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

10 more things to do with a 2 year old

I have been overwhelmed and awed by the response to my post – 10 things to do with a 2 year old at home...... so I decided to do a second instalment before Boo hits the big 3. I hope you find some ideas here to entertain your busy 2 year old... even if it only last a few minutes!!!

1. Sorting pom poms

Moving pom poms or small objects from container to container is very popular in our house. Adding a spoon or a scoop adds an extra challenge.

2. Grow something edible

We watch it grow, check for interesting bugs that often get there first and finally pick it and eat it (if bug free). You only need a tiny bit of room to get growing!

3. Thread with pipe-cleaners 

Long pipe-cleaners are perfect for little fingers to thread through holes punched in paper card. My 2 year old also likes to use the hole puncher to make holey paper.

4. Play hat shop

Lay out every hat in the house. Set up a cash register... use a toy one or make your own. Our homemade cash register is an egg carton with slots cut into the lid to feed coins into. I always add a few paper bags so that Boo can package up the sold bags.

5. Make a small world on a tray

We use a playdough base and then add whatever elements are popular on the day. Our latest small world (below) is a fairy inspired world with shells, rocks, fairy figurines, unicorns, sticks and a light sprinkle of glitter.

6. Go exploring with homemade binoculars

These binoculars are easy to make and great to take on an adventure. Cover the ends of two cardboard rolls with cellophane and tape them together. You can also add a string so they can be easily carried.

7. Make some sponge decorations

This is  always popular in our house. I cut shapes from cheap soft sponges. Boo paints the sponge shapes with pva glue and dips them in glitter. Sometimes we turn the glittery sponges into puppets by gluing on a wooden skewer.

8. Do some print making

This is very simple print making. My trusty plastic tray with a raised edge is perfect for this sort of art activity.... I place a couple of dollops of watercolour paint on the tray, add some water and then let Boo mix it all together. Lay a sheet of paper over the paint and lift it off to see your creation. It is all about the reveal!!!

9. Make a bead oyster

Tape two paper plates together. Add a pool of pva glue inside the paper plates and let your little one add the treasure. We use beads and buttons, but of course these are a choking hazard so I have to supervise very carefully. If you are worried, substitute beads for small pieces of paper. Once the glue is dry, you can close them up so that the oyster's treasure is hidden.

10. Try a little science

We have done this many times and it is always fun. Add bicarbonate of soda to a container/jar containing a mix of white vingear and food colouring. Stir and watch it fizz..... supervision is needed of course. You can play around with varying quantities to see the reactions.

I would love to hear your ideas for keeping 2 year olds happy and entertained. It can be a tough job sometimes!

And now for some useful links:

• A newly discovered blog for me that has tonnes of ideas for play is Fun at home with kids. I particularly like this water transfer challenge post.
• For reggio inspired art activities for toddlers visit An Everyday Story.
• If your child likes sensory play check out this post by Small Potatoes.
• The places on Pinterest to visit for tonnes of ideas are For the littlies, Sensory Play is so much fun and Playdough magic.

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

Big and Little – Santa's Village

Well all good things must come to an end... this is the last post in our Big and Little Pretend Play series. But not to worry, Jill and I have some exciting, new ideas we are working on – stay tuned in 2013.

NOW get your toothbrush ready and have a look at our edible little Santa's village. Pop over to A Mom with a Lesson Plan to see her Big Pretend Play Santa's village... it is so gorgeous.

I have seen lots of beautiful gingerbread houses on Pinterest but making my own gingerbread is way beyond my kitchen skills. I also have no idea where you can buy gingerbread house kits in Australia, in fact maybe you can't. So we did the next best thing, we decorated cardboard! I saw this idea in Jane Bull's book The Christmas Book. The kids and I went shopping to buy all the ingredients.

For the cottages:

• 2 small cardboard milk containers (which I emptied and cleaned)
• 1 packet of chocolate finger biscuits (cookies), I used Cadbury
• Chocolate freckles
• Jelly beans
• Plain Sao crackers

For Santa's sleigh:

• 1 packet of plain sweet biscuits (cookies), I used Arnotts milk coffee
• 1 packet of chocolate finger biscuits (cookies), I used Cadbury
• 1 packet of round chocolate wheaten biscuits (cookies), these are similar to chocolate covered digestive biscuits
• Chocolate marshmallow logs
• Candy canes
• Foil covered chocolates to fill the sleigh

I made a big batch of icing to act as the glue. I mixed icing sugar (powdered sugar) and water to a nice thick consistency (for a strong gingerbread glue have a look at this recipe). Each kid had their own Santa's cottage decorating station on a large baking tray.

Getting started on their cottages

Trying to get those chocolate biscuits to stick

Cakey was determined to cover her cottage with chocolate biscuits, the biscuits worked much better placed horizontally. Boo was not interested in the milk container but she enjoyed decorating the Sao crackers with icing and lollies. Cakey and I happily decorated Boo's cottage for her. Once the cottages were finished we rushed them to the fridge so that the icing would set.

I made Santa's sleigh. It was easier than the cottages because we didn't have to deal with gravity. Starting with a piece of cardboard, I glued down four biscuits (cookies) with icing. I then layered chocolate finger biscuits on top to make the floor of the sleigh. I placed two marshmallow logs at one end to make a comfy seat for Santa. A round chocolate wheaten biscuit was stuck on either side of the marshmallow logs to complete the seat. Two candy cane runners were glued (with icing) directly onto the cardboard along the side of the biscuit layers. And finally, another marshmallow log was stuck to the front of the sleigh to hold all the goodies in. The sleigh followed the cottages into the fridge.

Sleigh base

The next day, shortly before friends were due to arrive, we set up our little Santa's village as a table display. The kids sprinkled icing sugar over it to make it white and snowy. We included some little Santa sacks that we had filled with sweets for the visiting kids. The girls loved showing their friends Santa's village and their friends loved taste-testing the village.

Red Santa sacks

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 Link and Learn, It's Playtime and The Kids Co-op

Big and Little..... Explorers sensory play

Big and Little is back... and this time we chose the theme Explorers. Before you read on head over to A Mom with a Lesson Plan to check out her awesome BIG backyard explorer dress up. Jillian and her kids have made some great props for their backyard adventures. go now, I'll wait.....

Now onto my little explorers sensory/pretend play set-up. I was inspired by the book We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury for this activity, where a family make their way through grass, water, mud and snow to find a bear.

So, early one morning while the kids were glued to the television I set up some LITTLE explorer fun. It was a total surprise to to them when they discovered four sensory stations (with a little challenge in each) set up outside:

1. A tray of GRASS clippings. The challenge: under the grass I drew 2 lines – one would lead to the next station and the other straight into the arms of a yellow monster arrrrrgh.....
2. A tub full of blue coloured WATER. The challenge: I placed a sea monster and some sharks in the tub, the kids would need to find some boats to get their figurines safely across.
3. A baking tin filled with MUD. The challenge: I placed a couple of 'poisonous' lizards in the mud, the girls would need some stones for their figurines to hop across.
4. A tray with a mountain of shaving foam as SNOW coloured with green food colouring. The challenge: find the treasure (gold coins) hidden in the mountain.

I asked the girls to pick out their favourite toy figurine and explained how this little game would work. Cakey has watched her fair share of Dora so she totally got it. Cakey started at the grassy forest and made her figurine take the challenge. Boo took one look at the whole set-up, dropped her figurine, ran around the grass, water and mud and dived straight into the shaving foam.

Cakey made her figurine go through the course over and over. I had to keep re-making the snow mountain as Boo kept destroying it before Cakey's figurines made it to the end.

Once the figurines were discarded the kids mixed all the ingredients together.... creating a lovely sensory mess!!

I hope you have enjoyed this month's Big and Little. If you want to see more about our Big and Little posts click here. 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 Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, The Kids Co-op and The Children's Bookshelf

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

Planting agave pups

Finally a gardening update! We had to do a spot of emergency gardening. We all woke one morning to discover one of our huge agave plants had fallen over and its terracotta pot smashed over the path. This agave came with the house and we suspect it is well over 10 years old. Lo and behold, growing along its mother stem were a handful of agave pups...... these would make lovely Christmas presents.

Off to the garden centre to buy one enormous replacement pot and some little ones for the pups. Planting the pups now will give them time to get established so by Christmas they will have new growth and be looking lovely (hopefully).

Agaves are very hardy succulents and are easy to replant. There are many types of agave – we have agave attenuata which is native to Mexico. It is a spineless variety so it is perfect for kids and grows well in pots. They are expensive to buy in garden centres because they are slow growing. Once an agave is approximately 10 years old, pups will grow off the mother stem which can be cut from the plant and potted.

Agaves like good drainage so we lined the bottom of our pots with large pebbles. We also used a special potting mix specially designed for succulents which is available from garden centres.

The kids love to help with planting and got busy shoveling soil into pots. We re-planted more than 12 pups. We gave our little agave pups some water and Cakey placed pebbles in the top of the pots. Agaves like a sunny position so we found a good place for them in the garden and now we are awaiting the new growth.

A word of warning: agaves do not tolerate frost. If you are in an area not suitable for agaves but you would like to propagate plants with the kids I recommend trying geraniums or slow-growing japanese box. If you would like to know more have a look at these links:

• How to propagate geraniums from cuttings 
• Gardening Australia Fact sheet: Propagation
• How to propagate a buxus (japanese box and other hedge varieties)

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 Fun Sparks