The halls at welikeplay HQ are getting well and truly decked now. And amidst all the glitter and manic giggling there are some very excited kids and one over stimulated daddy. To ensure the tikes don’t flip out entirely in an explosion of candy-cane fuelled excitement; I’m weaving a couple of focus orientated things to do. And today has had the making of pom-poms, which we’re using as gift tags on the prezzies once we’ve wrapped them.

You will need
two rings of card
some wool to match whichever wrapping you’ve got

Get the kids to wrap the wool round and round and round the rings of card; this takes a while, but requires only a little thought. It seems to be one of those activities, like walking, which seems to free children’s higher brain functions. As you do this whilst chatting together you may well find some big thoughts coming bubbling up, so probably best to make sure background noise is kept to a minimum.

Once covered, cut between the cards and tie with a loop of wool (more detailed instructions at H2G2). If their interest has waned half way through there’s a quick cheat you can use to help them feel they’ve achieved something.  Quickly wrap some loops around your fingers, cut the top and bottom to make lots of strands then jam them in the middle of their loop to puff it out (my thanks to Bella Dia’s finger loop pompoms). Add a little tag if you wish, and stick to the prezzie.

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 5up, 8up, makes

… a way for kids to photograph, frame and learn to like the dark.

At 6, No1 child knows how to change themes. Opening the laptop is interesting as he has a DaVinci thing going on, the old Ubuntu box has been tripped out in hippy-trippy-ness, and now the PS3 has been tweaked too. But the new theme is so cool, it’s got these light doodle things that I last saw on the Chili’s Fortune Faded vid.

Being enquiring minds we trawled the interweb to find that these things in animated form are part of the Pikapika Project. So we set about cooking up a welikeplay kid friendly way… and it’s so much fun.

You will need:
to get your paws on a digital camera with a night picture setting and timer
a tripod, or in our case a stool on top of the kitchen table
the night or really thick curtains
a led torch or two
some cheap balloons

Prop the camera up, set it to night mode for a slow shutter speed and press the timer. Run round to the business end and start drawing pictures in the air with your torch over and over again. When the camera goes beep, bleep, pause, ker-click (well ours does), run back to see what the piccy looked like. Repeat to your hearts desire, using baloons to cover the led to get different colours. Crop & keep, and…

enjoy.

tag... play for today, 3up, 5up, 8up, enjoy and achieve, makes

Children find making snowflakes rewarding. Not only are they getting to mess with the urban legend of dangerous scissors, but they get to display their creations around the home as an early precursor to the celebrations. I am also starting to think their may be an alternate reason for their enthusiasm, the summoning of winter. Children think symbolically. Reason is elastically plastic for them. Whenever we’ve made snowflakes the whole, the ‘will it snow for Christmas’ conversation loops by again (its not been a proper white Christmas in London since 1970; ‘cos the one lame flake on the Met roof in ‘99 doesn’t count). There is a fledgling cargo-cult building around paper snowflakes; if we build them perhaps… just perhaps, they’ll fall.

This week, in particular, we’re in that betwixt and between time of the advent season. When, arguments about the ‘Christmas creep’ of shops aside, it’s actually still to early to get a tree if you want it to have pines come Christmas Day. So to fill the week, and keep the kiddywinks anticipation bubbling on the stove of excitement, we’ve been cutting up the paper recycling.

I’ve stuck together snowflake folding crib sheet - no nativity pun intended - for folding a six pointed snowflake. If you’re doing this with 5 yr olds, you may need to show then how to fold it a few times or you’ll get squares which don’t ever seem to be quite as fulfilling.

And should they be natural born snowflake geniuses, let them try this, and perhaps… just perhaps they’ll fall.

tag... play, 5up, 8up, enjoy and achieve, makes

…really, I’ve now got a suspiciously clean patch on the carpet from trying.  Masking tape works just fine, and is east to remove after your kids art is done.

I’ve just spent a very pleasurable half an hour sitting on the sofa with a roll of masking tape, dolling out  strips to No2 child.  He’d then scoot off, arrange them on the floor and come back for more.  And slowly a kite emerged, so we had to grab the camera and do some kid-floating-off-into-the-distance imaginary shoots.

tag... play for today, 3up, 5up, enjoy and achieve, makes

I like water bombs, boys like water bombs, Mrs. Welikeplay isn’t quite so fond. But these aren’t the ones you chuck around, theses are little inky explosions in the safety of a jam-jar.  The boys in the welikeplay labs love doing this one, to the extent of rearranging the kitchen furniture so as to hang around upside down to give it a little nuclear mushroom effect.

You will need:
1 jam-jar
a pipette (or use a straw by taking covering the end to pick up droplets)
a little water
a little oil
some vibrant food colouring

Make a mess.

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 5up, enjoy and achieve, geeky

I’m starting to amass a fair old collection of play hats. From pirates (yarr) through builders’ hard hats and princess’ tiaras to those doctors head mounted cd things. Over the years of childcare I’ve found play-hats to be an invaluable resource for getting inside the kid’s head.

Hats, perhaps more than any other piece of costumery do allow kids to be someone-else for a while. It’s roleplaying in one simple step. You see your average child doesn’t have such a concrete notion of self as us encrusted grown-ups. You may have noticed this if you’ve been feeling a little grumpy and your kids have come bundling in. They’ll pick up and mirror your mood back to you with out pause (at which point you could choose to grump back at their grumping… but that way madness lies, doesn’t it?)

As they enact these other roles you may hear then saying things you’d not expect. No2 child in his copper’s hat became a young dictator, despite his usually mild self. Add a tiara and they become imperious, a cowboy stetson makes them crusty whilst an astronaut’s helmet makes them adventurous. Children are incredible things. To do roleplay like this they must have absorbed the roles these hats imply, whilst usually never even having met cowboys or princesses. Very clever little beings even if they struggle to tie their shoes. Taking on such roles allows them to say things that they’re thinking, but which their usual role of child forbids them from saying. The child in a police hat may voice authority over the parent whilst the doctor cd thing or nurses tricorn puts them in a caring role for their carers. So much can be learnt through this play.

The trick, if there is one, is to buy some big costume hats too. Being a little pirate captain is no fun unless you’ve a hulking growed-up crew. A ward sister is no fun without a bandaged patient. Builder work together to build and fix the house. Policemen need parents in trilbies to occasionally become a detective to give the wee ones clues to capture the cookie thief. Even a simple folded newspaper hat make you a Little John to a diminutive Robin Hood.

So what would be in your ideal hat collection?  What would give your kids a voice?

Enjoy.

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

… and yes it does have that delightful misharmonic squeaky quality of Oz. But it’s still so much fun. A month or so back I introduced my boys to Youtube’s Potter Pals; and the simple multi-voiced rhythm of “Ticking” became our collective ear-worm. Now No1 child divides up the parts to start some acapella with Mrs Welikeplay, No2 child and anyone else who happens to be visiting (young Uncle Welikeplay looked quite astounded this weekend).

For your entertainment, and in the possibility of introducing sung simplicity into your play, we present “The Mysterious Ticking Noise”:

Enjoy.

tag... play for today, 3up, 5up, 8up, musicality

The welikeplay dart printable seems to have been much appreciated; not least by my noble testers here at the welikeplay play labs. The idea of a printable aeroplane sheet seems to have taken root in their minds, and so I’ve been compiling a little list of my top other printables and instruction sites:

• instructions for the world record holding ‘Blackburn’ glider.
• the printable Monarch Butterfly or Scarlett Macaw designs with instructions
• or try the bumper instruction site to fold any-old piece of paper
• instructions for the very impressive OmniWin , though a little complex even for an 8 year old engineering savant
• if you prefer your internet to be, well more online, try Amnesias FlightSimX; but find the mute button for the repetitive drums which could drive parents cuckoo

Enjoy

tag... play for today, 5up, 8up, makes

AJ at Thingamababy has posted “How to Host a Garden Snail Race“, and - in doing so - has provided me & my kids with a future ‘rainy week’ activity.

Many of the molluscs will be too skittish to come out of their shells. You want brave snails. Wait until one peeks out of his shell and starts moving. Grab that one and, while holding the shell in the air, press a racing number onto the shell. DO NOT apply the number while on the ground because you’ll smoosh and possibly injure the snail.

tag... playpeople, 2up, 3up, 5up, 8up, gardening

It’s cold out, it seems winter has bitten from the eternal popsicle of the north. So today its time to warm the kiddywinks up with a little movement.

I think a little dance to ska-ified Brown Eyed Girl, followed by a game or seven of Hullabaloo is in order. I’ve that there’s something about ska that lifts the spirits of glum munchkins, to an extent that it may well warrant inclusion when I come to penning my top tiddly-peeps tips.

Hullabaloo hails from a toy stable I highly admire, Cranium. If - as a play-pro - you’ve not yet had the pleasure grab one at your nearest convenience. We’ve not yet come across a single game they produce that hasn’t been a hit at the welikeplay HQ testing facility. Hullabaloo itself is perhaps the most played boxed game we own.

It comprises of a set of surprisingly hard to slip on shapes in different colours with different pictures on to be scattered on the foor, and a calling unit. This little machine is switched on and calls out which shape to jump/crawl/move sideways to; which you (parental participation has been mandatory round here) and all the munchkins follow. Continue following instructions until your children hit their obedience-to-electronic-voices threshold about 15 to 20 minutes later.

And the children will be warm.

Enjoy

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