Fun activities -share yours

Since I have started an activities group I thought it might be nice to share some of the stuff we do, and hopefully others can share their fun things so that we can try them too.

Our first meetup I made edible finger paint so babies could get involved with painting too. Here's the recipe for those who are interested:

Edible Finger Paint

4 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 cup of cornflour
3 cups cold water
Food colouring
Stir sugar and cornflour together. While stirring, slowly add water and heat over medium heat until mixture thickens. It will thicken further when it cools. Divide into four containers and add food colouring.

I'm not sure how long the paint lasts for, but I've got mine in babyfood jars and it's still ok 3 weeks later.

That top left one looks great

One idea I've had is, after the kids have had races on their ride ons, they could then do a car wash and wash their own ride ons! Bound to take up time, burn energy and a great activity for a beautiful summers day

Haha Nikki - yes the top left one does look great. Your son is very talented! Love the idea for the car wash!

And T-Rex that's a great idea too. Might try that in the next few days with Briannah

What a good idea starting this thread Sue. Funny, I was thinking about txting you to get the finger paint recipe so I can get the girls to do some artwork this afternoon for DH for father's day, when I thought I'd see if there was anything in this section first

I don't have any creative contributions to make yet, but will be sure to add them here if I do.

Here's another idea.

Put play dough in little containers (like yoghurt containers) and let the little ones go outside collecting twigs, leafs, flowers etc to plant in the play dough. They then have their own little garden

Oh wow, these all look great.  I don't have anything to add just yet, but will defo come back when I do.  My DS is 15mo and we haven't tried anything arty just yet.

This could be controversial (the whole play with food thing) But we have 1 icecream container that is full of rice (whcih we coloured with a few drops of food colouring). DS asks for this daily - i bring it out onto a rug, with an assortment of spoons, bowls, shotglasses(have to find some use for them now! And then will sometimes add something like muffin trays or plastic food etc.
He'll spend up to an hour just mixing and creating

Thanks for that Kim - might have to try the rice play. My DS loves 'helping' me bake and loves mixing. Will be easy enough to vacuum up whatever he flings around (which I guarantee he will do).

Huntersmama - I like the idea of putting buttons and oil in a bottle. Should keep DD entertained for a while. Why does it need to be squashed though? Will need to get some more superglue to glue the lid on!!

I like the sound of an activities group. Would be a cool way to do coffee group sometime instead of just playing with regular toys (though playing with different kids toys seems to be pretty fun anyway).

Any other activities you've done erinalba? I'm especially interested in ones Briannah can do as my DS is only a couple of months older.

I've ripped out loads of the ideas from my pile of Treasures Mags but many seem a little too advanced for now.

I wish we'd tried the paint in the JJ like you suggested T-Rex, maybe next time.

Edited by chelle

erinalba wrote: No ideas so far from anyone else??? I tend to keep cereal boxes and used them to make up a whole lot of masks - monkeys, cats and butterflies for kids to paint with sponges and decorate with glitter. Here's a few that the kids did at activities group today. [IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c227/riffraff914/masks.jpg">

Wev have similar plays "with masks". My boy is big enough (6 y.o.), he is crazy about super heroes, so we make similar masks, my friends and i bought our children such hero belts http://www.supermehero.com/ninja-utility-belt.html and costumes.
Even to the kindergarden our children take similar bags with super heroes...