Written on September 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized
Missy 2 and Mr 4 had fun in the Spring weather making amazing chalk drawings. Missy 2 is obsessed with drawing, and she does it often. It’s good to let them experience different ways of doing things they love.
This activity held Mr 4′s attention for a long amount of time. His drawings are becoming more detailed, and he is putting more mental planning into his art as he gets older.
Drawing is an important part of childrens’ play. It gives them an opportunity to be creative. It’s a great fine motor activity, yet it’s also highly cognitive.
I added water to the chalk bucket to let the colours really ‘pop’. This is also a good thing to do if anyone involved has asthma, it can reduce the amount of chalk dust floating around somewhat. Although, as Missy 2 soon learnt, we still end up wearing the results of our work!
Daisy, our lovely puppy, insisted on being right in the thick of all the proceedings, of course. Once the children tired of drawing, they had a nice run with the dog. What a fun start to Spring.
Missy 9 made this beautiful butterfly. Playdough appeals to all ages.
Home playdough is special. There’s no denying it. Sure, it’s fun for kids to play with the store-bought stuff, but there’s nothing like the smell of freshly cooked playdough to bring back fond childhood memories. When I smell it, I remember our old Playgroup hall and I can hear the noisy feet of my peers echoing on the floorboards. I hear table legs screeching as mums drag them away from the walls and set them up for us to play happily at.
What I love about making playdough yourself is that you get so much more to play with than what you’d buy in a lousy, plastic playdough can. It’s also great that it costs next to nothing to make. Playdough brings many benefits to the child, apart from being messy, good fun.
Playdough helps children to:
- strengthen and develop fine motor skills (use of hands)
- engage in creative play
- play dramatically, as they make up stories about what they’re making. It’s common to hear children making up pretend voices of their creations’ characters.
- develop their cognitive skills. Children use trial and error, cause and effect and basic experimentation to manipulate the dough into what they want it to do. They learn to problem solve.
- further develop their language. Children love to talk about what they are doing with their sculptures, and this in turn allows them to socialise with other children or adults.
- experiment with different tools and learn about how they work.
- watch how colours change when they are mixed together
How to cook playdough
You will need:
4 cups of water
4 tablespoons of cooking oil
4 cups of plain flour
8 tablespoons of cream of tartar powder
2 cups of salt
Dump all the ingredients into a large saucepan or frypan. I like this gigantic non stick electric frypan, because it’s less likely to spill over. Before you turn the heat on, mix it well. It should look like this:
Turn the heat on to medium-low (my frypan heats up very rapidly, so I have to watch this. You don’t want it to burn or develop a crust along the bottom). It will start to thicken and look lumpy. This is normal.
Now, just stir constantly until it is a lovely, firm playdough consistency. Put it aside to cool before adding any goodies to it.
Once it’s cool, there’s so many things you can add to your playdough. Kool Aid can be used to colour it, or food colouring. You can even try beetroot or spinach juice if you and your kids are feeling experimental!
But don’t feel that you have to stop at colour. Sight is just one of our senses. Why not appeal to your child’s sense of touch, with some glitter shaken in, or some coloured rice? To colour the rice before adding it, shake some rice and food colouring together in a jar and spread it out to dry before adding it. It looks best if the playdough colour is a contrast to the colour of the rice. Below is red and yellow food colouring added to rice.
It looks pretty, but children enjoy the granular sensation, and they notice a difference when flattening it with a rolling pin, or cutting it with a knife or a cookie cutter. This in turn often leads to much discussion! Why not throw some hundreds and thousands in for a mighty crunch? Then the children can watch the colours blend.
And what of our sense of smell? I’ve already mentioned how pleasurable the smell of playdough can be for a child (or adult. Ahem), so play around with that, if you will. You could make coffee playdough, mint scented playdough, just look around your kitchen and garden to see what you have.
The batch in the picture below has been mixed with Kool Aid and coffee, to encourage the children to experiment with different smells. We have cherry flavour, grape, tamarindo, lime, and raspberry. This cooked playdough recipe makes a large amount, so it’s excellent if you want a large variety of playdough types, or have a lot of kids using it either at home, playgroup or daycare.
Uncooked playdough
Sometimes, you might just want playdough quickly, and couldn’t be bothered cooking it, waiting for it to cool, yadda yadda, yadda… Or your kids might be keen to help you make it. Or, you might be at Playgroup and want to quickly make some for the kids, and not have time to cool it down before using it. My uncooked playdough recipe is handy for those times.
You will need:
3 cups of plain flour
1/3 cup of salt
1 and 1/4 cups of water
Plain flour for dusting
Colouring of your choice
Mix the first three ingredients together with your hands. Then turn it out onto a bench dusted with flour, and knead it until you are happy with its consistency. It should be just like bread dough.
Separate into the desired amount you’d like for each colour, then knead the food colouring through. Or you can use some of the suggestions mentioned in the cooked playdough recipe.
One thing that’s lovely about uncooked playdough, is that if children make it, they can give it to friends or family as a nice little homemade gift. We kneaded a little glitter through part of the batch for a little extra sparkle.
Fun ways to play with it.
The ideas here are endless, but I’m going to give you some good ones to get you all fired up.
- using bare hands only.
- rolled into ‘sausages’ and children encouraged to cut it into pieces with scissors. This is an excellent way to familiarise children with scissor use and strengthen their little muscles in preparation. It’s also much easier to cut playdough with scissors than paper when a child is starting to learn.
- provide an old garlic press and let the kids watch the playdough squish out like spaghetti. Again, this is great for fine motor strength.
- raid your useful box for straws, lids, cupcake cases etc for your children to add to their play.
- give your children rolling pins and cookie cutters to play with. We’ve not unpacked our rolling pin since the move yet, so I improvised and gave the kids this empty tissue cylinder.
Make sure to store your playdough in some cling wrap or a sealed plastic container. It’s great to encourage the kids to help pack up, too!
Mr 4′s caterpillar. He became deeply engrossed in this activity.
Now, to make life a little bit easier for anyone who likes to make their own playdough or fingerpaint, not only can you find the recipes at Hear Mum Roar, you can also download them in a handy printable format to keep in the kitchen. Click here to download.
I’d love to hear what your kids like to do with their playdough.
Edited to add: Here’s where Aussies can source Kool Aid (not sponsored links, just adding on request):
I hope you’re all having a great weekend. I’ve been relaxing and enjoying my new computer that I won from Miscellaneous Mum, isn’t this the cutest laptop you’ve ever seen??
We’ve been wearing the kids out with lots of bubble play…
This is Missy 2 in a dress I recently made in advance for Spring. You might remember the fabric.
The odd thing is, it’s still supposed to be Winter here, but even after all the flooding we’ve had, today is playing out like the perfect Spring day.
Look at what lovely things I found blossoming ahead of time.
I’ll be buggered if I know what this tree is called, but it’s an Aussie native and so pretty.
Then these bulbs that have been something of a mystery, have blossomed into what I think look like daffodils? Well, they smell beautiful anyway.
My posting has been somewhat erratic of late, you’ll have to bear with me. I’ve had the flu, and it’s looking like I might have fibroids, so I’ve been forced into quite a lot of bed rest lately. But enough about me! How have you been spending your weekend?
I hope everyone’s had a relaxing weekend. I’ve been trying to soak a lot of water out of the carpet after our flooding. It should be dry soon, fingers crossed!
The kids have been having fun since they discovered we have grown two huge mushrooms! After we started with this kit, I found out that winter isn’t mushroom season. Apparently, every other season is. So normally, we’d expect to get more mushies than this amount, but it was still exciting for the kids, and these were so large, it really bulked up tonight’s dinner. But more on that later…
Missy 9 and Mr 4 enjoyed picking their home grown mushrooms all by themselves.
They gave our mushroom farm another misting of water, which they love to do.
Missy 9 and Missy 2 wanted to help cut the mushrooms up for tonight’s dinner, which is spaghetti bolognaise. I gave them a blunt knife each, and this kept them busy for a long time.
Missy 9 also had fun mincing the garlic to go with it.
Missy 9 watched the mushrooms and garlic saute in the pan, and we talked about all the B vitamins that mushies provide, what sauteing is, and she swooned at the smell of it! She’s really showing an interest in being involved with the cooking lately, and learning as much as she can.
It’s been such a lovely, relaxing, slow Sunday, and I think what better way for the kids to while away the hours than to pick fresh, home grown produce and prepare it for dinner?
Here’s my confession, though: my two older kids don’t like eating mushrooms very much. But they will eat it chopped up finely into a spaghetti bolognaise or beef stroganoff or similar. And they especially love trying it when they’ve helped to grow it. Look at this pic and tell me if you can even notice two gigantic mushrooms chopped through it.
I’m really excited about this review. I was wanting to buy some new mattress protectors for my three kids, for all different reasons.
I have a nine year old daughter, who has a reasonably new mattress, and I want to ensure it stays well looked after for as long as possible, and protect it from those times when she vomits during an illness, situations like that.
I have a four year old son who is toilet trained but is wearing nappies to bed, but being older, often has leakages by morning. That, and I plan to night train him without nappies when Spring time comes. Anything that can keep the washing to a minimum during those first accidents, and protect the mattress is welcomed here!
I also have a two year old daughter who has the occasional nappy leak, or will sit on her bed during the day with her sippy cup and spill it, or vomit when she’s ill, basically, all the wonderful messy things that come with having kids.
When the opportunity arose to do this review, I jumped at the chance! The good people from Protect-A-Bed were lovely enough to send me the following items:
A king single Elite mattress protector for my son’s bed.
A sheet protector/drawsheet for my son’s bed also (he is the most likely to have a mess on his bed, and entering into night training, after all!)
And for my two girls, who both have regular single sized beds, two fitted quilted mattress pads.
I’ll start with the fitted quilted mattress pads that my daughters received.
These are beautiful to use, and provide a waterproof, anti-allergy surface for children to sleep on. The surface is pure cotton, and is a little like terry fabric. It’s quilted, and deliciously soft. Missy Nine informed me that night as I tucked her in that her bed felt much more soft and comfortable. The fabric is highly absorbent yet breathable too. This is the type of mattress protector in the range that is suited to bedwetting and night training.
In the picture below, you can see what both sides of the pad look like:
The shiny side is the waterproof, underside of the mattress protector. On the right hand side, is the terry cotton fabric that is the top side. The fabric you see in the middle is the soft, stretchy fabric that wraps around the sides of the bed and around the underside. I’ve always hated putting fitted sheets on beds, it’s so awkward. But this is very simple and quick to put on a child’s bed. The side pieces just seem to snap in place with ease, and I find this extremely kind on my back, as I don’t like to be bent over doing this job for too long.
I was impressed with how well the mattress pads fit on my daughters’ beds. I think there’s nothing worse than when you buy something fitted, be it a sheet or a protector, and it goes on all wonky. Protect-A-Bed’s range seems much more neat and you can’t notice it under the sheets.
Onto the Protect-A-Bed Elite. It’s described as the ‘ultimate protector for luxury mattresses’. So, if you have a super plush top, memory foam or latex mattress, this would be the protector for your bed.
The Elite is also suited to adult beds, as it protects against dust mites, stains, perspiration and accidental spill stains. It’s not as suited to protect against bed wetting, but my son’s mattress was the wrong size! It’s still good to try the different types though, and I will definitely be buying this one for my bed in future. I’ll show you a picture of how this one looks:
You can see on the left side (the top side), that it is much smoother and more sleek than the terry mattress pad. It is deliciously soft and stretchy, and again, a dream to put on without any mucking around. I hate making the bed, and there’s no way in hell I want to waste time doing it.
You can see by the fit that the sides wrap around very generously, I was surprised just how far it went under. I think it fit his bed perfectly.
Next is something I’ve always meant to try with my kids, but never got around to doing before now. A draw sheet for night training. My son (who, remember, has a king sized single bed) was sent a single sized sheet protector/drawsheet for placing over the top of his sheeting. I was amazed at how generous the sides were for tucking under even a larger bed than it was intended for! My son is a very rough sleeper, and this has never moved around or come off after a heavy sleep.
True to form, my son put this drawsheet through its paces the first night he used it. Without wanting to be graphic (but I think it’s called for to do this review properly), my son did a major puddle all over the draw sheet. This would’ve definitely gone right into the stuffing of the mattress if it had nothing to protect it. I was amazed that the drawsheet was so wide, that none of his wee spilled over onto the sheets, and both sheets and mattress were bone dry. I washed the drawsheet straight away am pleased to say that it dried incredibly quickly. Which is important if your child is saturating their bed every single night!
So, my verdict? I was utterly impressed with all the products I tried, and I plan to order some more things in the near future.
This is a nice, simple, open-ended media that kids can paint on. Here is a canvas my eldest daughter painted that is now a cherished gift at her grandparents’ house.
Visitors love to admire it and talk about what they see in it, often. It’s also a lovely way for parents to decorate the home, capturing a time, an age, a memory. Best of all, they are cheap and easy to buy! Here’s some painted canvases we’ve done over the years:
Have you ever given your children canvas to work with? Next time you’re stuck for a gift, you could give this a try.
It’s been about five months since we’ve moved into our new place. Our old new place, that is. The front of the house is at least one hundred years old!
We have been itching to start up a playroom for the kids, but it’s had to wait until now. What with my fiance’s health setbacks, and major flooding of our playroom in the early months, we had to take care of those issues first. The cause of the flooding has been fixed, so it’s safe to put the childrens’ toys in there without worry of them getting water damage. The carpet is still stained from the flooding, but we intend to get that tiled one day. Ah, patience!
In the meantime, the poor old play area became somewhat of a dumping ground for crap. You know what it’s like; you have an unused room in a house, and things get piled up there, until you deal with it ‘someday’.
‘Someday’ came two days ago.
We have the oh-so-classy use the old lounge as a gate trick going on, nice…
A place for some of the toys and books of this house. This is an old bookcase I inherited from my grandmother, soon I’ll be thrifting it to look more inviting. The kids’ rooms and the lounge room are looking a lot less cluttered as a result! The window above is the kitchen window, meaning whoever is in there can still see the kids as they play.
Because my son is still overexcited about having new animals in the house, we can separate him from the pets when it all gets a bit out of hand. They can still enjoy each others’ hijinks, as you can see!
They can look closely at the rain, and hear it pounding the roof as they play inside, snug and warm.
Because I’m phasing BPA-laden tupperware out of the kitchen, the kids have inherited this platter to sort Grandma’s old buttons into different sections. Mr Three decided to sort sections into colours. He told me he was ‘solving the mystery’.
I also moved his favourite alphabet puzzle into the playroom. It’ll be easier to keep the pieces together in here, away from his bedroom. Speaking of which, five pieces were missing.
Mr Three was quite anxious to get them back. Considering his love for solving problems, I gave him another ‘mystery’ to solve.
I made a list of the pieces that were missing. He took the list around the house and found a piece. Then he wanted help, so we went around the house together, trying to solve the mystery. I helped him to tip big boxes of toys out, and each time we found a piece, I asked him if that letter was on his list. ‘Yes!’ he said, three times. We are still missing two more pieces, so we’re keeping the list so we can go around and do this a few more times. He loved it, and can’t wait to find the last pieces.
Soon, I’m going to start painting! This is the first house we’ve ever owned, and I can’t believe we’ve not painted anything yet. I think we need to lose the ‘renter’ mentality we’ve become accustomed to, and let ourselves enjoy being home owners even more.
I’m excited too, because if this weather clears, on Monday, we’re getting a load of fruit trees planted! Pictures to come…
Sponsored by Nuffnang
It’s time for another Mattel review! Last time it was the adorable Flip Phone, and this time we were lucky enough to receive the Peek a Boo clock in the post. You can imagine how excited my little ones were. In case you can’t imagine, you can watch Missy Two’s reaction below.
The Peek a Boo clock is so cute! It has so many surprises for children to enjoy. This toy is aimed at children aged six months to three years old. You can press the green button on the top of the clock to see a little bird pop out of the door (just like a cuckoo clock) and light up brightly. Each time it pops out, it makes a different sound. Some of the sounds are:
Peek a boo! I see you!
Cuckoo!
Hello! Then when the door closes again, good bye!
It also plays a variety of songs when the bird pops out. My daughter also likes to pull the door open to make the bird pop out, and this is easy to do, as it has an indent for little fingers.
Little kids can turn the handles on the clock, and in the centre of the handles, is a little light-up button. This also plays a huge number of songs, Mr Three’s favourites being the alphabet song and the counting one. He enjoyed reading the alphabet displayed along the top of the toy, and counting the numbers on the clock.
There is a little disc on the side at the top, that displays a sun and a moon as you turn it, to represent day and night. Of course, this cool clock takes it one further, and actually says ‘day’ and ‘night’ at the right times! There is a little spot on the other side with little sliding shapes for the younger babies to play with; my two year old still enjoyed looking at those, too. On the other side is a key that makes a rewarding clicking noise when the child turns it.
I found even Missy Nine really thought it was cute and enjoyed playing with it, too. Her and Mr Three took turns at holding it facing each other and saying, ‘now I’m going to put on a show with the clock, who wants to watch?’ In this household, the more kids who enjoy one toy, the better. Because there’s a large age gap between Missy Nine and the younger two, it’s nice when no one feels left out. Plus, I always feel if all the children get some enjoyment out of our toys, then we’re getting good value.
I was so impressed with this clock. I love the fact that the volume can be adjusted, and that it explores the concept of cause and effect with my children. The most important thing to me is that my kids like it, and if you watch my little video below, you will see how much Missy Two loved it, and hear her squeals of delight.
This is the last installment in my tantrum series.
Last time I wrote about tantrums, I touched on public tantrums and just how stressful and difficult they can be for a parent or carer to deal with. I talked about how busy the adult is, possibly already stressed by the errands they are running, then the child who is tantrumming, which is finally rounded off with an unhealthy dose of public interference.
This post is for anyone who’s ever judged another parent or carer of a child who had a public tantrum. Or worse, criticised or undermined a parent/carer’s best efforts at dealing with the tantrum. I write this in the hope that a parent/caregiver/child is treated better by a stranger as a result.
Dear stranger, please respect how we manage our child/rens’ behaviour.
Nobody will ever agree 100% with another parent/carer’s approach to behaviour management, but as long as the child is not being abused or put in danger, please respect that we may do it differently to how you would, and that is our right. To publicly criticise us, especially in front of our child, undermines our authority as parents, and then if they end up in juvey at 13, you will no doubt blame us, the abovementioned parents because our children ended up having no respect for us.
To throw another method/technique/idea into the works would be confusing to the child anyway.
Do not interrupt an adult dealing with a child having a tantrum
Do not talk over the parent. Do not say within the child’s earshot, ‘oh, that’s alright, he can have it!’ If the parent has said no, that needs to be respected. Do not confuse the child.
Do not stare/tut/shake your head at parent or child.
Both already feel embarrassed, stressed and frustrated. One day this could be you. Or maybe years ago, it was you, and you’ve conveniently forgotten this fine detail.
Can you do something to help?
Years ago, when my first child was two, I was trying to walk home with her, carrying far too many plastic bags of shopping. My daughter was refusing to walk, and was trying to wrestle her way to the ground and run to the road. I was trying to carry her home quickly, and juggle her and the bags. It was quite the spectacle.
Next thing I knew, a lady around my age came outside, and my guard instantly went up. Oh my god, I thought. She thinks I’m beating up my child. Or she’s going to tell me I should be. Instead, she asked me how far away I lived, and if I would like her to carry my bags so I could carry my daughter home more easily. Of course, I didn’t want to put her out, but she reassured me I wasn’t, so I said yes.
As we walked home together, she asked how old my daughter was. On telling her, she replied that she had a little girl at home the same age who would love to play with her! We exchanged numbers, and our two little ones ended up having quite a few playdates.
Most of the time, a parent or carer wants to be left to get on with the job of dealing with their child without interference. What if there were more people in this world like this lady, who offered to help with some other part of your errand and left you to deal with your child unhindered? To offer to unpack your trolley onto the conveyor belt as you managed your child’s behaviour? Wouldn’t the world be a much better place if more people did this, rather than stand and gawk or criticise?
What do you wish others would do when your child has a public tantrum? And by the same token, what could you do for another parent in this situation, without undermining that parents’ methods?
So, we’ve talked about what causes tantrums, ways we can prevent them and how to build up our childrens’ communication skills to help get through the tantrum stage more smoothly. But what about if you have implemented all of these strategies and your child still has a tantrum anyway?
Relax. Remember, it’s a normal part of a child’s development, and it’s nothing you’ve done wrong. It can take time for a child to learn to accept that not everything will happen they way they want it to in life, all the time. I have focused more in this series on understanding the motives behind tantrums and preventative measures, because I believe that it’s all the work we put in here that pays dividends.
I’ve yet to meet two parents who’ve ever agreed 100% on the best ways to raise children. Most parents and carers have varied yet passionate opinions on how to deal with a child who is throwing a tantrum. I’m going to reiterate that these ideas are only my approach, and I enjoy open discussion on the wide variety of ways other parents deal with it. Don’t be afraid to be creative in your approach, try your own ideas. You know your child better than anyone else in the world. As always, let’s respect each others’ differences and let everyone have the freedom to have the floor with their opinions.
With that little disclaimer out of the way, I’m going to focus on the tantrums where a child doesn’t get something they desperately want. I have a few ‘constants’ that do not change, regardless of the childs’ age:
I don’t say no, then say yes after the tantrum.
Your child wants an ice cream. For whatever reasons, you’ve said no. Child screams, maybe even throws themselves on the floor. This is stressful for parents and carers. Often it seems easier and so tempting to just say, ‘oh, alright then, you can have the ice cream!’ If you do this, I guarantee that the tantrum will stop instantly. I also guarantee that your child will throw more tantrums in the near future and will probably take longer to move out of this tantrum stage of their lives.
What happens when a child is given in to like this, is that the child is rewarded for expressing their wants in an inappropriate way. No, we don’t expect perfect behaviour from a one year old, or a three year old. It’s normal for them to try to see what will work for them. But it’s up to us to teach them better ways to express this. When we teach our children that screaming for what we want doesn’t achieve the desired result, over time they become capable of finding other ways to ask for things, also to accept that sometimes it’s no.
What would happen if we applied for a job and didn’t get it? Asked a potential love interest out on a date and were rejected? Would kicking and screaming help the situation? No. Does this mean that we expect our children to behave like adults at all times? No. We expect our children to try inappropriate behaviour, and then we repetitively teach them what the actual expectation will be of them in the real world. We spend this time preparing them.
So if it’s no when my child first asks, then it’s no after they’ve had a tantrum too.
Ignore the tantrum.
Now, I don’t want people to say, ‘but what if they’re hungry/tired? They’re upset because they need something!’ Yes, I agree. In those cases, if that is the cause, as I’ve already covered in previous topics, you deal with it. But today I’m talking about dealing with tantrums where a child does not like hearing the word, ‘no’.
I find that a child tantrumming over not getting what they wanted is much like dealing with someone who is ranting when they’re drunk. You can’t reason with them during the rant. I personally choose not to reward the behaviour with attention. Once they have calmed down, then I will talk to them about the situation. I am a strong believer in letting a child have their thoughts sometimes. Giving them time to themselves to reflect on what they are doing. Thinking about if it’s even working. I remember back all the way to two years of age in my childhood. I remember throwing tantrums. One of the most loving things my parents did for me was to leave me alone with my head, and let me make sense of it. If I am concerned that my child is in danger or putting others in danger, then I move them somewhere safe and leave them to it.
Create a diversion.
I’ve added this idea more for the very young tantrummers, say between the ages 1-2 years old. Because their attention span can be shorter, often we can redirect the behaviour towards another activity or interest. A child may be ready to scream for that ice cream, but if we can say, ‘look Gretel, there’s a fire truck! It’s big and it’s red and let’s go play with it/look at it!’ sometimes the child will forget all about it.
Some may consider this rewarding the behaviour. I disagree. They’ve forgotten their tantrum, and they didn’t get the ice cream, did they?
