Follow us on Pinterest for tons of great kids activities and ideas.

Welcome back to TUESDAY TOTS. (Apologies for the late posting this week). Brought to you weekly by Learn with Play at home (that's us), Rainy Day Mum and One Perfect Day.

Announcement: In order to keep up with the demands of our own households and also those of our readers, Cerys (from Rainy Day Mum), Ness (from One Perfect Day) and myself, have decided to open the Tuesday Tots link up to play ideas, activities and child related posts suitable from birth to teens. 

Where once we only shared ideas for those under the age of 5, we will now be sharing activities, ideas and posts for a larger range of ages/abilities. We look forward to seeing all the new material that is linked up from talented bloggers worldwide and featuring our top picks for the week.

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My toddler (aged 2.5 currently) enjoys all activities that utilise small loose parts. He loves manipulating and transferring materials (moving an item from one place to another), which is fabulous for developing the fine motor skills that will aid him in future tasks, such as writing.

Today was a simple activity that takes a minute to set up but can keep toddlers entertained for well beyond that.

Ages: 18 months+

(See tips at the end for simplifying or extending to suit your child's needs)

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The Samsung GALAXY Tab 3 Kids is the tablet that grows with your child. With intuitive Kids Mode, parental settings and a great selection of preloaded apps, it's the unique tablet for kids that parents will love. This post is part of a Nuffnang native advertising series.

This day and age, children have access to just about every possible play thing imaginable. The variety of toys, games and items made specifically for the entertainment of children is quite overwhelming and is mainly driven by consumerism and toy companies than actual need.

Whilst there have been significant changes in the availability and capability of children's play things over the years, you will find that the way children play and many of the items they play with, have been around long before we were.

Here is a list of 6 different ways/activities that children can play and a brief look at where they began.

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The first week of the school holidays here was quite miserable weather so there was a lot of time spent inside. This meant lots of creative and open-ended activities to keep the kids, aged 5 and 2, entertained and their minds stimulated.

Today's activity was an Invitation to Create with a few available materials we had on hand. My original idea had actually been to wrap pipe-cleaners around some foam pieces to create a type of pipe-cleaner resist artwork, however, it was more interesting and promoted greater creativity and investigation to simply supply the materials and leave the rest up to the kids.

Ages: 2+

(See the bottom for handy tips to make the activity work best for your child.)

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This post is sponsored by Samsung and Nuffnang

Recently we were sent Samsung's first dedicated tablet for kids, the GALAXY Tab 3 Kids, to trial.

In general, I try to limit the electronic or battery operated toys in our house and instead look for toys or materials that are open ended. Most battery operated toys I find are generally unnecessary and have limited purpose or scope for use. When it comes to technology, I understand the benefits, but I also understand the need for parental control.

I have seen how easy it is for my daughter to suddenly be on the internet after accidentally pressing something in a free kids app on my phone, and my son can walk by and touch 4 keys on my laptop and suddenly be in a whole different format or program that I’ve never seen before! It’s safe to say that I think parental control and settings for children using technology are needed.

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Last Easter, I bought a whole lot of little chicks in different colours to use for an activity. (I actually bought them after Easter when the price was reduced and shops were trying to get rid of all their Easter stock. For some reason I packed them away and completely forgot about them until we started approaching this Easter and I saw them in the shops again).

As I couldn't remember the originally activity I'd had in mind, I decided to create a simple Invitation to Play with the chicks and some sensory materials. This activity was open ended so that it allowed for creative, imaginative play for both my 2 year old toddler and 5 year old.

We used the activity to further language skills, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, sorting, counting, colours, classifying, story telling, model making and more.

Ages: 12 months+

(See the handy tips at the bottom for ideas to suit your child's needs)

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Follow us on Pinterest for tons of great kids activities and ideas.

Welcome back to TUESDAY TOTS

Brought 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 simple Sensory Play ideas"

Currently, my son (aged 2) is completely mesmerized by sensory play. He is particularly interested in the sense of touch and the squidgier and squashier (and messier) it is, the more he enjoys it! Sensory play isn't just all messy play though. It includes activities that allow children to explore through their senses, including sight, feel, smell, sound and taste. It is through sensory play that children learn and discover more about the world around them. Here are a collection of 10 simple ideas from last week's linkup, that cover various senses and use materials that most of us have easy access to. 

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This is a sponsored post

Fort Magic is an innovative and creative construction kit for kids, and as such, when they contacted me to see if we'd be interested in reviewing one, we absolutely jumped at the chance. One look at the possibilities for fun and learning this kit contained, and I was very eager to see what it was really like and if it could live up to it's potential. At $199 USD, it's the kind of item that you'd want to think was good quality, that your children would gain from and was going to last you for years to come. If you're interested in finding out what we thought and for a chance to win a set, keep reading.

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Follow us on Pinterest for tons of great kids activities and ideas.

Welcome back to TUESDAY TOTS

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

This week we are showcasing

"8 Activities to help learn colours"

One of the first things that many children learn are their colours. (Yes, that's how we spell colour (color) here in Australia). It is such an obvious and everyday occurrence for children that it makes sense that they would find the need to classify, organise and understand their world in colours. Here are a fun collection of ideas from last week's Tuesday Tots linkup, that will help children learn their colours, but at the same time work on important skills such as fine motor, sorting, grouping, gross motor, numbers/counting, patterns and more.

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