Playzones #1

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OK, so I'm new to all this blogging stuff, but so far so good, I'm having fun!  The blogging world is full of fantastic ideas of lots of crazy, original and fun arts and crafts and sensory play and hopefully we'll be sharing lots of things that we do like that.  But, my boys also love to play with their toys, but sometimes they almost get overwhelmed by their toys they don't know what to play.  And sometimes I need a bit of space in the day to look after Little Dude or yep, do the dreaded housework!  And sometimes talking about dinosaurs and dragons drives me a little bonkers and I need a little time out so that's when I started creating 'playzones'!  Basically, I do my usual tidy up of the playroom then I set out heaps of different toys for them in different 'zones'.

So, what did I do this time? 

A fun little Teddy Bears picnic where the soft toys made use of the tea set and play food. 

The tongs and muffin tin came out of the kitchen, I combined these with some balls so they could use the tongs to pick up and put them down in different muffin holes.

The pirate ship and Octonauts Gup A came together for a bit of ocean small world play.

Plus I left out the puppets in a box for a bit of imaginary play.

 There was a (very basic) sensory bin which was snow themed (yes, I do know its now Spring, but the boys have a thing for snow!).  I put in it torn up tissue, cotton wool, white stickle bricks and artic(-ish) animals.

On another table I mixed up some playmobil scenery with some monsters.

Then I stuck some of our homemade magnets (pictures laminated with self adhesive magnets on the back) all over the radiator, a.k.a our magnetic board!  Don't worry the radiator wasn't on!

I actually take a lot of pleasure in coming up with ideas for this! They never play with what I set up how I expect them to so there's still lots of room for them to exercise their imagination and creativity. Plus, Bud (the eldest) really loves that I've taken the time to do this.  This then sets their play up for a good while and I can get some stuff done, although to be honest I often sneak back in to play with them - how can I resist not helping out when there's a monster invasion!