Wonderful Water Wall

Having tried loooaaads of messy play ideas with little bear, none of which he has been particularly interested in, I thought I should indulge his interest in water. I can't remember where I first saw water walls but decided to make one - my husband's reaction was 'Oh, great, something else for you to obsess over until you've done it'.

I asked on our local Facebook selling group but no one has any spare trellis I could have, so bought a 6x3ft piece of expandable trellis from our local hardware shop for £4.99. Bear was very helpful in getting it home!

I also got a pack of 50 cable ties for £1.80 but we only used about 15. As I mentioned before, my husband is a teacher. Each year, a class wins a prize for most commendations; £25 to spend how they wish. Last year, they ordered pizzas for lunch but this year, they wanted party food. This slight ramble means that most of the bottles were completely free, as they were left over from the party. Husband was under strict instructions to bring the empties home!

So it was just a question of arranging the bottles, punching holes in to tie them, and adding some cable tidy tubing we had in the shed. We made funnels, troughs and roses.

We used some tacks from the shed to nail it to the fence. We live in a rented house so wanted to be able to move it easily; you could build it on your fence if you wanted to.

He liked it but can't quite reach the taller ones - something to grow into. 

What we've been doing Wednesday

This week we have.....

been strawberry picking,

walked in the sunshine,

played with foam (not very successfully),

played with small bubbles and

big bubbles! 

Giant Fuzzy Felt

I think this is another Imagination Tree idea. I went to a knitting and stitching show back in March and a large piece of felt for the board was part of my 'to buy' list. Abakhan had a stall and were selling polyester felt for £2 / meter. I bought one meter and stapled it to a cardboard box that my sister got me from her work. There was a bit leftover so I glued on a small rectangle to keep the shapes in.

I cut the random selection of shapes out of left over bits of felt I had in my stash so I only spent the £2 on the meter of felt!

Felt stash kept neatly... in a plastic bag

 Still mainly into just pulling the shapes off

The pieces get wrinkled in little bear's sweaty hands!

Playdough

Like any mum who spends too long on Google, I came across homemade playdough. I've checked my 'diary' (Facebook time line) and I made this way back in February and it is still good now, in June. I used this recipe and apart from the cream of tartar and food colouring, I had everything in the cupboard. We bought the airtight tubs from tesco, and one quantity of the recipe made enough for all 4 colours.

I have since invested in these colours which should make the playdough much brighter as they are gel.

Playdough hasn't been terribly successful with little bear so far. He doesn't seem overly interested, although the most recent time, he squidged it in his hands. I keep bringing it out every so often anyway as one day he'll hopefully love it like I do! It is a good thing the playdough keeps for so long!

Not sure about the taste...

Still not sure of the taste...

These tubs are good though! 

What we've been doing Wednesday

So I thought I'd start a regular feature on what we've been doing in the previous week. I think it will be more pictures and less writing than other posts but we'll see how it goes.

Today I thought we'd try some messy, sensory play. I cooked some spaghetti, added food colouring and some pompoms and foam shapes. We went in the garden just in case but little bear couldn't have been less interested.

The cat seemed to like it though...

I had a plan b up my sleeve though. Blue and green, eucalyptus bubble sensory bath was much more successful!

Posting Toy

When little bear was about 10 months old, we realised he liked putting things in and taking them out again. I turned to my trusty Imagination Tree and adapted a maths game slightly to indulge this new passion. I just cut 5 holes in a shoe box lid big enough for a milk bottle lid. I covered it with a piece of white paper because there was writing on the box. I coloured round each hole with a colour to match the different types of milk (full fat, semi skimmed, skimmed and 1% I think).

My mother in law came over one afternoon and saw the box in action. She mentioned at her work that little bear's favourite things were milk bottle lids, and lots of people she works with started collecting them. We now have more than we know what to do with!

Hours of fun with a shoe box and some bottle tops. He doesn't get the colours yet, but he can grow into that part. We did begin to regret making him this however when we found this outside the back door for a few weeks. As an extension of the shoe box, little bear had posted some toys through the cat flap :)

Sensory Toys

The first few posts will be recapping on things I've already done/ made.

When little bear was newborn, I spent a lot of time googling things with him asleep on me. I came across The Imagination Tree and liked the idea of sensory toys because of how they can aid development, and because a lot of them can be made very cheaply from things you might have at home.

These are the first ones I made (l to r) rain stick, ribbon pull, fabric pull tissue box, sensory bottles.

The rain stick is a poster tube which something was delivered in. I tried to get tacks to hammer in, like I'd seen in tutorials but couldn't find any. So I used scrunched up kitchen foil, taped to the inside of the tube. I poured in some lentils we had in the cupboard and taped the ends on firmly. The decoration is brown packing paper with felt tip squiggles (an enjoyable half hour once boy was in bed! )

The ribbon pull (from Imagination Tree) is a Cadbury hot chocolate tin, which I punched holes in and threaded through ribbon from my stash. I used glue dots to secure the lid and covered with paper from my very brief interest in scrapbooking. Wrapping paper would work just as well.

I have actually made 2 of these, the first from an actual tissue box. Little bear destroyed it within days so I put my thinking cap on for what I could use instead. I suddenly had a brainwave -formula tubs! I cut the bottom off 2, and slotted one inside the other, one each way up so it created a box. An oval hole in one end, some pretty paper and fabrics from my stash finished it off (if you don't have a stash of fabrics you could use, lots of shops send out free samples - you want to get different textures eg silk, satin, cotton, corduroy, jersey etc)

I got the idea for the sensory bottles from The Imagination Tree again, and they formed part of little bear's Christmas present when he was 7 months old. One is filled with buttons, one woth ribbons and  felt pieces, all of which I had. One has pompoms in, which were about £1 from Tesco, and I had to get glycerine for the liquid one to slow down the glitter (also has washing up liquid in to stop the glitter clumping). I also had to buy the bottles because, being frugal, we don't buy drinks normally (was a pack of 6 value water from Tesco).

I have since made a lolly pop stick pull (Imagination Tree again) from a milk powder tub. This one isn't that successful though as it's really hard to pull out the sticks - I think I need to make the slots I cut into the lid a bit thicker. 

Out of all of these, little bear still plays with the fabric tissue box and the sensory bottles the most. I leave them all on an accessible shelf though so he can choose what to play with (or chuck on the floor which is often the case! )