Dinosaur Small World

Another small world we've recently set up is a dinosaur-themed one. Again, we set this up in a tuff tray.

Materials/objects we used:
- playdough in Earthy tones
- tissue paper in various green/Earthy tones
- blue tissue paper covered with cling film for lakes, rivers, waterfalls etc
- a range of bowls for creating hills/mountains/volcanoes
- a range of different trees from a model railway set
- Lego plants and trees
- Schleich dinosaurs
- rocks, stones and twigs
- our dinosaur fossils we made. You can find instructions here: http://mummycollingwood.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/salt-dough-dinosaur-fossils.html.

Tommy loved using his dinosaurs to make prints in the playdough. Again, this small world was a big hit - it was played with for a few days in a row and he begged us not to tidy it away! I'd love to hear your ideas for small world play.

Pirate Small world

I thought I'd share with you the small world we set up recently. Tommy loves imaginative play - he becomes totally immersed in it and it's something that will occupy him for hours on end. 

When we set up a small world, we usually make it inside a tuff tray. This tends to keep all the materials, objects and "mess" pretty contained. It also means we can put it to one side to play with later or the following day if we so wish. We tend to keep our small worlds relatively simple, so they won't take long to set up or put away and use materials and objects that can be used time and time again.

Tommy has really been into playing pirates recently. Amongst other things, we've made a pirate sword, played a variety of pirate games (Pop-up pirate, Pirate Shapes and Yo Ho Ho!), made a treasure map and played in a storybook that turns into a pirate ship! Because we had quite a few pirate-related objects, setting up a pirate small world couldn't have been easier!

What we used:
- a variety of pieces of jewellery (necklaces, rings, bracelets)
- yellow foam cut into island shapes
- a Mega Blocks pirate ship and pirate characters
- a variety of shells
- Melissa and Doug treasure chest that came with a telescope, pirate flag and golden coins
- blue and white water beads
- blue tissue paper
- Lego Palm trees and plants
- bath toy sea creatures

Easy Spring-themed Gluten-free biscuits

My love of baking is really starting to rub off on Tommy, who loves nothing more than to get involved in whatever I might be rustling up in the kitchen. These Spring-themed biscuits were perfect for him to make - simple, quick, easy and, most importantly of all, delicious! Tommy needed help with the weighing of the ingredients but he was able to knead the biscuit dough, roll it out and cut it into shapes all by himself.

Ingredients:

225g butter, softened

110g caster sugar

275g plain flour (we used gluten-free flour and these turned out great!)

Makes 12 large biscuits

Icing - 250g icing sugar, water, food colouring

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 3.

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. 

Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is pale and fluffy. 

Sift in the flour and bring the mixture together to form a firm dough. 

Roll out into a work surface to a thickness of 1-1.5cm. 

Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters (we used rabbits, flowers and butterflies) and place on a baking tray. There is no need to line or grease your baking tray - we just used a non-stick tray and the biscuits slid off easily. 

Bake in the oven for 13-15 minutes, or until they are light golden brown and slightly firm on top.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, sift icing sugar into a bowl and add a tablespoon of water at a time until it gets to the right consistency (spreadable and just about pourable). Add gel food colouring. Once your biscuits are cool, spread the icing over the biscuits, add sprinkles and leave to set. 

Top tips for making these with small children:
1. We used ice-cream cups to store different colours of icing - it saved on the washing up and they were small enough for a child to handle easily.
2. Do the icing with the biscuits on a tray or on baking paper - this will reduce mess and spare your work tops from being coloured with food colouring.
3. Start icing the biscuits by pouring a small amount onto the middle of the biscuit and then allow your child to spread it with a knife. This helps control the amount of icing on each biscuit and also helps reduce mess.
4. Use a new cocktail stick each time you add food colouring to your icing. It will keep your food colourings nice and 'clean' and avoid contamination. 

Salt Dough Dinosaur Fossils

My eldest, Tommy, seems to be obsessed with dinosaurs at the moment and a lot of our play has centred around them. We recently set up a small world using our collection of Schleich dinosaurs and spent hours playing with it. Whilst playing, Tommy used his dinosaurs to make a variety of imprints into his playdough 'sand' and 'swamp' areas of the tuff tray and this is what gave me the idea of making fossils. The activity is perfect for any dinosaur fanatic, it is great for mark-making, encourages children to learn dinosaurs' names and explore their characteristics and allows opportunities to explore measuring and comparing.

To make our fossils, we used a collection of small dinosaurs (we bought these from a local garden centre for a couple of pounds), a batch of salt dough, some acrylic paints and pva glue.

The salt dough is very easy to make. Just mix together two cups of flour, 2 cups of salt and 1 cup of water and then knead the mixture thoroughly. Roll the dough out between two sheets of greaseproof paper to a thickness of 1/4 of an inch. We used a pint glass to cut out circles of dough, as this was the perfect size to fit our dinosaurs. 

To make the fossils, dip each dinosaur into flour and press it firmly enough into the salt dough so that it makes a decent print. Repeat this step if the print isn't well-defined. We used a variety of different small dinosaurs and also made a few fossils using parts of the larger dinosaurs. Claws, spikes, heads and tails worked really well.

We baked the fossils in the oven at 120 degrees (250 degrees F) for 2-3 hours and once they were dry, we painted them in earthy tones of acrylic paint. As a final touch, we blotted the paint to make the fossils look old and then sealed them with watered down pva glue.

I actually preferred the fossils without paint and PVA glue. They look so much more defined without. If I was to do the project again, I wouldn't bother with the painting stage.

Heart tea light holders

We recently made these super cute tealight holders as part of our build-up to Valentine's Day. To make them, you'll need at least one jam jar (washed out, with any labels removed and then dried), mod podge or pva glue mixed with water, light-coloured squares of tissue paper (we used pink) and tissue paper hearts (we used red). 

To make them, start by turning the jam jar upside down and spread the mod podge or glue over the sides and bottom. Cover the jar in the tissue paper squares, overlapping them so that none of the glass shows through. Cover the tissue paper in a layer of glue, stick the hearts over the top and cover the entire jar in a further layer of glue.

To light up our holders we used LED tea lights, rather than real ones - they lasted longer, it was less tricky getting them into the jars and they were a safer option.

Smiley Face Shortbread Biscuits

The idea for these biscuits came from Tommy, who is an avid 'Wanda and the Alien' fan. If you haven't seen it, it's a TV show about the unlikely friendship between a rabbit and an alien. Tommy is obsessed with it at the moment and seems to want to watch it at every opportunity. In one episode, the alien, who is terribly homesick, is cheered up by being offered some smiley face biscuits. Tommy asked if we could make our very own smiley face biscuits and this is what I came up with.

The biscuits themselves use the same recipe as our melted snowman biscuits, which you will find here. This recipe makes 10 of these smiley faces.

We started by cutting out circular biscuits and baking them. Once the biscuits were completely cool, we melted some milk chocolate and then dipped the biscuits in it to make the hair. Using an icing bottle, we then piped on circles for the eyes and nose and a smiley mouth. As a final colourful touch, we added smarties to the chocolate eyes and nose.