This Weeks Fun Five

Image by Luigi Diamanti

I've got my personal Fun Five sorted for this week......1) Toy Shopping   2) Toy Shopping  3) Toy Shopping  4) Toy Shopping and just to be different, 5) Toy Shopping! I love the toy sales, I have so much fun trawling through  the catalogues picking out what my little ones would like, all the while trying to think of as many reasons as I can to give them the pressies as soon as possible. I was never very good at the whole 'waiting to give gifts' thing, as soon as I buy something for someone I want to give it to them right now. An example is Hubby and my Christmas tradition - the first ever Christmas we were together I was just bursting to give him his gift early but I was determined to wait and I got really really close, I caved in and gave it to him at midnight on Christmas Eve. Since then we always give each other our gifts at midnight, although each year I try and bring it earlier but the party pooper wont let me *sulk*.

I also love the toy sales because they take me back to my childhood, as I look at everything that's on offer I can't help but oooh and aahhh over the things I would have LOVED as a kid. You know those little art and craft packs where you make your own jewellery? And all the new Barbies with their little houses accessories? And the toy animals that make little noises and look oh so cute? They would have been on my Santa list for sure.

Anyway, back to the Fun Five for my little ones (though in all reality they would probably be happy with five days of toy shopping too!)

- Have a Green Day: Equipment: Green food colouring, green food, green clothes, green paint, etc.  Activity: Tell your child in the morning that you're going to have a Green Day, where everything you can possibly think of will become green. Add a small amount of green food colouring to the milk for their cereal, make a green platter of food with kiwi fruit, honey dew, avocado, green apple, snow peas, celery pieces, etc. Select green clothes for everyone to wear, or even help your little one dye a white shirt green, Do some green cooking (green jelly, green patty cakes with green icing); Make green play dough by mixing yellow and blue so they can see it turn green as they play; Add some yellow and blue food colouring to their bath water and watch it turn green; Collect as many different types of green leaves, flowers etc as possible and make a Green Chart.

- Garden Obstacle Course:  Equipment: Garden chairs, Hoops, Broom, Rope, Cardboard boxes, Ladder, Old pillows, anything else you can get your hands on. Activity: Get your little ones to help you set up an obstacle course in the yard. Try to use as many different ways of moving as possible - crawling under garden chairs, jumping on or over pillows, jumping through hoops hanging up or in hoops lying down, walking along a curvy rope, running around a tree, hop through the rungs of a ladder laid flat on the ground, etc. We do this one a couple of times every week and the Bear never ever gets sick of it.

- Marble Painting: Equipment: Paper, Cereal boxes or a large plastic box, Marbles, Containers of different coloured paint; Teaspoons. Activity: Put the paper in the large box. Put a few marbles into each different coloured paint and use a teaspoon to lift out one marble at a time and put it in the box on top of the paper. Show your little one how to lift the box and roll the paint-covered marble all around until all the paint has come off and made marble tracks all over the paper. Repeat with a different coloured marble. Makes great wrapping paper for gifts!

- Wind Chimes: Equipment: A coat hanger or sturdy stick, String, Anything that makes a nice sound! Activity: Discuss sounds with your little one, specifically all the different types you can hear. Go on a sound hunt around the house, clanking things together to see how they sound. Collect the things that sound nice, i.e., keys, spoon, etc. Tie the items onto pieces of string and attach them to the coat hanger - instant wind chime.

- Homemade Finger Puppets and Puppet Theatre: Equipment: Old gloves (washing up ones work well), Permanent felt pens, Strong glue, Wool, Sequins, Buttons, Other decorations, A Cereal box or Shoebox. Activity: Cut off the fingers of a pair of gloves and get your little one to decorate them however they like. Use pens to draw faces, glue on buttons or sequins for funny mouths, wool or fabric for hair or beards, etc. Stand the box on its end, cut a window out, and put on (and be the audience) some funny puppet shows!

We never got round to making the place mats last week so I'll be tucking that up my sleeve for a rainy day. The house is however filled with pet rocks and balloon heads of all shapes and sizes (and hubby now has one of each proudly sitting on his desk at work). If you haven't yet made the balloon heads do yourself a favour and do it outside............. I didn't and am still finding traces of flour around the house!

Now back to those toy catalogues ;)