Kid made jewellery

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I was looking for a simple friendship bracelet craft for the Sunday School group that I teach when I came across this fantastic tutorial from Club Chicca Circle, so I thought I'd give it a go with the boys.  It's a perfect craft for them as it involves hardware (hello diy store) and perfect for me as it was dirt cheap (yey!).

Animation for Kids (& Hue Animation Review)

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Bud has been getting interested in animation recently ever since we had a discussion about how some of his favourite cartoons were made.  He was particularly intrigued by how the stop motion ones (think Wallace and Gromit) were made when I told him they filmed them with tiny movements, so I was thrilled when we were given the chance to review the Hue Animation Moshi Movies kit.  

Not only did we end up making our own movie (Hollywood here we come!), but it turned out to be a great opportunity to encourage Bud's creativity, planning and oh yes - patience!!

We received the Hue Animation Moshi Monsters kit for free, but all opinions included in this review are our own.

Shaving Foam Painting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome back to another Outdoor Play Party!  This week we did a little shaving foam painting in the chilly sunshine.  A little messy, but a fun sensory way to paint.

Leaf Collection and Collage (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've been outdoors playing with kids then please do link up.  This week we did a bit of leaf collecting in the garden, plenty of leaves to choose from as you can't actually see the grass for leaves at the moment!  But, Little Dude who had been ill early in the week seemed to enjoy the opportunity to be outdoors.

Our Favorite Fall Activities (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party, if you've played outside with kids this week, why not link up below.  We love Autumn (Fall) and it's a brilliant time of year to get outside, not too hot, not too cold and loads of natural stuff (leaves, conkers, acorns etc) to play with.  So here's a round up of some of our favourite ways to play outside this fall.

Blackberry Splat Painting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome back!  It's another exciting Outdoor Play Party, if you've been outside with kids then please do link up your activity ideas below.  This week we've been taking advantage of the last few wild blackberries around and have done some berry splat painting!

Summer Love Books Exchange - Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers

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We love books so have been really excited to take part in The Educator's Spin On It Love Books Exchange.  Basically bloggers are paired up and you each send one another a kids book and related crafts.  We were matched with The Gingerbread House who we sent Aliens Love Underpants (a household favourite) and we received Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers plus no less than FIVE crafts.  Here's how we got on...

Outdoor Styrofoam Art (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Yey for another Outdoor Play Party!  For regular readers apologises for my absence, but we've been moving house.  We have however managed to slot in a bit of outdoor play, including this outdoor styrofoam art.  If you've been playing outdoors with kids then please share, and enjoy our outdoor art.

Dragon Hunting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to another Outdoor Play Party!  If you've been outside playing with your kids this week then please do link up below.

This week we've been Dragon Hunting!  This activity was all Hubby's idea and involved catapults and colouring, this is what we got up to.....

Busy Bags with Magnets

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I love, love, love busy bags!  No word of exaggeration they have been an absolute life saver on many an occasions.  We regularly take them to restaurants, Doctor's appointments etc and they are perfect for keeping little (and not so little) people busy in quiet time.

If you're not familiar with busy bags the idea is to have a self contained kids activity in a bag that you can grab and go with no replenishing needed.  Perfect for busy parents.  

So, I'm delighted to be taking part in the Busy Bag of the month series.  Each month myself and several other bloggers will be bringing you our latest busy bag ideas.  This month we've been playing with busy bags with magnets.

Angry Bird T-shirt Printing

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Bud recently had his fifth birthday, last year he requested an Angry Bird party and this year he asked for an Angry Bird Star Wars party.  Not wanting to disappoint I put my crafting hat on and came up with some fun games, but my favourite activity was the T-shirt printing we did with the kids.

Kid made flower planting kit

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In May we have lots of family birthday's and this year I'm trying to make as many homemade presents as possible.  What can be better than a handmade present from your Grandchild / nephew.  As we are big on gardening at the moment we thought we'd try our hand at making some flower kits that I'd seen in a kids activity book we have.  Here's how they turned out....

Marshmallow People

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The other day I prepped some Marshmallow people for a Sunday School class and as they were a huge success with the older kids I thought I'd try them out at home with our boys for a bit of 'no bake' cooking.

Ninjas vs Monsters Peg Dolls

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I've enjoyed making the boys Cat in the Hat and Nativity peg dolls so based on the boys requests next up were some Ninja and Monster peg dolls.  These were super simple to make and took me an evening in front of the TV.  Here's how I made them...

Styrofoam Printing

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We've done lots of different types of painting, but one I've had pinned for ages from The Chocolate Muffin Tree, but not had the chance to do yet is Styrofoam Printing so when Hubby brought some Styrofoam packaging home the other day I thought we'd give it a go...

Crafting while learning phonics

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Champ is starting to learn his alphabet or more specifically we've started to look a bit at phonics.  Knowing Champ's great love of crafting a Speech Therapist recommended that we make a 'sounds book', here's what we did...

Boing Painting (& Outdoor Play Party)

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Welcome to the Outdoor Play Party, if you've been playing outside this week please join up below.  Recently we did some outdoor 'boing' painting, this was originally inspired by some Yo Yo Painting from Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning and I've also seen similar recently at Toddler Approved when they did Splat Painting.

The basic idea is to put something heavy in tights (pantyhose), we used Plasticine  dab it in paint and 'boing' it up and down onto paper.  Here's how we got on....

Styrofoam Modelling with Kids

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When Hubby was given some food to take home from work it came in two Styrofoam boxes so I took the opportunity to use them for some fun Styrofoam modelling play inspired by a post I saw on The Chocolate Muffin Tree.  Here's how we got on...

Kid made bronze sculpture

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We're joining in with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Arty this week, the idea is to explore a great artist, discuss it with your kids then create a child appropriate art activity.  Our boys are always much more into the process than the end result so we chose to look at bronze sculptures rather than one specific artist, but as bronze requires a very complex process and incredible heat we went with Plaster of Paris instead.

Easy weaving for kids

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Champ is going through a weird phase, he's become obsessed with string, yarn and ribbons.  What he likes to do with them is tie things up, enter our new found art form..... chair weaving!  This is super easy weaving for kids, it keeps him entertained for hours and requires no set up.