Magic Scarves

I love playing games with scarves with the kids. Everyone has an old scarf in the cupboard, if not you can buy a scrap of this sheer colourful material from spotlight for about 50 cents. Make each scarf around 20 x 50cm as it makes it manageable for the little ones to twirl and move with. Below I have put up some of my favourite activities I like to do with Magic Scarves. Magic Scarves offer the opportunity to develop fine/gross motor skills, dexterity, language development and movement skills.

•Toss scarves up in the air and then run under them and catch them. If they have difficulty getting the scarves to "float and flutter," toss the scarves up for them and let them catch them as they float down.

•Hoops and scarves can be combined as children dance inside the hoop with it lying on the ground and spin and twirl to lively music.

•Tie a "scarf ball," leaving some of the scarf ends loose so children can catch the ball by the dangling ends and throw it through a hoop hanging from the ceiling or from a low branch outside.

•Throw individual scarves into hoops placed on the floor or ground. Since scarves don't "go straight," children will develop unique ways of getting the scarves to land inside the hoops.

•Stand at the outside edge of the parachute and throw their scarves as far in toward the centre of the parachute as possible.

•Juggling with Scarves – Preschool-age children can develop pre-juggling skills that help to improve concentration, eye-hand coordination, tracking (a pre-reading skill), fine motor skills, and they get a cardio-vascular work-out too. Start by learning to toss and catch one scarf. Then, as coordination develops (which may take a long time) progress to 2 and 3 scarves.

• Scarf Toy Trampoline – Have 2 or more people hold the corners of a scarf and bounce a toy up and down in the middle of it, like a trampoline.

•Use an instrumental track to create free movement activities with scarves as well as direction following activities. Give children directions using prepositions of up, down, to the side, under etc.

Finger Puppet Play

Finger Plays with Nursery Rhymes are valuable activities that help children acquire skills that are essential to their development and learning. They help improve and advance memory and language skills, while also aiding in the development of eye-hand coordination and enhancing their gross and fine motor skills.

Mesmerized by movement and enhanced by animal toys, babies are natural audiences for a miniature puppet show. Lay your baby on his back or put him in a reclining bouncy seat. Just slip a finger puppet or two onto your fingers and let them bob, dance, kiss, tickle, sing and talk to your littlest spectator. At this age, he’s likely to reach out, grab a puppet, and start to mouth it, which is fine. (Just be sure the puppets have no small parts that can be pulled off and swallowed.) He’s equally likely to babble, gurgle, and blow raspberries at the animated actors. Find a song to go with your puppet and make it a musical show!

Listening to the puppet talk and sing will help him learn the art of conversation – that is, that first one person (or puppet, as the case may be) talks, and then the other person responds. Being tickled and nuzzled by his little friends provides both entertaining tactile stimulation and fun, positive interaction with you.

Some Examples of rhymes you could use a finger puppet with are:
Baa Black Sheep/Little Bo Peep – Black sheep
Five Little Ducks – Duck
Five Speckled Frogs – Green Frog
Hickory Dickory Dock/ Three Blind Mice – Mouse
Incy Wincy Spider/ Little Miss Muffet – Spider
One, Two, Three, Four, Five - Fish

Simple Paper Finger Puppets

To make paper finger puppets use stiff paper, such as coloured construction paper. Cut out small rectangles and make simple cylinders the size of your fingertips, taping, gluing, or stapling the paper together around your finger. Paste on ears, whiskers, or a hat for the animal or character you want to create. A man in a top hat is fairly simple, as is a cat with pointy ears.
Finally, draw faces with a felt pen, keeping the features fairly plain: Babies react most directly and dramatically to simple, graphic faces.

Felt Finger Puppets

Materials:
Felt scraps
Craft scissors
Craft glue
Sewing notions
Permanent colored markers
Cotton balls

Instructions:
For each puppet, first cut out a pair of 1 5/8- x 3-inch felt rectangles to serve as the front and back of the animal.

MR HORSE: For ears, cut out a pair of felt ovals (about 1 1/2 inches long). Fold them in half lengthwise and glue together the lower edges. Glue the bases of the ears to the back of the puppet. Add a fringed forelock, white mane and rounded muzzle. Use a marker to draw jawlines and nostrils.

BABY BIRD: Cut out a triangular felt bird beak and glue it in place. Add plumage.

SPOTTED HEIFER: Make cow ears following the same steps used for the horse. Glue on a pink muzzle. Colour bold black spots on the ears and face.

PINK PIGGY: For floppy pig ears, use 2-inch felt circles. Attach them as previously described for the horse. For pig cheeks and a snout, glue on 1-inch felt circles.

WOOLLY LAMB: Attach ears horizontally to the front of the lamb. Glue a bit of cotton "wool" to the top of its head and draw on the face.

Musical Instruments to Make at Home

Children love music as much as they enjoy making things. Why not join these two creative forces and make one or all of these fun and easy musical instruments to encourage play and creativity.

Bean Shakers

What You Need:
Empty Plastic Bottle (small, medium or large, it's up to you)
Dried peas, beans or lentils
Superglue

Instructions:
Clean out the bottle and allow to dry thoroughly.
Fill the bottle about 1/8 to 1/4 full with the peas, beans or lentils.
Place superglue around the threads of the bottle opening and quickly tighten the lid and allow the glue to dry before playing with the shaker.

Kazoo

What You Need:
Waxed Paper
Paper towel tube
Rubber bands

Instructions:
Cut the waxed paper to fit over one end of the paper towel tube.
Secure the paper with several rubber bands.
Poke a few holes in the waxed paper.
Hum into the unpapered end to make music.

Drum

What you need:
Large, cylindrical formula container
Craft knife
Tyvek (what no-rip envelopes are made of; available at your local post office or at office supply stores)
Markers
Duct Tape
Heavy-duty wrapping paper or one of your child's drawings

Instructions:
Remove the lid from a large, cylindrical formula container.

Cut out the bottom with a craft knife.
Cut a piece of Tyvek (what no-rip envelopes are made of; available at your local post office or at office supply stores) into a circle that's 4 inches wider than the mouth of the oatmeal carton. (For instance, if your container measures 5 inches across, the Tyvek should be 9 inches.) Don't worry about making the circle perfectly round; we traced the carton onto our envelope, then cut around it, keeping our scissors roughly 2 inches from that line.
To get it as taut as possible, adhere 2 pieces of tape directly opposite each other after pulling the Tyvek tight between them. Continue in the same way around the container, until all 8 strips are applied in pairs (you'll need to gather the material slightly as you go). Finally, cut one last, longer piece of tape and wrap it all the way around the edge of the Tyvek.

TAMBOURINE

What you need:

2 paper plates
stapler or glue
hole punch
string
jingle bells
crayons

Instructions:

Staple or glue two paper plates together, facing each other. Using a hole punch, make holes around the plates and tie jingle bells to the holes with string. Decorate the tambourine with crayons. Shake to play.

Cactus Rain Stick

Fill an empty wrapping paper roll with rice and tape ends closed. Poke straight pins from one side through to the other up and down the roll and decorate. The pins are stuck into the cardboard randomly so that when the cylinder is turned upside down, the rice falls through bouncing off the straight pins, creating a rain stick sound.

Chimes

What you need:
ruler or stick,washers,nail polish,string,mixing spoon

Instructions:Hang the washers from the ruler or stick with pieces of string by wrapping the string around the ruler or stick and securing. Strike the washers with the mixing spoon to play.
Note: You can make this craft colorful by painting the washers first with different color nail polishes, such as red, gold, glittery, etc. Parents should supervise this part of the activity closely.

Xylophone

What you need:
tall glasses or jars, water, mixing spoon

Instructions:
Fill the glasses or jars with different amounts of water. The more water in the glass, the lower the pitch will be. Having less water in the glass or jar will raise the pitch.
To play, gently strike the glasses with a mixing spoon.
Note: This instrument should probably be played by older children in "the band" because of the use of glass.

Guitar

What you need:
empty shoe box,rubber bands,ruler or stick

Instructions:
Remove the cover from the box. Stretch the rubber bands around the box. Attach the ruler or stick to the back of the box on one end to act as the arm of the guitar.
To play, strum or pluck the rubber bands.

Cymbals

What you need:two matching pot covers yarn or ribbon

Instructions:
Tie the ribbon or yarn around the handles of the pot covers. To play, strike together..

Bath Time Is Learning Time

Making bath time fun? Not an easy task? Does every task associated with bathing and hair washing seem truly torture for your kids; getting their hair wet, getting water or soap in their eyes, refusing to hold washcloths over their face when you're trying to rinse... Bath time can be fun or it can be a real hassle if your child does not like it. So, we as mums, try to make it a fun time for our little ones! Then the problem will be getting them out!!! Admittedly I struggle with all of the above night in and night out with both my boys, and am the first to give a"silent yippee" in the air when their dad makes it home to do bath time(which is not too often!) Bathing one is fine, as I'm sure you agree, bathing two or more can end up feeling like an octopus wrestling Siberian tigers!!

So to overcome this battle, bath time in our house has predominately become learning time.... all of which is fun and interactive and involves all the tedious tasks that need to be done. We even manage to cut our nails in the bath as we are tigers getting ready to go hunting!! Below I have put together some ideas that I use with the boys when it is bath time. I have found it a wonderful opportunity to teach colours, numbers, shapes, science concepts (floating & sinking - not the kids!!), maths concepts (full and empty) etc

• Sing Songs Together
  Kids love to sing and to be sung to. Bath time songs like "Rubber Ducky" and "Splish Splash I Was Taking A Bath" are great bath time songs. When my children were very young we played "This Little Piggy" as I washed each toe.

• Measure It
  Measuring cups are fun for pouring and filling in the tub and if you have an old set they are a great free fun set of toys for the tub. They can stack and pour to their hearts content and maybe even learn to wet their hair for washing. Control gives many children the power to overcome fears such as getting their hair wet for washing.
  Learning time can be created through the use of measures. Take the one cup measuring cup and ask the child how many of each cup it will take to fill your big cup.

• Color It
  Bubble bath can be irritating to little ones causing urinary tract infections, yeast infections, as well as skin irritation. A few drops of food coloring is a wonderful solution adding interest and fun to your child’s bath. You can also turn each bath into a learning experience; drop one color in, such as red, then ask your child what they think will happen if you add a drop of yellow.

• Counting down from 10 or 20 during rinsing

• Soap bubbles - mix liquid soap, food coloring, and soap flakes together in a bowl. Let the children paint with the soap bubbles on the tiles around the tub or on the insides of the tub. This mixture can be used like finger paint and will wash off easily.
  

• Food coloring in the water - two or three drops will turn the water different colors and will not harm the children. Mix colors together to make new colors.
  

• Pails and paintbrushes - "paint" the tub, tiled walls, faucets, and tub toys with water.
  

• Floating and sinking - gather items of different sizes and weights and place them in the tub one at a time while playing the game "Sink?" or "Float?"

• 
  Fishing pole - make out of paper towel cardboard or other safe material, and "go fishing" in the tub for toys.
  

• Ice cubes - put one or two in the tub to play with and to watch as they melt. Talk about water and how it can be frozen to make ice and how ice can be melted to make water.
  

• Boats - make out of empty milk cartons or plastic bottles.

• Buy some bath time letters A-Z and numbers 1-10 that are scrambled around all sides of the bath. After asking about Master 4's day and what he did, we move onto a little bit of revision I guess you could say. But simple things, simple words, like cat, dog, etc that he can use the letters to make the word.

• Alternate bath toys as much as possible so that the kids always find something which is fun to play with.

• Sculpture from shaving foam is also bath time fun activity and you can squeeze some large splotches of shaving foam on the hand of the child or the bath and let the child imagine after that.

• You can take the opportunity at the bath time for kids to introduce them to different types of music as well as to story on CD’s or tapes.

• Read bath books to your child - great for when your little one is very tired and may not stay awake for a story that night.

• You can give the kids a special treat at the bath time for kids, by having bubble blowing mixture in the bathroom, but be careful that it does not get into the eyes of the child or anyone else.

• Buy bath crayons to draw with, learn to write your name.

Remember that not too soon your child's bath time will not be there as your kids will grow up and will take their own shower and will not like your interference. The things you do to add magic and fun to the kids bath time during these times will be repaid many times over in making fun memories for your kid and you for the future.