2 minute read
Mamma’s House
Play activities for the New Year
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Happy New Year! Another year’s over and a new one’s just begun. However, if you feel like the Christmas break is going on forever, or you are just looking for something to lure the kids away from the screen, here’s some play activities for you to try.
New Year’s fi reworks
Salt art: This is one of our favourites. Use glue to make fi rework shapes, or snowfl akes, or anything you like! Sprinkle the wet glue with salt, remove any excess. Next dab with watercolours or paints and watch the colours spread.
Make bird feeders
Bird Feeders: A great way of showing the birds some love in this cold winter weather.
See what you can fi nd in the recycling or use what you have to make bird feeders. We often use felt pipe cleaners and thread Cheerios on (which is great exercise for little fi ngers!) or scoop out the middle of an orange and fi ll with lard and bird seed, ready to hang from a tree.
Ice art
Winter is a great time of year to try ice art: with any luck you can leave a tray of water out overnight and it will be frozen in the morning. If not, lay a tray fl at in the freezer and pour the water from a jug whilst the tray is in (much easier than struggling with a ready fi lled tray!). Using water and food colouring use droppers to transfer the coloured water to the ice. Sprinkle the ice with salt for a more interesting texture to explore with the coloured water. This one is great for exploring colour mixing.
Skating Penguins
My two love this. All you need to do is stick lolly sticks to the base of a mini muffi n tin with a bit of blue tack and fi ll with water. Try adding a tiny bit of blue food colouring too. Put them in the freezer overnight.
I let my eldest cut out the penguin characters and stick them to the sticks once frozen. You could, of course, draw your own or use whichever characters you like. Add shaving foam to a tray for a snow effect and enjoy gliding your penguins. What shapes or letters can you make in the snow?
Collecting old Christmas cards
Collect all your Christmas cards and make them into something else. You could practise scissor skills, or make thank you cards, gift tags or decorations. How about trying some Christmas bunting or paper chains?
