Day #39 Happy Halloween!

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

I love Halloween and can’t wait to start going ‘Trick or Treating’ with Boo next year.

For now we’ll get dressed up and race to the front door each time the bell goes (which is many, many, times where we live!)

This year Izzy will be big enough to join us giving out treats and watching from the window as everyone goes by.

To make things extra spooky this year I decided that our activity today would be to decorate our front door.   There are no instructions – simply raid your craft stash and create some spooky Halloween fun!

Happy Halloween Everyone!!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #39 DONE! 61 to go!

Sara x

Day #38 Spooky Fun…Out And About

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Well I had today’s activity all planned out but things got all turned upside down – in the nicest possible way!

We made a last minute decision to go to our local ‘Rhythm and Rhyme’ session as they were having a special Halloween party.  Boo really does not like singing at all and generally puts his hands over his ears whenever anyone starts up…..but not Izzy….she LOVES LOVES LOVES!! anything musical and as soon as she hears a tune will start wiggling around like one of those dancing sunflowers that we all used to have as kids.  So….since we are going to a ‘Meet The Creepy Crawly’ session tomorrow – Boo will probably squeal the place down in happiness – I managed to convince him that we should also do something nice for Izzy today – plan agreed and off we went!

When we got there we found all sorts of creative things going on!!

Halloween Themed Colouring – you could also download some FREE Halloween colouring sheets from HERE

Pumpkin Play Doh

Decorate Your Own Spooky Biscuit – and hopefully finish it before Boo eats it!

All this creativity and a lovely Halloween themed singing session to boot….with Izzy’s favourites….the instruments!

Wow! A whole morning of creativity!

We were all tuckered out by the time we got home and possibly had ‘make’ overload today!

Time for naps I think!

Day #38 DONE! 62 to go!

Sara x

Day #37 What Happens If I Do This…?

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Izzy has always loved toys that encourage her to explore and find out what they ‘do’ – jack in a box-style toys and puzzles especially.  When I came across ‘Tug Boxes’ I knew that she would be hooked.  There are many different versions of these boxes on Pinterest so it’s definitely worth browsing.

What You’ll Need

• A small cardboard box
• Something to decorate the box – I used some fantastic purple and blue leopard print ‘Duck Tape’ that I found a few months ago (and have been dying to use!).  Painting the box or using felt tip pens would also work just as well
• Ribbon – half a dozen different colours, textures and widths (a variety is best)
• Scissors

Paint or decorate your box and then poke holes in the sides.  Make sure the holes are spread out across the box.

Thread the lengths of ribbon through two different holes and tie a knot at each end of the ribbon – you need the ribbon to be long enough so that when your little one pulls on one end of the ribbon they see the other end shorten – cause and effect.

Izzy was keen to explore the box and spent time looking at the different ribbons and knots.  Once she’d figured out what the ribbons did she immediately began trying to also figure out what was happening inside the box too!

Definitely a happy ‘Little Explorer’!

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes

Day #37 DONE! 63 to go!

Sara x

Day #36 Homemade Clay

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

I’ve never actually made homemade play doh or clay before, but I recently spotted a recipe on a website called ‘Imagination Tree’ that looked like it might be a winner for us.  Not only was it super simple, if I didn’t feel like baking it, the ‘clay’ could also be air-dried over a couple of days – FAB!

What You’ll Need 

• Corn Flour – ½ Cup
• Bicarbonate of Soda – 1 Cup
• Warm Water – ¾ Cup
• Glitter – we used silver
• Decoration – beads etc – and string to hang if required

Mix together the corn flour and bicarb in a pan and slowly add the warm water.  Cook over a low heat for a few minutes until the mixture begins to form a dough –like consistency.  When the edges start to come away from the sides of the pan you can turn it out onto the worktop and leave it to cool for a few minutes.  When it is cool enough to work with, you just knead it until it becomes a lovely soft dough and then add the glitter, squishing it all together to make a lovely sparkly mixture.

Over to Boo for the creative part!

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’ve had great ideas of what you could make but when it actually comes down to it your little one just simply doesn’t want to ‘play ball’?

I was thinking Christmas ornaments, presents…..but no…

‘Go Away Mummy……mine!’

I tried to encourage him to divide the dough and make some presents…..but no…

‘Mummy Mine! Away!’

He was adamant that he knew what he was going to make and I was not going to be helping him 😦

So……15 minutes later and we had a wonderful, creative…..SPLAT!

Sorry….beaded splat 🙂

He was so proud of it I didn’t have to heart to try and get him to change it.

Maybe next time for the present making eh? 🙂

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes

Day #36 DONE! 64 to go!

Sara x

 

Day #35 Amazing Autumn Art

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Now that the clocks have gone back the evenings are drawing in so much earlier and it is still dark when you wake up – it just makes you want to crawl back under the duvet and stay there until Spring!  Today I decided to let Boo brighten our day by creating some colourful Autumn pictures using a bit of an unusual ‘paint brush’

What You’ll Need

• Autumn paint colours – we used Crayola washable
• A dish brush (not the one you wash your pots with!)
• Paper/Card – we used card that I had printed a picture of a tree trunk onto (you could easily draw this too)

Boo looked at me very strangely when I handed him the dish (paint) brush but he quickly got the hang of it and started to create wonderful Autumnal patterns.

I had given him the tree template to try and encourage him to create the ‘leaves’ of the tree with his brush.  He did get a little excited as he was painting so it wasn’t quite as neat as maybe it should be – ah well… It’s a design feature!

We had so much paint left over after Boo had finished his tree picture that he insisted on using more card and creating a lovely finger painted picture which the whole family had to have a go at!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes

Day #35 DONE! 65 to go!

Sara x

 

 

Day #34 …And His Name Is Wiggly Woo!

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Boo is definitely a fan of anything creepy, crawly, and squirmy, and we regularly find him inspecting all sorts of creatures that are lurking around the doorstep.

What better ‘make’ for today than a wiggly worm creature!

What You’ll Need

• Wire, Pliers and Wire Cutters – we used craft wire but you could also use pipe cleaners
• Felt circles (with holes in the middle) – we used some green ones that we had left over from our last visit to the Scrap Store
• 2 Buttons – 1 large, 1 small, to fix to each end of the wire to keep everything in place
• Large pom pom – for the head

We decided to get comfy for our creative time today and hit the sofa with all our materials.

I threaded the large button onto one end of the wire and wrapped the end around securely so that there weren’t any sharp bits sticking out.  I wouldn’t recommend letting your little one play with the wire until you are happy that the wire is secure – and that they aren’t in a really hyper mood and likely to injure themselves by waving it around.

Boo sat with a bowl of felt circles and off he went threading them onto the wire to make his bendy, wiggly creation – with a little squeal each time he managed to get a piece of felt in place.

At the end of the wire we poked the pom pom ‘head’ onto the end, and then the small button to create a wormy nose!  Boo let me wrap the wire at the end and secure it in place (no sharp bits!) before he had a go at bending and wiggling his wormy friend into different shapes 🙂

Ta Dah!

…..and his name is Wiggly Woo!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #34 DONE! 66 to go!

Sara x

 

Day #33 Lovely Lollysticks

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Boo has always enjoyed making things to give to other people, so today I thought it would be nice to make a photo frame to go into our Christmas present box…

What You’ll Need

• Craft lolly sticks – at least 4
• Hot glue gun / double-sided sticky tape
• PVA glue & spreader – this could also be used to stick the frame together
• Decoration – gemstones, buttons etc

There was nooooo way I was letting Boo near a hot glue gun (yet!) so I prepped the lolly stick frame for him.  You could also use double-sided sticky tape to fix the lolly sticks together if you don’t have access to a glue gun.

Boo sat with his decorations and happily worked away glueing items to the frame and sometimes adjusting things when he changed his mind.

After it has finished drying we will just need to add some ribbon onto the back of the frame and find a nice photo to stick behind it!

Ta Dah!

Fabulous Frames!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #33 DONE! 67 to go!

Sara x

Day #32 Pumpkin Prints

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

After creating our Halloween hand and foot prints for the last couple of days, Boo seems to have gotten a little bit hooked on them! When I asked him what he wanted to do he said “Paint Hands Mummy!”

So off we go…….!

What You’ll Need

• Orange and Green paint – we used Crayola washable
• Black marker
• Card
• Sponge & plate

We prepared our painty sponge just like we did in Day #29 Baby Boo and Day #30 Creepy Critters.

After getting his hand all painty, Boo (with a teeny bit of help from Mummy), worked his way around the card creating a lovely round orange pumpkin shape.

A quick wipe of his hand and we moved onto the green paint to create our pumpkin stalk.

We left our creation to dry before we added our pumpkin face with the marker….

Ta Dah!

Painty Pumpkin Prints!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #32 DONE! 68 to go!

Sara x

Day #31 Fluffy Ghosts!

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

I love Halloween and can’t wait until next year when we will start taking Boo out ‘Trick or Treating’.  Until then, we always sit on our sofa with the curtains open watching everyone call at all the houses and listening to Boo squeal with delight each time our doorbell goes.

This year we have decided to decorate the front door of our house so we really need to start thinking about what we are going to use.  Spooky fluffy ghosts maybe……..

What You’ll Need

• 1 x A4 white card
• Black card – just some small leftovers will do
• Cotton wool
• PVA glue (& spreader)
• Scissors

I very roughly cut out the shape of a ghost from the A4 white card and let Boo get on with sticking the cotton wool on.  He loved the way the cotton wool kept sticking to his fingers and spent ages just pulling it apart.

I’m really impressed at how far he has progressed in just a few weeks in terms of his ability to sit and concentrate on our activities.  Whenever I ask him if he wants to make something he runs off and fetches his splash suit shouting “Make, Mummy, Make!”

When he had covered the card, we used the leftover black card to cut out two eye shapes and a mouth and then glued those to our spooky creation too…

Ta Dah! Fluffy Ghost!

Definitely one for the front door on Halloween!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #31 DONE! 69 to go!

Sara x

Don’t forget the clocks

Don’t forget the clocks change this weekend!

Download your Clock Activity Sheet