Sensory Play: Lights & Waterbeads

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Waterbeads are an excellent play resource to aid sensory stimulation and promote scientific exploration with preschoolers. They're also really good fun!

Waterbeads are tiny hard beads which when immersed in several litres of water, swell and absorb the water. They grow from 1mm across to the size of a pea, are soft and squidgy when touched, bouncy when dropped on the floor. Really bouncy! More commonly used in flower arrangements by florists, they are also a great resource for play, and are non-toxic (just make sure they don't taste-test them!).

I'd seen a few ideas on Pinterest involving lights and waterbeads; several used lightboxes and waterbeads, others used fairy lights. I'd also seen several ideas involving the plastic resuable eggs which are popular at Easter time for egg hunts and available from pound shops.

I bought some small submersible lights and soaked up a kaleidoscope of waterbeads. Into each plastic egg I placed a light and a handful of mixed colour beads, then put them with other beads and some loose water into a plastic tray for The Boy to explore, then turned the lights off and invited him in to play!

waterbead play

He was enthralled with the light shining through the waterbeads, the different colours that could be seen and the way the rainbow effect could be altered. As he's not one for messy play, this is a gentle nudge in the right direction for him with the beads feeling wet but not gloopy.

We discussed why the lights could shine through the waterbeads and I introduced the term 'translucent' to him, we then investigated what else the light could shine through and if coloured items altered the light. It's also a great activity for developing fine motor skills through opening and closing the eggs, twisting the lights on and picking up the water beads.

I bought both the waterbeads and the lights from eBay, both are reusable as the batteries in the lights can be replaced and the waterbeads can be dried out and reused.

Safety note: Waterbeads swell up in water or equivalent liquid and they can grow quite large. This makes them incredibly bouncy, and easy to roll into corners to be discovered at a later date by a curious child. Please take care to prevent these being swallowed as they can be harmful (even though they are non-toxic).

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Sunday Showcase

Chocolate Easter Bread and Butter Pudding

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This has been sat in my drafts for a week and a half and I forgot about it! I could kick myself.

About a month ago I had some left over croissants that could have been used for missiles as opposed to anything edible. I decided to use them for a bread and butter pudding instead of throwing them out, especially good as I needed to use up two eggs before they went off and couldn't be bothered to make a cake.

When we came back from our Easter weekend away, I discovered that we seemed to have a plethora of hot cross buns that were more akin to rock cakes. Is it just me that finds they go stale really quickly? I hate throwing good food out, and so faced with six stale hot cross buns and too much Easter chocolate, I decided to make an Easter bread and butter pudding.

I used the trusty BBC Good Food Guide recipe which the kind @caroljs had pointed out to me and adapted it accordingly.

  • butter for greasing
  • chocolate spread (I used chocolate Philadelphia)
  • 4-6 Hot Cross Buns, sliced into quarters
  • 50g/2oz chocolate drops/chunks/bashed-up Easter egg
  • 2 tsp cinnamon powder
  • 250ml whole milk
  • 150ml single cream
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • 25g granulated sugar
  • 3tbsp of chocolate powder
  1. Grease a 1 litre/2 pint pie dish with butter.
  2. Cut the Hot Cross Buns into quarters. Spread each slice with on one side with chocolate spread.
  3. Arrange a layer of buns, buttered-side up, in the bottom of the dish, then add a layer of chocolate broken bits. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon, then repeat the layers of bread and chocolate, sprinkling with cinnamon, until you have used up all of the buns.
  4. Gently warm the milk and cream in a pan over a low heat to scalding point, but not boiling and bubbling point. Whisk in the chocolate powder.
  5. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add three quarters of the sugar and lightly whisk until pale.
  6. Add the warm milk and cream mixture and stir well, then strain the custard into a bowl.
  7. Pour the custard over the prepared bread layers and sprinkle with the remaining sugar and leave to stand for 30 minutes.
  8. Preheat the oven to 180C/355F/Gas 4.
  9. Place the dish into the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the custard has set and the top is golden-brown.
  10. Serve warm with a dollop of dairy ice-cream or clotted cream.

Easter pudding

The Gallery: Easter

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It's been a few weeks since I've entered Tara's Gallery, unintentional but life has a habit of passing you by sometimes, to use the wise words of Mr. Bueller. However, when I saw that this week's theme was Easter, I couldn't very well ignore it much longer.

We went away for the weekend and so I needed to make sure that we had everything ready so that the Easter Bunny could find us and leave the necessary confectionary for The Boy. After a fraught Friday morning packing up various bits and pieces, we popped down to our local country park for my toddler group's Easter Egg hunt. The weather was perfect for wandering through the woodlands, finding shiny red eggs and avoiding bunny poop, and it refreshed us wonderfully for the drive down to west Wales.

The weekend saw us searching for numbers, as well as Easter chicks on a treasure hunt through the woodland. We went swimming in one of the best waterparks I've seen in a while, even if The Boy was 10cm too short for the waterslides. The Easter Bunny managed to find us, and then have a cuddle with Oliver Monkey in The Boy's bed. We discovered that The Boy had a penchant for vintage motorcars, saw pigs and newborn lambs, dug for buried treasure and ate more chocolate. And then we thanked the Lord for Charley Bear and Jaffa cakes when we got stuck in traffic in the pouring rain on the M4.

[slickr-flickr tag='Easter2012']

All in all, a fairly decent Easter weekend.

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For more Easter weekends, click on the widgets below:

Easter Eggs on DVDs

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Surely, you've heard of them? An 'Easter Egg' on a DVD is a special bonus feature which has been added to the disc but isn't easy to find without following a little trail to it.

Only this isn't those types of Easter eggs, this is the traditional small variety.

This was a very welcome sight when we got home from our Easter weekend away. The journey back on Monday involved copious amounts of precipitation on the M4 and since then April has really shown that it's going to live up to its reputation of providing plenty of showers. Chocolate and DVDs are therefore a must during the Easter holidays.

The lovely basket contained:

    • Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory: this original gem starring the inimitable Gene Wilder still entertains through the decades. No-one is quite as maniacal as him, and no Verucca Salt can be anywhere near as precocious as the original version. Can you believe this is now forty years old?

  • Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: I adore this film, mainly because of the magic combination of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton. The visual effects, and song and dance numbers are astoundingly good, certainly enhanced by the modern age's CGI. Freddie Highmore is an absolute gem in this version, but for me he's just a tad too well-spoken for poor old Charlie. For me, this brilliant film is a different story to the original, it works just as well but on a different plain.
  • Yogi Bear: This modern take on the classic cartoon, mixing live action and computer animation features the vocal talents of Dan Akroyd and, bizarrely, Justin Timberlake. Yogi and Boo-boo must save Jellystone Park from destruction due to logging. This adventure for 7 year olds and over is packed full of crazy inventions, silly gags, high adventure, and slapstick comedy. Perfect as a present for my niece and nephew.
  • Bugs Bunny's Easter Funnies: No WarnerBros parcel would be complete without the addition of one of their legendary cartoon characters. And at Easter time who better for that to be than the Easter Bunny himself? In this classic, the Easter Bunny is poorly and Bugs has to step in and help out, although Sylvester and Daffy want to help out as well. This disc also contains three interactive Looney Tunes puzzle games.

I can't wait to introduce The Boy to the wonders of The Chocolate Factory (both versions) over the next few weeks.

We were sent these items for the purpose of this post. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Crafty Corner: Easter Cards

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Last week I went into school on the Wednesday intending to teach my Wednesday morning Year One class R.E. and ended up making Easter cards with them; a change that I was all too happy to make. I'm much happier helping the five and six year olds make cards for their mummies and daddies than waffling on about the role of authority figures.

This is what we ended up making together, all I did for them was the springs which the eggs were mounted on.

I loved the simplicity of the cards and how much of it was done by the children, so I decided to adapt the idea to make Easter cards with The Boy.

I cut out some small egg shapes, grabbed a handful of cotton buds, some paint and sponges, coloured sticky strips and off we went.

The Boy coped really well with using the cotton buds to dot the paint on and absolutely loved the sponges (chicken and sheep) to dab the paint on. In fact he got carried away and sponge printed all over the table.

And that's when it descended into chaos. You see The Boy doesn't like getting messy and I decided to use a little sensory play and painting without brushes (inspired by The Nurture Store) to try and cure him of it.

Look at that face in the last picture, butter wouldn't melt!

Oh and the cards?

They turned out ok didn't they?

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I'm linking this up to the fabulous Kids Art Explorers on The Nurture Store, pop over and check out the other link-ups.


Sciencesparks3

The Most Amazing Easter Egg Ever!

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I've made no secret of the fact that I am a big fan of Hotel Chocolat before. My husband knows it by now and he also knows that to get in my good books for special occasions he only need order something from there. He also knows not to eat any of the chocolate unless offered. And only then, the nut ones.

When a lovely big box arrived from them recently, he looked confused momentarily until he remembered that it was neither my birthday, nor Christmas, nor our anniversary. This delivery from them was in order to try out their easter egg samples.

And oh my, what a sample.

Isn't it pretty?

This is the Extra Thick Your Eggsellency Easter Egg which has twelve alcoholic truffles (two of each of white port truffle, champagne truffle, pink champagne truffle, mojito cocktail, amaretto amour, bison grass vodka) encased in the thickest easter egg I've ever seen; one half dark chocolate, one half milk chocolate. It is beautiful; the way it's presented and the taste of it.

When Hotel Chocolat were researching making easter eggs, the consulted with experts who told them to use the smallest amount of chocolate possible in order to make the thinnest chocolate eggs and maximise their profit margin. They ignored them and made really thick ones instead. And they are gorgeous!

At £26.00 each, the Extra Thick eggs are a luxury egg, but oh my you'd earn some massive brownie points with them!

Chick In A Basket (Guest Post)

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The Boy and I (see I can be grammatically correct when needed!) love craft activities, and I am always on the look-out for new ideas. I was recently browsing the Internet looking for some coloured sand when I came across the Baker Ross site. I already knew about it through my teacher alter-ego but hadn't thought to look there before. I was pleasantly surprised to find a whole load of craft activities for Winter and Spring, and bought a whole load of craft materials that we're currently working our way through.

In this guest post from James Christie (who writes for Baker Ross), you'll find simple instructions on how to make a very cute Easter chick.

How children can craft a chick-in-a-basket

Easter isn’t far away but there is still time for kids to make some super Easter crafts. The cheerful Easter character baskets that this article will explain how to create, are fantastic gifts and look great when displayed at home or in the classroom.

Put the items mentioned below in your Easter shopping basket and you will be ready to begin.

  • 3D Easter Character Foam Kits – a pack of 4 currently (as of 8th March 2012) costs £3.80
  • Super Strong Multi-Purpose Silicone Glue – £3.98 for a pack of two and £10.50 for a pack of six
  • Mini Glue Dots – £2.99 for a box of 300

All these items are available from kids arts and crafts company Baker Ross and don’t forget to have a pair of children’s spring-loaded scissors to hand. This piece of equipment will make sure that kids can happily cut away with ease – you can get a pair for under a pound.

There are two designs in the kit and this article will concentrate on hatching a plan to make the chick-in-a-basket. Reading out the following instructions to your children might help them with this task.

Firstly, take the green-fringed strip of foam and the green circle and apply silicone glue around the rim of the circle. Press the fringing around it to create the basket (as below).

 

You will need to trim off any excess foam so that your basket has a neat perimeter.

While your basket’s glue is drying you can pick up the yellow egg shape and glue your chick’s orange webbed feet to the base.

Once the feet are in place, give the chick wings by gluing some on top.

Your chick is now ready to fly but how will it see? It’s time to stick the adhesive wiggle eyes near the dome of the yellow egg. I love the way the eyeballs wobble whenever the chick is moved!

After a little triangular orange beak is added, the chick is only missing one vital component – its feathers. So, take a big yellow feather and put it on the chick’s spine – it’s really ready to shake a tail feather now!

You might think the task is finished now and it almost is. It’s time to return your attention to the green basket; hopefully it’s dried by now. Inside your kit you will find three sheets of foam flowers with different colours on them. Pop these out of their sheets, peel off the back and adorn your basket with them. Don’t forget to press down firmly so they don’t fall off.

Lower your chick into its comfy basket home and stand back to admire this excellent Easter piece of art. The chick might well look a little lonely sitting in its basket on its own so why not make a bunny-in-a-basket to go with it?

Have a great Easter!

You can find all the Easter Craft Essentials your kids need at the Baker Ross site.

Here's an easy video tutorial of the process

This is a guest-post

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