I went back to work when Charlie was 9 months old which I found really difficult but that’s a whole different story that I’ll probably write a blog on at some point) I have Monday afternoons off and wanted to make the most of it so each week I plan a fun activity that we can do together just the two of us and I wanted to share some of the ideas and how they’ve gone with you.
The first one we tried was some early painting, with Charlie only being about 9 months when I tried this one and with him wanting to put absolutely everything in his mouth I wanted to find something safe but so he could still get messy and creative.
It was a little spur of the moment this activity and I’ve seen lots of recipes to make edible paint that involve either cooking or leaving something overnight etc which look great but I’m quite impatient and wanted to do it the same day so after looking online I found the idea of using yogurt. If you use Greek yogurt its consistency is thicker and more like paint then you just add some food colouring to get your desired colour and you’re ready to go, I used an old shower curtain for him to paint on so that I could just wash it off and re-use it next time. It’s completely safe unless of course you’re tackling any allergies and it is lots of fun. At first he wasn’t sure of the slimy texture but after I tipped some out it wasn’t long before he was crawling all through it, this one is definitely a hit for younger ones who just want to eat everything in sight, although surprisingly not a lot of it went near his mouth.
Another activity that’s nice and easy to prepare with items from your cupboard is pasta and spaghetti.
We’ve used these a few times in a couple of different ways. Firstly I cooked up the spaghetti and let it cool, I put it in a container and some dried pasta in another container and let him explore the different textures, he honestly wasn’t a fan of the cooked spaghetti in fact when I tipped some out and it touched his leg he was not impressed but he did enjoy playing with the dried pasta. Because the dried pasta was a hit I tried this again but this time the day before I covered the pasta in food colouring and left it outside to dry overnight then put them in different containers depending on colour, he loved tipping them out and putting them back in, at one point I was convinced he was separating the colours but this could of just been coincidence and a bit of mum goggles. It did seem to keep his interest for quite a while and I continued to use them for a few weeks afterwards too getting them out occasionally for him to play with again.
Flour! What kid doesn’t like the mess that comes along with playing with flour? We’ve used this in a couple of different ways too, the most obvious one being Halloween when I buried marshmallows in flour for him to route around in and find, instead he just emptied the flour on to the floor one handful at a time and put the container on his head, I did this at my mum’s Halloween party so I got to stick her with the clean-up that time, oops!! We also tried using flour with his cars, I emptied bags of flour into a washing up bowl and made hills with it so that he could drive his cars over, the hills didn’t stay shape for long of course but he still continued to drive his cars over the flour and bury them in it. By the end the cars had got a bit boring and he wanted to tip the flour out on the flour instead but the plus side to having wooden flooring is the hoover fixes everything.
If you’re looking for mess free sensory play then these shaving foam bags are great and easy to make just fill a zip lock freezer bag with shaving foam and yep that’s right some food colouring and you’ve got colourful squishy bags that leave no mess, they didn’t hold his attention for long as I think the fact he couldn’t actually touch what was inside meant he got bored quickly but he still gave them a good squish, threw them and off he went on to something else.
Charlie had just turned 11 months I think by the time we tried these though so may be one for younger ones that will get more out of the sensation of playing with them.
Another mess free option is to fill some bottles with craft bits for little hands to explore, I took 3 bottles filled one with half a bottle of water and small type marbles, one with water and glitter and one with pom poms. I’ll be honest and say the glitter bottle wasn’t a hit but he did love shaking the one filled with marbles and would just shake it and laugh. The bottle filled with poms poms turned in to a game of lets empty and refill the bottle as many times as we can.
There doesn’t always need to be a lot of preparation, sometimes I love to just make a little obstacle course for Charlie to explore, we have some bits that we purchased from Argos, some tents, a tunnel and a ball pit that all just pop up and back down so you can store them away neatly when you’re not using them and that are really reasonably priced.
We get them out fill up the pit with balls and we have our very own play area. This is great for those days when you don’t want to brush your hair or don’t really feel like comparing parenting styles with other mums. You can use up some of your little ones energy ready for bedtime but without leaving the comfort of your own home.
Water is always a big hit, Charlie has always loved the bath ever since he was a baby especially now he’s free to move around in it, it’s his happy place. But outside of bath times and when it’s not warm enough for a pool filling things with water is a great alternative. I filled a big storage box with water and added some bath toys and cups and a tiny bit of baby bath to create just a few bubbles as the main purpose was the water but you could add more if it’s bubbles that you want.
Again I have wooden flooring so I wasn’t too bothered about the mess and water getting everywhere but perhaps one you’d want to avoid doing this on carpet as he was prone to splashing the water around and attempted many times to empty the cup of water on the floor. I put towels around the outside to avoid him slipping and when he’d finished playing with the toys of he got straight in the box and sat down fully clothed.
Who remembers pipe cleaners? I think they made an appearance at some point in most people’s childhoods but this is a great one for fine motor skills.
I took an empty egg carton and pierced holes in it that were a little larger than the pipe cleaners themselves and poked a pipe cleaner through each of the holes, it took him all of about 20 seconds to take them all out and I thought at that point I’d lost his interest but I was pleasantly surprised to see him trying to carefully put the pipe cleaners back into each of the holes, I would point to a hole he would pick a pipe cleaner and try and put it back in, we both really enjoyed this one and I of course was a gleaming proud mama watching him do it.
Jelly is not just for eating! Charlie really enjoyed this activity he’d started to master a few words by the time we did this and most of the way through all I heard was ‘wow’ lol. I don’t think this one needs much explaining I simply made up some Jelly in different shape containers and let him explore, you could try a few different colours too to make it more visual but I only had one kind of jelly in the cupboard at the time and as we established earlier I’m impatient and wanted to try it that day.
The last few months of the year are great for messy and sensory play with all the occasions that are going on. We had lots of fun with Halloween, as I’ve mentioned we played with flour and did some apple bopping using our hands rather than our heads at the Halloween party we went to but one we really had fun with at home was carving the pumpkin we’d been out and picked.
Of course the carving itself was done by me but whilst I was doing that I gave him all the insides to get messy with, he wasn’t sure at first but by the end of it he was using the shovel and scooping them up some of which even made it to his mouth which he instantly spat out, oops!!
Christmas really is my favourite time of year, I’ve always loved it. But with so many things going on, all the Christmas displays and fun days out and everything there is to do I really wanted to make sure we made some time for some Christmas activities, I decided I wanted to try and build a gingerbread house together, I put the house itself together myself the night before knowing if he had the gingerbread pieces he would just smash them before I could get it up.
I then used the icing sugar to cover the roof gave him the sweets and we put them all over the roof minus the ones that made it to ours mouth, he seemed to enjoy it but most of the laughter came from when it fell apart at the end, I think some of that might have been the sugar rush though lol. We also had great fun making Christmas cards for friends and family together we used green paint to make a hand print on the card that would be the Christmas tree, when they had dried I used glitter glue to make the baubles, once the whole card was dry Charlie signed them and they were a big hit with our family and definitely something I’ll probably keep for the rest of my life.
I won’t continue on the subject for hours but I just wanted to share a few with you, these were all from when he was 9 months – 18 months so now we’re about to start getting a little more adventerous so I’m sure I’ll share some of those with you at some point. There are so many fun activities out there on the internet to find and something for whatever it is that engages your little one, I have great fun finding them and recreating them in my own way and it’s something we’ll definitely continue to do.Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed the read then please subscribe or follow www.instagram.com/lifewithmeandpea to see what we have coming up over the next few weeks.
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