Week 2 of the 30 day play challenge!

Well this is my review of the second week of the 30 day play challenge put on by The imagination tree and Hands on as we grow.  For more information on the challenge, or to sign up (its not to late to start) see here.

This weeks challenges were varied and interesting and this is how we got on:

Day 8. Challenge: Water Play!

This one I was holding out a lot of hope for.  It is something I have been meaning to do with mini-faithful for ages as she is a complete water baby and has started to 'help' with the washing up.  But I have never had time to set up for her.  Adding in the idea of using food dye to colour the water took it to new dimensions too.  We spent nearly an hour doing this, as she had so much fun moving the coloured water into different containers using cups and mixing the colours up to make new colours.  I must admit I did not completely follow my mission statement, as she was having so much fun I couldn't resist taking a photo or two...

Day 9. Challenge: Sensory Tub!

This one was less successful.  The plan was to make a tub full of objects from around the home, and let them explore it.  I got mini-faithful to help choose things to go in her tub, we even went looking for twigs and leaves while on the dog walk! So our box had twigs, leaves, cotton wool, rice, pasta, polystyrene balls, pipe cleaners, blocks, her odds and ends of materials, hair brush and some kitchen roll.  After collecting all our things together and placing them in her old textured play box (from when she was a baby and we did this type of play more often).  We did spend a few minutes separating the stuff into piles, but then got distracted with her books of the week, and so we spent the rest of the time reading her books.  I'm not sure whether it is because we used to do this last year, so she has got bored of it or whether its just not her 'thing' but we did still spend the time together uninterrupted.  

Day 10.  Challenge: Mixing Concoctions!

The idea with this one was to mix together vinegar and baking soda, maybe with some food dye to make magic.  Unfortunately this one happened on a day I was working, and so had only a small window on free play time, and our house has neither vinegar or baking soda in so we have been unable to do this one.  We did however do some messy play for 15minutes instead.  

Day 11. Challenge: Outdoor adventures!

This one is right up mini-faithfuls street.  She adores spending time outdoors.  So I planned to take her to the local woods for an adventure.  She did however when she worked out we were going for a walk, insist that the dog came too.  So although in my mission statement I wanted the time to be me and mini-faithful only time, on her request the dog came too, but the dog actually helped add something into our adventure! Once there, mini-faithful decided that we should have running races, which the dog always seemed to win.  Then we played follow the leader, and our leader was the dog, so we went off the paths and into the woods for a while.  We found big piles of leaves to jump in, and sticks to throw for the dog and rolled acorns down the hill.  We had a whale of a time, if not a little tiring.  

Day 12. Challenge: A field trip day!

Unfortunately do to other commitments we couldn't manage a full day, however decided to do a field trip afternoon, we went to the beach.  We usually go in the summer, but figured that there wasn't much going on in the cooler months of the year, and as its only a 15minute drive from us we went to check out what we can do in November at the beach.  Amazingly there was little in the way of the usual attractions, no donkey rides or ice cream vans, but we still managed to have some fun.  We collected stones and shells before dropping them in the sea, we did some mark making with some sticks in the sand.  We practiced walking in a straight line, walking along the sea wall.  We looked at some different types of seaweed (while faithful mummy tried to remember her A level biology work she did on seaweed) and mini-faithful realised seaweed feels 'funny' and smells!

Day 13. Challenge: Sticky Art!

We have a whole section of mini-faithfuls play room set aside for craft based activities most of which can be used in making sticky art.  So I decided to only get a small selection of everything out and see which mini-faithful used.  First off, we stuck down lots of googly eyes, then the stickers came out and we used lots from many different sheets, although we did have to name each one before it went in place.  After that we added glitter glue and normal glitter to the paper before adding the more sparkly bits onto the page.  It did take less than 15 minutes before we declared finished, and no apparently making one was enough.  But this is our finished product...

Day 14. Challenge: Act Out A Story!

Now this really called for a story rather than a book, but I use sensory books as part of my normal job, and have recently been collecting things together to make mini-faithful a sensory version of one of her favourite stories, we're going on a bear huntgloop for the mud, a bag of sticks and leaves for the forest, a mixture of polystyrene balls and white hole punch bits for the snowstorm, and a den for the cave (with one of her teddies in).  First of all we read the story normally, then acted out each of the 'scenes' using the props.  Mini-faithful loved it, she then tried doing the story with one of her dolls although mixing up the order a bit.  Before getting me to read the story again in the den. 

What we have learnt from week 2...

I have learnt I need to start doing some of these activities I have been meaning to do for ages and just haven't got round too, especially things like the water play.  I have decided that we need to buy sticky back paper to do sticking with as that would make things so much easier.  I have learnt that it doesn't matter what we do, but doing something is important. I have learnt that almost anything can be fun, and it doesn't need to be massively creative but just something fun.  

Above all, I have learnt that I love my daughter more than anything, and this time together is so very precious. 

Looking forward to the next weeks worth of ideas....

The 30 day challenge...

Well, last week I decided to get stuck in and take part in the 30 day challenge, by Imagination Tree and Hands on as we grow.
Basically its about spending 15 minutes per day of uninterrupted play with your child (or children), they set you a challenge to take part in each day, you can adapt them to suit your child, the important part is not having any interruptions.  Here is my first weekly report on how we are doing...

Day 1.  Challenge: Mission Statement
We had to make a mission statement on how you would like to become more hands on as a parent.  This is mine...
I am aiming to spend at least 15 minutes per day, with no interruptions to our play.  No looking at my phone, or taking photos, not checking facebook/twitter or any other social media sites (or even the internet in general).  I will not leave her to sort out the dog, or cats or even answer the phone.  I will try not to be thinking of all the jobs on my to do list or clock watch, but enjoy just spending time with my daughter.  I hope to find out new interests of mine and my daughters, and find new activities for us to enjoy together.


They also suggested making a list of your childs interests, here is mini-faithfuls...

• Dolls, and pretend play that involves dolls, eg happyland etc.
• Books.
• Animals.
• Messy play.
• Sorting play.

Day 2. Challenge: Build a fort!
Well, this was a great idea.  Mini-faithful had a whale of a time with this.  We did have an issue that the dog wanted to play as well, but once the dog had been removed, she loved it.  We took some books in, and had a great time reading them, and then brought all her dolls in for them to enjoy the den.

Day 3. Challenge: Block building!
This is one of mini-faithfuls many favourite things anyway, so I had high hopes for this.  We built towers, sorted into colours, shapes and counted them.  I was asked to make houses for her animals etc.  Our only trouble was that mini-faithful did keep getting distracted by the lure of happyland....

Day 4. Challenge: Pretend Islands!
This one didnt go as well, when we tried this mini-faithful would just pick up the cushions and carry them around, but I did bare in mind that you can change the activity to suit your child.  So we incorporated mini-faithfuls love of dolls.  Her dolls had to use 'boats' (a bag) to get to one cushion from another, we made them swim and splash in the water and sometimes they even flew from island to another.  We also sang all the songs we sing at mini-faithfuls swimming lessons with the dolls.

Day 5. Challenge: Play Dough Exploration!
This is one that made me smile.  We play with play dough a lot in the faithful household.  Its a favourite for pre-dinner distraction and is frequently asked for during the day.  But this challenge has a twist, to attempt making the playdough together as well.  I must confess playdough in this household comes from the shop in a pot, and is not homemade.  I always mean to make it but never remember to buy cream of tartar or food colouring.
But ignoring my lack of cream of tartar and food colouring, we went ahead and made the playdough together, mini-faithful adored this and I now have placed cream of tartar and food colouring to my shopping list.  We will be doing this one again.
After making this we decided to mix things up a little more, instead of using our specific playdough tools, we used her beloved happyland toys, and some of our craft supplies to make it a whole new experience.

Day 6. Challenge: Family Together Time!
This was simple enough.  Spend time together as a family.  We decided that we would go for a walk. The reason behind this was simple, in the house there is always a distraction (phones, cats, dog, TVs and computers are some examples) outside the house, this is less of an issue.  We also always rush mini-faithful when out on walks, we have to be somewhere, see someone, or its a dog walk.  This time we went at her pace, when we stopped to look at the boats several times, and spent lots of time counting them together, or picked up some leaves.

Day 7. Challenge: Mega Floor Doodles!
The idea to cover the floor in paper and let your child's imagination go wild.  Colour or use stickers, make playmats for other toys etc.  In theory, I was thinking this would be a great play idea for mini-faithful, her love of colouring and sticking makes this an easy task, and my main concern was how I would teach her the difference between colouring on paper on the floor and just colouring on the floor.  However, whether mini-faithful was just not in the mood for colouring today or tired from her nursery day, she wasnt interested, without stickers, we managed 5 minutes max, with stickers, we lasted another few minutes.  All in all, we lasted 10minutes max.  May try this again another day, when we have had no nursery and hopefully in a more colouring mood.

Our thoughts so far
So far so good.  Some activities we will be trying again (making a fort, and making our own playdough) other activities have given us new ideas to our usual ideas (brick building, things to play with playdough, mega floor doodles). The pretend islands is one Im going to keep in mind, for when mini-faithful is a bit older.  In relation to my mission statement Im doing well, Im not using my phone (hence why we have no photos) and dog/cat interruptions are kept to a minimum.  I must admit on occasions Im clock watching, but we are enjoying our 15 minutes of play.
Looking forward to the next weeks worth of tasks...