Pegs and Pompoms

I have got a nice activity for a four year old kid. It's time to get hang of the clothes pegs!

If you have those colorful pompoms in your craft cupboard you can play with your kid these simple games:

Getting used to pegs.

My daughter did not seem to have a chance to use any clothes pegs before. I had to show her in a very detailed way how this thing worked. So I said: Look at these things that grip and pinch! Do you know how to hold it? Look, it has its "mouth", with which it grips things. And the "wings", you press them and the mouth gets open. Easy, you've got to take the peg at the right end. And then let go. Try! And she tried. She loved it so much that she put few pegs on the sleeves and on her skirt. It was easy to put a peg on the edge of anything, when there were edges.

Easy peg crafts.

I took some cardboard sheets and cut out several shapes: a circle for the sun, semi-circle for a hedgehog, a triangle for a green tree and some more... Tasya had to put some pegs around the shapes and to draw the faces for them. (This is not my pic, it's one from the Internet and I am sure, you can find even more shapes, if you like this idea!)

Find a tricky peg.

That was a funny game! One of us had to close her eyes while the other gently pegged her in a secret place. Open your eyes and find the tricky peg. She had to touch herself all over to find it.

Pegs and Pompoms

After she got used to peg an edge of her clothes I challenged her to peg something that had no edges. The pompoms! They were so round and naughty, they always tried to escape from our greedy pegs. They slipped off and away from the bowl they ran. Come back, Mr.Bouncy! Mr.Greedy is going to get you anyway! Finally my daughter tried to help herself with the other hand. I knew that it would have been so much easier to cup a pompom in one hand and to peg it with the other. But I wanted to challenge her more. So I said it was a claw grabbing machine that you saw in the airport or in The Toy Story (Pixar), we pretended that the pompoms were sweets or toys. So we emptied one bowl and filled the other. Well done!

For the second round we changed the pitcher for an egg container. Each ball set cozily in its nest.
 

When I wanted to have one more round I had to change the rules: this time I gave her ten pegs. One for each pompom. She had to fill the jar with the pompoms stuck in the hungry peg's mouth.

I hope, you and your kids will like these ideas. Have fun and share with friends!

Tasya goes camping

Maisy camping
Расскажу как мы обыгрывали книжку и мультфильм c Maisy про поход, костёр и палатку.
Сначала играли на улице. Погода была снежная, мы спрятались под горку, которая стала нашей палаткой. Все прошло довольно спонтанно, я засняла лишь часть нашей игры, Тая очень разыгралась в тот день, после игры в кемпинг пошла на медведя, носилась по всему двору : Where is Polar Bear?
Но сейчас не об этом :) самый забавный для меня момент, это как Тая сложила аккуратный шалашик из дров вокруг столба :) я только дровишки подносила. Мы спалим эту площадку - we are going to set this place on fire - это, конечно была моя шутка, Тая пока не понимает таких вещей.
Она всё шишки искала, cones - говорю ей, здесь нет хвойных деревьев (coniferous trees - ой, опять я со своими недетскими словечками), поправилась : evergreen trees. А вообще, учиться разбираться в деревьях начнем весной, пора.
Потом пришел соседский мальчик и схватил полешко, стал колотить. Это был опасный момент, мы прервались. На видео слышно, что Тая не переключается пока на русский, когда кто-то приходит (как и я, а надо было сразу мальчику обьяснить, что у нас игра, он у нас вгостях). Вот тая кричит: do not destroy! Do not destroy!
Tasya goes camping: http://youtu.be/nLCz5_nuQO0
Есть ивторая часть, где Тая храпит, но потом мы отвлеклись от темы, рисовали на снегу (будет доступно на ютюб).

Часть вторая. Играем дома.
Для поделки "палатка" я использовала обувную коробку, три карандаша, соединила их резиночками (для волос), обмотав крест-накрест и воткнула в коробку - каркас готов!
Комментировала примерно так:
Taya, let's play camping. This is a box, it will be a nice place for a camp. We are going to pitch a tent here. These are the tent poles, let me connect them by winding and crisscrossing the elastics around them. Now I will poke the box with pencils and our poles will be up for tent.
Потом мы взяли листик зеленой бумаги, накинули на каркас палатки, я поняла, что края листка едва касаются земли, решила проделать в листке дырочки, в которые продевают колышки, все как по-настоящему :) это добавило устойчивости палатке. А уголки прикнопили к коробке. Потом сложили костёрчик из спичек. Звучало это так: It's hard work pitching a tent (из книжки)
Here is the tent, let's put it on the poles. We've got to get the poles through these two holes in a tent. Here it is, our tent! Now it needs to be pegged to the ground. Take the pegs, please, and hammer them to the ground. The tent stays up! We used some matches to make a campfire by the tent.
А теперь самое интересное: пора ложиться. Первым идёт тигр, у него фонарик (я включила фонарик на телефоне и положила телефон в палатку). Играем в теневой театр - кстати, отличная идея на будущее :)
There is room for everyone.
First in was Tiger. One in the tent!
Next went Winnie-the-Pooh. Two in the tent! Can you see their shadows?
-yes, and me, and me, I want to see my shadow too! - отвечала Тая предлагая следующую игрушку.
Move up everyone, make room for the twin tiger (у нас было два одинаковых тигра-близнеца) Four in a tent!
Is there room for one more? Eddie, come in!
Oh dear, what a squash! What a squeese! What a squeezy-squish-squash! Five in a tent! Goodnight, campers!
Pop! Out popped tiger.
Pop! Out popped Winnie.
Pop! Out popped twin tiger.
Out popped everyone except Eddie.
Sleep tight, campers! One in the tent, four under the stars.

Rice is nice

Colored rice grains for mosaic or to fill a jar or any other colourful crafts

Cangaroos

Good printable cangaroo game and words in animal world
http://www.wildlifefun4kids.com/

Very hungry caterpillar

I thought I could not fulfill it with my two-year-old, but today l woke up and thought, why not?
I took the same plasticine I used for “cooking“
аnd rolled the fruits. I know it will take a week or so to dry up and the colours will fade a little. But we made it! And Tasya named all the fruits and learned how to roll, prick, pierce. I used a juice straw to decorate blackberries with circles. 
And i pricked oranges and strawberries to make them look more natural.
However, the process is described here in details:
http://www.mylittlebookcase.com.au/activities/how-to-make-the-very-hungry-caterpillar-necklace-and-diy-activity-set/

And in the end I post a picture of the threaded beads. 
We used a shoe lace, as it had the ends which were easy to thread without anything else. Enjoyed it a lot.