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Here is our latest kids educational activity ebook and it's my favourite yet!

Up! will take your child's love of blocks and building and take them far and wide across the curriculum.

With 30+ projects across math, literacy, science, art, and play, Up! shows you how to support passion-led, project-based, hands-on learning. It will help your child make connections, go deeper in their understanding, and encourage their questions and creativity.

Including inspiring ideas for block play, mobiles, rockets, airplanes, parachutes, building challenges and more. It also comes with 100 printables for use at home or in the classroom. 

One of the great things about the activities presented in this eBook is that every activity has been tried, tested and approved by real children. The activities have been carefully chosen to offer a wide range of explorations, working across the curriculum to incorporate play, imagination, math, literacy, science, sensory and art and are written by an experienced collection of teacher and parenting bloggers.

The sky’s the limit when you’re learning with Up!

Age guide: 4 to 10 years.

BUY NOW: $11.25 USD
Regular Price: $14.99.
(25% off for the first 2 weeks of launch)

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The change in seasons can be a dramatic one, depending on where you live. Here in Australia, Autumn (Fall) is during the months of March, April and May and we actually have very few deciduous trees (trees that loose their leaves) that are native to our country. We do have some, but they are far outnumbered by the evergreen trees, so when we see the change in colour and pops of red, orange and yellow appearing on trees, they really stand out against the all the green.

To further investigate the changes happening around us and to inspire learning and creativity, I set up this Autumn Leaf Investigation Table for my kids. At ages 4 and 7, I knew that their experiences were going to be different to one another and that materials and even expectations had to be open-ended and able to be used in a way that interested them and was appropriate to their levels.

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With Mother's Day coming up for another year, we took advantage of the opportunity to delve into some language learning and make a special keepsake for Mum at the same time.

(I did find doing this activity a little amusing as I was doing it with my own children. We used the word Mum in the example but talked about how we could substitute in "Nana" or "Grandma" and make a gift for them).

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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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Christmas always ends up being such a crafty, creative time for my kids and I. We love hand-making Christmas cards, making fun Christmas food, playing with Christmas playdough and so much more! It's always fun jazzing up the gifts with our own wrapping paper, ribbons or gift-tags and what I love about it the most, is creating those magical Christmas moments together that will become precious memories over time.

To get the kids excited in creating our Christmas gift-tags, we decided they would feature our favourite Disney Junior characters. Mickey and Minnie Mouse, (classic favourites) and Doc McStuffins, who we love for her healthy living messages and kind, caring nature.

Making the gift-tags ourselves allowed for the children to practice fine-motor skills, (it's not easy to trace and work with small items), cutting skills (this part was especially good for the younger kids) and even some reading and writing skills, in order to label the gift-tags. Younger children may need some assistance with the writing, or you could provide stickers or stamps that they could use instead.

Materials:

• Blank gift tags or gift tag template and coloured cardboard (here is a free printable gift-tag template)
• Scissors
• Hole-punch
• Marker
• Glue
• Ribbon
• Fave Disney character pictures (we just printed some off the Disney Junior Website or you could always buy some stickers)

Either print our your gift-tags on the coloured card of your choice, or trace a plain template onto some coloured card. As we were using a few different characters, the kids wanted to match the colours of each character to the cardboard colour.

Cut out your gift tag.

Cut out your character picture.

Glue next to the pointed end of the gift-tag

Write or draw any greeting on your gift tag. You will also want to label who it is for and who it is from. You can put this on the front or the back.

Punch a hole near the point at the end of the gift-tag and then tie some ribbon through the hole.

Children can play around with the text and format for their gift-tag. It's a good idea to first provide children with a blank gift-tag so that they can practice their wording and the sizing of their text. Often trial and error works best for this.

When your gift-tags are done, coordinate them with matching coloured ribbons or bows and pop them on the presents for the lucky recipients.

There's just something about that homemade touch that makes them more special!

Disney Junior The Channel is where magical storytelling comes to life and is available on Foxtel, channel 709 and Fetch. I love that the Disney Junior characters and stories cover learning areas from early language and maths skills to healthy living and social and emotional development. You can use this inspiration for recreating your own Magical Christmas Moment with your little ones and share these with friends and family. Disney Junior Australia and New Zealand would love to see your ideas so be sure to tag in @DisneyJuniorAUNZ and #DJMagical Moments.

I've found that watching shows with familiar and trusted characters, that are promoting the same messages and values that we teach at home, can be very useful in helping children consolidate the knowledge and entice them to want to recreate the behaviours. 

Here are some more Christmas Activity ideas you may want to try with the kids:

• 26 Christmas Decorations kids can make
• 5 Christmas Tree Activities
• How to make your own Shivery Snow
• Playdough Christmas Tree Printable Gift Bags
• Christmas Decoration Creation Station
• 5 Christmas themed Sensory play ideas

Happy creating,

Debs :)

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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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