Sensory Play is one of the few activities that I know will entertain my kids for quite a long period of time. The quicker and easier the set-up for me, the better. 

For today's activity, rather than make up some slime for my son to play with, I gave him the two basic ingredients, popped out a selection of his little superhero figurines and let him make it for himself. 

This not only means less work for me, but more importantly, it means that he is experimenting and learning a range of skills and concepts through experiencing for himself.

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Watercolour paper, salt and watercolour paint come together to create some incredible results. What makes the best results? That's what you'll need to explore!

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There are not many children that I know, that aren't fascinated by dinosaurs in some way. (Or adults, come to think of it). These incredible creatures, larger and more interesting than we can really imagine, that lived on this earth long before we arrived!

If your children love dinosaurs, here are a collection of 10 fabulous dinosaur themed activities that incorporate sensory play, maths, imagination, storytelling, creating, crafting and more! Enjoy!

1) Handprint Dinosaurs

Create your own dinosaurs, using your very own handprint for their body, legs and neck. Add eyes and a tail to complete your creation.

Materials: Easy Wash paint, paintbrush, paper, googly eyes (optional), marker.

TIP: To avoid really awkward twisting of the wrist, print your handprint with your hand around the right way and then turn your paper upside down to get the "dinosaur legs" on the bottom of the page 

To make the head, either print an extra thumb print at the end of your dinosaurs "neck" or slightly move your thumb when making your handprint to create a head shape. Press your googly eyes on while the paint is still wet. Alternatively you could stick them on with glue or draw on eyes once the paint has dried.

Use your paintbrush to add a tail to your dinosaur. You could also add spikes or any other details you'd like.

Add further details with a permanent marker once the paint is dry.

 What cool colours and patterns would you make your dinosaur?

We thought that this little guy, made by my 4 year old, looked a lot like an orange spotted grinning Arlo.

2) Create your own Dinosaur World

 Provide your child with materials to make their own Dinosaur World for pretend play.

Materials they could use are:

• a large tub
• your favourite plastic dinosaurs
• rocks
• trees (use plastic shrubbery or collect some leaves and twigs from outside)
• smaller tub for lake/pond (optional)
• water (optional)
• felt for grass or water

Have fun playing, using imagination and story telling to create adventures for your dino friends in their new dinosaur land!

3) Dinosaurs in Sticky Mud

For a super sensory activity, full of messy imaginative play, have a go at this sticky mud dinosaur tub! You can find all the details for making it here.

4) Paper Plate-a-sauruses (with free printable templates)

Use some basic supplies, including these free printable dinosaur templates to create your own paper plate dinosaur friends. 

Use your creations for decoration or story telling. You could even try sticking a craft stick to your designs, turning the lights out and shining a torch on your dinosaur for some cool dinosaur shadow puppets!

My kids noticed that the Diplodocus looked a lot like Arlo the Apatosaurus. They were right! They do look similar and in fact, they are both from the Diplodocidae Family.

This super cool activity made by The Craft Train for Learn with Play at Home

5) Sandpit Dino Dig!

How about trying out the role of paleontologist with your own dinosaur bone excavation in the sandpit? You can see more pictures of our dino dig (and whole Dinosaur Party) here.

6) Make your Own Dinosaur Bones

Picture by The Imagination Tree

If you don't have any plastic dinosaur bones to dig up, fear not! You could make your own using these instructions from The Imagination Tree. You'll also see some great ideas on how to use the bones to work on maths concepts such as length and counting.

7) Create Dinosaur Fossils from Coffee Grounds

Picture by I Can Teach My Child

As well as bones, you can make some very cool dinosaur fossils out of coffee grounds using these instructions from I Can Teach My Child.

8) Make Dinosaur Masks

Use paper-plates to make your favourite dinosaur masks and use them for imaginary play. Or, you can print out some free Dinosaur Masks from Itsy Bitsy Fun or from Mother Natured here. What would you use to make an Apatosaurus mask?


9) Cardboard Tube Dinosaurs

Picture by The Craft Train

Get crafty making these adorable dinosaurs from The Craft Train, using cardboard tubes or toilet paper rolls. See the full instructions on how to make them here. If you collect enough cardboard rolls, you could even create an entire prehistoric land!

10) "The Good Dinosaur" Colouring Sheets

Decorate your favourite characters from The Good Dinosaur movie with these free printable colouring sheets. Click on the links to download and print your favourites. Paint, colour or collage them as you like.

 ** Arlo & Spot 1 ** Arlo & Spot 2 ** Butch ** Ramsey ** Nash **

Perhaps you could use them as inspiration to write your very own story imagining what it might be like if dinosaurs never became extinct, or "If I had a dinosaur as a friend". 

Happy creating!

Do you have any dinosaur fans in your family?

Happy playing,

Debs :)

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Pompoms/pom-poms/pompons/pom-pons (whatever you call them!) are a relatively inexpensive, yet very fun and versatile little manipulative. Usually found in the craft section of most shops in a range of different colours and sizes, pompoms can be used in all manner of different ways and for different play and learning activities. Here are 53 fabulous ways that you can use pompoms to help further math, literacy, fine motor, gross motor, sensory, play, imagination, craft and/or scientific skills.

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Today's simple play idea is one that people often play outside, but is equally as fun inside too. Making potions! My children very much enjoy adding little leaves, flowers and pebbles to water when they are outside. In fact, I remember loving to play like this when I was young too. To play inside, rather than searching the garden for potion supplies, we raid the pantry and craft cupboard instead, looking for small items that can be mixed into water. 

Here is a fun sensory "Invitation to Play" potion making that encourages skills such as pouring, transferring and scooping whilst investigating solubility (which things dissolve or not), capacity, buoyancy (whether they sink or float) and more.

Ages: 2 years +

(N was 3 years old here. See the handy tips at the bottom to Simplify and Extend to suit your child's needs) 

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Handwriting is something that takes children a while to master. 

It is a skill to coordinate a pen/pencil in a controlled manner to produce an exact result and one that develops over time and experience. 

To develop good handwriting, you require good fine-motor skills, hand/finger muscle strength and a good pen-grip/hold.

Being a trained teacher, since my children started holding and drawing with writing tools (pens, pencils, markers, crayons, paintbrushes), I have been encouraging them to adjust their grip to hold their writing implements with the three correct fingers that allow for good handwriting down the track.

Many children don't practice holding a pen using the correct 3 fingers until they get to school and then it's often a matter of trying to correct the natural hold that they have developed. 

Whilst children (and adults) are able to write using other various holds, the time-tested method below, once mastered, is the most comfortable way to write, allows for ease of movement and is the least likely to cause muscle strain or discomfort, especially when writing for lengthy periods of time.

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This post is sponsored by Illooms Ballons

Balloons are often synonymous with parties for decorating and adding a burst of colour and fun, quickly and easily, but there are so many more things that balloons can be used for! 

There are a huge number of balloon games, fun activities with balloons, balloon crafts and even science experiments using balloons that you can try.

Playing balloon games is great for encouraging gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination, balance, concentration, focus and movement. 

Balloons don't cost a fortune, they're easy to store and transport (we take some with us in our kids travel kit) and they can be played with by people of all ages, making them an ideal material for all sorts of occasions.

It seems that now the humble balloon has become even more fun with the introduction of the new ILLOOMS balloons. Unlike your average balloons, these contain a fixed LED light in each balloon, which illuminate for up to 15 hours when activated with the easy-pull tab!

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We love experimenting around with various creative materials and seeing the different results that can be produced using these different materials and processes. 

In today's arty activity, the steps involved are simple enough for children of all ages, but can vary dramatically in results depending on their design. The results that we obtained ended up looking quite beautiful, but it was the experimenting with different designs, colours and the dramatic change that occurred when water was added, that really made this a stand-out activity.

Ages: 2+

See the bottom for Handy Tips

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Magna-Tiles. Are they really worth the money?

This post is sponsored by Finlee and Me

There are so many toys out there available for purchase, that it can be hard to know what is going to be of real value. We have been very fortunate to have the opportunity to review a number of fabulous educational toys over the years. We're often asked to promote or review toys for kids but the reality is that only a select few make it on to the blog and into our hearts as a toy that we absolutely love.

For a toy to make it into our top toys list, it needs to:

• be fun
• be educational
• be appealing
• be open-ended
• allow for creativity
• be able to be used for many years by multi-ages

Magna-Tiles ticks all these boxes and their aesthetic beauty combined with their ease of use and ability to allow for creativity, problem solving and imaginative play have firmly entrenched it as one of our favourite toys of all time.

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My 3 (almost 4) year-old is really into letters at the moment. 

He's asking questions about them, pointing them out, recognising/naming them, making them and just generally showing that now is the time to follow his interest and provide him with opportunities to practice and learn more about letters and his name.

I don't have time for fancy set-ups or anything that takes a long time to prepare these days (3 year-olds really keep you busy!) and it's almost always the simple activities that are most enjoyed and get the most use. 

This wax-resist activity is a classic that doesn't go out of style. You only need a candle, paper and some watercolour paint to have fun practicing name recognition, letter learning, number learning and just having fun.

Ages: 2+

See the bottom for handy tips to simplify or extend to suit your child's age & level of development.

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Letters are a hot topic at our house these days. Noah (3.5) has taken a real interest in letters, pointing them out, asking about their names and sounds and making connections between letters and other people or things in his life. Now is the perfect time for me to build upon this interest and offer opportunities for him to practice reading, writing, tracing, sounding-out, recognising, playing with and experiencing letters. 

At this age especially, I believe learning should be enjoyable and not forced. You can read more about my thoughts on learning letters with younger children here and how best to go about it here.

Today's activity works specifically on letter recognition, letter formation, fine motor skills and name recognition.

Ages: 2+

See the bottom of the post for handy tips for getting the most out of this activity for your child/ren

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We've been interested in monoprinting ever since we tried it out ages ago while cardboard comb painting and painting on a mirror. The reveal that you get when you peel back the paper is fun and exciting as you never quite know what is going to appear and no two prints will ever be the same!

This clay imprinting art is a fun activity for kids of all ages with just a few simple steps.

1) Making your design by imprinting your rolled clay, 2) painting over the design, and 3) printing the design off the clay.

Ages: 2-3+

See the bottom of the post for handy tips to extend or simplify for your child

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We love a sweet treat (who doesn’t?) but increasingly I’m noticing that treats are becoming more of a regular thing than an occasional, “treat.” In fact, I could pretty much refuse to personally give my children a single treat and they’d still end up with plenty. Between grandparents, special events, birthday parties, class parties/birthdays, etc. they are getting these sorts of treats quite regularly. Most of these commercial sweets however are full of things, like refined sugars and unnecessary chemicals and colours that don’t add any nutritional benefit to my kids at all.

So, as a way to ease my concerns a little, I decided we'd attempt to make more of our own sweet treats using healthier alternatives. Still sweet, still a yummy treat, but one that can be slipped into the lunchbox guilt free. You can click on the links in the Ingredient list below to read more about why these ingredients are not only better than the alternatives, but provide health benefits as well.

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Here is a simple little activity, quick to set up, that can have children busily creating for ages.

When I set out this invitation-to-play with playdough and pasta, it was with the intention to use it to further our interest in building and design. We talked about architecture and the different ways buildings are made these days. If you like, you can have a look at our engineering activity and use the pictures of different buildings as inspiration.

This activity can encourage creative thinking, problem-solving, fine-motor skills, literacy skills, hand-eye-coordination, mathematical concepts, design, concepts of gravity and more.

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Paper plates are a fabulous base for crafts, especially if you're making them with a group of children, as they are quite cheap, sturdier than paper, already in a circular shape and are sold in multi-packs. 

Many of us would already have some tucked away in the back of a cupboard somewhere, making these crafts ones that you'd probably already have all the materials for.

Crafts make a great accompaniment to areas of interest and study for children. 

Generally I wouldn't be doing a craft just for the sake of doing a craft, but more as a way to take learning further and to continue to consolidate ideas and understandings on a particular topic/subject. 

As an example, when teaching the Early Years the letter "S," we would do a number of different fun activities focussing around this letter and the sound that it makes to engage children and help them to learn and retain the information. 

One of the activities would be making a paper plate ssss-snake that we'd hang by ssss-strings and watch them ssss-spin!

The process of making the crafts engages fine-motor skills and creativity as well as encouraging children to follow instructions. 

With crafts, there is often an order to what needs to be done, ie. cutting before painting, that children learn, as well as specific skills like cutting, pasting, etc.

Depending on the craft and your focus, you can use the time creating to talk about things like what you're making, what letter it begins with, what classification it falls under, what sound it makes, how to spell/write/read the word and so on.

As animals are something that children are always going to be interested in and will always be learning about, here I've compiled my favourite paper-plate animal ideas from around the web.

Paper Plate Bear by First Palette

Paper Plate Butterflies by Krokotak (love the spoon body!)

Paper Plate Cat by Danielle's Place

Paper Plate Cow by Housing a Forest

Paper Plate Dinosaur by The Craft Train for Learn with Play at Home (with free printable templates)



Paper Plate Elephant by Activity Bucket (with free printable template)

Paper Plate Hippopotamus by I Heart Crafty Things

Paper Plate Lion by Preschool Corner (perfect for practicing scissor skills!)

Paper Plate Mouse by We Made That

Paper Plate Owl by Happy Hooligans



Paper Plate Panda by Danya Banya (great for practicing some simple sewing skills too)

Paper Plate Peacock by I Heart Crafty Things

Paper Plate Penguin by Learn with Play at Home

Paper Plate Rabbit by Laughing Kids Learn

Paper Plate Sheep by Housing a Forest (these would have been great as a "Where's the Green Sheep" Party activity!)



Paper Plate Snake by Crafty Morning (see their fun way of printing on these snakes. This craft is also great for patterning)

Paper Plate Tiger by No Time for Flash Cards

Paper Plate Toucan by Pink Stripey Socks (so cute! And still only uses the one plate)

Paper Plate Turtle by Artsy Momma

Paper Plate Whale by In the Playroom

Handy Tips:

- Simplify these paper plate animal crafts for younger children by helping with any tasks that they're still to develop the fine-motor skills and coordination for, like the cutting. 

Really young children can help with decorating and sticking on parts and those children developing skills can use the experience to practice cutting and positioning.

- Extend the learning before or after making your paper plate animals by encouraging things like:

• Dramatic play with the animals. eg. Put on a puppet show
• Writing or story-telling about your animal. eg. Tell a story about the day your animal got lost
• Making animal sounds
• Reading fictional stories that include your animal
• Reading and researching non-fiction stories and information about your animal. eg. Find out more about their habitat, location, food etc.
• Listing 3 facts about your animal
• Writing or reading the letters/name of your animal

- Allow creativity by not insisting that their animal craft look exactly like the pictures. What colour could their animal be? How is it the same or different from the real life animal? How could you make the craft a little different to add your own spin on it?

More ideas using paper plates:

• Use paper plates in a travel activity pack
• Get arty with some paper plate painting
• Make a paper plate bag
• Explore emotions with paper plate faces
• Set up a pretend play pizza shop with paper plates

Happy playing,

Debs :)

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