10 ideas for Pretend Play setups

Jun 24, 2014

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Welcome to TUESDAY TOTSBrought to you weekly by Learn with Play at home (that's us), Rainy Day Mum and One Perfect Day.



This week we are showcasing

"10 Pretend Play Ideas"

Pretend Play or Imaginative Play is a huge part of growing up. Children are naturally drawn to imitating and copying the actions of those they see around them. Pretend play provides them with opportunities to practice a wide variety of skills in a safe way. From oral language development and socialisation to specific physical skills and creativity, imaginative play allows for so much and is to be encouraged. Here are 10 fun ideas that you could use to encourage your child's love of pretend play, with lots of clever little props and additions that you can provide to make the experience even more fun and entertaining.

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Ham, Cheese and Spinach Muffins. Cooking with Kids

Jun 22, 2014

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I try to involve my children in the cooking as much as possible. As they are getting older, I'm finding they are getting a bit more picky about what they will eat, but are more likely to try new things when they have been part of the cooking process.

As my daughter is now in school, I am always trying to come up with easy and healthy ideas to pop in her lunchbox. The other day, while she was at school, the toddler and I tried making some Savoury Cheese, Ham and Spinach Muffins, with great results. I'm not sure how many made it into her lunchbox and how many we ate ourselves at home, but either way, we'll be making them again soon.

I adapted this recipe from a number of different recipes to make it as easy as possible to make. So easy, a 2 year old can make them (with supervision and a wee bit of assistance).

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How to make Rainbow Soap Slime

Jun 17, 2014

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My kids love messy play! A lot of the art and sensory play that we do involves a certain amount of mess, (perhaps that's part of what makes it so fun?).

One of my daughter's favourite sensory activities, that she first played with at preschool, was Soap Slime

Now, this is definitely messy play, but it's made from soap, so it must be clean, messy play, right? Well, sort of. It depends on the colouring. 

Since the lesson we learnt making cornflour slime, I have been hesitant to use food colouring in their messy play but hey, we won't know until we give it a try, right? 

What better way to test than with Rainbow Soap Slime.
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7 days of Water Play

Jun 10, 2014

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Welcome to TUESDAY TOTSBrought to you weekly by Learn with Play at home (that's us), Rainy Day Mum and One Perfect Day.



This week we are showcasing

"7 water play activities"

Water play is often thought of as "summer play" or something reserved for hot weather, however, depending on the activity, children can incorporate water play whatever the weather. As a readily available sensory material (in our part of the world, anyway),  water play is often very inexpensive, easy to set-up and loved by children of all ages. Here are a collection of 7 different activities involving water, one for each day of the week. Number 6 would be best saved for warmer weather, but the rest can be attempted at any time, with a number being suitable for indoor play.
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Learn to Read. 6 Reading Games

Jun 4, 2014

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Welcome to TUESDAY TOTSBrought to you weekly by Learn with Play at home (that's us), Rainy Day Mum and One Perfect Day.



This week we are showcasing

"6 Games to practice Reading"

Learning to read is one of those very important developmental milestones for kids. The completely awesome thing about learning to read is that really, all you need to do to learn to read, is to read (and read, and read, and read).
Ok, so generally there is a starting point to learning to read formally, which is by learning letters. But learning to read should start long before individual letter learning and it comes from being read to as a child. For children to learn how to read they need to be read to continuously and they need to have opportunities to read text in all forms.
To help with the comprehension of text, children often practice sight words so that their reading flows more easily and understanding is not lost. Just reading over letters and lists of sight words isn't the most interesting activity for kids though, so here are 6 games from last week's Tuesday Tots link-up, that make practicing reading fun.
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