Springtime Daffodils

One activity that always goes down well at playgroup is planting. Usually we'd plant seeds, but this activity coincided with St Patrick's Day, so we decided to opt for daffodils. 

All very well and good, but bulbs actually need planting in November, so we cheated and bought some that were ready sprouted, for the children to plant in their pots!

All potted up!

The question was, what song to sing? Not knowing any St Patrick Day songs, Mary Mary, Quite Contrary, seems a good choice to me!



Equipment:

• Pots of young daffodils (we got ours at Asda*)

• Tuff builder's tray

• Compost

• Plastic trug

• Small trowel/large spoon

• Paper cups (we bought a selction of coloured cups from Baker Ross*)

• Stickers

• Felt Pens

• Washing up bowl with soapy water (for hand washing)

• Towel

Preparation:

• Buy daffodil pots & compost. Open the compost bag and empty into plastic trug.

• Lay out planting equipment on Tuff tray. It makes a good base that will contain some of the mess.

Ready for action

Method:

1. Decorate paper cup with stickers & felt pens.

2. Fill pot halfway with compost.

3. Place bulb in pot.

4. Add more compost around the bulb and press down firmly.

5. Wash hands thoroughly, to make sure all the compost is cleaned off.


*Any indication of where we sourced products is just to help you find suitable products and materials. We are not affiliated to any companies. We do not profit by mentioning them..

Marching Drums

One of the songs our littlies love to sing at playgroup is The Grand Old Duke of York. So it seems only natural to make our own drums, with which to sing along!

Ready to march!

If you need a reminder, the words of the song can be found by following this link.


Equipment:

• Used container with lid

• Coloured paper circles

• Felt pens

• Stickers - we ordered some instrument stickers from Baker Ross*

• PVA glue and spreaders

• Plasticine

• Short sticks

Not that attractive in its original state, you can see why it needed covering!

Preparation:

• Collect suitable tubs/containers.

• Cut coloured paper/light card circles for the top of the tub. You could also do as I did, and cut card to fit the side of the tub, or if you're feeling brave you could use poster paint mixed with PVA glue.

Method:

1. Use PVA glue to stick coloured paper on the tub, to prepare the surface for decoration.OR paint decoration using paint mixed as above.

2. Decorate coloured paper using felt pens & stickers.

3. Roll a ball of plasticine and mould it round the end of a short stick, to form a drumstick.

4. Don't forget to try them out at song time! The children are sure to enjoy marching round with their drums!

*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.

Spoon Dollies

I don't know if you're like me, but if you're not careful, you can fall into a rut at Song Time - singing all the same old songs with very little variety, which can get a little boring. 

Basing our craft on Songs and Rhymes has helped me to choose more carefully. This week we had great fun making Spoon Dollies, so we could sing 'Miss Polly had a Dolly.'

This was our example, made by my daughter

Equipment:

• Wooden spoons* 

• Large cupcake paper cases

• Ribbon of various thickness/lengths

• Pipe cleaners

• Wool

• Felt Pens

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Googly eyes

• Stickers

• Buttons

We bought ours from Baker Ross

Preparation:

1. Cut lengths of wool in various colours (to use for hair).

2. Cut short lengths of ribbon.

Method:

1. Use PVA glue to stick on googly eyes.

2. Use felt pen to draw on nose/mouth etc.

3. Push paper cupcake case onto the end of the spoon, to form a skirt. You could add a small lump of Blu tac inside to hold in place, but we sued a blob of PVA glue.

4. Stick ribbon onto the top part of the spoon handle to form a top for the dolly. 

5. Wind a pipe cleaner around the top of the spoon handle to form arms.

6. Use PVA glue to add 'hair'. My daughter used some fake hair from our craft box, but the children at playgroup used wool, which was just as effective.

7. Embellish with buttons/stickers, then leave to dry.

*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.

Chinese Lanterns

Our second week of Songs and Rhymes and the aim was to introduce a new one. Well, its actually quite an old one, but new to me and certainly to the children. Quite handily, it tied in with Chinese New Year. So, the craft just had to be... 'Chinese' lanterns!!

The finished article

I can't claim any credit fro the idea, we used a printable from Twinkle, a UK based teacher's resource site. It's full of great ideas. You have to register to use it. Some ideas are available for free, but for others you have to pay a subscription fee.

Incidentally, the song we decided to use alongside this activity was called, 'My ship sailed from China.' It has some great actions, so if children don't know the words, they can always join in with the actions. If you'd like to learn them, this clip from You Tube is quite handy.

Equipment:

• Paper cups 

• Pipe cleaners

• Stickers

• Paper strips

• PVA glue & glue spreaders

• Scissors with sharp points

Preparation:

1. Make two small holes in the top of each cup. I used the sharp points of scissors to do this.

2. Cut thin paper strips.

Method:

1. Show children how to thread both ends of a pipe cleaner through the two holes in the top of the cup. 

2. Look inside the cup and pull both ends of the pipe cleaner towards you and twist the ends together. 

3. Pull the loop at the top of the cup. The twisted ends should prevent the pipe cleaner from coming all the way back out.

4. Embellish the lantern with stickers of your choice.

5. Spread a line of PVA glue around the inside rim of the cup. Stick one end of the paper strips to the line of glue, to make a tasseled edge to your lantern.

6. If you, can, hang to dry.

Work in progress

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom Rocket Craft

This term, we're focusing on crafts linked to some of the songs we love to sing at coffee and snack time. One of the children's favourites. is 'Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, We're going to the Moon'. To be fair, it's one of my favourites too! 

The finished article

The craft is a simple one, that we first used for Bonfire Night, a few years ago. Now that some of our older ones have moved on, it seems the perfect time to revisit this craft.

Equipment:

• cardboard rolls (kitchen roll tubes, cut in half)

• coloured/shiny paper

• card circles with cut to the centre

• PVA glue/glue spreaders

• stickers

• shiny or brightly coloured paper

• curling ribbon

• washi tape/stickers/embellishments

• sellotape/scissors

Preparation:

• cut card circles

• cut coloured paper to cover tubes

• cut short lengths of curling ribbon

• collect cardboard rolls

Method:

1. Cover cardboard tube with coloured paper, using PVA glue to stick. *

2. Form paper circle into a cone, use tape or glue to fix overlapping parts together.

3. Apply glue to one end of the cardboard tube. Place the glued end into the paper cone and press into place.

4. Use sticky tape to fasten short lengths of curling ribbon into the other end of the cardboard tube.

5. Embellish the sides of the rocket, using stickers and washi tape.

6. Ensure each rocket is named, before being left on the 'Home' table to dry.

Work in progress

* Alternatively, you could paint the rocket, suing a mixture of PVA and poster paint, but you may run the risk of it still being quite wet by home time and also, it might be hard to apply some embellishments, although the glue in the paint might help them stick.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

They say an army marches on its stomach and for the want of a horse shoe nail a battle was lost. Well, what playgroup runs without using some kind of junk?

In this day and age, it's also, I guess, a responsible thing, especially if there's bits and pieces that we just cannot put into local recycling schemes.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

We use a fair amount of recycled bits and pieces and here are some of our favourite:

1. Play-doh pots

We use Play-doh every week at our playgroup. We like to put our fresh pots every so often and it's quite surprising many we get through. Once, emptied and cleaned, they make great pots for keeping lots of bits and pieces, but I love using them as glue pots, for PVA glue. If you keep the lid and put it on the top, once you've finished, and if you've  put the lid on properly, it helps keep the glue from drying out. This also helps prevent glue wastage.


2. Ready meal trays 

The black plastic trays are apparently the worst for recycling. It seems they are difficult for recycling machines to separate. in our area, the local authority won't collect them. However, at our playgroup we often use them as pots to put out bits and pieces for craft, or as trays for holding paint, for craft activities. They can be washed out and used again, if you need to.

Re-purposed ready meal trays being used for printing.

3. Plastic bottles

These can be used in all kinds of ways. Either for junk modelling or making into skittles. My use for plastic bottles, however, is for a craft - turning them into instruments.

Once decorated with stickers and or washi tape, they can be transformed.

The bottle tops can also be re-purposed in various ways - wheels on models of vehicles, for example.


4. Cardboard tubes

Who hasn't made something using a cardboard tube at some point in their lives? These days, I'd recommend using kitchen roll tubes rather than toilet rolls, as I consider them more hygienic. However, I have heard that a quick blast in the microwave can make your toilet rolls hygenic.


5. Glass jars & dessert pots

Obviously you have to be careful, when using glass around young children. Nobody needs or wants broken glass around. However, occasional use, when warranted, is also the perfect opportunity to teach little ones about handling things carefully. 

We love using little glass ramekins, bought containing desserts, as Christmas candle pots and glass jars can make great nightlight holders.

A little decoration can transform a plain glass ramekin.

6. Bubble wrap 

We use bubble wrap for printing. It can be used to great effect, when wrapped round a cardboard tube.


7. Wool

Odds and ends of wool can be used to recreate hair, as seen in this farmer craft.

8. Buttons

Embellish crafts with buttons. Sometimes they can also be used as a feature. In this Poppy craft, buttons worked well in the centre.

And in this Snowman craft, they made great buttons down his front, but black buttons could also have been used for the mouth, although in this case we used stickers.

9. Plant Pots

Whenever we have a planting activity, we like to reuse the smaller pots that you get when you buy bedding plants. A simple clean in a bucket, makes them suitable to use once more.

Plastic pots like these cannot be recycled, so why not reuse them?

Do you recycle?

I would love to know what you reuse, in your craft activities and also how you transform it!

Autumn Leaf Plaques

This craft was inspired by a jewellery workshop I participated in during the summer in which we made pendants and earrings using a form of porcelain clay. 

One of the ideas we were encouraged to try involved pressing plant materials into the clay, then colouring the impressions with under glaze paints. The pieces were later glazed and fired for us.

For the purposes of our craft, firing was not going to be a possibility, neither would painting the pieces once dry. It needed to be an all-in-one process. So we came up with the idea of using leaf stamps, to make plaques like these:

Just like the jewellery project, this craft proved extremely popular.

Leaf Plaque

We used air dry clay for our project. I would imagine that salt dough clay could also be used, but it would require a little baking.

Equipment:

• air dry clay (we used white, but you can also buy coloured clay, although this is likely to be more expensive)

• poster paint/plastic trays/sponges

• leaf stamps (or you could use natural leaves)

• rolling pins

• paper plates or small piece of card

• pens (to label paper plates with names)

• cutters - ours was 10 cm diameter (optional)

• ribbon

• drinking straws (cut in half)

• scissors (to cut ribbon)

• PVA glue to act as a 'varnish' & brush to apply

We used these leaf stamps*

Preparation:

In advance:

• order/buy clay 

• order/buy leaf stamps (or gather leaves, you need to dry them a bit before use, but not too dry, or they will become brittle and fall apart)

• cut ribbon into short lengths

• cut a few drinking straws in half (these will be used to make a nice clean hole in the top of the plaques)

On the day:

• pour poster paint onto sponges and work into the sponge, so that it isn't just a blob on top, then place in a plastic tray. I provided just two colours: yellow ochre and brown.

Soaking the paint into the sponges helps to prevent blobby prints

• roll lumps of clay into small balls

• make an example, to show the children, before they begin

Here's the 'one I made earlier'

Method:

1. Help children into paint overalls.

2. Give each child a paper plate, ball of clay and a rolling pin. The paper plate will be used to roll out the clay, but also to take home the finished piece. This avoids making too much mess on the table, but also avoids lifting the clay plaque before it has dried, which could lead to the plaque becoming deformed. A small piece of card could be used as an alternative.

3. Children roll out clay. A round cutter can be used to make a distinct shape, or it can be left as a 'free' shape, which also looks quite visually appealing. Excess clay can be peeled off from around the edge, once the cutter has been pressed in firmly. 

This plaque is a 'free' shape. No cutter used. 

This plaque has been cut to shape with a round cutter.

4. Children make their designs, by pushing collected leaves or leaf stamps into the paint, then into the clay. As you can see from the illustrations, some used more than one stamp, creating various effects.

Another 'free' shape.

 5. Children press the end of the drinking straw into the top of the plaque, to make a hole for the ribbon, which may or may not need to be threaded by an adult. Some of the older children may be able to do this completely by themselves.

6. Write the child's name on the edge of the paper plate, on which the children will take their leaf plaques home to dry.

7. Place the paper plates on the 'home' table, until the end of the session, then use baby wipes to clean up. It is important to be thorough when cleaning up clay, as tiny dry clay particles aren't great for you, when breathed in.

8. If parents and children are returning the next week, you may wish to provide PVA to 'varnish' over the clay, or to quickly varnish them yourself, for them to pick up the following week, although this is not entirely necessary.


*We sourced ours from Baker Ross. We are not affiliated to Baker Ross in any way. We do not profit by mentioning them. Baker Ross are mentioned merely to assist sourcing of materials.