Learning with Lisa

Here is an easy Easter activity without a price tag! Forage some bits and bobs from your backyard, and use them to decorate a nature Easter egg using either playdough or a cut-out cardboard/paper egg for the backing. Nico and I had lots of fun doing some messy play and exploring the feeling of the different textures.🌿🌸

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’m back on maternity leave after having our newest little love, Bodhi, so may post some fun at-home activities again from time to time. 🤍 Happy Easter week, everyone!

DIY water wall ♻️ made completely out of recycled materials! Video of it in action in my story.

My husband and I had so much fun building this together. Nico’s friends loved playing with/watching it yesterday at his party! 💦 And wee Nico loves watching the water trickle down too (just about as much as his Dad does! 😂)

Hand picked daisies and dandelions for some mud kitchen potion and perfume making with my nephew and nieces this afternoon. 🌼

You don’t need a mud kitchen for this either. Get the kiddies a bowl, some utensils and access to water/the garden tap, and voila - a fun and free school holiday activity!

(Just make sure you show them which things in your garden can and can’t be picked! 😂)

Father’s Day is this Sunday in NZ! 🌟 Here is a nice easy card or picture that you could make with the kiddies for their Dad or someone special.

In my classroom with 5 year olds we would often talk about it being a ‘someone special’ day as this made it more inclusive for those children who perhaps were living with a mum who takes on the role of both mum and dad, children with two mums, children who have lost their dad, or children who live with another caregiver like a grandparent or other family member. 🤍

Happy Father’s/‘Someone Special Day’ to all the super duper dads and parents out there. You do a truly amazing job! I hope you feel all the love you deserve on both Sunday and every day! 🤍

Side note: my son does not have 6 toes 😂 it’s just quite tricky to get an under one year old to keep their toes still!

Nico loved playing with his rainbow noodles this afternoon! He had his messy-play overalls on and everything (😂) and because I followed a taste safe recipe he could literally use all of his senses to explore. This was a great activity with minimal prep, minimal mess but maximum fun! 🌈

This morning we made rainbow spaghetti for Nico’s sensory fun activity. 🌈 It’s cooked and dyed and we are eagerly waiting for it to dry so we can playyyyyyyyy! Photos to come. Nico loved helping me mix the food colours through too! We scrunched, we squashed, we squeezed and we rolled, with all the mess contained in the snaplock bags. What a great sensory experience in itself! 🥰

This is a great at home learning activity for many ages! Babies and toddlers can explore using all their senses, whilst the adult plays alongside and models rich descriptive language. Older children can explore using all their senses as well, and then do some descriptive sensory writing following their experience.

How fun is a good old balloon for a sensory experience! Nico LOVED it beyond words. 🤍

Nothing better than the sound of a tiny human giggling, especially when it’s your own tiny human! I swear this is Nico all day long at the moment 🥰 9 months is such a fun age.

Such a lovely present from my Aunty Linn when Nico was born, ‘Baby Boy’ by . I read this wee quote book all the time! 🤍

Here is a simple activity that encourages problem solving, grasping and exploring.

I used a silicone giant ice cube mould and some woollen pom poms. I started by demonstrating to Nico me pulling a couple of pom poms out and pushing them back in. He then started mimicking me, and when he’d had enough of that he did some exploring of his own with the poms poms and mould which was lovely to see!

There are lots of skills your little one will be practising with this activity:
Fine motor skills – pincer grasp and finger strength; visual-motor skills like hand-eye coordination; I even observed Nico using some gross motor skills and bilateral coordination! 🌟

Today I made Nico another homemade book to go with his sensory book, which he absolutely loves! 🤍Yes, Nico has loads of store bought books, but homemade is awesome because you can personalise it to their current interests or needs.

Nico has learnt to say Mumma over the last couple of weeks (🥺🥰) so I thought I’d make him a book to help him learn the names of some of his other special people too!

Easy peasy to make! I cut a cardboard box into equal sized rectangles for the pages, hole punched the edges and popped through a couple of split rings.

It is super basic at the moment, and only has pictures, with no words, as this is the developmental level he is at. I will add words to this as he grows and his needs and abilities develop. 🌟

Flower bean mosaics! 🌼

Dried beans are a great open-ended creative resource for children. You can arrange them to make pictures and shapes, or line them up to make letters or numbers. Just be mindful of the age of the children so they don’t become a choking hazard.

Happy creating! 🤍

Recycled loo paper roll nature stampers. 🌿

I made these wee flower stampers last night whilst watching a movie with hubby. Super easy and quick to make! Have made them once with my class during a print making unit a few years back and the kids loved making all sorts of pictures and cards out of them.

It always amazes me the cool things you can make from your recyclables. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!