Gloop – a very messy playtime idea! 18 months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

With it being so cold and blustery outside at the moment I have been trying very hard to keep Monkey entertained without leaving the house… and without boredom creeping in. We have his trains, duplo, car and garage, crayons, play doh, puzzles, books, stacking rings, shape sorter, kitchen with tea set, honestly the list is endless and yet within about half an hour he seems to be bored of all of these things and driving me round the bend by throwing everything around the room! I have actually decided it is time to put some toys away for a week or two, then we can rotate some in and out, we shall see if that works.

In a bid to occupy him for more than a few minutes I decided to give Gloop a try. I have read about this quite a few times but been a bit wary of giving it a try as I know what Monkey is like and I was concerned about the mess. But this week I decided we should go for it, so set off to the kitchen.

What is Gloop?
If you haven’t heard of it before, basically when you mix Cornflour and Water together, at a certain consistency it becomes a very weird texture, whereby it is solid when you are holding it and squeezing it around, but if you stop moving, it turns back to liquid. You can see in this short video what I mean.

Monkey really enjoyed himself, but oh my goodness the mess! I should have thought about it before, but whenever Monkey has something stuck on his hands, food, stickers, anything, he gets a bit frantic and shakes his hands all over the place in a bid to get it off. Well you can imagine what he was like with the gloop, so it went everywhere!!

He also decided it was really fun to pour it all over his trousers. Then he decided he wanted to grab me so both our clothes were actually covered – thankfully being just cornflour and water it came out easily. I have read before where people use food colouring too to make it the sea or something, but I am very glad that at this age I didn’t go with the food colouring option – I may wait till he is a bit older before I try that!

My big mistake of the day was to have a jug of water with us. The idea was so he could dip his hands in to wash off some gloop (and therefore limit the amount of gloop flying around the kitchen when he shakes his hands about) but in reality all he wanted to do was tip the water all over the floor and then stamp in the puddles left. D’oh! Completely my fault as I should have known but I still got a bit cross.

He very much enjoyed himself though, and it certainly kept him occupied for a while which was the main thing!

Have you ever tried gloop? Was your house as messy afterwards as mine?

Aaah back to normality and some muddy autumnal fun

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Much as I love my husband and loved him being at home last week, it was nice to get back to normal this week. Last week didn’t exactly go as planned, and with us both feeling so poorly we were shut up inside the house more than we would normally be, so by Sunday we were getting on each others nerves a bit (especially with a healthy dose of PMT added to the mix!). I think if we had been able to get out and do all the things we planned last week it would have been different, but as it was, by Monday morning it was nice to get back to normal.

Monday is normally a Nanny day (and Grandpops if his shift pattern allows) and we went for a lovely autumnal trip to a local play area, which was great fun. Mummy and Nanny were having lots of fun kicking up leaves, though Monkey didn’t really see the fun in that as much as we did! hehe

Tuesdays was tumbletots, which he loves, and then just some general playtime and a trip to the shops. Wednesday we were supposed to meet some friends at a soft play place, however one of my friends little girl has chicken pox! She is a year older than Monkey and we did consider a chicken pox party so he could get it out of the way, but I am sooo not ready for him to have it yet. My other friend’s little ones are also poorly and they were off to the doctors so we had to come up with another plan.

It was a bit grey and gloomy but not too horrible out so we made an impromptu trip out to a local country park to have a run around, and bumped into Grandma and Granddad! Which was a lovely surprise! We had lots of playtime with them, a nice cup of tea in the cafe when it got a bit cold, and some running around in the mud. After deciding to sit down in a big muddy puddle Monkey was very muddy by the end of it but lots of fun was had so that’s all that matters.

Thursday another friend and I took our little ones to a soft play centre we hadn’t tried before, and although Monkey was nervous and clingy to start with (as he can be in new places) we had a really love time. Monkey warmed up and started playing by himself so my friend and I got to have some good mummy chats which was very much needed for both us, so it was really lovely. Her little ones really enjoyed it too .

Friday is a day with the grandparents which is always lovely and a really nice way to end the week. Nice to all be well and happy and just generally, back to normal! 🙂

Playing with Cloud Dough – 16 months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been searching for playtime inspiration, largely on Pinterest, lately. So this is the first post of ideas inspired by things I have found on Pinterest – Cloud Dough!

Now I have never heard of this before but it is genius and fills a hole in our playtime perfectly. With the change of the weather and the rain recently Monkey’s sand table was getting really gross, so it got washed out last weekend and we haven’t bought any replacement sand for it, but you can see he misses it. Whenever we go out in the back garden to run around and chalk he goes to where the table was and looks lost for a few seconds before moving onto something else.

So anyway, I came across this stuff called Cloud Dough. Simply you mix 8 parts flour with 1 part baby oil, until it is like the consistency of breadcrumbs. What you are left with is flour that is quite silky and resembles wet sand, in that you can press it together and it stays a bit firm.

When Granny came around the other day I decided to give it a go with him. I had thought it may be ok to use indoors but I am soooo glad we decided to use it in the garden! Thankfully the weather has been a lot warmer the last few days too so he is really enjoying it.

As you can see in the pictures, he loves it!! Yes our garden is a mess and flour now seems to be infiltrating every part of our lives but he is loving it. Having said that if we still had the sand pit I am sure he wouldn’t need this. Makes a change though. Oh and he is very much in a transporting faze, which means he picks things up and then drops them somewhere else! I think when he is a bit older it may work more indoors as he may not be so intent on carrying it around with him!

We’ve also had fun burying toy dolphins etc. so he can find them, and all the usual things sand is great for 🙂

Containing the mess – finger painting in the bath – 15 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We recently moved Monkey out of his highchair and onto a booster seat at the dining table for mealtimes. He is loving sitting at the table and meal times have been a bit better so it was definitely time to make the move. One of the problems with this though is when it comes to messy, creative, activities. While he was sat in his highchair, the mess was basically contained to him and his tray. At the table it gets spread all over the place. Plus he used to sit so comfortably in his high chair but now is such a fidget bum (one of the reasons we made the change to booster seat) and once he’s eaten, he wants to get down. He’s not really happy sitting anywhere for any length of time really!

So what to do? I don’t want to stop doing all the creative, messy things, but my heart flutters when I think what those little hands can do with a load of finger paints in our lovely house! So I have been trying to work out what best to do. Obviously there is outside. We play with his chalk outside, which he loves, and he is learning that it doesn’t get any further into the house than the conservatory. We also play with sand and water etc. outside. But finger paints add a whole other layer of mess don’t they? If I get a bit of sand or water on me while cleaning him, then no big deal, but I don’t really want to get covered in paint. Also, where do I clean him? The outside tap is on the front of the house so it would mean running round the front with him, but let’s face it, that water is pretty darn cold! Do I try and carry him in the house, hands under his arms, dangling him in front of me trying to avoid paint getting on everything?

It is these things that have led to the finger paints staying firmly shut away for a while! Then after getting a comment from Gill last week (I hope you’re reading Gill :)) I had an idea! The bathroom! If I set him up in the bath with the paints then he can make as much mess as he likes and then I can just hose it (and him) down afterwards with the shower! Definitely worth a go,

Note: I do this with homemade paints where the colour is food colouring and so washes off things easily. I can’t recommend doing it with bought paints unless you want to do a tiny patch test somewhere first to see if it comes off!

I set aside some time at home one day to give this a go. Unfortunately though, because the finger paints hadn’t been used in a while they had gone mouldy in the cupboard (yuk). So whilst Monkey ate his snack I quickly whipped up some more. The recipe is here, sooo easy.

Anyway, I have to say it really was a success, as you can see in the photos! He only lasted in there about 15-20 minutes, but that’s about as long as he does anything for, so not too bad. I know it’s a lot of effort to go to, both before and after, but it was definitely a lot of fun. He also hated being cleaned afterwards, but then he never likes to be cleaned so nothing new there.

Most importantly though, it came off the bathroom tiles with no problem. There are some ever so slight colour stains on the grout but nothing that concerns me or hubby too much. I’m sure it would probably come off if I bleached it anyway but you can’t even see it unless you really look. I used a load of old towels for the rest of the bathroom and had to wipe my hands on those a bit but basically the mess was contained! Woohoo! Here is our little artist having fun with his paints in the bath! He ended up a bit blue afterwards but again it’s only food colouring so I’m not too fussed 🙂

Homemade finger paints take 2 – age 14 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

So I tried making homemade finger paints about 5 months ago (wow) when monkey was 9 months old and I wasn’t hugely successful. I’m not sure where I went wrong but the paint was a bit too solid and in all honesty, Monkey wasn’t really ready for it anyway. I decided to wait until he was a bit older and give it another go. After the way he was looking at his hands and putting his hands on the sheet during Ice Cube Painting I decided that perhaps the time was now!

I found another recipe on a different blog, here. According to her page, it could have been too gloopy last time because there was too much cornflour in it. Anyway here is the recipe I tried this time, converted into English. (By the way found a great conversion page for translating from cups to metric, here :))

3 tbsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup Cornflour (65g)
2 cups water (480ml)

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, warm until it thickens. Cool and pour into containers (I used empty baby food jars that I have been saving for ages till I was ready to try this again). Add food colouring. I used mainly gel food colouring this time to get stronger colours so we’ll see how much it stains hands and clothing etc!

The mixture seemed a bit better this time although when I opened the jars a day or two later it had solidified and I had to give it a good star to mush it into more paint like consistency. I used an old wooden chopstick for this rather than a spoon in the tiny jars.

I tried him with just three colours at first, and just on his highchair tray, rather than with paper, to see how he got on. He really enjoyed it! Smooshing the colours all around, making patterns by hitting the tray and he was really interested in the paint on his hands. It did stain his hands purple for a few hours but after some playtime in sand water outside it was gone. It also came off the highchair, and even our nice wooden table when a little bit got on to there, so I was very pleased about that!

The next time I gave him some paper too so he could do handprints but honestly I don’t think he was bothered whether there was paper there or not! He still had fun though so great activity at this age, even if it does make a fair bit of mess! 🙂

The realities of playtime with a tiny toddler

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I wrote this post in the summer, when Monkey was 14 months old, but it seems apt for the theme of ‘Play’ for this week’s The Theme Game:

Right it is time to be honest here, keeping a little one entertained for longer than a few minutes at a time is practically impossible. I was going to say 5 minutes but hubby felt (and I agreed) that 5 mins was too ambitious, so a few minutes is more realistic. If you have read much of my blog you will know that I am trying out a lot of different play ideas with my monkey. He is constantly on the go and looking for things to do so I try really hard to find knew ways for him to learn through play.

I spend a lot of time (in short bursts between looking after monkey and trying to keep the house clean-ish) perusing the internet, via pinterest, other blogs and baby sites to get ideas. I read books and was even given a set of cards with things to do. Many of the ideas are common sense, such as ‘go outside’. Honestly I spend so much time outside as there is free entertainment out there in the form of oh, daisies, stones, mud … anything on the ground….. But these places do come up with some gems that I like to try out but really you have no idea if your little one will be ready for it developmentally, or will get bored uber quickly, or like it, until their attention is taken by something else.

Because, in reality, to fill a day of playing at home, you have to try out so many different things. In the space of an hour yesterday, we did some finger painting, played with play-doh, danced around to some music, played with the clothes pegs (basically spreading them around the room while I tried in vain to get him to “put them back” which I know he understands but complies with intermittently) played with his new kitchen, used mummy as a climbing frame, went in the garden (even though it was starting to rain, I was getting desperate) and played in the very wet sand pit, dug in the dirt, played in the sand and water a bit more, then as he was now filthy and it was nearly nap time, had a bit of a play sorting bottles out in the bath while I washed off the debris from playtime.

Whilst all this is happening I’m also trying to clean up the mess made my some of these activities, scrubbing a potential stain from the finger paints on our lovely dining table (I hadn’t realised he’d got paint on the bottom of his drink bottle until after it had sat on the table for a few mins – thankfully it came off though), trying to pick up all the teeny bits of play-doh off the floor as he likes too tear it up and spread it around the room (we confine this activity to the conservatory thankfully so it doesn’t get walked through the house), pull play-doh out of my hair and pick up the clothes pegs (until he sees they are back in the basket and decides to up-end it again -this was the point that we went outside). I’m sure this is all sounding very very familiar to the other mummies out there!

An hour or so of this I am ok with, but when faced with an entire day at home is it any wonder I go wibbly at the knees? It is fun, don’t get me wrong, but oh, so, tiring. Hence, this morning when my friend text me at 7:30am (I know if I get a text at this time of the morning that it will be another mummy) and suggested we go to the park for the day, I jumped at the chance! I had been sat contemplating my options for the day ahead and was relieved to be able to go and entertain him outside on the play area, in the sand pit and in the paddling pool there. Of course I also take stickers, a ball and other toys for when he is bored of those activities! 🙂 Plus it is nice to have a good natter with my friend and talk about our ups and downs, much more fun than taking the monkey on my own. He is making lots of word-like sounds at the moment but as yet he is not much of a conversationalist.

My point, ah yes, I don’t really have one, other than to any other mummy who puts in the effort of making homemade paints, play-doh etc, only to have the little one play for a couple of mins at a time, you are not alone! I have found lots of places to find the ideas of things to do, but very few people realistically saying, that this may entertain them for a max of 5 minutes. Who knows, maybe it is just my Monkey, maybe he is going to grow up to have ADHD or something? Though I have read that a short attention span is normal so I hope not. Either way though I will continue to try things out as I know that eventually he will play longer by himself and be occupied by something for a slightly longer period. Bring on that day is all I can say 🙂

Summer activity – Ice Cube Painting age 14 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Some time ago when browsing Pinterest for things to do with the Monkey (thanks Jocelyn for suggesting it, there are so many ideas on there) I cam across a picture of people Ice cube painting. Now when I said that to hubby he thought I meant painting onto ice cubes, which, lets face it, would be a bit ridiculous and pointless. Nope, ice cube painting is painting with ice cubes. The blog I read talked about mixing some paint with water and freezing it. I thought that food colouring would work just as well, and be safe for monkey, and have been waiting to have a go.

Now it is the summer holidays and none of our baby classes are running for a couple of months we do have a bit more spare time to feel so I set about making up some coloured ice. I used a mixture of gel and liquid food colouring as I wasn’t sure how they would turn out. I used a bit too much of the pink gel one to start with (see the really dark coloured ones!) and learnt as I went along, anyway, I think they turned out ok in the end.

Before being frozen

Ice cube paints, ready to go

I have seen recently pictures where people have frozen them with lollipop sticks in so you can have a handle, and I can see how that would work, but I didn’t have any, and I also am not sure if Monkey would then think it was an Ice lolly!

As it was so hot today and we were at a bit of a loose end this morning I decided this would be the perfect time to give it a go. I just got a few ice cubes out in case he hated it, as he does take a few tries at some things, and decided to use an old sheet to paint on, as I guess paper would go soggy pretty quickly!

Monkey actually took to it pretty quickly. He finds ice lollies quite amusing and I think he had the same kind of feeling with the ice cubes. One of them turned his hands a bit blue which he found really interesting, and he then pressed his hands onto the sheet (makes me think it’s time to try finger paints again).

He played with it a bit and then wandered off to do something else, and then came back again. Let’s face it, at this age, attention spans of more than a few minutes at a time is good going and he did definitely enjoy it so we shall be doing it again I am sure.

Homemade play-doh and other play ideas at 13 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Little Monkey and I have quite a busy little routine these days. Every weekday morning he and I go for a walk with my neighbour and her little boy. Then home for a snack at 10 before we head out at around 10:30. Mondays we visit Nanny (and Grandpops if he is off shift), Tuesdays is Tumbletots, Wednesday is Music for Little People, Thursday is meeting my friends with kiddies, Friday is round to Grandma & Granddad. Sometimes this includes lunch out, other times we come home for lunch and then have playtime before his nap. He sleeps for a good couple of hours then its some calm playtime late afternoon before daddy comes home and we have tea together.

Quite a busy routine but I am a planner and like to know what we are going to do each day, helps me to stay a sane stay at home mummy!Most of the day is very active and we are out and about a lot. Even calm playtime in the late afternoon is often taking a little wander somewhere (never very far) or playing in the garden sandpit. Other times though, if it is wet out or if I think he just needs a bit of calmer time, we play inside and this is a couple of the things we have got up to lately.

Homemade Play-doh
There’s lots of recipes out there for home made play-doh, but I wanted to go for one tried and tested, so my mother in law gave me the recipe she used when hubby and his brothers were little. It worked then and works brilliantly now too 🙂 It’s measured in cups, which I don’t have, so I googled the approx. weights as well and sed those and it turned out great.

2 cups (9oz) Flour
1 cup (4.5oz) Table salt
2 tsp Cream of Tartar
1 tbsp Cooking Oil
2 cups (237ml) Water (I highly doubt I was actually this accurate :))
4 drops food colouring.

Put all of the ingredients in a pan (My mother in law’s tip was to make the play-doh without food colouring and then break it into 4 and mix in the food colouring by hand. You’d get messy hands of course but 4 different colours of play-doh rather than 1, but I forgot to do this, oops!) turn on the heat and stir continuously until it solidifies.

It is really weird to do and actually at one point I was convinced that I had done something wrong as it was really hard to stir anymore but didn’t seem to solidify. I stopped to take a quick pic of this mess and then realised it was solidifying at the edges (where it was touching the hot pan), quickly stirred some more and hey presto it was solid! Should apparently last for ages as long as you keep it in an airtight container.

Later that day I got it out and as with anything that feels a bit funny, monkey was really not sure to start with. He was happy just playing with the cookie cutters I had got out to make shapes with it (must get some plastic ones I know). Anyway I decided to sit and play with it anyway and made a couple of shapes for him and gradually he got a bit braver with it and started prodding it about a bit but his face says it all really! He has played with it a little more since then but he’s still not really sure of it! He was like that with sand though initially, which he now loves playing with, so we shall see!

Pasta Play

I’ve read quite a few other blogs and seen on pinterest other mummies playing with dried pasta/rice/lentils/beans etc. for pouring and sorting play etc. but never really got round to trying it out. One rainy afternoon I decided to give it a go and got out all manner of bowls, jugs, trays, spoons etc and some leftover pasta that had been open a while (it was at the back of the cupboard and a new pack had been opened in the meantime, oops). My lounge floor needed a hoover anyway (though with a one year old, when doesn’t it?:)) so we sat on the floor playing around with the pasta. It was great fun, it went everywhere, numerous times. He was really happy moving it from one container to another and banging about with the spoons and tipping them out. He was concentrating on it so hard bless him and very cute to watch as he needed minimal input from mummy (great to encourage some independent play!). It was great fun and the pasta is being kept for another rainy afternoon for some very easy and fun playtime :).

Jumping on Mummy

Very unstructured play here but really lovely. I have found that if I lie on the floor, it could be anywhere, on the grass, in our bedroom, in the lounge, then Monkey cannot resist running over and diving onto me for a cuddle and tickle. I’m not sure how he’s learnt this, have obviously encouraged it somewhere along the line but it’s brilliant fun for both monkey and mummy! He can be pottering about on the other side of the room/garden but when he sees that mummy is lying down he gets a huge grin and comes trotting over to launch himself onto my head/tummy/whatever is nearest, where he of course gets lots of tickles and kisses. It’s so cute and so much fun that I thought I would share it. It’s a lovely little break from busy active days and nice bonding between the two of us. For some reason his cheeks are particularly ticklish at the moment and if I just do a sort of cutchie-coo on his cheeks then he giggles like you wouldn’t believe, and honestly, isn’t your child’s giggles just the best noise on the whole world??

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

messy play

Gloop – a very messy playtime idea! 18 months old

Aaah back to normality and some muddy autumnal fun

Playing with Cloud Dough – 16 months old

Containing the mess – finger painting in the bath – 15 months

Homemade finger paints take 2 – age 14 months

The realities of playtime with a tiny toddler

Summer activity – Ice Cube Painting age 14 months

Homemade play-doh and other play ideas at 13 months