Packed with playful inspiration for little ones — from sensory play and games to outdoor adventures. These activities are designed to encourage creativity, imagination, and fun through child-led play.
Play is a fundamental part of childhood, and the right toys can significantly enhance a child’s cognitive, physical, and social development. Encouraging children to engage in meaningful play not only boosts their creativity but also helps build essential life skills. From structured toys to free-play environments, choosing the right tools can make all the difference … Read more
Art activities are a fantastic way to stimulate creativity, develop fine motor skills, and bond with your child. Whether your child is a budding artist or just loves to explore new things, incorporating different art activities into your routine can be both fun and educational. Here are five different art activities to explore with your … Read more
Are you searching for a great way to introduce much fun and different textures into your child’s playtime? Look no further! In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the world of rainbow spaghetti, a fantastic sensory play activity that not only captivates young children but also contributes to their brain development, language skills, and emotional growth. … Read more
After the success of a previous nature themed tuff tray , which involved using found leaves from a nature walk as our canvas I decided to repeat the idea. Nature printing on a tuff tray but follow the creative vision Arlo started. Last time I covered the whole tray in brown paper with the intention … Read more
As promised, I have included all of our tuff tray ideas in one blog post for quick at a glance play inspiration. We love tuff trays because the benefits of open ended play do wonders for child development. You can start with a simple set up and begin with sensory ideas for babies such as … Read more
Did you know Birmingham has more canals than Venice? It’s true!! There’s some lovely places to explore in and around our city via the canal system and Arlo is obsessed with the idea of opening a canal lock. One other thing this four year old is constantly engaged with is play – and water is … Read more
Parents are naturally inclined to do things on their child’s behalf, whether that be to save time or simply to make life easier for the youngster. However, when parents take over, they are inadvertently sending a message that they don’t have faith in their child’s abilities, which will unfortunately have long-lasting side effects. Your child will … Read more
Lots of children (and adults alike) rely on screens as a source of entertainment and communication, but this isn’t always the best option for their overall health and well-being. Children need to engage in a variety of different stimulating activities so that they can develop key skills and remain active. So, if you’re wondering how to … Read more
With autumn rolling in we have the odd sunny day where it’s great to get outdoors and enjoy a brisk walk amongst the falling leaves, but most of the time in the U.K. it’s rainy, miserable and cold. It’s really easy to pop on a movie and snuggle up, but very quickly this becomes boring … Read more
Arlo is getting to the stage now where he’s interested in games and competition. He’s always claiming he’s the winner, it’s always a race to brush your teeth the fastest or climb up to top of a hill first, and so I began to introduce games to him at Christmas. One of our absolute favourites … Read more
Like most three year olds Arlo is absolutely obsessed with bugs and so now that spring is blooming the garden is full of them and they are a great natural resource to explore. We have been moving around the pots and digging up the borders for the last few weeks and so have found quite … Read more
This is a sponsored blog post I am extremely passionate about learning through play. I share all sorts of activities we do at home and most of the time it looks like complete chaos, but there’s method behind the madness. I try to incorporate opportunities to learn in to everything we do, in such a … Read more
This is a really fun project for budding scientists – when you mix baking soda and vinegar a chemical reaction occurs which creates bubbles. This is fun all on its own but when you involve colours things take on a new direction. I’ve previously written about how Arlo’s schema penchant is for transformation and so … Read more
This was an interesting play set up, I’m so used to having to pretend that shaving foam ice creams are delicious – I wanted to put Arlo’s mixology skills to the test for real. I’ve been reading about schemas recently and figuring out that Arlo seems to have a penchant for transforming things and so … Read more
I often use rice and chick peas for indoor play activities. They provide the sensory fun element of play but as dry ingredients the clean up process isn’t as daunting as it is with slime. Here is how to dye chick peas for messy play. You will need: My process for dying the peas is … Read more
Arlo absolutely loves painting, and playing with colours. He hasn’t stopped talking about the snow painting activity we did and every morning he looks out of the window checking for snow. We do of course get our messy play materials out indoors but there’s nothing better than having a giant canvas outdoors. Unfortunately the snow … Read more
I’ve never seen Arlo have quite as much fun as we did today. We’ve been lucky enough to have lots of snow recently and last night it was coming down thick and fast so I decided to put together this activity for the morning. You will need: Water based poster paint Water Condiment bottles All … Read more
I have been filling the tuff tray with water every night in winter in the hope that it will freeze over, as I wanted to make a giant version of this Ice skating messy play tray. Today we managed to get a thick enough sheet of ice to play with. First things first we did … Read more
We had snow last night and I knew Arlo would want to play outdoors and so I rummaged around the house trying to think about what we could do – and an ice cream station seemed like the best plan. You will need: Cups / tubs Spoons Scoops Slime/foam for ice cream Water beads for … Read more
I decided to set up an arctic tuff tray outdoors to get a bit of fresh air – this one is not for the faint hearted! As the temperature has dropped so much I filled the tray with water late last night and i dropped in some snow flake decorations left over from Christmas, and … Read more