egg carton spiders

Egg carton spiders

require; egg carton (bumpy part), paint & paint brushes, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, scissors, craft knife, skewers or something pointy to poke holes and glue that dries clear.

Cut out each individual bump/cup from the egg carton with craft knife, trim any long bits so they sit evenly.

Poke 8 holes in each egg cup for spider legs with a skewer or point of scissors or large needle, you can either do this now or once they are painted.

Paint ea. cup your desired spider colours and allow to dry.

Glue eyes on, Dylan glued his on top around the side and some very random. Depending on what you do with them would influence where you put the eyes if your going to hang them put them where you can see them, if your going to have them upside down attached by their legs put eyes on top, do you get my drift? You might just put a thread attached through the top and have the children play with them then it doesn't really matter where the eyes are. allow glue to dry.

If you haven't already poked holes do so now and poke pipe cleaners through fold on inside of egg cup, you could glue the legs down now too to make them more robust.

Now you could thread a cotton through the top on a needle attached underneath with a knot if you like for the child to hold the spider. I plan to make a web and attach the spiders by their legs near our steps for Halloween as we are a very small community and the kids do come around trick or treating which is not the norm in NZ.

sassy scribble

late scribble this week due to unschedualed weekend trip to my mums.

Hovercraft

Hovercraft.

I got this idea from MOTAT in Auckland, Ministry of transport and technology or something like that. http://www.motat.org.nz/

Synchronicity was I had made them at home then saw them same day on t.v. and its been a year since i first saw them at MOTAT. I wonder why they came up twice in one day, then i thought i should share the idea also its so simple.

You need a pump style water bottle lid, a cd stack plastic cd or a record, some blue tak or glue. and balloon and a clear surface like a table or bench top.

When you buy a whole lot of cdr the first cd in the stack is just a plastic one these are perfect.

Attach the pump water bottle lid to the middle of plastic cd or record over the centre hole with glue or blue tak make sure its air tight. Close the lid. Blow up a balloon attach it over the lid, then pull up your lid opening and tap the hovercraft in the direction you want it to go, the escaping air will propel your craft.

You can even race them.

you could try cardboard if you have no record or plastic cd but it needs a hole in the middle. I wonder if a cd would work it might be too heavy.

Such a simple hovercraft - i might try it in the bath today or the paddling pool instead of the bench.

noni x

little monsters

 colour in, cut them out, bend a paper clip stick onto back of monster with tape. hello monster characters, build a little city out of blocks, oh no monsters have taken over the city!! someone help, wait super hero Flynn in here with his super gusting breath power, child blows as if they were blowing out candels. Yay all the nasty monsters have fallen over and been defeated. Repeat, our monsters fell into blue water blocks, off tall buildings. Simple fun, too bad my hot slightly sick boy didn't want to colour in today oh well next time. Hope your little monsters like these monsters.

Obstacle course

Encouraging outside play; Obstacle course.

I read something this week about how little outside time children are getting and thought that now its spring and warmer that we should make more effort to play in the warmer sunny days.

I notice my son eats so much better and sits still to eat if we walk on the beach every day for an hour (we have a Jack Russel X dog so I have a real commitment to his exercise). So over and above our hourly walk I am going to try create more inviting outside time, this is what we did yesterday.

When i was a kid we loved to make obstacle courses with my brother and sisters. Dylan was talking about doing some Digby training and i thought lets build an obstacle course.

I found some off cuts of wood, a couple of chairs, a table cloth, a broom, a tunnel, a pool noodle, some balls, a cart, a cone (or witches hat) and of course a box. (I love box's).

Dylan helped make the course and this is what we came up with. Digby dog was happy to participate in doing the course also. Digby and Dylan continued to play on the course and then spent some time playing in the tunnel with cars while i had wandered off to feed my 6 month old baby.

The next day i gave Dylan a spray bottle with a small squirt of detergent, a sponge and cloth to play with outside and was amused to see he spent an hour washing his obstacle course and the sliding door. we had several refills of the spray bottle. I guess its a really good strength building exercise for his hands too squeezing the trigger of the bottle. Then once finished washing Dylan sat in the box and used a collection of pumice stone and a container and did some 'cooking'.

Today Dylan has made a duplo obstacle course with trucks & cars involving the tunnel too for his duplo people. He has even taken the sponge off a microphone for a sack race for them and has asked if he can have a sack too, so I am off to find him a pillow case.

I have left the course set up on the deck to see what else happens with it this week. :)

x noni

Switching to sassy,

Inspired by my sisters idea I put an obstacle course together today for Flynn, Eli and their friend Ayden. Its really really heated up here in the tropics, so i wanted to use some water in my course. I filled up a clam shell then placed some plastic tub next to it with coloured water in them, put some water toys in. I tied the hose to the beam on the cubby so they had a waterfall into the paddle pool. I got some spare bessa blocks and made stepping stones to a fort that i made using an old sail, some sheets thrown over my washing line..ahh shade we need you! i placed the slide and a painters stand thingy for climbing under and over. I tied some bubble wrap onto the cubby for popping, and placed a bucket and a tub of slime into the course. They worked their way around finding all the different things spending ages together exploring each thing. Heading back to the water all the time to cool off. I noticed their appetite was fantastic at lunch time! We going to head back out there this avo when the mid day heat is gone....what would you put in an obstacle course?

sassy x

this is being shared on milk and cuddles wednesday linky

moments

My Sanity List

when my sanity wanders off i sometimes find it in these places

1. in some good music
2. in the pages of a good book
3. chatting on the phone to friends and family
4. in a tranquil spot quietly daydreaming
5. asleep in bed
6. putting help wanted sign on front of my house
7. playing with my children
8. sitting in the "to do" pile of creative clutter, waiting
9. gadding about at the park, or the beach or the art gallery, the pool, the library
10. strategising plans with my other half

if you see my sanity in your travels please tell it to go straight back to sassy, thanks.