Child's Play

I bought a book recently; 350+ Free Activities for Preschoolers. If you have a child under 6, you must buy it. Consider this a free and unsolicited advertisement. It's going to rescue us on many a rainy day this winter. We've already had several hours of fun inspired by these pages. Including the jelly shapes pictured. It also has a lot of recipes for playdough, paint, glue... and food of course. Our favourite has been the "Fantastic fudge brownies", and they are. Fantastic that is. If not entirely pre-schooler friendly. Well, they go down a treat; it's the resulting sugar high that you have to watch out for. The author lives in the US but this edition seems to have been rejigged a bit to suit the aussie market; mentions of playschool, Mem Fox, et al.

Also mentioned in the book, but also an obvious, often utilised (in this house anyway) art idea is the tracing portrait. You know, lie the little person down on a piece of paper, draw around them and they fill in the details. This is Mari's latest. Quite a good likeness I think. Pay special attention to the butterfly with which she's deep in conversation, the flowers she's holding and the caterpillar crawling up her arm. Nice touches all of them, I think. Also in view are my lovely Mother's Day flowers.