One Day Briony...played the Spielgaben People Game

I love our set of Spielgaben and am often trying to find find new ways to use it - I need to make sure I get my money's worth! Today I decided to use it to play a game inspired by the Beetle Game. As Briony is only 3 she is not able to use a dice yet it uses a feely bag instead (I love feely bags and made mine out of a fabric from an old upholstery sample book, however, any suitable bag would do). The other benefit of using a feely bag is that you have to feel for the piece you want, encouraging a variety of sensory and visualisation skills. The game also promotes shape naming and matching as well as colour recognition.

It is a fun game suitable for 3 year olds (and possibly younger) up to any age. Briony really enjoyed the game and I have created a set of instructions to share. The download can be found here.

One day Briony...made snowflakes

I decided to make a winter lapbook with Briony. To go on the front, we made snowflakes out of white card. Briony helped me use my Cuttlebug to cut snowflakes then emboss them with an embossing folder.

I then got out some ready mixed paint for her to paint them with.

It wasn't long before she started painting her hands and needed some paper for hand prints.

She had lots of fun!

One day Briony...played the pop-pom pick up game

I created the pop-pom pick up game so that Briony could practice fine-motor skills (using tweezers), one to one correspondence (putting one pop-pom in each space), colour recognition (each player has a different colour), number recognition and counting (spinning the spinner and putting the correct number of pom-poms in the spaces), turn taking and winning!

I used a Numicon spinner and wrote on the underside of one of the overlays with a white board marker. Other supplies were 7 red and 7 blue pom-poms in a bowl (depending on the number of spaces in the tray), Jumbo Tweezers and an ice-cube tray.

To play the game each player spins the spinner and then uses the tweezers to put that number of pom-poms in the tray (each player chooses a colour pom-pom for the whole game). The winner is the first person to fill a row in the tray with their colour pom-poms.

A more difficult variation is to roll a dice and if the number is odd one player puts in a pom-pom, whereas if the number is even the other player puts in a pom-pom.

One day Briony...made Spielgaben snowmen

As part of our topic about Snow we made some Spielgaben snowmen. I love our Spielgaben and am looking forward to using it even more as Briony gets even bigger. If you haven't discovered it before check it out here (we have an earlier version than the one shown).

After making some random snowmen, I decided to make some templates that Briony could place the Spielgaben shapes on. This meant that she had to use colour matching and shape recognition to select the correct shape from the boxes as well as practising fine-motor skills when placing the shapes. It can be made easier by pre-selecting the shapes for child. I have created a free pdf printable of the 4 snowmen (it is designed for A4 paper so am not sure how it will print on US paper). Scroll to the bottom of the post for the download link.

Download the free pdf printable here

(This is for home or education setting use. Please do not share but direct others to this blog post. 

It may not be sold either as a pdf or printed version.)

One day Briony...made Christmas cards

Well as you can see I am very behind in posting these photos to the blog! I had every intention of adding these before Christmas but Christmas preparations just got in the way. So I decided it was better late than never...

One day Holly, Briony's kindness elf, left things for her to make some Christmas cards. I used my Sizzix die cutter to cut Christmas trees out of green card. We made very similar cards last year and it was interesting this year to see her increased skill as she carefully applied the glue. Last year my husband eventually banned us from using glitter as it got everywhere. This year he didn't even notice we'd used it.

Having a look at what Holly has left

Posing for the camera - this is the grin we get nowadays!

Careful gluing - I love her concentrating face

Adding the glitter - the best part!!

And finally lots of finished cards all ready to write on another day.

One day Briony...got a kindness elf

Last year I saw lots of ideas on Pinterest and blogs that I follow about kindness elves but Briny was too young for me to do it with her (I had already decided that I didn't want to have an 'elf on the shelf'') and at nearly 3 years old this year I was excited to start it with her. I found Holly, the name I gave to her elf, in the shop Tiger for £1. I cut some notelets with my Sizzix and decorated them with Holly and faux stitching. The first notelet I put in an envelope for Briony to open put the other days I have just put the notelet next to Holly. 

For the first day Holly introduced herself and left Briony a new pack of pens and some blank notelets for her to draw pictures for whoever she wanted. We had stayed at my parents the night before as they were looking after Briony while I was supply teaching for the day, so I didn't want it to be anything too tricky for them. 

Briony loved Holly and was excited to open her letter.

She got straight into drawing pictures with Holly watching!

One day Briony...had a small world snow scene

 I was getting bored of Briony's Autumn/three little pigs sensory tray in our Tuff Spot and wanted something more wintery. I had fun raiding the pound shops and found sprinkly snow, a polar bear and iridescent thin shredded plastic. I cut a piece of white felt to fit the bottom of the tray. I also added toy stuffing, a string of LED lights, white sparkly pom poms, a silver miri-card 'lake' and blue and clear large gems from a wholesale florist.

I also had fun making more fimo animals and made a seal pup and penguin. Our dog unfortunately took a shine to them and the penguin now has a gouge out of its tummy and is missing a foot! She also quite likes the tray in general and will drop her toys into it so she has to go in and retrieve them.

After Briony had started playing with it, we also added a papier mache bowl that she had made so that the animals had something to slide down.

One day Briony...played with the three little pigs

Briony loves the story of the three little pigs. After I have read her books at bedtime she wants me to tell her a 'stoy stoy' and this is one that she regularly asks for. About a month ago I created an Autumn themed sensory tray in her Tuff Spot.

As soon as she saw the 'straw' (shredded yellow plastic used in Easter baskets!) she started talking about the little pig who built his house out of straw. I decided then that I needed to make her the three little pigs. I searched Pinterest (one of my favourite past-times) for fimo pigs and set to making some. Of course I had some help from a very interested daughter! I had great fun making the pigs and, after making three, Briony wanted to know where their mummy was, so I made a mummy too. Briony played with some of the odd blobs of fimo that were floating around in the bottom of my fimo box. She informed me that she was making the wolf - a very abstract wolf as you can see (the two brown blobs on top are the eyes).

Briony loved using the fimo, particularly how easy it was to mold, yet it could then be baked and played with. I use a small toaster oven to bake the fimo so I don't have to worry about fumes in our oven. That evening I left the toaster oven outside Briony's door so that I could take it downstairs and bake the pigs whilst she was sleeping. While I was reading her books she kept leaving the room and checking on the pigs to make sure they were ok. I'm surprised they even survived and were able to get baked!

Once they were ready we retold the story lots of times using the 'straw', sticks from outside and Jenga pieces for bricks.

Briony loved the part of the story where the wolf blew the house down and we could knock away the 'straw' or the sticks. I am so glad I was able to make the pigs and I'm sure I'll be making more animals in the future!

One day Briony...played with noodles

Due to Briony's food intolerances it's sometimes hard to find sensory food things that she can play with. As rice is only grain she can tolerate I had the idea to use rice noodles. One evening I made a large batch of rice noodles, split them into 3 bags and added some liquid watercolour (food colouring would also work) and a bit of vinegar. Briony enjoyed feeling the bags.

I then put them in a plastic container for her to play with. I put a shower curtain on the floor and shone a torch through the side of the container to add to the experience.



After a while they got very sticky and she did not enjoy them as much. So the next day I took the activity outside, added the noodles to a large container of water and she played with 'noodle soup'! The colours blended and the water turned blue. She loved fishing for the noodles with a pasta spoon and sieve. She also enjoyed pouring the mixture into a bun tin.

One day Briony...played with lentils

I love our Tuff Spot and enjoy finding different things to put in it for Briony to play with. This time I bought a huge bag lentils and added jugs, measuring cups and plastic gardening equipment. Briony had great fun scooping, pouring and playing in the tray. Although Briony is unable to eat lentils due to her multiple food intolerances, I had hoped that she would be fine playing with them. Unfortunately she reacted to them so this will be the first and last time she gets to play with them.