Big dog park.... A Mom with a Lesson Plan

Yesterday I posted our little dog park as part of a brand new monthly collaboration between me and Jillian from A Mom with a Lesson Plan. Today Jillian has posted an amazing BIG pretend play dog adoption center and park. Hop on over and check out her wonderful pretend play set-up.

And while you are visiting Jillian, check out her other awesome pretend play ideas such as  Laundry Day and Grocery Store. Don't forget to have a look at her Mommy Fun Facts..... particularly #15 a better bedtime.

BIG and LITTLE will be back next month with a new theme.......

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

BIG and LITTLE – dog park world

Welcome to the first BIG and LITTLE pretend play collaboration. Jillian from A Mom with a Lesson Plan is tackling the BIG and I am tackling the LITTLE. This month we chose dogs as our theme and I get to go first. Be sure to check back tomorrow to see Jillian's post – Jillian is an expert in pretend play and I am learning a lot from her. I am renowned for not being very good at pretend play, so for me, this is an exciting collaboration.

For our LITTLE we decided to make a dog park for all our toy doggies. This was a great opportunity to talk to the kids about how to safely approach dogs.

To build our little dog park world we started by spreading out a large batch of bright green playdough. On a trip to the local park we had collected some twigs and sticks. The twigs became a 'wooded' area and the sticks became a path leading into the dog park.

We used small paddle pop sticks for fencing and created a tree from a toilet paper roll stuffed with green tissue paper. The girls wanted to add a pond (we used a bowl) for the dogs to swim in – those lucky little doggies!

We added some signage, drawn by Cakey, a water bowl (milk bottle lid) for thirsty canines and some lego flowers. We found string for leads – all dogs outside the fenced area had to be leashed! Dogs that escaped and ran around free and swam in the pond were called "naughty dogs". The girls enjoyed letting their doggies escape and trying to rustle them back into the fenced park.

Our little dog park world was well used for a few days. The fence was pulled down and resurrected a number of times. The doggies came and went and all of them had a swim – it was a very packed pond!

Laying down our big batch of green playdough

Adding a pond so the dogs can have a swim

Better get a bag and clean that up!

Here comes another dog on his leash

Run little fella

Thanks for reading the first installment of BIG and LITTLE, I hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow Jillian will be revealing her BIG pretend play idea for all our furry friends. I can't wait!

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali



Linked to TGIF and It's Playtime

Doctor charts for imaginary play

Some of you already know that I struggle with imaginary play.... but I do like to make things for imaginary play. I take those things to my mothers' group so Cakey can enjoy imaginary play with her friends and their mothers.... who are all so much better at it than me.

I made some doctor charts that were inspired by Inner Child Fun's miniature doll clipboards. It was so simple. I cut up small pieces of cardboard for the base of the chart. I then secured loose pieces of paper to the cardboard charts with a bull dog (or binder) clip. I printed out some little body outlines so the children could mark down the location of their patient's injuries. You can download the body outlines as a pdf file here.

The kids loved this activity and played doctors until morning tea time. There were some seriously sick patients at the hospital clinic as you can see by some of the charts.

Join me here on Thursday for the start of BIG and LITTLE with A Mom with a Lesson Plan. If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

A miniature rock pool

Before we jump into our latest little world post I have an exciting announcement. Mom with a Lesson Plan and I are collaborating on a new series – BIG and LITTLE pretend play. Each month a theme is chosen, Jillian tackles the BIG and I tackle the LITTLE. It starts late next week with our small furry friends... dogs.

Now for our miniature rock pool... Cakey and I worked on this together when Boo was asleep. I couldn't cope with the bickering if both kids had been involved. Cakey is very interested in "what stings you at the beach" – creatures such as blue bottles, jelly fish, sea anemones and spiky urchins.

Adding sea creatures to our ceramic tart dish

Plasticine (or coloured modleling clay) is perfect to create rock pool life. It doesn't go instantly mucky in water like playdough.

Cakey made a blue bottle, sea grass and an octopus while I worked on the corals and an anemone. We used an old marine biology textbook for inspiration. Matchsticks and playdough stamps gave texture to our sea creatures, Cakey also added matchstick spikes to her sea urchin. Some small packets of coloured sand were emptied and water with a smidgen of blue food colouring was poured into the bottom of the dish.

Then we both ran around the house finding all sorts of things for our rock pool. I found an orange net, some plastic sharks and gold coins for treasure. Cakey came back with some shells from laneway garden, spanish moss to use as seaweed and her mermaid ponies.

I left Cakey to play with her rock pool. She took off her socks and stepped in it. Then she dumped heaps of "rubbish" (which were actually perfectly good plastic toys) into the water. I thought she might be on an environmental crusade but no.... she told me, "the rubbish is for the fish to play with, they like rubbish".

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

Kandinsky collage

Weiches hart by Wassily Kandinsky

I love Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter who was a pioneer of abstract art. His use of colour and balance are extraordinary. As part of Red Ted Art's Kids Get Arty series I decided that Cakey and I would experiment with a Kandinsky style collage.

One of my favourite Kandinsky paintings is Weiches hart, we have a copy of it hanging in Boo's room. When Cakey was asleep, I cut out each shape shown in the painting from coloured card. I did my best to cut the shapes to scale. Early the next morning, I gave Cakey a large piece of bright blue paper, all my Kandinsky shapes and a squeezy bottle of pva glue.

Cut out paper shapes I supplied to Cakey

Cakey created her own composition from the shapes. I was totally amazed that she did not ask for pink paper! She loved this so much that she also made a second collage with the leftover scraps.

Cakey's composition

Cakey's second composition from the leftovers

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

Holiday journals

I have been meaning to post this for ages but time has got away from me. I love to keep a journal when I go on holiday. I tend to use it for doodling and collage – a visual reminder of our trip. When we went on our last holiday I packed two journals, one for me and one for Cakey.

As Cakey is an avid collector of stuff, she happily crammed her journal full of all sorts of things: postcards, tickets, shopping tags, brochures and stickers. All we needed was a pair of scissors, a glue stick and some sticky tape. I also brought along a collection of markers so she could doodle and draw in her journal.

Holiday journaling worked really well. It helped fill in all those tedious hours waiting around in airports and on planes. I don't think we will travel long distance with the kids again until they are a bit older. Travelling with kids can really suck. I will keep up the holiday journaling though even if we have a holiday at home.

And of course, we now have a lovely reminder of our trip.

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

Things I'm afraid to tell you

More than one person has told me that I make them feel guilty with all the art and craft I do with Cakey and Boo... sorry, I really didn't mean to.

The mummy guilt bug gets me too: I often think we do art and craft at the detriment of other activities. Cakey shows little interest in kicking or throwing a ball around the backyard; and don't even get me started on swimming! We do a lot of craft because that is what Cakey and Boo like. I find life much more pleasant when we are doing something the kids enjoy. Having said that, there are also many days that craft is just too hard or too messy or there is simply not enough time between all the other things that need doing.

I was spurred on to write this post after I read this article from Creature Comforts. So here goes with 10 things I'm afraid to tell you:

1. I give my children lollies with terrible food colouring in them.
2. I still breastfeed my 21 month old to sleep (and I'm not stopping until it stops working).
3. I let my kids watch TV while eating breakfast and sometimes lunch too.
4. I am AWFUL at imaginary play.
5. I yell.
6. I rarely get the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher before 6.30pm.
7. I detest putting clothes away, hence my house will never grace the covers of any magazine...unless that magazine is titled 'Hoarders'.
8. Both my children have a good knowledge of junk food.
9. I complain and whine a lot when I really have no reason.
10. If we are not going out for the day pajamas can be day wear, Cakey is often in her pjs in many of my posts.

So if I have made you feel guilty then I am sorry. I will keep up this blog because it is fun and it motivates me to keep thinking up craft projects for Cakey and Boo. And now, I will go and have a look at some other blogs, crafty and otherwise, which will no doubt make me feel guilty!

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali

Summer fun = Messy play

The weather is getting colder here, so to warm myself up I have created a photo essay of all our fun messy play summer antics. My girls love, love, love messy play and I love the joy on their faces when they explore with water, mud, paint, shaving foam and goop.

We play with mud

We paint

We mix water with food colouring

We experiment

We cook with flour and glitter in the outdoor kitchen

We play with shaving foam

We paint some more

We garden

We go crazy for water

We make grass and flower soup

We jump in muddy puddles

We splash around in goopy mixtures

... and then we eat some ice cream

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali



Linked to The Sunday Showcase, The Kids Co-op, Outdoor Play Party and It's Playtime