Some fun activities and a lot of 'firsts' for Charlie :)

We've been having lots of fun in the last few days trying out new play ideas that mammy found through her new uber-obsession with instagram and pinterest! -I love my new first ever smart phone :D.

These are some of the things we've tried:

                                    Play-dough

 

There's recipes for play-dough all over the internet but I used:
1 cup of plain flour
1/4 cup of water
1/3 cup sea salt
1 table spoon of oil
Orange & Yellow food colouring

This was Charlie's first time with a 'squidgy' texture and his (what we call) 'danger danger!' barriers came up. He was extremely cautious around it. He didn't want to touch it with his fingers at all and it took about 10 minutes to persuade him to stab it, and stick sticks and coloured pegs into it. He made a lot of "Eww" faces at it!

Daddy stuck all the coloured pegs into it to make a dough ball "hedgehog", and he enjoyed pulling them all out again, counting them and saying the colours.

I kept my dough-ball in the fridge and whopped it on Charlie's tray a couple of days later. He amused himself by sticking the wooden spoon into it and then watching it fall over.

Fun with Blocks

It's not a new idea but it's a classic one and it's just brilliant.
Charlie has an absolute ton of blocks and they're so versatile for learning and play.
The tuff tray is a great quick-and-easy flat surface for them too. He doesn't yet understand the concept of building. Well he probably does, but he's not interested in doing it! He likes to pick them up, feel & say the shapes, say the colours, count them, put them in out of various containers, and push them around the tray. His favourite thing is to push down towers that mammy & daddy build as quickly as possible!

Pipe cleaners & a colander
Such a simple idea but it really works! Charlie was squealing with excitement and shouting "Ooo! Oooo!" as soon as he saw this in his tuff tray.

 

At first he started feeling them and twanging them.

Then he started pulling them out and showing us.

Cleo thought it was an epic cat toy, which Charlie found hilarious.

Pulling them all out and collecting them.

Stashing them in his truck.

Tipping the colander upside down and shaking it to get them all out!

Got them!

I sorted them all into different colours and asked Charlie to help me! Which he did, for about two of them!

But really he just wanted to stash them in his truck :)

Orange play slime

I originally bought borax to make flubbery judder jelly - but when it arrived, there were warnings written all over it "AVOID EXPOSURE"--avoid exposure?!... .. so, since mine & Charlie's radiation suits are at the dry cleaners, I substituted borax for 100g of corn flour.

I mixed half a cup of baby shampoo & a few drops of food colouring together, then added it to the full bowl of cornflour.

I TOTALLY overdid it with the water. I poured a whole cup in when I should have been table-spooning it in slowly. Big oops. However, I got quite an interesting orange goo! It smelled SO good because of the baby shampoo. Like Charlie smells after a bath. One of the best smells ever - that lovely fresh, clean baby smell.

I was also pretty fascinated with the consistency. It was like dry and rubbery on it's own, but when picked up it 'magically' turned to goo! My inner child was pretty thrilled about that. Charlie,  not yet two years old, was extremely cautious of it. He looked at his tuff tray and said 'Oh dear' like something had been spilled in it. He enjoyed watching me pick it up and seeing it slime off my fingers and he touched it and had a little squeal and a smile.
I do think this is an activity that an older child would enjoy. I'll be trying it with a larger batch when Charlie's over two in three months. I think he'd enjoy some playdough or sand more at the moment.

(Please note - those are his 'messy clothes' I'd never dress him like that in public!)