Potion Making
Equipment you will need:
Glitter, water, food colouring, bowls, jugs, cups, spoons and bubbles.
It's time to be a magician, fairy or even a witch and make your own potion and magic spells. Children will love this messy play activity as it can be a great opportunity for them to do some role play. This activity can be extended by reading stories such as Room on the Broom or Meg and Mog and acting as the characters while making there own potions.
For this activity provide the children with different resources such as coloured water, bubbles, glitter and see what potions they can make. They might tell you if you drink the potion you will turn into a frog or this potion will make you feel better. This activity can be extended for older children by having to write a list of the ingredients in their potion or writing down a magic spell word.
By providing bowls, jugs, spoons and cups it gives children the chance to pour and empty and transport liquid. This is an important skill for babies and toddlers to learn and develop as it will help there fine and gross motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination.
Catch the letters jelly play
Equipment you will need:
Jelly sachet powder packets, plastic letters, cup or fishing net
Jelly play is a great messy play activity. It is perfect for little ones who put everything in their mouths as it is edible. Jelly play can be used in different ways. You can change the theme and add different objects into the jelly to make it exciting and inviting for children.
For this activity when the jelly has set add in some plastic letters and hide them in the jelly for the children to dig and find. This activity will encourage them to use different objects such as hands, spoons, cups or bowls, to collect and find the letters. This activity will help children to recognise letters. They may start by recognising a letter that is in their name. With older children you may want to see if they can make a word with the letters they've collected or even start to form a sentence with them. This will encourage them to recognise the letters they need to spell certain words.
Edible Farm Play
Equipment you will need:
A tray, coco powder or melted chocolate, wheat biscuits, sweetcorn, water, farm animals
All children love animals and small world play. For this activity I have set up a small world messy play, using edible products for things you may find around a farm. Using chocolate as the mud, water for the duck pond, sweetcorn, and wheat biscuits for the hay. Add in your animals and place them in places you would find them on the farm. For example the pigs in the mud and the cows eating some hay. For older children you could ask them if they could place the animals where they think they belong. Babies and toddlers will love exploring the new textures and tasting them as well. This activity can help toddlers learn the sounds of animals and they may even start to repeat some sounds when you show them an animal. Why not add in a washing section for them to wash the mud off the animals with sponges and brushes and make them nice and clean for them to return back to the farm.
Train and Car painting
Equipment you will need:
Paint, trains, cars, paper or a big tray
If you have children who love transport and playing with cars and trains then car painting is a great activity to mark make using their interests. Put blobs of paint onto paper or in a big tray and let children make tracks and marks using their cars and trains. It will encourage children to be creative and make different patterns. Children of all ages will love this from young babies to older children. You can even make edible paint to make it baby friendly. While doing this activity ask the children questions about what happens when they mix different colour paints together or set them challenges to see if they can make long and short tracks with paint.