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

Big and Little... The Office

BIG and LITTLE is back for September and the theme is office. Tomorrow Jillian will reveal her BIG pretend play office over at A Mom with a Lesson Plan..... but today I get to show you our LITTLE Office Tower made for some special toys. If you are new to BIG and LITTLE you can read about it here.

I found a shallow and sturdy grocery box for the office tower structure. To make the dividing floors, I cut two pieces of cardboard to size and glued them in with my hot glue gun. I also added a generous layer of sticky tape to withstand energetic play. The top floor was for Cakey's toy animal and the middle floor was for Boo's toy animal. We all decided the bottom floor should be a cafe. After all, those hard working office animals need their caffeine!

Making office art

The girls made little cardboard laptops and calculators for their animals. They also created some art for the office walls with crayons and cardboard. We got the stamping kit out to make little books. Cakey and Boo love stamping – they had a lovely time stamping everything and drawing in the little books.

Writing in the little office books

I stockpile little boxes – they all came out for this project. I covered the boxes in coloured paper to brighten things up. The girls chose their desks and we glued them in place... all ready for their laptops. We made bookshelves from sticky tape boxes. I cut them in half, we stacked them and taped them in place. The shelves were quickly filled with books.

For the cafe we made some bowls and cups from air drying clay. I made a vase and a coffee machine. The air drying clay was left to dry before it was painted. We use air drying clay regularly. It is a wonderful material – I must write more about it some day.

A visitor arriving by elevator

We realised we needed an elevator. I cut a taco box in half, Cakey hole punched it and threaded in a pipecleaner to make a handle. We attached a long piece of string to the pipecleaner. I made a hole in the side of the office tower and threaded the string through it. Now we could pull the elevator up and down. To stop the toy animals plummeting to the ground I stuck a wooden skewer into the cardboard floor. We could tie the elevator string around the skewer and the animals could get alight safely.

I hope you have enjoyed this month's BIG and LITTLE, it will be back again next month. 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 Serenity You, It's Playtime, Happy Hour Projects and Delicate Construction

Big and Little – Ballet School

Did you see Jillian's wonderful BIG pretend play ballet yesterday over at A Mom with a Lesson Plan? I can't wait to try it out with my girls. And now it is time for our LITTLE Ballet School. We had such fun making our ballet school... in fact we made two, one for Cakey and one for Boo.

Cakey's ballet school

We used a couple of empty nappy (diaper) boxes to make the ballet school studios. Cakey worked on her own, deciding to glue all the cardboard flaps down. She created a performance platform for the ballerinas inside her box.

Boo and I took a different tack and turned the box on its side. I taped our box closed, leaving one of the long cardboard flaps free. I wanted to make a mirror for the dance school studio. I taped down wooden paddle pop sticks to make the cardboard flap stand up. I then covered it with silver foil. We all decorated our ballet school studios by gluing down sheets of metallic card.... and then we left our schools to dry.

Paddle pop sticks holding up the ballet school studio mirror

The following morning we tackled the ballerinas. I got together everything we needed:

• wooden peg dolls
• cupcake patty pans for tutus
• pipe-cleaners for arms
• little flower felt pieces for hats
• markers to draw faces

Ballet teacher

The girls drew faces on the wooden peg dolls. I cut a cross in each of the cupcake patty tutus. Cakey and I poked the peg dolls through the holes and secured them with a little bit of sticky tape. Then we twisted the pipe-cleaners around for arms. I used the hot glue gun to secure the hats. While the hot glue gun was in action we decided to make the ballerinas a ballet bar from pipe-cleaners.

Using a sharp knife I cut some holes in the cardboard boxes for the ballerinas to 'stand' in. Boo loved pulling them out and putting them back in again... they looked a little worse for wear after she played with them.

I cut holes just the right size for a wooden peg doll

Long after Boo and I had discarded our ballerinas, Cakey was still decorating and playing with her ballerinas. She turned her ballet school studio into a theatre and added a tissue paper curtain.

I hope you have enjoyed this month's BIG and LITTLE, it will be back again next month. 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 Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime and Kids Co-op

Big and Little... Construction World

Welcome back to the third installment of BIG and LITTLE (read more about it here). This month's theme, construction, was chosen by Jillian's son. She is going to reveal her amazing BIG pretend play set-up tomorrow on A Mom with a Lesson Plan. But first, here is my LITTLE construction world.

I decided to set up construction world in our little wading pool. I made a large batch of cloud dough (8 cups of plain flour mixed with one cup of olive oil) and piled it in one corner. In the opposite corner, I placed a pile of blue garden pebbles. I popped our homemade crane between the two piles (click here for the instructions to make a crane).

I added some wooden blocks, people figurines, a toy truck, digger and excavator. While Boo was having her nap, Cakey got to have a play on her own. She spent her time using the crane to transfer the pebbles to the cloud dough, making a "building base". Cakey built a few walls, made a building and populated it with as many little people as she could find.

Moving the pebbles with the crane

Stacking up blocks on her pebble/cloud dough base

And then Boo woke up. Now, this is the absolute truth – I put Boo in construction world at 2.30pm and she did not get out until 4.30pm. Two hours of play!!! I sat next to her and crocheted a scarf that I started way back in 2010. Boo adored the cloud dough and enjoyed smushing everything she could find into it - blocks, rocks, people and her fingers.

Moving a block in the crane

Hours of fun.... literally!

I can't wait to see what A Mom with a Lesson Plan has for us tomorrow for the BIG. Did you check out Jillian's new ebook? It is awesome. I have already picked up some great ideas about organising our play areas and they are working well.

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 Tuesday Tots, Outdoor Play Party and Kids Co-op

Big and Little... the beach

Did you see A Mom with a Lesson Plan's awesome BIG pretend play beach? If you didn't go now, go now.... and then come back and read all about our LITTLE beach. If you want to know more about BIG and LITTLE you can read all about it here.

I did this a little differently from my normal little world set-ups. Usually, I involve the kids in the 'making' of the little world. This time I set up our little beach on my own. I poured sand into a tub leaving a ditch (which I lined with pebbles and rocks) for the 'sea water'. To aid drainage I propped the sandy end of the tub up on a block of wood. I collected some people figurines, scrap material for towels, little bottle lids and paddle pop sticks for buckets and spades, shells, paper umbrellas and a plastic shark. I also cut out some fish and a floatie from a sponge.

With and without water: I added the blue water just before Boo started playing, it drains through the sand.

Her first love was the mini bucket and spade

While Cakey was at preschool I gave Boo the mini beach to play with. She dunked all the people, played with the mini bucket of sand, ripped the umbrellas to shreds, made sand castles and added more and more water. She happily played with this little beach for over an hour – draining water out and then adding water back in. After play, I drained out the water and placed all the beachy bits and pieces in a basket.

Sand castle and people going for a swim

Adding more and more water and playing in the sand

On the following day while Boo was napping I gave the tub of sand to Cakey along with the basket of beach accessories. She set up the beach herself and then I gave her a jug of blue water. She poured in the 'sea water' and played with her little beach independently.

Cakey made her little beach independently

This little world play could not have gone better – Boo got thoroughly involved in the sensory play aspect and Cakey used her imagination to create her own world.

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, The Sunday Showcase, Summer Sensory Fun, TGIF

A birthday party for the fairies

Oh this was fun! The fairies had a birthday party. We started with the birthday cake, in fact the fairies had three birthday cakes. We made special red playdough layer cakes decorated with beads. I originally saw this idea on the gorgeous blog Love and Lollipops, where you will find great ideas for the humble bottle top.

Once the birthday cakes were made, we needed a venue. A cardboard box did the trick, Cakey covered the bottom of the box with pva glue and sequins. She then added some decorations – articifial flowers, poms poms, feathers, shells and extra bottle tops. Cakey also tossed in the broken coloured eggshells that we had made for Easter using the beautiful idea from paint cut paste.

I cut pink card triangles for the mini party bunting. Cakey decorated the bunting with sequins and I helped her peg them onto string. The string was suspended from two sticks held in the box with playdough. Playdough is excellent in little world play as it can help anchor all your elements.

On the other side Cakey taped small balloons onto another suspended string. These balloons were actually normal sized balloons that I only blew up a tiny bit.... which is actually harder than it seems!

And then the fairies partied!!!

If you are interested in more projects involving playdough have a look at my playdough magic pinterest board. Perhaps you might like to join the playdough pledge hosted by Nurturestore, The Imagination Tree and Sun Hats and Wellie Boots.

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 Kids Get Crafty