Quiet day

Today we haven't done any formal or interesting things. The girls have been mostly happy playing outside, where the cubby house was a clock factory and helping me feed the crooks with sunflowers we picked off the side of the road. Inside they have been playing shopping and looking after babies, as well as a discussion about Dr Who. They are now dinging and dancing to The Fairies. 

Yesterday was much more activity based, coloring pictures, Addie made jelly, the play doughs, and they played with felts. At this point, whatever keeps them amused is good enough for us. 

Sensory play with Bubble and Icecream Doughs.

This morning a friend posted a link to Bubble Dough. Essentially you mix detergent and cornflour together to make an interesting non sticky sensory dough. The link also mentioned Icecream Dough- the same deal but using conditioner. The girls love a bit of play dough so we got out our ingredients, they helped mix it up and we played. 

The dough was quite a lot of fun (both detergent and conditioner produced similar sorts of results. It had the usual cornflour properties of being kind of runny when gentle pressure was applied but resistive to hard pressure. 

Addie spent much of her time rolling the dough flat. Clementine on the other hand divided hers into little clumps and piles all over her tray, the table and the floor. 

I encouraged them to try squishing it with their fingers. This lead to them moulding creatures out of their dough. Addie made a family of ducks and Clementine made a family of frogs.

Lastly they played imprinting the dough. Clementine was very excited when she made a hole in her dough by pressing with the end of her rolling pin. 

My thoughts are that as a sensory activity goes, it is a good one. The kids were involved in both making and playing with the dough. As far as the ingredients go though, I'm not a fan. I still have a weird taste of both the detergent and conditioner in my mouth. The fragrance was too concentrated for my liking and my skin feels somewhat irritated. If very much like to do it again, but I'll experiment with some other liquids. Perhaps sorbaline might give the clean effect, without the irritation and smell. I have heard of dough with just cornflour and oil too, so that's another road to explore. 

And so we begin.

The post title is a bit misleading really. This blog is to record some of the things that we do as the kids learn and grow. The thing is that they've been engaged in learning since birth, and we're not only just beginning. The part that is just beginning is the part where I encourage some formal learning and record what we do, and the outcomes both good and bad. 

I'm a bit rubbish at record keeping. To put it bluntly, I hate it! However it's something that needs to be done especially in 1.5 years when Addie is required to be enrolled in school and the inspector wants to know what we've been doing. 

I would imagine that this blog will take more of an Instagram type format, so that I can record on the run. My hope is that is sustainable and adequate. Every so often I'll probably do a long waffling unnecessary post, and I'll probably give more people the link than I should because those are things that I tend to do.  

Lets get to it!