Halloween Witches Brew

Halloween produces mixed reactions from the grown-ups here in Australia. There are those you who love a chance to dress up and then there are the others who turn off all the lights and pretend they are not home. I am yet to meet a kid who is not excited by the prospect of Halloween.

Having spent some of my childhood in Canada where I experienced the full North American Halloween extravaganza I have a soft spot for the holiday.

Plastic Halloween stuff has been in the shops for a few weeks and Cakey has been running an intensive campaign to buy buy buy. With a week and a bit to go I finally succumbed and bought a pile of creepies – spiders, skulls, eyeballs, rats and a severed hand. Awesome! These will probably be handed to friends in a game of spooky lucky dip.

In the meantime, I thought we should have a little fun with them so I set up a witches brew activity. It was simple. I supplied a cauldron (my casserole pot), jugs of water, blood (bowls of water mixed with red food colouring), eye droppers, spoons and assorted creepy crawlies and gross things.

The kids mixed up the brew, adding everything but the severed hand. The brew was well mixed and then ladled out into bowls. And then I sent them both to school with red stained hands... I am really hoping they don't call the stains 'blood'.

I hope you all have a super-fun Halloween. I have been busy with an exciting side-project but I hope to be back blogging with a little more regularity soon. Cheers Ali

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Another Chicken World

"I just laid an egg!"

We haven't done any little world play in ages. The lovely Megan from Coffee Cups and Crayons reminded me of all our little world play and I got inspired to set something up for Boo.

As it is Easter I got out all the ingredients for a Chicken World.... a shoebox lid, a batch of light green playdough (recipe at the end of the post), a box of little Easter chicks, a handful of bottletops, matchsticks, beads and little pieces of tissue paper for chicken food.

We started off filling the shoebox lid with playdough. Boo pushed all the matchsticks into the playdough creating fences to keep the chickens in. She gave them little beds (bottle tops) and put them to bed.... and then the chickens got hungry. We fed them beads and tissue paper from a small bowl – so delicious for fuzzy chicks.

Chickens in bed

The packaging on the box of chickens had pictures of eggs and flowers. We cut them out and popped them into the little world. Both Cakey and Boo loved playing with this little world. It is still on the dining room table. The playdough has gone a little crusty but the chicks are happy – they are well fed and loved.

The farmer is checking on the chickens

Playdough recipe: 2 cups of plain flour, half cup of table salt (not cooking salt, it will make the playdough grainy), 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar, 2 tablespoons of oil. Mix the ingredients with 1 and a 1/3  cups of boiling water coloured with food colouring. Knead with a little extra flour.

If your kids like little world play they might like these activities:

• Arctic Ice Play from Pre-school Play
• Little Frog World from The Imagination Tree
• Mermaid's Lagoon from Small Potatoes
• Little Worlds and Miniatures Pinterest Board

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Linked to The Sunday Showcase, It's Playtime and Kids Get Crafty

Fairy Apartment Block

I love arty projects that you can do over a few days. This was one of those projects..... a fairy apartment block. Now for the fairy purists out there – I know that fairy houses are supposed to be made from all natural materials rather than man-made materials. We have a copy of the book Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane which is a great resource for natural fairy house building. BUT we live in the city and our fairies are quite urbane, so we thought they needed a luxury high-rise apartment block.

Day 1
We found an old wooden CD rack at the side of the road. We dragged it home and gave it a good wash with sudsy water. Then we let it dry.

Day 2
The three of us had a chat about the apartment block colour scheme. We started painting. Cakey painted a lovely picture of flowers on the outside. Boo and I painted and splashed paint on the inside of the apartment block. Then we let it dry.

Day 3
We took our dry and colourful fairy apartment block down to laneway garden and set it up for the fairies. We decorated the rooms with flowers and small boxes filled with playdough and little animal friends. The fairies visited their apartment block and played.

We do make natural fairy houses too. Cakey loves to build little fairy tents from sticks. Boo is good at collecting seed pods and flower petals. I was going to write a post about this as it keeps the kids very busy in our local park but all the photos look like this......

It is hard to photograph a pile of sticks

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime and The Kids Co-op

One fish, two fish... Printable

In preparation for Boo's 2nd beach-themed birthday party, we made decorations. The kids are so funny.... they get so excited helping me organise a party, that I often wonder whether the actual event will be a disappointment. We were planning to hang blue streamers from the washing line as a water wall. I wanted lots of colourful fish to staple onto the streamers.

I drew up a fish template and used it to cut out fish shapes from paper card in various colours. Click here to download the fish template printable. I set the girls up with paint and glitter. They had a lovely time painting and decorating their paper fish.

Many, many fish were painted – I could barely keep up with the scissors. We added some googly eyes and ended up with a large set of friendly looking fish.

On the day, the weather was bad so I never did set up the streamer water wall. Instead I stuck our fish on the windows and doors.

I will re-use our fish template printable again one day, they are so simple and the kids can fill in the fishy details. For more ideas on art prompts have a look at this wonderful post from The Artful Parent.

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 tip-toe tuesday, Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime and Tuesday Tots

Caterpillar in a cocoon

This craft started out as a simple threading activity. I cut out two ovals from card and punched holes around the edges with a holepunch. I gave the girls some pipecleaners to thread through the holes.

Rather than thread the pipecleaners around the edges (as I had imagined) Cakey folded it over and fastened it with pipecleaners and sticky tape. We all agreed it looked like a cocoon.

Cakey folded the oval in half and threaded pipecleaners through the holes to secure it

Boo poked individual pipecleaners through individual holes

A cocoon decorated with gift wrapping string

Cakey decorated it with gift wrapping string and made a pipecleaner handle. She also helped Boo make a cocoon too. We were just missing the caterpillars!

Threading pom poms with a needle and thread

I threaded some cotton for Cakey. I always double over the cotton and knot it at the end otherwise the thread comes off the needle every time Cakey pulls it through. Frustrating for her and frustrating for me! I tied a button to the end of the thread to stop the poms poms falling off.

Cakey's caterpillar out for some fresh air

When Cakey's caterpillar was long enough I threaded a button (for a mouth) on the end and tied it off for her. I left a loose piece of cotton so that she could pull the caterpillar around behind her. I made a caterpillar for Boo and stuck some googly eyes on for her too.

And then we hung the cocoons in the garden.

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 It's Playtime and tip-toe thru tuesday

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

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

Autumn rice sensory tub and craft

It has been a while since we made our first rice based sensory tub and so I decided to make another. This time I chose an autumn theme as the leaves are just starting to change colour.

When I first saw dyed rice activities I thought "what a total pain" but I love dying rice – it is easy and fun.

I dyed the rice with food colouring in two separate batches – one pink/orange and the other yellow/lime green. I left the rice out to dry thoroughly before I gave it to the kids. I also added feathers, small pieces of yellow and orange paper, googly eyes, orange straw, fake red rose petals and lime green maple leaves.

I gave Boo the chance to play with the sensory tub on her own while Cakey was out. She enjoyed pouring the rice from container to container but was not particularly interested in the other bits and pieces.

The following day I set up some paper and glue as I thought Cakey may like to create something with the materials from the sensory tub while Boo played with it. This didn't go to plan of course... Cakey wanted to play in the tub and Boo wanted to glue. In the end play went from tub to gluing to tub to gluing back to tub.

1. Cakey's bird  2. Cakey's rice worm  3. Boo's experimentation

I made a real effort not to lead or prompt during the craft/gluing activity. I recently read an ebook from the Artful Genius (download it here, it is free) about creative thinking and imagination... and I really wanted to see where the activity would go (or not go) if I kept my mouth shut. Interestingly, Cakey chose to keep the materials separate – making rice only pictures and then making bird pictures with the feathers and eyes.

In the end the kids tipped the tub over and scattered the rice for miles... and then we spent the next half hour cleaning it up.

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