Tag Archives: way to play

Easter bunny burlap bunting – Crafts for little hands

Posted on March 24, 2015 | 8 comments

Spring has officially started so now let’s hop in Easter mood! Meaning it’s time to start our DIY home decoration. This year i am using burlap (jute) as a main element.

Crafting with my son is becoming even more fun as he grows up. He shows more interest and skills which makes me happy and proud. Not just that, he has an opinion too!

We started with a colorful bunting. First you need to cut out burlap triangles. Cut as much as you need and the convenient size, so when attached together, it makes the bunting length you want. Nady chose blue and green paint to make dots on the triangles with his tiny finger. You can use textile paint or acrylic paint.

My little man is becoming so independent, he refused any assistance! I was just sitting, watching and taking pictures!

When all done, leave them couple of hours to dry. In our case we left them overnight to extend more the fun!

Next step we used different colors of felt to cut bunny shapes. If you don’t have felt, choose any textile available. Crafts should be fun and entertaining not energy consuming. Enjoy this precious time with your little ones and make the most of it to be instructive too.

Stick on each triangle a bunny. Click on bunny to download a high resolution file, you can adjust the size of the bunny depending on how big you want it.

Now bunnies need tails. The favorite part for nady. He loves pompoms! you can find pompoms everywhere in our house, even in the fridge! Yes in the fridge near the yogurt his favorite snack!

He was so excited using the glue alone without my help! The most phrase i heard in this craft was “tout seul maman”! (all alone maman). I remember last year when we did a bunny garland i was introducing a lot of new words that i was hearing this time gracefully. Kids grow up fast!

We had so much fun and it was a good exercise developing the fine motor skills and improving his vocabulary.

Use a thread or ribbon to attach the triangles next to each other. Hang the bunting and enjoy 🙂

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Posted in DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged acrylic paint, blog, bunny, bunting, burlap, crafts, easter, jaymmy, kids, marmite et ponpon, spring, way to play

Snowman fridge – crafts for tiny hands

Posted on December 3, 2014 | 4 comments

At christmas, people find themselves shopping for fancy decorations, huge and expensive trees that they compete over (as if there is a reward at the end of the season)and they end up paying leg and arm to decorate their houses. The result is forbidding their children from touching anything or enjoying the festivities.

The only reward that matters is seeing my son enjoying a real Christmas and living it to bits! To your kids, touching, discovering and playing with the colorful decorations means more than just admiring. Therefore, i never buy any decoration that i wouldn’t let him touch. In a previous post i showed you how to make handmade ornaments , my son loves to decorate and redecorate his own tree with no restrictions, we call it “le sapin de Nady”. The best way to introduce Christmas to your toddler is letting him live it.

Today we are doing a snowman fridge! The simplest ideas are the most striking. I enjoy crafting with Nady, especially he has a go at arts and crafts, i find it as fun and quality time together. All you need is self adhesive colored papers, but if you don’t have you can use regular colored ones and clear contact papers.

5 black small circles to make the mouth
2 bigger black circles for the eyes
an orange triangle for the nose
any colors you like to make 7-10 rectangles to form the scarf and 3-4 circles for the buttons.

If your fridge is not white you can still do it the dishwasher or a white door. I love the rich simplicity!

If you like this post give it some likes and shares to spread the joy. Don’t forget to like marmite et ponpon facebook page. More posts yet to come, stay tuned!

4 Comments

Posted in design, DIY, special occasions, way to play

Tagged art and craft for kids, blog, christmas, christmas crafts for toddlers, jaymmy, marmite et ponpon, snowman, snowman fridge, way to play

Digging toys in ice sculpture

Posted on September 29, 2014 | Leave a comment

An enthralling sensory play to experience melting ice. Very simple activity but has a lot to discover and learn. You will hear lots of ahhhhhs once your kid touches the ice. Nady was so fascinated by his frozen toys and got so excited to melt the ice and take them out, he got so driven, he forgot how cold the ice was.

How to do this beautiful sculpture? I put Nady’s favorite small toys in 3 different shape containers, added few drops of food coloring and froze them for over night. To remove the ice, I ran water over the outside of each container and held it upside down. I placed the three parts on top of each other to make the sculpture like form.

We started with squeeze bottles full of warm water, Nady was in a hurry to take out his yellow ball!

Nady was so enthusiastic, he was eating raisins when we started the play, he grabbed the bowl to fill it with water to throw it on ice, experiencing different ways maybe the gush of water can melt the ice faster!

Now it’s hammering time we should get all toys out!

It’s a fun activity for all the family actually, we were all playing with Nady! We must admit it’s a senses stimulating play, (experiencing hot – warm – cold and of course solid – liquid or frozen – melted) it fosters learning in all developmental areas and engages extra words to your kid’s lexicon.

All toys are out, mission accomplished! Nady’s hands were ice cold, but he was warm at the heart! He really enjoyed playing…

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clothespin airplanes – kids crafts

Posted on September 11, 2014 | 2 comments

We travel a lot, therefor airplanes became familiar to my son who is very enthusiastic for. Today we decided to travel somewhere in our imagination using clothespin, popsicles sticks and pompoms.

Simple and easy activity (doesn’t need too much preparation) to strengthen his motor skills, enrich his vocabulary and widen his imagination.

We were bored at home, and i wanted to create a last minute simple activity to make him busy. But i didn’t want the fun to end fast. So we started by sorting the colors by naming them and the objects we are using before we create the planes. Very simple way to teach your kid the colors and adding new words to his vocab.

Putting a popsicle stick inside the clothespin might seem easy, but for small hands and tiny muscles it needs fine motricity to pinch the clothespin. With a little help from mommy, here are the wings!

To make it more realistic, stick pompoms on each side of the pretending wings. Sticking is an interesting activity to nady. We kept on sticking and removing the pompoms for a while.

Here are our lovely colorful planes!

Actually Nady enjoyed crafting the planes, but he didn’t want to pretend traveling in them. He was pointing at the sky for real planes. Well i don’t blame him 🙂

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Posted in DIY, way to play

Tagged activity, blog, clothespin, craft, DIY, fine motor skills, jaymmy, kids, marmite et ponpon, pompom, popsicle sticks, way to play

Bathtub basketball frenzy

Posted on August 27, 2014 | 8 comments

There was so much excitement you would have wished to be a kid again to participate in this frenzy of delight!

All you need to do is hang a basketball hoop, (i made it with a foam piece, should be light in weight to be able to stick it), fill the tub with water (at desirable temperature), load it with colorful balls and let the energy flow!

Amazed by his concentration and fine motor skills as if he always played basketball, I showed admiration which encouraged him and made him keen not to miss any shot!

Such games are not just for finer motor skills but also to develop gifts! My treasure isn’t only a beautiful artist, he is a sportsman as well! Now Papa Antoun please rest assured, Nady likes sports too 🙂