Play for Every Day

We have teamed up with some of our lovely local baby and toddler class providers to bring you ideas of everyday play you can do at home during Lockdown 3.0! 

We will aim to bring you a couple of ideas aweek and will be sharing them here and across social media. Join in the fun and share your ‘play for every day’ ideas with us on Facebook and Instagram!

Home Made ‘No Cook’ Playdough

There are lots of ways to make playdough at home but the beauty of  ‘no cook’ playdough is that all the ingredients are cold, and so even MAKING the playdough can be part of the activity to entertain little ones!

To make your ‘no cook’ playdough you will need

• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 tbs oil
• 1 cup of cold water
• food colouring

Mix the flour and salt together, mix the oil, water and food colouring together…then combine the two mixtures! Keeping stirring until it becomes to hard, then use your hands. If its too sticky simply add more flour and if its too dry add more water!

We love this play idea because you can really make it your own! Choose the colour, add natural food flavourings or

herbs if you would like! It’s a great sensory play tool for really little ones (and its tummy friendly if it goes in their mouths) and for slightly older children its a great way to be creative and develop those hand muscles for early writing skills. If you aren’t familiar with ‘ Dough Discos’ then search for ‘Spread The Happiness Dough Disco‘ on Youtube, have a dance and get working those hand muscles!

Baby Safe Paint

“Babies and toddlers will always try and put things in their mouths. It’s their way of learning.”

• Baby rice (you could also use cornflour)
• Warm water
• Food colouring
• Paper

Painting is great for:

Coloured rice is great to burying things in, making pictures, for practicing letter and number formation or just exploring the texture of something new!

Thank you Stacey!

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Play at Home “Sand”
This idea is another one from Kim at Zen Den!

We won’t be heading to the beach anytime soon so here’s an easy way to get the sand experience at home.You will need:
•Cheerios (although most other cereals would work)
•A food processor (you could do this with a plastic bag and rolling pin if you don’t have a good processor)
•Moulds for older children

Place the cheerios In the food processor a few handfuls at a time and blitz to a fine consistency. If you don’t have a processor then put the cheerios In a bag, cover with a tea towel and bash with a rolling pin.

Continue until you have done the whole box then place in a tray. If you have a tray big enough it would be great to let them play bare foot in it!

Older children could put the `sand` into moulds and see what shapes they could make.

Children should always be supervised.