Easter craft for kids: Eggshell homes

oooh Easter craft is my favourite type of craft.... mainly because of the easter chicks (you can see more about my easter chick obsession here and here).

I bought a new batch of Easter chicks and we decided to make them some little eggshell homes. I don't have any specific quantities or instructional information for you because we didn't measure anything. It was all a bit experimental!

We carefully broke three eggs – dividing them in half as neatly as we could. We cleaned out all the eggie bits inside. Once our colours were chosen we covered the eggs in warm water mixed with food colouring. We didn't want super dark coloured eggs so we didn't overdo it on the food colouring.

We let our eggs soak in the water, checking them now and again. Once they had soaked up pale shades of colour we took them out of the water and let them dry on paper towel.

Our eggs were brown chicken eggs so the colour isn't fabulous on the outside but the insides look awesome... beautiful pale, blue, green and yellow. Our little chicks are very happy in their eggshell homes.

Winter Olympics Playdough Fun

The kids and I have been watching the Winter Olympics. And now..... we have been re-enacting skiing and snowboarding with playdough for the last few days. This has been so popular we ended up making two batches of playdough – one of the batches was a special super-white playdough.

Super-White Winter Wonderland Playdough Recipe

• 2 cups of corn flour
• Half cup of salt
• 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1 cup of boiling water
• Silver glitter (optional)
• Mix together, tip out onto a floured surface and knead until you get a smooth consistency. Add more water if it is too dry. Add more flour if it is too wet.

Boo made some silvery, winter wonderland rocks to go with her winter wonderland scene. To make these – squeeze a dollop of white pva glue on the top of some garden stones. Cover with silver glitter and let them dry. Pretty simple and very sparkly!!!

Paddle pop sticks played a huge role in our winter wonderland play. They were skis, snowboards, poles and the walls and roof of Cakey's snow cave. We also used them to hold up flags, bells and our mini bunting. I made some mini paper bunting by cutting out triangles from folded paper and gluing each triangle on a string. We attached the string to paddle pop sticks and stuck them up in the playdough.

The kids played all sorts of games with these little Winter Olympic scenes... Cakey enjoyed the sensory play aspect and Boo enjoyed letting her imagination do all the work in pretend play.

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

Herb and Flower Tea Party

I have written about making pretend tea and coffee in the garden before... and I am writing about it again because my kids love it. Our ceramic tea set bought from a charity shop is still going strong! I always set up their 'cafe area' on the grass to avoid breakages. The kids have been making lots of herb and flower tea. I simply supply a tub of water, some spoons and bowls of loose leaf tea. They do the rest scavenging the garden for herbs and flowers to add to their 'herbal tea'.

Cakey enjoys the imaginary aspect of this game and I get to 'taste' tonnes of herb tea. Yum! Boo just loves the chance to stir and pour. This is a fabulous summer-time water play activity. We play this in the winter too.... I use warm water in an attempt to offset the cold.

For more outdoor activities check out my Pinterest board Outdoor Fun for Kids

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 Tuesday Tots, Monday Kid Corner, It's Playtime and The Kids Co-op

Playing with salt

Each year Cakey's preschool puts on a wonderful art show. One of the many creative, kid-made, exhibits on show this year were tall plastic glasses filled with layers of coloured salt. They looked very pretty – Cakey wanted to make more and I wanted to try it too.

A few days after the art show I collected together all the supplies. I had no idea what the preschoolers had used for the colouring agent and Cakey couldn't remember. I resorted to liquid food colouring. We took our bowls, spoons, table salt and food colouring outside.

We poured salt into two bowls and used a tray for the third colour. I added the tiniest amount of liquid food colouring to the salt. The kids and I thoroughly mixed in the colour with a spoon and our fingers. It was a lovely sensory experience and so much fun.

When the colour was evenly dispersed through the salt we spooned it into clean, dry jars. We layered each colour to create pretty patterns in the jars. Just as we were sealing the jars tight Cakey said "actually mummy we used chalk to colour the salt". Ahhhh grated chalk would be awesome, way better than food colouring. You learn something new everyday.

And talking of salt... I wrote a guest post over at the amazing Learning 4 kids all about our salt dough boats.

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