make, do & friend

Bugs Club - Forest School and Nature Exploration

2015-04-16T10:36:00.000+01:00

What: Bugs Club is part Forest School part nature exploration session, held in Westow Park, as part of Crystal Palace Transition Town. We meet monthly to explore our local park and allotment garden, climb trees, build dens enjoy storytime under the leaves and learn about nature. Sessions are designed for whole family participation, to get kids excited about nature, growing their own food and treading lightly on the earth. The aim of each session is to send kids home with grubby fingernails and rosy cheeks, with a healthy dose of fresh air and the old-fashioned kind of fun grown-ups tend to reminisce about. If you want to learn more about the forest school ethos and the benefits of this kind of play check out this site or this one.

Who: Bugs Club is aimed at kids 3-8 years, but older and younger siblings are always welcome. Kids who like to climb trees, roll down hills, blow dandelions, hide in dens, plant seeds, spot birds and investigate under rocks will love the sessions. We have a few rules for safety, but other than that sessions are informally structured and take lead from the kids and the weather (please dress appropriately, wellies are often a good fashion choice!)

Where: MAY SESSION ONLY - find us in Stambourne Woodlands SE19. We'll meet at the entrance on Church Road opposite The Queens Hotel at 11am.

When: 11am third Saturday of every month until September (18th April, 16th May, 20th June, 18th July, 15th August, 19th September). We play rain or shine, no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing!

Price: Sessions are £3 per child / £5 per family. Price includes a small snack and juice at the end of the session.

No need to book, just show up and look for the group of kids wielding binoculars/trowels/magnifying glasses.

A little about me: I am a trained early years worker, previously working as a teaching assistant and a childminder. You can usually find me chalking on the pavement, taking photos of trees or in the middle of a giant game of hide and seek. I have an enhanced DBS clearance and Paediatric First Aid Certificate.

Creative Kids Art Lab

2015-04-16T09:42:00.001+01:00

“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up”

– Picasso

Creative Kids is an art lab with a difference,

for kids aged 4-8 years old.

In a nutshell, we'll be exploring painting, drawing, writing and photography technique. But under the surface, kids will have a chance to actively engage with materials, explore and express themselves through a variety of techniques and create genuine pieces of art.

It’s designed for kids who love to be busy. To paint and make and sometimes destroy. Who have big emotions. Creative ambitions. It's for parents and carers who might question their own creativity when setting up activities, possibly shuddering at the prospect of filling the school holidays or want a space to create with and alongside their children.

By the end of each lab the kids will have learned a little about technique, explored some famous art-works for inspiration and have their own creative interpretation to take home. By the end of the session kids will have confidence and inspiration in their own creativity, traits that often need a little nudge, but that will serve children throughout their lives.

About the lab: Each class will be loosely based around a theme/ technique, e.g. Journalling, Painting, Self-Portrait, Story-Telling. Each child will create at their own pace with a focus on encouragement rather than instruction - at the end of each class we aim for the kids to bring home at least one piece they are proud of (most will bring home a carrier bag full of pieces!)

Where: Classes will be held in Antenna Cafe at Antenna Studios, Crystal Palace, SE19 3AN

When: 1pm Tuesday 31st March and Tuesday 7th April.

All children will need to be accompanied by adult, in fact I'd encourage adults to do their own exploration alongside, but feel free to sit back with a coffee and watch the magic happen.

Price: Individual Class - £5 per session

Payment can be made via Paypal using the buttons above or in person on the door.

How to Book: If you pay via Paypal, I will e-mail confirmation of the booking. Otherwise, please e-mail me here to book.

A little about me: I am a trained early years worker, previously working as a teaching assistant and a childminder. I hold an MA in creative arts and am currently publishing a children's book, but more importantly I make art every day and I never run out of inspiration. I have an enhanced DBS clearance and Paediatric First Aid Certificate.

Preschool Poetry - Recycled Christmas Collages

2013-01-02T07:00:00.000+00:00

Do you guys still have your Christmas decorations up? Ours came down the day after Boxing Day as our tree was dropping like crazy and everything had got a bit dusty and shabby looking by then. But of course, everything looks boring and normal afterwards - so we left the cards up an extra few days to keep some cheer.

I always feel guilty throwing out cards - but you get so damn many, I don't wanna keep all that stuff in my house! So we took inspiration from a project we did a while back - Poetry Collages to have some festive literacy fun.

Vin and I cut out all the cards with words, poems, jokes and messages on - then spent some time collaging them and making nonsense rhymes.

This is a great pre-reading activity - recognising all the familiar words that have been around us lately 'meery', 'christmas', 'joy' and 'love' for example - plus beginning to build sentences and form meaning out of the words.

You could also save some of your messages for next year's cards...

New Years Resolution Spinners

2012-12-31T11:59:00.002+00:00

So, we have made it to the last day of the year, and I suddenly get this sense of panic at all the posts I had planned to write, y'know just before my period of radio silence. I just want to thank you guys for sticking with me, through this year, which has been majorly tough. I've been short on time and energy and motivation and inspiration, but things are finally looking up for the Taylor-Pages and I have a bunch of post planned for the new year. I hope you'll check out my personal blog where I've been sharing a little more of our lives right now. In the meantime I bring you some fun for the New Year...

I love New Years Resolutions. I know some people are cynical and jaded about them, but I like to seize the opportunity to reinvent myself and if it means doing it with a new diary and a cute date too then I'm totally down with it. But Vin is a little too young to get the concept of resolutions - plus he's already all kinds of awesome, what could you possibly improve?

So I put together these little spinners - to have some fun at our New Years family gathering - and the kiddos can play along too.

On one spinner I wrote typical resolution type things like "I will give up..." and "I shall start..." and on the other I finished those sentences. If you're doing this as a game for older kids you could write serious things, but I mostly wrote stuff like "...picking my nose" and "...build more forts".

... and there you have it. A little resolution fun for your little ones. Tell me friends, have you made any (serious or not) resolutions of your own?

'Not a Stick' Imaginative Play...

2012-11-09T18:04:00.000+00:00

Lately we have been loving the book Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis. This is such a lovely picture book, one that really captures the imagination, about a little piggy and the fun he has with his 'not a stick'. I thought we could have some fun with it too, so I borrowed a stick from Vinnie's collection (little boys!) and set it out in a little Invitation to Imagine...

Really all you would need is a stick and the book and your own imagination, but I thought I could set out some props to really bring the story to life...

...like this string and pipecleaner fishing rod...

...a little artist's palette...

...some weights for benchpressing...

... a spearhead (or a feather to make a 'tickling stick' like Vinnie thought!)

...and a foil covered sword for slaying dragons!

We had a lot of fun with this simple activity, I can't wait to check out the other book in this series Not a Box - you can check out both books in my Amazon Store below...

p.s. this post contains affiliate links - if you purchase either book through these links it won't affect you, but I will get a few pennies for my pocket money!

p.p.s if you liked this post, check out Five Ways to do Imaginative Play

Superhero Sensory - Incredible Hulk Gamma Ray Jelly

2012-11-06T21:28:00.000+00:00

Here's another of our Superhero Sensory Playtimes... this time we've been playing Superhero Smash with The Incredible Hulk...

If you're not in the know, Hulk was created as a result of gamma radiation exposure. Of course, gamma radiation looks pretty much the same as green jelly, no? I set some in a flat tray and some of it in an icecube tray to make bricks for a Hulk Smash...

A few little extra props in a big under the bed storage box, with some army men, toxic waste sign and a playfood can 'oildrum' for a toxic spill...

...one happy little guy. As I mentioned before I'm trying to set up more playtimes with just one or two ingredients, we had everything on hand for this activity, except the jelly. If you've got a bigger superhero fan at home you could make a science lab set up with the jelly, some beakers, tweezers and recreate your own gamma-blast Hulk transformation! Or if you're not into messy play, some green legos and playdough would work just as well.

p.s. if you're looking for more inspiration check out our other Superhero Sensory Posts, Superhero Puppets or our Superhero Small World

The Abundant Mama Project

2012-11-02T16:18:00.001+00:00

Hey guys, I'm really excited to introduce you to a great project from our friends over at Awesomely Awake - The Abundant Mama Project.

This project is designed to help any Mama — or anyone who signs up, in fact — a new perspective on their life as a family. It will bring new life to old routines. It will strengthen the bonds you have in your relationships. It will provide comfort on those challenging days. It will add a little bling to the ordinary. It will encourage you to recognize the immense beauty that surrounds you each day as parents, as partners, as volunteers, as community members all year long — not just for one month!

This project is about being THANKFUL all the time, not just one month out of the year. Every single day. Month after month. Season after season.

The Abundant Mama Project allows you to:

Deepen your parenting experience.

Find new ways to see magic in your daily life.

Elevate the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Add sparkle to the mundane.

Focus on the shimmery goodness of your life.

Discover your peaceful center.

Learn to love and appreciate your family more.

So head on over to Awesomely Awake to sign up for the project, or you can purchase a month's worth of prompts here

Superhero Sensory Play - Spiderman Silly String Webs

2012-11-01T11:44:00.000+00:00

A couple of days ago I shared an (entirely unphotogenic) messy playtime, the first in a new series of Superhero Sensory Play. Today we have another Spiderman themed playtime (if Vin got his way, everything would be Spiderman themed in some way!)

This was a really simple set up, at the moment we're working out life on a reduced budget (and reduced energy on mama's part) so I'm trying to put together playtimes with just one or two ingredients/ elements.

Here we have happy little Spiderman and a can full of webslinging fun - Silly String!

I don't really need to tell you how much my little man loved blasting 'webs' at his favourite hero - the can that supposedly holds 250ft worth of string was empty in minutes!

If you have any evil villain action figures this would work even better, your little one can roleplay being Spiderman and blast away at the baddies!

Chalkboard Pumpkins

2012-10-28T07:00:00.000+00:00

Remember the Chalkboard Pumpkins I shared last week? Well after we had played around with the stickers I decided to paint the whole thing with chalkboard paint and have fun drawing our Jack o' Lantern faces on them!

I'll be honest, these are teeny tiny munchkin pumpkins - they were ridiculously hard to chalk on and Vinnie got frustrated very quickly! If you're planning on doing this I'd suggest big pumpkins for a big chalkboard canvas!

We added pipecleaners to one of our creations to make this ~~cute~~ terrifying spider-kin!

Vin loves stacking them up to make a Spooky Halloween Snowman!

Superhero Sensory Play - Spiderman Symbiote Slime

2012-10-27T07:00:00.000+01:00

You might remember a while back I shared this Captain America Ice Play with you guys? Well Vin is still not letting up with his Superhero obsession, so I was inspired to create some more Superhero Sensory Playtimes. First up he requested Spiderman... more specifically he wanted to play with Venom, Spiderman's evil counterpart.

If you're a comic book geek like me and my kid, this is the playtime equivalent of a symbiote - to the layperson it is black oobleck. In the story the symbiote is an evil alien lifeform that attaches itself to a host body - but you don't need to know the details to have some messy fun.

If you've not heard of oobleck before it is hard to describe the sensation - a non-Newtonian fluid made of cornflour and water, it is a liquid until force is applied (like trying to drag your fingers through it) at which point it turns into a solid. You can literally pick up a ball of it and squash it around, but if you stop manipulating it will instantly revert to liquid and drip through your fingers. Seriously, try it, it's great!

We've added food colouring to oobleck before with this Rainbow Goop but this time I wanted a cohesive black mixture so I coloured the water before adding it to the cornflour.

I added some elastic bands around our sensory tub to represent Spidey's web, then added an action figure of the man himself and a few stickers to decorate. Needless to say this playtime got MESSY so I have no action shots but it was a lot of fun!

If you're not a Superhero fankid this black slime would make an awesome Halloween themed playtime - maybe add some plastic eyeballs or creepy crawlies to your goop?

Cute or Creepy Halloween Treats for Kids

2012-10-25T07:00:00.000+01:00

I've got a couple of Halloween themed posts coming up, but while I was flicking through last year's spooky themed posts I wanted to share a couple of our foodie posts, to show Halloween doesn't just have to be about the candy...

An entirely too cute to be a spooky Halloween pumpkin face satsuma

Little boy heaven with these gory Gingerdead Men

Adapting the classic Red Velvet cupcake with a helluva lot of black food colouring to make these Black Velvet Skellington Cupcakes

And a little Halloween Grilled Cheese snacktime to warm you up before an evening of trick or treating!

Sticker Resist Chalkboard Pumpkins

2012-10-22T07:00:00.000+01:00

Here's a pumpkin decorating idea perfect for little people - plus working on letter recognition and a fun little painting activity!

Vin decided he wanted to paint his mini pumpkins - I had this tin of chalkboard paint hiding in a cupboard leftover from another project, so I thought it would be fun to make some black pumpkins!

We used sticker foam letters to make out messages - turns out tiny pumpkins aren't designed for long messages, so we had a couple of 'boo' pumpkins! Once the paint was dried we peeled off the letters to reveal the words underneath. Simple and effective!

I was planning on turning one of our pumpkins into a traditional jack o' lantern face, but you guys know how I can't resist a googly eye... or twenty...

Five Ways to Play in Autumn

2012-10-16T19:38:00.002+01:00

Well hello there strangers, we've been gone a bit too long right? I have an epic apology explanation type post but in the meantime I thought I'd share a few of our favourite Autumn posts from last year, while I'm working on some new Fall inspired projects to share later in the week...

We used lentils and dried peas along with bits and pieces we'd collected on our
nature walks in this Fall Sensory Tub

These Handprint Hedgehogs are possibly the cutest thing we've ever made -
I think we will do them again this year to compare how the little handprints have grown!

Ok, maybe these pinecone Autumn Critters are the cutest thing ever, they lived a long time on our windowledge and I definitely think we will be making a whole family this year.

Loving the colours of this Autumn Scented Playdough - plus it's made from entirely kitchen ingredients so simple and cheap to mix together a batch to play with.

And another little art activity, this time some messy painting fun to create these Fall Tree Armprints

Just a few ideas to inspire, today we've been out collecting pinecones, acorns and conkers for our newest sensory tub - look out for that post later in the week!

DIY Moon Sand

2012-08-12T17:41:00.000+01:00

Hey friends, I'm taking a little blog break while I get ready to move house next week, but I thought I'd share some older posts for your inspiration while I'm away...

Today's activity in the Play Challenge is over at The Imagination Tree... Anna challenged us to spend time playing with playdough.

As you might have noticed we are big fans of playdough - lately we have been playing with our Glow in the Dark Playdough, black and sparkly Firework Playdough and our Autumn Scented Playdough. You might have also noticed that I sometimes like to bend the rules.

Since we already play with playdough every day, I took inspiration from another of The Imagination Tree's posts and made this Mouldable Sand instead - it is similar to Moon Sand that you can buy in shops, but obv costs a lot less than £12 a tub!

It's super quick to make, just two ingredients you probably already have at home - mix 5c flour with 1c baby oil (I have used vegetable oil to great effect too) - that's it! Told you it was simple!

I set it up in a disposable tray along with some of Vinnie's diggers to inspire some play and have left it out as an invitation to play when he wakes up from his nap... I am pretty sure the dinosaurs will join us, and I hope we can find some other fun things from around the house to use too!

our 'biting' critters

2012-07-31T06:00:00.000+01:00

Hey friends, while I'm taking a little blog break to sort some stuff at home I thought I'd share a few old posts for your inspiration...

Right now Little Vin is obsessed with sharks and crocodiles and making his dinosaurs pretend to bite people. I think it's a boy thing, that they love predators or something?

I made him some little 'biting' critters with wooden clothes pegs and googly eyes - they're a nice little fine motor exerciser, and lots of fun to chase your mama round the house with!

Happy Weekend Folks xo

Our Collage Kit

2012-07-29T06:00:00.000+01:00

Hey friends, while I'm my little blog-break I thought I'd share some older posts for your inspiration. Here's one of our favourite art kits, still going strong in this house!

Recently I posted about our 'playdough centre' so I thought I'd share another of our art-time kits. I got this plastic clip-top case in one of those Smash and Grab type shops, I think it's meant for sewing supplies or fishing tackle or something - but we filled ours with collage supplies.

We have compartments for all sorts of bits and pieces - cut up straws, rubber bands, foam numbers, pipe cleaners, felt pieces, torn tissue paper, cut up birthday cards and magazines, postage labels, stickers, googly eyes, post-it notes, pom poms and lots of other bits and scraps from my craft stash.

The only thing I bought new for this set was the box itself, everything else comes from my stash and my hoarding tendencies. As they are making masterpieces I have been re-filling the compartments, and each time I've tried to include something new for them to explore and use.

I got these tiny kids scissors with a set free with a kiddos art magazine, they barely even cut through paper but it's good practise for little fingers without worrying about them lopping one of those fingers off! I've got my eye out for some mini glue-sticks, we definitely need more than one since the kiddos love the gluestick the most!

The first couple of times we had this out , of course the contents got dumped all over the floor. But I took the same approach as I did with our first sensory tub - it's all part of the experience. And after a couple of explorations on the floor, they soon realised it was easier to keep all the stuff in their compartments.

We've made so many collage-y masterpieces, I'm quite surprised at how popular this has been!

DIY Felt Car Mat

2012-07-27T15:34:00.000+01:00

Hey friends, while I'm on a little blogging break I thought I'd share a couple of old posts from our archives for your play inspiration. Here's a fun little DIY project ideal for anyone with a car-lover, or off on a road-trip this Summer.

At some point around Christmas I looked over my boy's gender-neutral toys and wondered if it was time for something a little more boy-ish. But what to do what to buy for little boys that doesn't include flesh ripping dinosaurs, homicidal aliens, war hero army men or monster trucks?

I found some Micro Machines cars and just watching his little face as he pushed them along the floor (and over his head) I knew I couldn't hold my facist toy preferences over him forever (and anyway, his dad bought him the flesh hungry dinosaur, complete with flashing lights and roaring sound effects).

I was inspired to the point of plagiarism by these felt car mats from Serving Pink Lemonade. Of course, those ones are neatly stitched and pressed, mine were stuck down with fabric glue. But life is messy, and the sooner he realises the world isn't perfectly hemmed the better right? Oh and I later noticed they have printable stencils which would have saved me a lot of cursing as I tried to cut my shapes freehand.

Of course, living in South London, I couldn't make a little village without an urban fox roaming. Now I just need to find an Eiffel Tower ornament I can pretend is the Crystal Palace Transmitter and we're good to go!

p.s. don't forget you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, G+ and Pinterest

Playdough Dinosaur Fossils

2012-07-22T08:37:00.000+01:00

You know we love dinosaurs and you know we love playdough so of course it was a given we would find a way to combine the two...

Vin has these awesome fossil toys from the Museum of Natural History that feature in our playtime a lot (mostly the fossil walks up to his non-fossilized version and says 'Hey, I'm dead' - boys!!)

I thought it would be fun to set out a batch of playdough and these toys and see what Vinnie got up to - he encased the dinosaurs in the playdough to make eggs, made footprint tracks and when he realised he could make skeleton imprints he was beside himself!!

You could do this with regular dinosaur toys too, or shells and leaves to make pretend ammonites. We also made some from salt dough a while back that we still play with!

Babyplay Balloon Fun

2012-07-20T06:00:00.000+01:00

Here's a really simple idea for a sort of homemade baby gym that even the littlest babies can enjoy.

String up a line of balloons and sit them or lie them underneath! As you can see I used the bottom of our dining table, but you could use two sturdy chairs or adapt a mobile or existing baby gym.

(yes, they are Happy Birthday balloons, good thing babies can't read!)

I filled some of the balloons with rice and dried lentils so they would rattle and shake when kicked and swiped at - adding an extra sensory aspect to the playtime.

The would be lovely for crawlers to travel through, you could cover an entire table in balloons and create a magical crawl tunnel!

You might notice I have no pics of babygirl actually playing with the balloons, that is because she hated the whole idea - as you can see my big kid loved it, so I'm not calling it a complete playfail!

p.s. if you like this, you should check out The Imagination Tree's Fibre Optic Sensory Cave!

Number Playdough - Numeracy Fun

2012-07-19T06:00:00.000+01:00

Here's a fun and simple way to turn playing with playdough into a little numeracy fun too!

I set out some playdough (black because it was the first to come to hand - I think it looks pretty cool against the neon numbers right?) a few tools (plastic cutlery and rolling pins) and some magnetic numbers - I didn't suggest what to do, I always try to leave set-ups like this for Vin to 'find' and explore in his own way.

At first he wanted to press the letters into the dough, to make number impressions - great for number recognition. Then we had a go at some one to one correspondence - matching playdough balls with the correct number.

For and older kid you could use playdough to explore fractions - the fun of actually cutting up your 'whole' adds a real hands on learning.

Vin made some standing numbers, so he had a go at number sequencing - older kids could explore sequencing in twos, or all even numbers for example.

I hid some numbers in balls of dough for Vin to discover - this is a great way for kids to get hands on with the shape of numbers (or letters if you have them) and practise number recognition as they call out their finds!

Later I added some beads - adding a new element to playtime always sustains interest, plus tiny things like beads, pasta or cut up straws are a good fine motor work out too...

I always say it, but I always forget, it's always the simplest setups, the ones where I have no plan in mind that result in the most fun - and more fun is always the best kind of fun!

Handpainted Flower Pots

2012-07-18T06:00:00.000+01:00

I love anything with a teeny baby handprint on it - I think they make the most special gifts for grandparents and mementos as little ones grow. So when I was asked to create some art for a grandma's birthday I decided to get fingerpainting and make a cute handprint bunch of flowers!

I've had these terracotta pots in the kitchen for a while and had plans to fill them with tomato plants, but before we did that I thought they could do with some colour! I bought some cheap acrylic paints and let the kiddos decorate them. As you can see I was very busy making as neat a handprint as I could with babygirl's tiny hands, so I just left Vin to it, and he created this modern art inspired piece!!

And there you have it, ready to be filled with flowers for a grandma or tomatoes for our kitchen windowledge!

These are for indoor use as we didn't seal them, but plenty of much more knowledgeable people than me have said that they will stand up to life in a garden with a coat of varnish.

Porridge Sensory Play

2012-07-17T06:00:00.000+01:00

Last week I shared 10 First Sensory Experiences for Babies - as I mentioned there, I'm no stranger to letting kids get messy, playing with unusual or unexpected things - but looking after a little baby, still mouthing everything in sight, working on her full fist grasp and just beginning to enjoy exploring her world, and at least one (sometimes two) toddlers at the same time I have had to come up with some simple and safe experiences they can play together.

I gave the kiddos bowls of dry porridge oats to explore, scoop, run their fingers through. Babygirl clenched fistfuls of the oats (and maybe sucked on a few) while the bigger kids practised their markmaking and played around with the different tools I'd set out.

After a while the older kids were beginning to lose interest so I suggested they add some water (as you can see, Vin couldn't wait, grabbed his drinking bottle at the first suggestion!) and explore the fun change in consistency. We ended up with a cold sticky gooey porridge to play with - it was fun listening to the older kids talk about how they were making snowmen, then Vin noticed babygirl had made a ball of porridge and was very impressed with her first attempt at a 'snowball'!

This was such a fun time, I'm so glad I managed to include all of the kids in one activity, without feeling like I was having to exclude the little one or monitor the older ones too much! How do you guys with mixed age siblings cope? What are some of your favourite play ideas for a group?

Icecream Playdough Fun

2012-07-16T06:00:00.001+01:00

Inspire some Summer fun with this Icecream Playdough - I spiked a couple of batches of playdough with vanilla extract, cocoa powder and strawberry essence and pink food dye, laid out a couple of props and some star sprinkles and pretending we were in a seafront icecream parlour rather than grey rainy London!

We had these plastic ice cream cones in with Vinnie's playfood, so I set them out, with some bowls, spoons and an icecream scoop - I love using real tools and props where I can, but I couldn't work out how to use a real cone without it disintegrating. You could always make a cone out of corrugated card if you want to play too!

You can get the recipe for our no-cook playdough here and be sure to check out my Play with Playdough Pinboard for more inspiration!

Sharpie Mug DIY

2012-07-15T22:09:00.000+01:00

After we saw these hand decorated mugs over on A Beautiful Mess I know we would have to give it a try. All it takes is a light coloured mug (or plate - I see some funny face plates in our future!!), Sharpies and an oven!

Here's Michelangelo at work - I love his casual posture! He covered the whole mug in multicoloured scribbles (the best kind!) then we baked in at 180degrees for half an hour. I haven't washed ours yet, but the original post says it will hold up to a handwashing.

Our mug is a present for Vin's nanny, but I think any kid would be tickled to have their own set of tabelware, or you could do this as an activity at a birthday tea party and the kids take home their creations as favours!

Sunday Showcase - Raising Readers

2012-07-14T06:00:00.000+01:00

I'm so thrilled to be teaming up with Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas and some other great bloggers to bring you The Sunday Showcase - every weekend we'll be featuring great play ideas and inviting you to share your own.

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Your co-hosts- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Inspiration Laboratories,

The Iowa Farmer's Wife, Make, Do & Friend, Here Come the Girls and Train up a Child invite you to link up your play and child friendly ideas below.

I hope you'll check out what has been linked-up this week. I know you'll leave here inspired, ready to create, play & have fun!

The Rules: this is a fun & relaxed linky with a few simple guidelines.

Anything kid friendly and/or child centered is welcome!

You are welcome to share more than one post,

but I don't accept links for giveaways,
shops, or downloads for purchase, etc. They will be deleted.

If you're linking up I encourage you to visit some of the other link-ups!
Everyone appreciates comments, encouragement, feedback, etc.

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Some of my Favourite Posts from Last Week...

There were lots of great ideas on a topic very close to my heart- reading with your kids, here are some of my favourites for you to check out...

Creekside Learning goes on a Reading Date with her kids - how awesome is this idea? Dedicated time to reading and bonding. I love it!

Homespun With Love made these Space Bookmarks - a great idea for older kids who are just getting started on chapter books

Play Through the Day shares her tips on Raising a Reading Superstar

I'm loving this post from Stay at Home Educator on Choosing Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers

And of course, my favourite way to get kids reading - play! Mom On Time Out has some lovely activities to Play Along with The Rainbow Fish

Now it's your turn, link up your best play ideas, crafts and activities below...