I'm Playing Along at Childhood 101

Christie at Childhood 101 has created "We Play", as a special part of her great blog. It's a weekly link up where people can share their play experiences and ideas. I think it's a wonderful idea and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Christie says in her post introducing the idea that she believes play is a child's 'work'. I absolutely believe that too. It's what they do to grow, learn and develop. It also gives them a sense of purpose and helps them to work out their place in the world, just to mention a few of it's benefits.

But, as parents, I also believe it's kinda our 'work' too. When we bring these wonderful, sweet beings into the world, it's our job to care for them, to love them and to help them grow. So, it's our work and responsibility to take play seriously, to encourage it, allow time for it, to value it and nurture it and to advocate it's importance at every opportunity.

So well done Christie and everyone else who is getting involved. Here is my favourite play experience from our house this week.



What's going on here?

I made these 'roads' last year sometime. They usually live outside, but with the weather being so cold and wet here in Melbourne at the moment, I've let a few outside toys come in. This has given these roads a new lease on life. They have been used as roads/ramps/bridges and platforms leading down from our stairs.

The kids have put various things underneath them as support (you can see a couch cushion here) and have used small and large cars, animals and trains with them.

These two humble pieces of wood have led to many discussions about scientific ideas (physics mostly) and how to solve problems. These discussions have naturally arisen as the play has gone along and my two don't even really realise the learning that is going on.

You see, big cars don't drive so well on the narrow pieces of wood, so their configuration needed to be modified for that. Some cars veer off, so that needed to be fixed with some angle adjustments. Sometimes Ed wants the cars to go fast, other times slow and again, modifications need to be made. He has solved all of these problems on his own or with a bit of help from his big sister and while doing so has cemented a foundation for scientific learning later in his life.

All the while, the kids have been strengthening fine motor skills while moving the objects around, building on language skills while talking to each other about what might happen, what has happened and how things need to change. Not to mention working on social skills as use of equipment is negotiated and conflicts are resolved.

So, two pieces of wood sanded and painted equals lots of learning and lots of fun.

Come over and play at the 'Childhood 101' 'We Play' link up

May Practical Parenting

I have an article in May's Practical Parenting which is out now.



It's all about "Doll Washing" which is a great fun thing to do either outside or at bath time, with lots of learning opportunities involved. It's also especially relevant to young children who have just had a baby brother or sister come into the home.

Em took great care of her baby dolls when Ed was born. She fed them when I fed Ed, bathed them, changed them, read to them and loved them, while I was doing the same for her new baby brother. It not only kept her busy and out of mischief, it gave her an opportunity to play out what she was seeing me do, which helped her to process what was going on. It also helped her to understand the love and caring required for a new baby and helped her to feel she was being important and included too. It was easy to interact with her while she was alongside me and we could talk about what we were doing together.

Here is a photo of us sharing bath time at the kitchen sink. Ed was only about 4 weeks old.

A Box with Hole in it

It never ceases to amaze me how children can be kept amused by just the simplest things.

This is the latest 'favourite plaything' at our house at the moment. A cardboard box with a slit cut in it.



It all started on Sunday afternoon when my girl was wondering around looking a little lost. "Are you finding it hard to find something to do?" I asked. "I am", she answered. I started to think about the things she likes to do at the moment - drawing, colouring in? These things wouldn't do, I could tell she was in the mood to do something a little different.

'How about I put together some paper, envelopes and stickers for stamps and you could write some letters?". She perked up, I knew I was onto a good thing. I picked up the cardboard box waiting to go into the recycling. "This could be the post box' I said. She seemed more excited.

"I could be the post lady too" she chimed in. "I could deliver the letters, I would need a hat". She ran off to her room and came back with her visor and her brother's satchel. "What if you were the Queen when you write your letters?" I suggested. (She is quite taken with the idea of being a Queen. The other day she asked me "What do you have to do to become the Queen?" She sets her sights high, my girl!). "Yes!!" she said, "I would need a crown". Of course!

We went to her room and fetched a crown she had made at school last year. We proclaimed her the 'Queen of Art and Craft' and she sat at her royal table writing letters for her royal subjects.

When she had written a few, she took off her crown, put on her visor, sorted through her post box, made a list of the letters she needed to post, stamped them with the special post mark I had given her and went off delivering.

She played this game for over 2 hours and only packed it away for dinner. She grew the game on her own, callng herself "Postman Patricia" when she wasn't being the Queen. She even went and found her own 'black and white cat' and came up with an elaborate story about how Postman Pat was her husband and he was ill, so that's why she was delivering letters with Jess the cat.

Once I had set up the play and got it flowing, she didn't need me at all any more, except to receive my letters and tell me about the latest twist in the game. This is the beauty about setting up a play experience that embodies a child's interest and learning level - they can stay engrossed in the game for hours and will keep going back to it. The box has been brought out every morning before school this week too.

Holiday Hits

I'm always being told by my husband "You give yourself too many things to do!" and these holidays were no exception. I didn't get through all the things I had planned, but we did have loads of fun doing what we did, and our time away was very enjoyable.

I thought I would share a few highlights:

Easter Basket Making:

A big shout out to Liss from 'Frills in The Hills' for her basket making idea. We put our own twist on it and covered our baskets in felt instead of paper. Em had a great time making these baskets and was very proud of her end result. Ed enjoyed decorating his little felt eggs with fabric paint, but I had to put his basket together for him on the Saturday before Easter. I was waiting for him to show some initiative to do it himself, but he wasn't interested until the night before when Em put out her beautifully prepared basket and his wasn't ready. He's a little bit last minute like his Mum.




Painting Canvasses

Em really enjoyed painting her own designs. She spent a couple of hours on it and had a ball mixing colours and creating effects. These will take pride of place in her room for a while I'm sure. The "Dead Heart" design is particularly interesting ........



Visiting Family

We had a wonderful time visiting our family in Adelaide. Extended family is so important and I am reminded of this more and more as my children get older. The role Aunties, Uncles, Cousins and Grandparents play in the development of self-esteem, a sense of belonging and feeling valued is priceless. Not to mention the sense of security felt when being loved and cared for by a large group of people. My children blossom and thrive when they are with their interstate-loved-ones and I enjoy watching every minute they spend with them.

Free Play Time

We had lots of free play time over the holidays and the children had a ball with it. Much of the play centred around this corner of the lounge room.



As I've mentioned earlier, as part of Em's 'school play', I've set up an office and staff room.

Over the holidays, this area was used as a restaurant, a house and ,my favourite, "Em and Ed's Cafe".

We added some notepads for order taking and the kids played in this area for hours.

What I've Used Here:

A toy changing table as a bench
A kettle
A toaster
An empty 'Weet-bix' box
A toy oven
A plastic saucepan
A collection of pretend herbs, spices and sauces
All the plastic food and toy crockery I could find
A small table and chairs
Paper, pens, textas and notepads
Band-aids (Em NEEDED them?!)
An op-shop handbag and a purse

What fun did you get up to on your holidays?

Animals, Animals, Animals

I've included a small container of animals in amongst Ed's trains and cars and these are being incorporated in his play more and more. Sure, they generally ride around in the back of a ute or train carriage, or the cars and trains visit a 'zoo' he has set up, but I'm glad to see him including the animals in his made up stories.



Branching out into a new interest area like this helps development in so many ways. It builds on his mental catalogue of objects in his world, builds his memory and recall, helps him to expand his understanding of social rules and norms and encourages him to notice new and interesting facts when we're out and about.

For instance, we visited the museum on Friday and Ed took a great interest in the animals and creatures displayed there, learning the names of new animals and finding out about where and how they live. Talking about and playing with animals at home has really helped to trigger this interest.



I doubt he will ever embrace the animal kingdom in the way he loves his cars, trains and trucks, but it's really important to introduce children to new things and broaden their horizons. Introducing new open-ended, imaginative toys into play is a great way to do this.

A Little Project

My school girl was following me around a little lost and bored yesterday morning so I decided to give her a project to do. I suggested she make a book about 10 things she has enjoyed doing over her holidays.

She was very keen, so to get her started, we sat down together and made a list of 10 things she had done and really enjoyed. I wrote the list so I could help spell tricky words like "Aquarium" and "Federation Square", but I deliberately did it in note form so she would have to think through how to construct sentences when she came to write the book (this is something she has done at school and is quite capable of).

Next, we downloaded the photos we have taken over the last couple of weeks. She chose her favourites and I copied them onto a word document, making each photo passport size.



Then I stapled together 6 pages of white A4 paper that I folded in half, and left her to her own devices. She collected up her own glue, scissors and textas and set herself up to work at the kitchen table.

I was doing some work around the house, so I was at hand if she needed help with spelling or when she took a break to show me what she had done, but for the most part, she worked on her own for a good couple of hours.

Putting together a book like this is a great way to practice literacy skills in a nonthreatening, fun way. It's also a great opportunity for self-reflection and when the task is completed, it provides a sense of mastery which boosts self-esteem. It also kept Em absorbed and occupied for over 2 hours which not only helped develop her memory and concentration, but also gave me some time to get a few things done.

School's Out But At Our House It's In

Well, we are having a lovely break from the daily grind of school lunches, uniforms, dropping off and picking up. But here at my house, we haven't left school behind altogether.

We have had a school corner set up in our loungeroom for about the last 4 or so months and it has been used a lot in the last week since we got back from our trip away.

The school corner came about when I got an old school desk and some chairs from a friend. I set it up in the loungeroom when em was having some friends over to celebrate her birthday. It never got packed away because it became a great place for the kids to draw and create which saved my dining room table.

It wasn't long before Em asked me to get out her whiteboard so she could play 'schools'. I also added whiteboard markers, rulers, calculators, pens, pencils, stickers and a few notebooks. The area has been used almost every day since.

Sometimes Ed Is the student, sometimes her toys are, sometimes I am, and a lot of the time she plays there by herself. It's been a great place for Em to play out and process all that has happened to her in her first year of school and, during the holidays, it's been a great way for her to revisit what happens at school when she's thinking about being there.

This is what it looked like when it was first set up. It's not quite as tidy now...


When I ran my own kinder room I would always set up the dramatic play area as a classroom in the last term. It would give the kids a chance to play out the big change that was about to happen for them. It also enabled the kids who had older siblings and knew a bit about school to pass on some of what they knew to the students that didn't and it also allowed for questions and concerns to naturally come up and be dealt with.

I set it up much the same as the one I've done for Em at home only I would include uniforms, school bags and lunch boxes. All of these things need time and practice to get used to.

If you've got a little one starting school for the first time this year or have some bigger ones who are a bit bored and missing school, a school corner at home could be just what your house needs.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Change is as Good as a New Toy

As I've mentioned earlier, we have a few dolls' houses around the place and one of them (a plastic fisher-price number) is usually a permanent fixture in our lounge room. Ed would pull it out every so often as a house for his cars, but Em (who it belongs to) hadn't visited the house for quite a while.

This changed this week, when the dolls' house took a little trip to playgroup and then ended up in our sitting room rather than in it's usual spot in the lounge room. This has breathed new life into it for Em who has played with it everyday since its shift.

She sets up the most elaborate play scenes and has left me wondering - what is the appeal? It's funny how moving it's location helps her to see it again after ignoring it in the lounge room for a good few months. It makes me consider what other toys we could move around and whether buying new toys is always necessary?.....

Finishing Off My Week With Ed

My week of setting up activities for Ed ended with some racetracks and some art work.

On Thursday we got out one of my husband's old Hot Wheels racetracks for Ed to play with. I took a few minutes to put it all together and he played with it for a couple of hours. The great thing about where he is at at the moment is he loves to add to things I set up. He is constantly thinking about what he can add to what he's doing. This is why it's great to have a whole range of toys accessible to children from about 2 years and up, particularly toys and accessories that are open-ended and stimulate imagination, curiosity and exploration.

On Friday we were watercolour painting. This is one of my favourite types of painting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it involves a lot of thinking. To get a good result, the brush needs to be washed in water before it's put into another colour. The brush also needs to move around on the colour chosen for a little while in order for the water to mix with the paint. This means it can take a little bit of time and thought, instead of instant result being achieved like when arcrylic paints are used. It's also great for younger children like Ed too, though, because it almost always leads to a sponatneous exploration of colour mixing, which is something Ed really enjoyed on Friday.



Lastly, it is super easy to clean up and doesn't stain anything it gets on, which is a huge plus in my book. You can see in the photo, I use a really old sheet to protect the table and recycled yoghurt and fruit containers to hold the water in. Only one brush is used and this is really easy to wash out and the paints can be rinsed under water if the colours get too mixed up. Because it's so easy to clean up, I even let my kids do it indoors, although I wouldn't recommend this for first timers!

Drawing on Wednesday

Ed and I were out all day yesterday, catching up with friends, and so play needed to wait untl well after school. But, determined to follow through on my quest to set up a play experience for Ed everyday this week, I got a few things out just as I was about to prepare dinner.

Our dining room adjoins our kitchen, so the kids love to set up something for themselves to do at the dining room table while I cook. They can be busy and I can be busy, but we can still talk to each other and be together.

Last night I got some paper and crayons out for Ed and some transport stencils I bought from the supermarket. He has used these stencils before and really enjoys them, but he usually uses textas.I thought I would make the experience slightly different this time by adding crayons instead. Changing drawing implements like this allows your child to use difefrent skills. They need to hold the implement differently, apply different amounts of pressure and renegoiate a task that they are familiar with. These things work fine motor skills and cognitive skills.

While I was getting things organised last night, I discovered an extra bonus of my quest to set things up for Ed this week. It's something that I hadn't really reflected on, but is probably the most developmentally beneficial learning point of all. As I said to Ed, "I'm going to set something up for you to do, come and sit up here", his face lit up with excitement and his sister moaned "Oh, can you set something up for me too?"

As I got them both set up and made my way to the kitchen to start preparing dinner, I replayed what had just happened over in my head and realised how affirming it is for the kids when I take the time to set something up for them. It sends such a powerful message of "I value you, you are important to me and I want you to grow and develop and pursue your interests and creativity". What a wonderful boost to their self-esteem.

What we did on Tuesday

I'm committed to setting up a play experience for Ed everyday this week and I have to admit, yesterday was a real challenge. I work on Monday and Tuesday morning at the local community centre where I run a couple of play-based kid's activity groups. Ed comes along to both of these groups and so by Tuesday afternoon, we are both exhausted.

He put himself to bed as soon as we got home and slept for 2 hours before we had to rush off to get Em from school. After school, we headed off to the library to get some more car and truck books (I can't believe he's not sick of them yet - we keep getting the same ones!!) and then home to make dinner and have a bath.

I decided to squeeze his activity into bath time. There are so many lovely activities you can set up in the bath and most children just love playing with water - it is one of Ed's favourite things to.

I collected up a bunch of plastic containers big and small as well as some disposable plastic plates I had left over from birthday parties. I then got together some plastic animals of varying shapes and sizes. I just put them on the edge of the bath and left the kids to work out what they wanted to do.

Of course, Ed complained that there weren't any cars, but he was happy to just play with the animals for a change. I sat for a while and we talked about sinking and floating and how many animals could fit in the container. We explored concepts of heavy and light, sinking and floating, in and out and large and small, by just letting the kids experiment while we talked about what they were doing. When the experimentation was over, Em and Ed created their own imaginative play game where the animals would travel in their boats to get to an island. The big animals were the 'Mummies" and the small animals were the 'Babies'. Here, they were working on their social skills and developing their self-esteem and sense of self. There is so much learning and developing to be had in imaginative play games and the wonderful thing about siblings is that they learn so much from each other (with a little help from mum of course!).

A House Not Just For Dolls

We have 4 dolls' houses at our house. One holds all our board books, the kid's have one in each of their rooms and the other is a lovely small wooden one that is in the playroom for everyone to use.



A dolls' house is great for development. It provides a lovely back drop for imaginative play games that work on fine motor and language development, cognitive skills and of course those very important social and emotional skills. It's such a lovely place for children to play out the social rules and norms they see going on in their everyday lives.

I found during my teaching years and with my own two kids, that not all children enjoy playing with dolls. But that doesn't mean they have to miss out on the great developmental opportunities the dolls' house provides.

Take my boy for example. The other day I went into Ed's room to find him playing with the dolls' house he had pulled out from under his bed. There was not a doll in sight mind you, his cars had taken over! I quickly gathered up some furniture for him to keep his game going, but snuck back in to take these pictures when he was having a toilet break. He played at this game for a really long time and the cars took on the roles that the dolls usually take.




I've substituted dolls many times for my daughter too, and added props to extend her play. Here are some great things to add to the dolls' house:
- an animal family - cats, dogs, elephants, lions etc
- fairies
- cars
- trucks
- buttons
- rocks
- glass stones
- small squares of felt and/or material
- small grocery boxes with one side cut out of them to act as extra furniture
- paddle pop sticks
- matchsticks
- bottle tops
- small patty pans

A Truckload of Fun

Ed seems to have a particular interest in construction vehicles at the moment. He is obsessed with the "Digger" book we got from the library a couple of weeks ago and loves to play with the 2 dump trucks from his Thomas the Tank Engine collection - Max & Monty.

We've been enjoying some much needed time at home this morning so I decided that instead of just leaving him to his own devices, I would take 5 or so minutes to collect up some materials that would help his imaginative play along a little. Here's what I came up with.



I've noticed he likes to be quite active in his play, everything needs to have something to do, so I thought I would collect up all of his dump trucks and construction vehicles form his various suitcases. I put all of these together in the wooden box. I then got some buttons, rocks and stones to act as "loads" for the trucks to carry and move around. I added the meat trays and container lids to act as places for the trucks to unload and the blocks and road signs to be included as buildings, bridges and well, signs. I didn't add the small squares of material for any particular reason, but I like to just throw things like this into their play and see what they do with it.

Ed had an absolute ball with this set up. I started him off by showing him what I had put out and talking him through what I thought he could maybe use the materials for. I then showed him how the dump truck could unload into one of the trays and left him to it while he got himself going. I find with Ed that if I get too involved, it stifles his creativity a bit, so I went into another room to leave him to it.



The activity provided lots of learning opportunities. He talked the whole time he was playing - to himself about what he was doing, creating voices for the trucks and bossing the vehicles around. He used lots of the technical, descriptive language to talk about the play - loaders, trays, ditches, flat beds, road trains. It gave him the chance to put into play the language he has learned from the books we have read and the shows he has watched about vehicles. This is a really important tool for strengthening what he is learning. He also talked about and explored lots of concepts like big/small, full/empty, loading/unloading, fits/doesn't fit. He also needed to work his fine motor skills when trying to get the small items in and out of the trucks. His brain got a bit of a workout too as he tried to determine which loads would fit in which truck and what cars were small enough and thin enough to fit under his bridge.



The wonderful thing about this sort of play is he could do it on his own. I only needed to set it up for him and then it's totally up to him what happens next and what direction his learning and exploring takes. In the meantime, I had a chance to tidy up, get the washing on and some dishes done. Of course I got lots of updates about what was going on as well as the occasional "this is so exciting". I also had to look at the ditch being built and the cars fitting under the bridge as I walked through the lounge room to put some things away but my involvement and feedback, however brief, sends a really powerful message of "I'm interested in and value what you are doing" which is also valuable for his learning and self-esteem. Can you believe we achieved so much in an hour of free-play with buttons, rocks and a couple of trucks?!

Eye Dropper Paintings

At playgroup on Monday, I set up some eye dropper painting for the kids. I call it painting quite reluctantly because in actual fact it's more of a science activity than an art activity, but it does involve experimentation with colour and it's a great way to get children involved in an "art -type" activity who are usually a little reluctant to do so.



The other thing I love about this activity is the way it works on building fine muscle control, eye-hand co-ordination and cognitive abilities. It is also a great language developing activity because chidlren are usually so intrigued by what's going on, they want to talk about it. As I said earlier, it's a great way to get children to learn about colours and for children who are slightly older, it's an opportunity to experiement a little with colour mixing.

To do this activity at home, you'll need:

- Some eye-droppers. I bought the ones in the photo from an educational toy store for around 30 cents. They're really easy to use because they're long and the tops are really easy to squeeze, but any eye dropper would do

- Food colouring mixed into water. Less is more with food colouring, but you do need a reasonably high food dye/water ratio to get good colour. It's best to start with a few good drops and see how you go.

- Paper towel. The cheap stuff works quite well, but the more absorbent the paper towel, the more fun the activity is.

Some tips:
- encourage your child to do just a few drops and see what happens. If they're anything like my boy, they'll squirt the entire contents of the dropper onto the paper and end up with nothing but a soggy mess. It's all part of the learning though. Encourage them to go more slowly and see what happens.
- food colouring is messy and doesn't wash well, so a plastic cover for the surface you'll be using is highly recommended, as is a water-proof smock
- use only a small amount of liquid so that if it does spill, it doesn't go EVERYWHERE. Glass jars are a really great, sturdy container to use, but if you have some of those non-spill paint pots, even better

Finding Facts at the Library

I love going to the library and yesterday we returned for the first time in about three months after I found the courage to face my $22.50 fine incurred by an (almost) lost book (doesn't it feel good to deal with these things, and the librarian wasn't even cross with me??!!). Anyway, we came home with a great big bundle of treasures.

After getting a couple of story books for bed time from the children's section, we headed over to the non-fiction section to look for some information books. We always find the best treasures here.

Ed chose a couple of digger books, something about Boeing 777s, a book about the history of Holden's and one about Porsches (I don't know how we ended up with such a rev head!). He actually wanted to take home about 6 car books, but I had to narrow it down to 2. He just loves to soak up the facts in these non-fiction books.




I chose a bunch of general animal and insect information books for my playgroup



and then for Em, I got some early reader books, a book about drawing and a kid's cookbook which is her absolute favourite thing to do at the moment.




In the past, we've had gardening books, truck books, art books, photography books, car manuals, bird field guides, insect books, whatever takes the children's interest. It's amazing how long they'll spend pawing through the glossy pictures, taking in what they can, asking about the facts and figures that cover the pages, and it always seems to lead to other activites - car shows, nature walks, art and craft. It's one of our favourite ways to pass the time and a wondeful way to learn about the world we live in.

Ed's Creative Space

I ventured into Ed's room the other night to do a bit of a tidy up and found the usual suspects - random train tracks, cars and trains strewn all over the floor. As I looked more closely, however, I found a little haven of calm, organisation and in the end intrigue as I stumbled across a game he had set up with his Thomas trains.




In the middle of Ed's room I have a large white, wooden toy box, that his garage and train sheds are kept on. I set up this space as a place for him to organise his own play and carry out his games without them being a great big mess all over the floor. He has access to it all the time and his trains and cars are kept in small suitcases at the bottom of the toy box. He can take himself there and start playing with out any intervention from me. Stumbling upon his Thomas game the other night made me remember why I had provided this space in the first place and just why these areas are so important to children.

Looking closely, you could see how intricate and involved his play had been. Each train had specific, matching carriages. Some trains were in sheds, others were lined up, some were facing each other, clearly involved in conversation. You could almost hear the busy station at work, things looked so animated.



I decided not to pack this scene away for the time being. There is nothing worse than having your creativity and momentum stifled by packing away something you're in the middle of and there is so much learning and development going on in this sort of involved play - memory and recall, language, fine motor, problem solving, organisation, empathy, social interactions, just to name a few.

I'll keep my eye on the play and when it gets messy and seemingly disorganised, I know he will be done with it and it will be time to pack it away, but for the time being, the Island of Sodor is alive and breathing in Ed's bedroom!

Containers and Lids

I know this looks like a basket of recycling, ready to go out to the bin, but it's actually what my little boy has been playing with for the last couple of days.

I've been noticing how much Ed enjoys the challenge of opening and closing containers lately. Whether he wants a biscuit or a drink or a cracker, I always get "I'll do it, I'll do it" when it comes to opening the container. So, for the last week or so, I've collected up every bottle and plastic container that's passed through my kitchen sink to pass onto Ed so that he can practice the skill of opening and closing.

It's a skill we take for granted as adults, but you actually need quite a large amount of muscle control in your wrists and fingers, not to mention eye-hand co-ordination, to get lids on and off properly.



I saved up cream containers, yoghurt containers, butter containers, milk bottles and soft drink/water bottles. By putting them all together into one basket, Ed is also working on his cognitive skills, matching and sorting.

Of course, no activity is complete for my boy without the addition of some matchbox cars and butter containers are the perfect place for them to hide away!

Learning about Cars

Like many almost 3 year old boys (and many almost 43 year old boys!) my little Ed is obsessed with cars. He has been since he could first sit up, but his interest has seemed to hit an all-time high recently.

About six months ago, we purchased a very cheap car calendar from the $2 shop. The calendar had a lot of vintage cars in it and on each page it described the make and model of each car. One of his favourite bed-time 'stories' is to go through this calendar and listen to the names of each of the cars. He started to memorise them for himself and has learnt to identify each of them just by looking at them.

One of his favourite vintage cars was an old Mercedes (he has good taste - he gets that from his mum!). We were out shopping with my mum and she bought him a model Mercedes which he named Bertie - bless him! Since then he has loved all Mercedes and can spot them at a hundred paces. He started pointing them out everywhere, recognising them from their badges.

This interest in badges has spread to all cars and if you see a car crawling through car parks, with a crazy woman pointing at the back end of each car in the row and a small boy with a look of absolute glee on his little face, then it's probably us.

It is his favourite thing to do at the moment, and so to help him develop this interest and build on his memory, recall and language skills, I have put together a little sheet for him of all his favourites.



It was a really easy thing to do, I just copied and pasted a heap of pictures from a MSN images search onto a Word document and typed in the name of each of the badges.

It's a really simple thing but he absolutely loves it and it's something that you can do to promote any interest area your child has.

A Lot of Play for Very Little

I found these small plastic shot glasses in the supermarket a few months ago and just knew they would be a hit with the kids. They're quite small and have an unlimited amount of uses which means they get incorporated into lots of different games and activities. Amongst our favourites are sand play, water play, playdough and imaginative play games (they are just the right size for a teddy bear tea party!), but by far, my kids' favourite use for them is at bathtime.

We have a heap of them in the container of bath toys and it seems their uses are endless. I think that's the beauty of giving children open-ended resources like these - the children are able to constantly reinvent what the cups can be used for. They have been used as under-water helmets for Barbie, drinking cups for cars, hats for rubber duckies (see below!) shakers, pourers, containers, goggles and boats, just to name a few.



Not long ago, my nephew was here to stay with us and he even found some new uses for the cups that my kids hadn't thought of before. My nephew is seven and a half and these small little cups that I grabbed for under $3 entertained all three children for half an hour. Just goes to show you that when play items are open ended and children are able to direct their own play, lots of fun and learning can occur at their own developmental level and their own pace

Why we love Drawing!

Our school holidays were not the relaxed, long, easy days, full of wonderful play opportunities, that I had planned. But one thing my kids always seem to have time for, no matter what we're doing, is drawing. They both absolutely love it and it is something that they do every single day.

I have put together an art cupboard so that whenever the mood takes my two, they are able to open up a cupboard we have in the dining room and set themselves up to do some drawing. The way I've organised things, they don't need my help at all which means they are able to amuse themselves and get themselves busy no matter what I am doing and whether or not I'm able to help them.



This is what one shelf of our art cupboard looks like. I've used different things to hold pencils, textas and crayons. I've tried to choose containers that are bright, colourful and appealing but also containers that allow easy access to materials. The kids can choose colours easily because they're all visible and I have sorted each container so that all the pencils are together, all the textas are together, etc.

I've used some document trays to hold the paper. I always try to provide clean, white paper to use because I think drawings look better on nice paper and it encourages the children to take pride in what they are doing. I encourage the recycling of paper by re-using pieces that have already been drawn on for times when the kids are just trying out ideas, scribbling or cutting. You can see there are two trays - the first is for clean paper, the one alongside is for work when it is finished. I try to clean out this tray every couple of weeks. I find my emotional attachment isn't as strong as time goes by, so I wait to sort things through. Then I'll throw away junky pieces of work (or drawings that I have seen over and over again!) and just keep the good ones. The really special pieces I will give away to grandparents or stick into some scrapbooks I keep for each of the children. It's great to look back and see how the kids' drawing has progressed over the years. Mind you, my scrapbooks are nothing fancy, just the cheap paper kind you buy from the supermarket and I stick the pictures in with a trusty old glue stick. I do try to write the date and the year the drawing has been done though.

Ed has just started to draw recognisable faces. He has drawn alongside his sister for around 18 months and up until now he has just scribbled, but he has loved every minute of it. It's amazing how much drawing can entertain a young child even when they are not producing recognisable work. But scribbling is a really important stage that all children go through and I really think it's important to respect this stage and allow lots of opportunity for it. Ed's practice has paid off and here is an example of his fine work!



He is so excited by the fact he can draw faces that I even found him at the table the other day trying to draw his favourite tractor.



The finished product didn't resemble the tractor much at all, but he did manage to draw the three wheels he could see. Seeing him set something like this up for himself really made me appreciate just how complex and involved children's thinking can be sometimes and also how important it is that as parents we give our children the materials and opportunities that allow them to explore their creativity and play out their ideas. If I had his textas and paper locked away where he couldn't access them, there is no way Ed would have been able to do this for himself.

Em has been drawing since she was around 12 months old and her drawings now are really detailed and involved.



She uses the drawing materials in all kinds of ways. She will sit down and do detailed, involved drawings like this, or she will write letters, make invitations for make believe parties she has dreamed up, put together books of her favourite things or use the sticky tape, staplers, glue and stickers we also have in the art cupboard to create whatever her heart desires.

Of course, drawing every day means she constantly works on her fine motor skills, she is always writing, which means she is building her literacy skills and practicing her hand writing, not to mention the imagination and creativity she is developing when putting together her stories and pictures, but I think the biggest impact for Em is the effect her drawing has on her social and emotional abilities. She is always making pictures and letters for her friends and family, drawing with and for friends who are visiting and she also uses drawing to help her make sense of things she is seeing around her. She will draw places she has visited or recreate a scene she has experienced with her loved ones. It's a constant means for her to process what she is experiencing in the world and I think this is probably one of the most important ways drawing helps children develop.