyed seeing the mat get bigger and bigger as we weaved. 
12. nature printing When the rain eased a little we took a walk and collected leaves. We painted the leaves and pressed them onto the paper. I loved how excited he was to see the print left behind. An added bonus was the beautiful aroma from the leaves, especially the sweet basil!
13. baking We made cupcakes for his Kindy teachers. We will wait til tomorrow morning before Kindy to decorate them fresh with butter cream frosting and an Easter egg on top.
14. little town I must admit I had no idea where I was going with today's prompt....in the end lots of squares, rectangles and triangles where taped together to make this little patchwork town. It looked a bit blank so we added the windows and detail bits and pieces.
15. playdough I thought it would be great to spell out the alphabet, he disagreed and just wanted to make a bunch of 'Olafs' (from Frozen) so we only got to G!! No photos of Olaf, he kept squishing them!
16. storybook craft The Gruffalo is one of his favorite books!! So, we made our own Gruffalo with cupcakes, frosting and cake decorating bits and pieces. We read the book as we decorated. It was heaps of fun to see our Gruffalo come together piece by piece and in the end he looked awesome!!
17. messy play What started out as a simple messy play in a tub quickly became 'let's throw spaghetti into the tree' fun!!! ...and it really was fun! Spaghetti everywhere!!! We now have a spaghetti tree in our front yard.
18. easter hat I cut out all the bits and pieces ready for him to glue together. It looks pretty cute! ...we also made a Easter basket ready for an egg hunt.
19. pastel colors Easter crafts of course!!! We used pastel colored paint to create the eggs, which have since been made into bunting. Using cardboard to scrape the paint over an egg shape cutout (an introduction to screen printing) A pastel sunset behind the crosses.....and that bunny, no pastel there, but it was too cute not to add!!!
20. egg hunt Jammies and egg hunts just go together!!!
21. water play Dirt + water + bucket = messy, muddy, dirty, mucky water play!!!
22. self-portrait I set up a table with a mirror so he could look at himself as he drew his self-portrait. This helped him choose his colors and think about what he was doing.
23. loose parts Making faces. It was fun watching his brain tick over as he made decisions on what loose part to put where.
24. handprint art How cute are these elephants?!!! He also wants to make a giraffe, lion and our dogs. I probably shouldn't have outlined the whole animal, but once I started it was too late, they still look like handprints right?
25. pom poms Paper poppies with pom pom centers. We made these poppies in honor of Anzac Day. We talked about remembering all the men and women who lost their lives and those who returned protecting our beautiful country, and those who are serving to this day.
26. out & about  I had hoped to have been able to get away for the day and do something different and fun, but with this Mumma not well and Daddy doing overtime we were limited to staying at home. So our out and about today involved being out and about in our own back yard. We still had lots of fun! Along with other activities he enjoyed this boat race.
27. potato stamping He got really into this activity....at least until he was distracted by whatever it was that Daddy was doing outside. He did really well though and enjoyed the end result of mixing the colors half and half in the potatoes
28. sensory play - slime He loved it!!!! I had the slime set up for him to play with upon arrival home Kindy, he really enjoyed getting his hands right into it. Played for ages.
29. zip-lock bag painting After some random scribbling he decided to draw a picture of the three of us at the beach. There is a big fish in the sea. I was a little surprised at how much fun he had with this activity. He also wrote his name and made handprints.
30. paddlepop sticks Would you believe me if I told you I could not find my stash of paddlepop sticks?! I had to improvise with these tongue depressors, which lets be honest, are just giant paddlepop sticks. We used them along with his rainbow blocks to do some building. 

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The Wife Mumma Life Activity & Photo Challenge - March 2014

march

 Bring creative play to each day.

1. paint My little man is a big fan of the Transformers! He had just watched the movie earlier in the day and was pleading with me to watch it again, so I directed his attention to the table I had set with paint and paper and thankfully he went with it! Of course he chose to paint his two favorites, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. 

2. wool/string This is not what we originally planned to do, but he loved it!! It was pretty difficult to keep the tension as the string was wrapped around each nail, so I did that, and he chose which nail was to be wrapped next. He then did the weaving of the odd bits of wool and ribbon (not pictured here) through the wool.  

3. water play I spent the morning creating this board out of bits and pieces around the place plus a couple of things like the hose and clamps that we got from the hardware store. Although it turned out pretty well, I would like to try again with a little more planning. Mind you, the little man just loved coming home from Kindy to find this activity. I think we'll get many hours of play out of this!

4. in the kitchen After a pretty big day at Kindy I decided to keep it simple for my boy, so pancakes it was! He loves them, so I knew he'd be fine with it. 

5. chalk We always enjoy chalk play!!...and discovered that if we wet the concrete first the chalk becomes much bolder in color and gets a paint-like quality to it. I always draw with him, I just can't help myself! I drew a little patch of mushrooms which inspired him to create some mushrooms of his own, some very, very, very long, brightly colored mushrooms!

6. explore Originally I thought we'd just venture in to the bushland behind our house, but I changed my mind and we went exploring atop the hill that overlooks our little town, however as we drove back home we passed these murals, that we pass all of the time and often glance as we do, but I had an urge to stop and explore them. So we did...and he loved posing in front of them and pointing out his favorite animals. As I read the stories posted in front of each mural he would discover the details. It was a lovely little adventure.

7. cardboard rolls Inspired a little by the rainbow serpent we discovered in yesterdays murals, we painted each cardboard tube and once dry tied them together with wool. He was very proud of the finished product and played with it for quite a while outside, pulling it along behind him and chasing me with it (of course, like a good mummy, I was terribly afraid which had him in fits of laughter!) He was very excited to show Daddy once he got home from work. 
8. playdough Who doesn't love to play with play dough?.....well, on this particular day my little boy didn't!! So he just poked and prodded his glitter filled black playdough. Better luck next time!
9. animals We had an animal parade. We carried our bucket of animals across to the driveway of the empty house next door (because it's really long) He lined all the animals up, there was singing, dancing, jumping, laughter and a little rain.
10. build a cubby  ...or just fall asleep straight after a big day at Kindy! At least he's using the blankets we were going to build the cubby with!
11. messy play Years ago I had a crazy idea to have chocolate syrup fight, but at that point I had no children and so I tucked it away in my mind for another day. That day was finally here! I excitedly collected my little boy from Kindy and as soon as we got home it was on! Daddy joined in on the fun, and it really was fun!!! Squeals of laughter and sticky syrup all over us.  
12. sticker fun We made a sticker rainbow. I hand drew the arches of the rainbow and we searched through our sticker collection to fill in the rainbow colors.
13. felt I prepared for this activity by cutting out a variety of felt shapes in all sorts of colors. We had no game plan other than to just play and let imagination run wild, and it did. He created this gorgeous little horse!
14. shadow play This activity has always captured my son's attention and imagination. He decided on using the animals and so he played for a while with them and then I suggested a 'Guess the animal' game, which was a fun extension of what he was already doing. I light up a hidden animal and he'd shout out it's name when he recognized the shillouette.
15. oobleck Always so much fun!!! A mixture of cornflour, water and food coloring, oobleck is mentioned in a Dr Seuss book, Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Liquid when left to flow and solid when force is put upon it.
16. sensory play - rice My little man really enjoyed this sensory play! He spent the best part of an hour filling different containers and pouring rice from varying heights. He loved the feeling of the rice as he pushed his fingers through it.
17. paper plates We searched through some images online until he found an activity he wanted to do. I drew an outline for the legs, arms and tongue as he painted the frogs body green. He used his safety scissors to cut the pieces out and glued them and the eyes in place. Turned out pretty cute!
18. buttons We played a few different games with buttons and drew a tree and decorated the branches with the buttons, but my favorite thing was when he decided to create his own game and threw the buttons onto circles to score points.
19. ice play I crushed the ice wih our snow cone maker and he used an eyedropper to decorate with watered down food coloring, he enjoyed getting his little hands into the ice and sloshing it around...and we made a snowman...that melted in seconds.
20. faces Ever since he saw chin people on a tv ad he's been asking to try to make some of his own...so we did! It was difficult and a little bit frustrating for us both but it was also heaps of fun!! The photos make us laugh every time we look at them.
21. color hunt - yellow My son enjoyed hunting throughout the house for yellow items. It's quite amazing how much you can find when you start looking.
22. contact collage We ripped pictured out of magazines and used scrappy bits and pieces. Although he enjoyed himslef, it didn't hold his attention for as long as this Mumma had hoped! I tried to steer him in the direction of creating a scene, (e.g. a park) but he was only interested in random placement of the items. 
23. make a mask It started as a superhero type mask and then he decided to add feathers and pom poms! Things got especially crazy when it slipped down his face while we were taking photos of it.
24. treasure We followed a treasure map and traveled all over town (not that impressive when you know how tiny our town is!!) he loved searching for the clues and working them out. The treasure of choice?.....Ice cream!
25. around the world Today we spent 11 hours in the car....yes, 11 HOURS!!!! It was a huge day for all of us. I set up some coloring pages for the little man. A paper doll boy and girl with several national costumes to cut out and dress them in.
26. rocks We made rock sentences. The little man really enjoyed searching through the picture rocks to make different word combinations. I can't wait to expand on this activity the next time we play.
27. finger painting He decorated a wooden place-mat cutout that I will cover with a protective seal. If you're wondering, it's a rainbow cake with lots of candles.
28. blocks I surprised my son with his first Lego blocks. He had free play to create whatever he wanted. It was wonderful to join him as his little imagination ran wild.
29. glitter You might have guessed by now that my little boy is a big fan of rainbows. (Which is pretty cool considering he's our rainbow baby) He used his glitter pens to create a lovely glitter rainbow.
30. clay creations I have always loved using clay, so I was excited to see if my son would enjoy the activity, fortunately he did and he created a cat, a mug and a heart.  
31. my family He decorated cardboard rolls to look like family members. We intended to add woolen hair and fabric clothing, but that didn't end up happening.

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