David Bowie 1947-2015

There's a starman, waiting in the sky...

Bowie, you well and truely did blow our minds. 

I couldn't post today without giving tribute to another star in the sky. When I think of my childhood, I can't count how many hours I've spent listening to his music, and The Labaryth is up there as one of my most watched films. Even now I often find myself jumping around with the Zebra singing "Dance magic dance". He is a genuine legend.

Today we decided to have a Star theme, and wanted to make something bright and happy. We tried a craft similar to this at Halloween, but with paint, and it was an epic fail, so this time we tried it with glitter.

Holding a paper star against the card, I covered everything in pva glue. When the star was lifted, it left a perfect, clean shape in the centre. 

Time to get the shake-shake out and let the Zebra loose with the glitter!

Once she got bored, I made sure the whole paper was covered in different coloured glitter. 

Shake off the excess, and you are left with a shining star! 

The zebra also enjoyed some time playing with the glue and glitter to make some sparkly footprints and played with the sticky star I used as a stencil.

Cinnamon Swirls

Yay for baking Saturday's! And what better way to use up the festive flavours than with some swirls. Or pin wheels. Or rolls. Or what ever you call them! 

Ingredients:

*Rolls

350g self raising flour

Pinch of salt

2tbsp caster sugar

2tsp cinnamon powder

100g melted butter

2 egg yolks

200ml milk 

*Filling 

1tao cinnamon powder

55g brown sugar

2tbsp caster sugar

1tbsp melted butter

Icing sugar and cinnamon powder for glacé - can be made to suit tastes.

Pop all the ingredients for the filling into a bowl and give a good mix. We used melted butter, however, if I was to do this again I would use soft butter to make more of a paste. Pop bowl to one side. 

For the rolls, add the dry ingredients together in a big bowl and mix well. Then add in the rest of the wet ingredients and stir up it. Be careful of little fingers when adding the melted butter if it's still warm. 

Once you have a firm dough, it's ready to taste!

I tried rolling on baking paper, however it kept sticking, so we ended up using flour on the table. 

Sprinkle on the filling, and then roll up the dough! 

It was then mummy's job to slice the roll and pop into a greased oven dish. Then into the oven for 30 minutes at 180deg.

Once it's out the oven and cooked, it's time to ice the swirls! I started with making some thin icing sugar and pouring over the top so it found its way into all the gaps and inside the swirls. I then made some thicker icing and added cinnamon powder - this was used to glacé over the top.

Perfect! Now I just have to resist eating until tomorrow...

Bubble Blowing Prints

This was a bit of a fail on all levels if I'm honest! We did get two nice prints but it wasn't worth it.

I think I may have gone wrong with the colouring - I imagine liquid food colouring would work a lot better than dissolving gel in warm water.

It seemed like such an easy idea - food colouring, fairy liquid and water. Blow with a straw to make bubbles...

However, the Zebra was much more interested in playing with the bubbles! Not so great when using super-strong, mega-staining colouring.

She also wanted to blow the bubbles her self. After a quick go and a big mouthful of fairy liquid she soon changed her mind.

We did manage to get some of the paper on the bubbles, but the blue card was no good as it was so shiny the bubbles just ran off.

A great sensory activity...

If you don't mind hands looking like this!!!

Jelly Play

*Caution*

This post contains scenes of an extreme messy nature!!

As the Zebra has eaten jelly on a few occasions now, I wasn't sure if she would explore this activity, or just munch the bowl!

To try and add something extra to the bowl, I layered two flavours of jelly, setting in some animals in each one. 

I set the bowl and some toys up on the table and told the Zebra there were animals hiding in the kitchen she needed to find...

She was quite exited at the sight!

But the first thing she did was eat the jelly...

It wasn't long until she was trying to set all the animals free - and giving them a good clean!

As with everything sensory, it was only a matter of time before her feet got involved. She just loves different textures on her toes, much more than her hands.

There was lots of digging and scooping and covering, all helping with fine motor skills, and she was soon having so much fun she forgot to eat it...

For a few minutes anyway! 

Tweet Tweet!

Tweet tweet tweet!! So it would seem today is national bird day (thanks again Google!), which makes another great theme for some crafts. I don't really know many birds so thought I'd go with the English robin and a colourful parrot.

As always, just basic materials needed - white paper can be used but I went for green and blue card - green jungle for the parrot and blue wishy-washy winter sky for the robin.

The Zebra loves nothing more than painting with her hands and feet and was more than pleased for me to paint the blue and yellow to make the parrots body 

After you've made your foot print, paint the hand with yellow and blue. Put the palm of the hand onto the toes, so the fingers point down and create tail feathers.

The robins are much easier, just two brown footprints! Use each foot once so the birds are looking at each other on paper.

Add a brown branch, orange beak and googley eye to complete the parrot...

...and a red tummy in the foot instep, orange beak and googley eyes for the robins!

While I finished the birds, I let the Zebra have some good free-play with the paints - she really does love it!

Tweet!

Spaghetti Day

Thanks to some random googling last night, I found out today is National Spaghetti Day. I'm not sure which nation this is for, but it seemed a good theme for the Zebra to enjoy!

I had two activities in mind, using just a few basic supplies I'm sure most people would have! I used orange card, but plain paper would work just as well.

To prepare the lion, I drew the basics of a lion face on the card, then, using a sponge brush I made a mane with pva glue. The spaghetti I snapped in half to use as hair.

I showed the Zebra how to stick a piece of spaghetti down, and she had a go but clearly doesn't have the fine motor skills yet. I snapped up the spaghetti until it was all very little bits in the jug, and then let her pour it over the picture! To make them stick, she would pat them down onto the picture. 

To fill in the gaps between pasta, we used gold glitter which worked a treat!

I stuck on some googley eyes to complete the fun spaghetti lion!

To keep her busy while I tidyed up and started tea, I gave her some whole spaghetti sticks and the collinder. She loved fitting them through the holes and it will help improve those fine motor skills!