Over at Supernanny Rules, Gayla has posted a lovely article on creating a room free of ogres, trolls and bogeymen under the bed. She is acknowledging that children need their safe space, and a space that they can call their own. Without such space there is nowhere for them to withdraw and regroup before setting out on their next new adventure.

4d’s of safe space

• Delineate - make sure there’s a door to pull to, or a curtain hanging up, or a bunkbed for shared rooms. Something to say this is yours and this isn’t.
• Decorate - choose colours, and furniture with the, so they can say “look at that, it’s mine”.
• Design - take an old chest-of-draw, let them add sticky stars and take their ownership of the space a little further.
• De-militarise - when other kids come round to play, keep the bedroom out of bounds. It’s a place for your own to call their own.  No TVs or computer games… these are sociable vaporise-your-mum-and-dad-on-playstation activities.

Add a little play magic

In play imaginary up-wellings can be caught and transmogrified. Monster can be hunted - bad-beasties of all kinds melt upon contact with water; for proof watch Wizard of Oz. Armed with such information we sometimes have a small plant-mister sitting ready. Liberal spraying by parent and child can dowse bogey-beasts and bogarts in giggles.

We also have a story chair, monsters do crop up, but stories deal with them. Dragons are slain, lost is found, Max returns from Where the Wild Things Are and Not Now, Bernard is eaten… erm scratch that last one. Narrative plays with ideas, it takes ideas from here to there.

And when the monsters are there, when there has been sadness and stress. Play. Fight or frighten the monsters. Turn them into tales. But know that they’re real.

tag... play, 2up, 3up, 5up, stay safe

Kids and growed-ups alike, like playdough. There is something quite calming about squishing up lumps of putty. But there is a downside to shop bought dough, kiddywinks and dizzy parents aren’t too hot at remembering lids. Then the playdough goes all crunchy.

So I turned to Nana welikeplay and nicked her recipe. It makes very good playdough; soft, elastic, inedible and smooth for mere pennies.

You will need
a large saucepan
1 cup of flour
half a cup of salt
2 teaspoons of cream of tatar
1 cup of water
4 drops of food colouring
1 teaspoon of oil

Drop all the dry ingredients into a cold saucepan. Give it a quick mix. Add all the wet stuff, stir, and take it to the hob. Keep stirring for a few minutes until the dough becomes a smooth lumpy ball. It’s now good to go. After play store in an airtight container, like the ones the old dough came in.

Enjoy

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This ones not getting filed under ‘be healthy‘ but just sometimes I need to step back from the news and teach the value of treat and restraint.

Squish is an increasable edible substance. Somewhere between pink alien goo and bliss. But very easy for little cooks to make as a present.

You will need
quater of a 500g box of icing sugar
quarter of a pat of unsalted butter
a splash of milk
half a teaspoon of vanilla essence
one growed-up handful of marshmallows, or two little-one handfuls
some coloured sprinkles
a flat tin lined with greaseproof paper
a little saucepan

Double check, line the tin with greaseproof or lose it forever. Sift the sugar into a bowl. Melt butter in a little saucepan… hot, hot, hot. Add the milk, vanilla and marshmallows to the butter; stirring until gloopy. Pour goo into the middle of the sifted sugar, quickly mix out the lumps and pour into the lined tin. Really… make sure it’s lined or you’ll never remove the squishy. When cool enough pat some sprinkles in to the squishyness and bung into the fridge for a while… about two hours seemed to work. Turn it over, pop it out and slice it up.

“I shall call you squishy, and you shall be mine, and you will be my squishy.” Dory

Enjoy… in moderation and as much restraint as you can all manage.

tag... play for today, 2up, 3up, 5up, cooking

You know with small kids you often end up with a few wipes at the bottom of the changing bag which are not as soft and moist as they could be. I’ve come up with a way of using them for a little make and do crafty activity.

You will need
a handfull of botty-wipes
some old poster paint that’s started to separate out, or some new poster paint with a little more water added
newspaper
a dab of pva glu
a couple of wooden clothes pegs

Pre-prepare the wipes by folding them in half and cutting out a half a butterfly shape, this is a growed up job as safety-plastic scissors don’t do the job.. Make sure you keep the body to the fold so that they can unfurl later. Put out lots of newspaper together, then drip the runny paint onto the wipe-wings. The paint will start seeping through to the other side and spreading out mingling with other colours around it; very pretty. Move onto the next one until interest wanes. Once dry use a blob of pva glue to attach the butterfly’s body to a clothes peg; when full dry and colourfast clip to curtains to show them off or a den to make a fairy grotto.

Enjoy.

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One of my earliest school memories is in making peppermint creams in the small ‘cooking’ kitchen of my primary school. I suppose cooking is a grand word for what is essentially mixing, squishing and leaving, but we all have to start somewhere.

There are two entwined recipes here; as a parent I make my fondants with raw egg white, but as a minder I’d have substituted in water and put up with them going crinkly around the edges.  I’m lucky though, to have a secret weapon in my garden. For some two years now we’ve been raising the welikeplay HQ chickens, and so I can guarantee really fresh, healthy and above all salmonella-free eggs.

You will need
half a box of icing sugar
1 smallish egg (or 5 tblsp water)
a couple of drops of peppermint essence and a drop of food colouring
greaseproof parchment lightly sprayed with sunflower oil

read on »

tag... play for today, 2up, 3up, cooking

I’ve been incredibly lucky, in the years I’ve been doing childcare I’ve only had to deal with a few toddler explosions; and only, so far, from mine own.

Tantrums happen, I don’t believe that any parent gets away scott free. Instead we have to develop our own schemes and strategies to respond to these upwellings. Frequently they are born of frustration, toddlers have so much tumbling around in their minds that they often struggle to get it out using the few words they have. Often this is compounded as they reach a developmental milestone - I remember a week of stropiness, followed by the ability to use the past tense quite well indeed. Or perhaps its a situation where the toddler feels insecure in the midst of a barrage of new experiences; like theme parks, parties, or the bright glow of the supermarket. The Rev’d Welikeplay quite often warns of the post-baptism freak out, usually the day after a family event where the child is simply hacked-off with being passed around.

Top 3 tantrum tips: read on »

tag... play, 2up, 3up, be helpful, philosophising, stay safe

Today I’m having to get my head around some extra-calm and gentle play; No1 child has been poorly, and needs something to occupy, entertain and support, rather than play that causes explosions. Poorly play is interesting idea in itself, it gives a little ’space’ in which the child can fit and helps them find their current limitations. This is true not just on the extreme end of the health spectrum found in good paediatric wards; but for those recovering from flus and tummy bugs at home.

Nest Building

A lovely thing to do, which helps children get all ‘comfy and comfortable’. Bring duvets and pillows down to the sofa, shape them into a little cave or nest for your fledgeling. Take in some books or a DS, a sippy cup and a favourite cuddly for a day slobbed out in style. Getting a little bell gives them the illusion of control as you take on a nurse-butler role.

Scrabble

Always a good standby, particularly as kids work out they need your full attention to play. For 5ups can I recommend Junior Scrabble as a useful starting point; and if there is really, really other things you have to do, for older kids there’s Scrabble on the DS which can be taken into their own quiet nest.

Stick People City

After the sofa nest my kids recover to the kitchen table, and we’ve been know to design Lowry-esque stick figure cities. Depending on your child you may be asked to join in or stay clear; but there are stories in every picture, which you may be lucky enough to be told whilst you prepare the obligatory hot chicken soup.

Hoping your little one gets well soon.

Enjoy… as far as you can

tag... play for today, play, 2up, 3up, 5up, 8up, be healthy

Spent some time with Girl No.1 this morning making some banana bread to take home with her. I’m a great fan of banana bread, as its a fairly frequent occurrence at ‘chez welikeplay’ to find some blackened ‘nanas in the depth of the fruit box. Not to self: check the organic box out on the day it arrives, do not resorting to in-box composting.

You will need
15 min messy time + 1 hour in the oven
3 or 4 squidgy bananas
a childs handful of diddy bits of apricot or sultanas or whatever is lurking in your cupboard
zest from a lemon if you’ve got it
100g butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
300g flour
bread tin

read on »

tag... play for today, 2up, 3up, 5up, 8up, be healthy, cooking

… I found our old “Bounce Bounce Tigger” game. And as there were two really little ones around, I pulled it out and changed the batteries. Now this toy is a lot like Buckaroo I remember as a child; except rather than a spring-loaded donkey, it has a Tigger which you need to load up with picnic hampers ( know as picnic hamsters round here), pots of honey, scarves and a grinning bee. Put too much on and Tigger pops up scattering his stuff and making boing-boing noises. This started the giggles, which in two years old kids is contagious.

read on »

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It’s the 23rd of September, the first day of autumn, and time to indoctrinate the next generation into my preferred extreme sport… leaf jumping.

The rules are simple, find a pile of leaves - collected by patient hands, or gusts of wind - and jump. There is no scoring, only a feeling of crunchy satisfaction. And I’m not alone, there is even a Facebook group devoted to the art. I can only hope this week brings some cold crispy days to indulge this pastime in.

Leave a comment dedicating yourself to this sport this autumn, or go admire our new Leaf Ninja T’s

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