Over the last few weeks we have spent a lot of time at Doof’s grandparents’ house as his granny was very sick. Travelling up and down in the car with a travel cot, buggy, clothes for all of us, hospital bag in case I went into labour…. You can imagine there was not much room for toys! So we tried to think of some easy and slightly different games Doof could play which were still fun and/or messy but with minimal equipment/set-up etc needed
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Here are the top two
he enjoyed the most:
1. Daddy-O
I have to give full
credit to my OH for this game – he even devised it while letting me have a
lie-in :) #winwin
What we used
- a kitchen roll
holder (handmade by me aged 10!)
- collection of
napkin rings (would definitely advise against using any of the family silver
ones… ours were made of plasticy/woven material so they couldn’t break or hurt anyone
if D ate them/threw them etc)
You can probably
guess what to do. Drop the napkin rings onto the pole and take them off. And
drop them again and take them off. Repeat infinite times (if you are a
toddler!).
Add in a wine-cooler and the game can carry on for even longer!
The joy of this was
the simplicity – everything needed was from his grandparents’ house – but yet
it still occupied Doofy for about 20 minutes the first time he tried it. And then
he kept going back to it over the next few days, ignoring all his more brightly
coloured/flashing/noisy toys!
2. Travel messy play
I love doing messy play
with Doof and so even though we were going to be away from home I wanted to be
able to do something with him. The main criteria I had was it had to be light
and easy to transport (so no rainbow rice), needing minimal equipment and a
simple set-up (so no multi-coloured oobleck).
What we came up
fitted the bill perfectly. Everything needed fitted inside the tub for easy
transport, set-up was less than 5 minutes and even better it all doubled up as
a snack!
What we used
- packet of angel
delight
- rice krispies
- assorted plastic
animals
- tupperware box
with lid
I made up the angel
delight as per instructions (haven’t made it for yeeeears but it is super
simple and was ready to use in 5 minutes) and then half-filled the tupperware with
angel delight (the sea) and half with rice krispies (the island). I then set it
on the floor and put the plastic animals beside it. Then it was time for Doof
to explore…
The first thing he
did was put the boat into the ‘sea’ so he obviously understood what I had been
trying to achieve! Then he methodically put the animals in one by one, watching
as they all got pink gunk on their feet and then their bodies as he slowly
submerged them.
He has eaten rice
krispies before so quickly started sampling them and then tasted small bits of
angel delight. We did this play quite soon after his tea so I knew he wasn’t
super hungry and so therefore unlikely to eat vast quantities (and so not sleep
later on!).
He played with this
sensory tub for about 15 minutes which is pretty good for his attention span
and enjoyed getting his hands messy. I then put the whole tub in the fridge
ready for use again the next day (I probably wouldn’t use it much beyond that).
Even though I
thought this was pretty quick and easy to make up, to make it even simpler next
time I might use yoghurt (e.g. a big tub of plain fromage frais) instead of
angel delight.
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Have you done any creative or messy play while away from home or on holiday? We're going to the States for a couple of weeks in a few months time so would love to hear other ideas/suggestions :)
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