Book Play - The Mitten

Last year my grand daughter's favourite book was The Mitten.

I pulled it out again to see if the interest was still there.

To make it inviting I sewed some felt together to make this winter scene.

A soft, white mitten was sewn to the felt too.

I hid all the animals in the mitt.

The bear came out and said 'gr, gr'.

The fox was hard to take out because of his long tail.

The raccoon tried to climb into a tree then he went to the river to find a fish.

  

The animals explored the winter scene, walking on the snow, climbing in the trees, splashing in the water and hiding under a snow tunnel.

My grand daughter had fun playing but the interest isn't the same as last year and that's ok.

Who Lives in a Tree?

I built a tree around our tube stand and cut out some holes for our stuffed animals to live inside.

The Little One loved it!

The bird's nest is right at her level so that was the first stuffy to come out.

Once it was out she played with the flap, opening and closing it.

Then she decided to put her baby doll inside.

Next onto exploring the rest of the animals that live in a tree.

We have a fox, raccoon, deer, squirrels, chipmunk, skunk, eagle, robin, owl, crow and baby birds in a nest.

One day I caught her using her saw pretending to cut the hole.

I found these paint sticks at Michaels when I had a half off coupon.

We decided to try them out to colour our tree.

They work great.

They go on smooth, there is no dripping and they dry quickly.

While our tree dried we visited the Little One's cousins and went for a walk.

We saw these decorated trees.

All wrapped to keep them warm for winter?

 Back at home we had one more thing to do to our tree and that was to add some more leaves.

The Little One loves tape and had fun putting the leaves on, taking them off and putting them on again.

We think it looks pretty good.

Felted Playscape

I was busy on the weekend needle felting.

I needle felted a playscape for my grand daughter

Needle felting on a flat service is fairly easy to do.

You start with a piece of felt, wool roving and a needle.

The piece of felt is long because I wanted it all in one piece.

 Needle felting is very much like painting,

you add layers to blend the colours and get texture.

Here is the sky with clouds and a tree off to one side.

The bottom half is covered with green for grass,

a couple of pre-made toadstools 

and lots of flowers.

I've leaned it against a felt board to hold the sky up,

and the grassy part lays on the table.

Pieces of wood were added, along with toy animals.

Later in the day we wanted to use her sensory table so I grabbed

a box, turned it inside out and made a table

with storage underneath.

 

This sits in their living room so she can still see mom and dad

if they are in the kitchen.

She has spent a good portion of today playing with it.

I love the magic of searching in the forest for treasure,

be it geocaching or looking for Leprechaun gold.

I love the look of wonder in a child's eye when they believe that

there may be something hidden away waiting for us to find it.

Since we are a drop in program I left maps for the families to be able to guide themselves 

around the park. 

We started with some fort building.

There were a couple of focuses for this activity;

one was to give children the freedom to collect the sticks

(because we know they will)

two it gave us something to do while we waited for more families

to arrive and catch up.

Once our fort was up (I thought we may need it later if the rain started)

the children were encouraged to play with the pots and pans I brought.

It took them a few minutes to get the idea (which surprised me that this wasn't spontaneous)

then we were creating pinecone soup and birthday cupcakes.

Some parents are natural at playing and encouraging their child's imagination,

others need some modelling.

Once a group of families arrived we set off to find some Leprechaun treasure.

The children ran from sign to sign stopping at each

for the adults to catch up.

I put pictures on each and encouraged the children to try and figure

out what it meant.

Tiny gold jewels were found in the creek this morning.

We stopped at big old trees and checked for any doors.

 

Through the meadow we ran and flew till we came to this sign

and knew we were getting closer to finding a Leprechaun.

We walked slowly looking at big trees, trees covered in moss,

searching for trees with doors until...

We found it!

Then there was another sign explaining about rainbows 

and that we might find more treasure if we searched.

By now the children were self-motivated and didn't need much encouragement

to begin searching.

For what they weren't sure, till the first magic rock was found.

And then a pot was discovered in the bushes.

Good thing I brought some magic potion.

The children dropped their magic rocks into the pot

and I squirted in some potion.

So exciting to watch it bubble.

The children found sticks for stirring

and as the fizz settled we could see shiny gold pieces were left behind.

After that excitement we had a snack and a story.

"There was an Old Woman that Swallowed a Clover"

The children were soon off searching for rainbows.

At each spot they collected one ribbon till they came to another big, old tree

where they found rings.

The adults helped tie the ribbons on to their rings

and there was their rainbow.

Hope you had a magical St. Patrick's Day too.