Playing Farmers! Exploring the theme of Harvest

I said I would update with what we've been doing recently, so here we go.  Now we are in Autumn I've been talking to Daniel about Harvest and we've made some games and activities to go along with the theme.

The first thing we did was to make a vegetable patch that Daniel could play with...

This was a complete spur of the moment idea as I was about to throw away an empty stir fry vegetable container.  As I said earlier, I hate throwing things out if I think I can reuse them for something!  I cleaned it out, filled it with some pumpkin seeds we had in the cupboard to make the soil, then added some of Daniel's wooden toy vegetables to it (these ones are from the Tidlo range on Amazon).  Daniel had great fun putting the vegetables in and out of the 'soil' and we dug the 'soil' with our hands to help Daniel to work on overcoming some of his sensory issues.

Next up I made a harvest vegetable matching game...

These were made simply by googling some images of fruit and vegetables, printing them off and laminating them.  We played a matching game, and then I tried to teach Daniel the names of the vegetables, but that's going to need a bit of work as whatever I asked for he gave me a pumpkin... :D

Next up we did some harvest painting...

I had planned that we would paint using a carrot and an apple to do printing, but due to Daniel's sensory issues he was having none of it.  I showed him how to print using the carrot, but still he didn't trust it, so we got some paint brushes out and he had great fun.  We'll keep working on the sensory problems and hopefully we will try this activity again in the future.

And finally, we've been playing a lot with Daniel's Toot Toot Tractor that his Auntie Carley bought him.  We've been playing and talking about how tractors help farmers in their job.  I am now getting a little bit sick of its annoying little song though!

Right, I think I've rambled on enough for one night, time for bed!

Nikki x

Making use of our rubbish! Turning baby wipes packets into a toddler quiet game

Having two children in nappies means we get through a LOT of baby wipes.  I personally hate throwing things away so I try to reuse and recycle as much as possible.   I've been saving the clip lids off the wipes packets thinking that I could use them in some way and after a bit of a Pinterest search last night I came across the idea of a simple 'lift the flap' quiet game.  So here is my take on it...

Daniel has had great fun this morning lifting the flaps and finding the animals underneath.  It's been great for him to practice his fine motor skills in being able to open the lids, and I will also be working with him to learn the names of the animals underneath.

How to make it:

• Print off some pictures of animals (or any other theme you choose) and some phrases onto white paper. 
• Cut the animals out and stick them to a piece of card (making sure they were well spaced for the lids).
• Decorate the card as you fancy, then laminate 
• Cut out the phrases and stick them to the wipes lids
• Using double-sided tape stick the lids onto the laminate, press down firmly until they are secure, and voila!  You have a quick and easy toddler quiet game :)

Nikki x

Hello!

I'm Nikki and I'm Mummy to two gorgeous little men - Daniel (20 months) and Benjamin (2 months).  I'm currently on maternity leave and I've been getting a little bit addicted to Pinterest for ideas of things to make and do with the boys, so I've started this blog to document the homemade games and activities we get up to!  Once I've got some photos sorted, I will post what we've been up to recently, then hopefully I will keep this updated as we go along.  I've never blogged before so bare with me as I get to grips with how it all works! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Nikki x