Milk Carton Elephants

Have a go at making milk bottle elephants with Paulina from Snapdragons Horfield.
All you need is, a used and clean milk carton (any size, its nice to make big and little elephants!), Scissors, glue and paper or any arts and crafts you have at home to decorate.

Treasure Tray

This is the perfect at home activity to do with your baby and they can get involved usually from about 6months, or when they’re sitting up and can reach out and pick things up themselves. Put together a selection of everyday items, as many as possible made from natural materials. Treasure baskets and trays are a great way of allowing children to explore different textures and sensory items. Babies explore using their mouths and so much of what we give children is plastic, which really has its limitations in sensory appeal! Let your baby access the tray and make their own choices of what to explore, with parents nearby for support and encouragement. This activity is ideal for children from 6-18months but toddlers and older children love to explore these trays too and will use them in different ways! Enjoy!

Ideas of what to include:

• If you don’t have a tray, use a basket or a cardboard box!

• Shells

• Wooden or metal spoons

• Wicker coasters

• Lavender bags

• Herbs in a thin material bag

• Pinecones

• Brushes/ make up brushes

• Purses (you can hide things in here for your baby to find)

• Jewellery (chunky bangles which are safe, nothing with small beads)

• A bunch of old (cleaned) keys

• Small gift or jewellery boxes to open and close

• Natural sponge

• Musical instruments e.g. wooden/natural ones or bells

• Off cuts of different material

A good time to forage

As we’re well and truly into spring now, it seems a good time to think about how we can keep ourselves busy on some of those spring walks we’re all bound to be taking over the coming months. So I’ve put together this little spring foraging guide that you can use to go exploring and gathering along the way.

I’d love to see what you come across, so please send your photos in, either tweeting them to @snap_forest or emailing them to tim@snapdragonsnursery.com

I hope you all enjoy foraging this spring!

Den Building

Here’s another idea for an at home play activity.. Den building!

Building a den with your children is a great way to be creative with them. It doesn’t have to be complicated either! A double bed sheet or duvet cover and a dining room table is all you need. You can make them as complicated or as simple as you like but add a few cushions and fairy lights any you will be surprised how much enjoyment your children will get out of them and how much time children spend in them!

Dens are perfect for all ages, young babies up to school aged children, different aged children will use the den in different ways. You may see pre schoolers pretending to use the den imaginatively as a home or a shop. Younger babies will enjoy just going in and out of the den, playing peekaboo. Other children may use this as a safe, calm space to enjoy reading a book.

You can extend the den by switching lights off and using torches, fairy lights or even disco lights if you have them! You can be as creative as you like!

If you decide to build a den at home please share with us via our instagram or facebook page, you can tag us @snapdragonsnursery we look forward to seeing all of the different dens you create at home!

Ball drop!

What you need: Ball, Cardboard box or lid, scissors.

1. Draw around a cup slightly bigger than the ball you are using on the inside of the box.
2. Using some strong scissors, cut out the hole.
3. Put the ball in the box!

Encourage your child to tilt and manoeuvre the box in order to encourage the ball to fall through the hole.

If you want to extend this game to make it harder, you can add more holes and write different scores for each hole.. for example 5 points, 10 points, 20 points! You can encourage your older children to count up how many points they have won.

If you have more than one child at home you can encourage the children to take turns with this activity and share the resource. This activity is also good for hand eye co-ordination and physical development.

Credit to: play.hooray for the image used.