Play and Learn Every Day: creative development

Sticker Pictures

09:00

I've got a super quick and easy craft for you today, one that could keep the kids busy for ages and that you've probably got all the supplies for already!

What you'll need to make Sticker Pictures:

paper (card is good)
stickers (puffy ones work well, but any will do)
pencil
eraser

You start by drawing the outline of a shape lightly with pencil onto the paper. Ivy drew a heart and Ethan drew a letter E. Then you place stickers all around the shape, trying to have them go along the outline as much as you can.

Ethan really took his time with this, carefully placing the stickers and choosing each one to stick in a particular spot. Whilst Ivy just had fun putting stickers all around her pictures. It's just so easy to do, and can be done by children of any age.

Ivy continued drawing and sticking while Ethan moved onto a rocket ship for his second picture. . I couldn't resist and made my own heart sticker picture as well, it's actually quite relaxing to create these pictures, I could easily see this becoming a regular activity for us.

When we finished we erased the lines from around the picture and were left with just the stickers making the shape. I love how Ethan's E turned it, I may even pop it in a frame and hang it up in his bedroom.

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4 1/2 years old

Toucan Box Review

17:38

We are trying out our first Toucan Box! I've heard how great they are from lots of people, but now we're giving them a try ourselves. Our first impression was a good one, as they are small enough boxes that they fit through the letterbox, and each of the children knew right away that it was for them as their name is written right on it!

Opening the boxes was exciting, to see what the theme would be and all of the little touches to personalise the boxes for each child.

Ivy's box contained the Racing Jellyfish craft, and she loved the little note on the inside of the box with her name on it again and some quick info about what she would be able to make with the craft supplies inside.

She quickly opened up the box and pulled out all of the materials that she would need to make her jellyfish. I appreciated the little guide to show how much grown up assistance, how much messiness and how much drying time the craft would need, it's really great to know these things up front! The only materials that we needed to provide were scissors, so these would be great crafts to take away on holiday or to grandparents houses as well.

Ivy got stuck in straight away, needing little assistance as the box suggested. She was able to follow the picture instructions provided, just needing my help now and then to cut things or place things for her.

I also appreciated that this craft included some easy to do threading, which is great for Ivy's coordination and fine motor development.

And the best part for both children, when Ivy was finished the jellyfish could be played with! They now hang up on the back window and the kids have jellyfish races whenever they like. We do love a craft that we can play with after!

Next it was Ethan's turn to dive into his Toucan Box. The theme of his box was Alien Invasion, which is right up his street!

He unpackaged all of the materials, again only needing scissors from home, which was really easy.

As he is a little bit older he was able to read the instructions by himself, and his were a bit different. The aliens could be made in any way that he liked with the provided materials, but they did give some suggestions and tips of ways to use the clay to create different shaped aliens.

He was very happy to get creating and got stuck in straight away, making as many different aliens as he could out of the clay provided.

He even named each of his aliens (mostly based on how many eyes they had!)

But after they've finished their crafts they're not quite done with their Toucan Boxes yet! Each box also comes with a magazine and some stickers. The magazine has activities, colouring, ideas for other projects and a recipe inside. So you can keep busy for quite a while with one Toucan Box.

And I love that they even encourage you to make something out of the box! You can cut one side off, pop the middle out and make your own frame for some of your artwork. How great is that?

We had lots of fun with our Toucan Boxes and I could definitely see how children would really look forward to these arriving every month! If you would like to try Toucan Box for yourself then sign up here to get your first box free!

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* This is a review post and also contains affiliate links, we were sent two Toucan boxes in order to try them out and write our honest opinions.*

4 years old

Tour de France Racing Bikes Craft

14:54

It is almost time for the Tour de France, so we are making our own little bicycle racing craft! We wanted to make something really simple but sturdy that we could play with and make our own little racing roads to ride around.

What you'll need to make Tour de France Racing Bikes and Roads Craft:

lolly sticks
buttons
pipe cleaners
Bostik Fine and Wide Glu Pen
or Bostik Glu Dots (if you're impatient like us)
black paper
scissors
white or yellow coloured pencils

We started by using the glue pen to stick two buttons to each end of a lolly stick to look like the two wheels of a bicycle.

Next we glued another lolly stick diagonally across the first one. This will be the front bar of the bicycle as well as sort of a puppet stick to steer the bike along the road.

Finally we twisted a pipe cleaner around the top bar and bent it over at the ends to look like the handlebars of the bike.

We realised at this point that we would have to wait quite a while for the glue to dry, and we're not all that patient. So we then did the whole process all over again, but this time using glue dots. This way it was dry and ready to play with straight away!

Next we made our road by drawing a yellow oval shape all around a piece of black paper, and then another parallel to it to make a road.

I then used scissors to cut a line all along the middle of the road (this is the only step that Ivy couldn't do as I didn't want her to hurt herself with the sharp scissors that I was using like a blade. After school when Ethan made his, he was able to do this step himself as well.)

Once our road was finished we were ready to race that bike all around it!

The children have both said that the love it, but we have to find a way to make a bigger track that they can both fit their bicycles on at the same time so that they can race against each other. Any suggestions?

If you're too busy watching the Tour de France, then you can pin this idea for later:

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* This is a review post, we were sent a box of craft supplies from Bostik in order to make a craft and write this post, all opinions are our own.*

4 years old

Unicorn Clay

22:14

If there are two things that Ivy loves they are unicorns and messy play! So what better than to spend an afternoon making some sparkly air dry clay and twisting together some unicorn horns. They were so easy to make and we got very messy in the process!

Here's what you'll need to make Unicorn Air Dry Clay:

Bostik white glu
Cornflour / cornstarch
Bostik glitter glue pens

Making the clay couldn't be simpler, we just used a small plastic pot as our measure, as the recipe is 2 parts cornflour and 1 part glue. Then Ivy was able to fill the small pot twice with cornflour to pour into a larger pot.

Next Ivy filled the small pot with the Bostik White Glu, squeezing the bottle as hard as she could (which is great for building muscle strength in her hands).

Into the glue pot she then squeezed in the contents of an entire gold glitter glue pen.

Then stirred the two types of glue together to make it lovely and sparkly.

Finally Ivy got to pour the glue mixture into the cornflour!

And finally she could get her hands messy mixing it together (and did she ever get messy! It was impossible to get all of the goop off and we were both covered, but she loved it!)

We then repeated the whole process, but this time using a purple glitter glue pen (and getting slightly less messy, which I think made the dough less pliable! So the lesson is to get messy for better clay!)

We were then able to roll the dough out into long ropes, which we were then able to twist around each other to make the unicorn horns.

We made one end wider and the other end pointed to resemble a unicorn horn. We plan on using these as part of other crafts, poking small holes through the end to use them in jewellery and leaving them as they are to stick onto cards.

We even made some little unicorn ears with our gold glittery dough to go along with the horn. These will be perfect for making an assortment of different crafts, our love of unicorns does not end here!

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4 years old

Button Flowers Craft

18:28

We've got a quick and simple craft for you today, that would be perfect for a little gift to brighten someone's day! We made these button flowers with very few materials, they kept the kids busy for ages on a rainy day and they look adorable!

What you'll need to make the button flowers craft:

assorted buttons
Bostik white glue
craft sticks

That really is it! I just set out a box of assorted buttons for the children, I suggested that they might start with a large button in the middle then place small buttons around it for the petals, and they set to work.

It is a bit of a challenge to get the buttons to stay in place, and of course great for their fine motor skills to carefully place the buttons as well as their hand muscles when they squeeze the bottle of glue.

They really got creative with their buttons after a while, finding different ways to arrange them and make some very pretty flowers.

Once the glue has dried on the flowers we then stuck a craft stick / lolly stick to the back of it. These would look great in a little vase and would make a fantastic gift!