Shape Printing with toilet Rolls, 3 3/4yrs

Someone recently shared a great idea on social media for using toilet rolls to do some shape printing. I was having a look thinking what a great idea it was, when Monkey appeared over my shoulder and was dead impressed. He was so excited at the prospect of having a go so how could I resist? As luck would have it we always have a pile of old toilet rolls available so the next Mummy & Monkey time we got cracking.

He started off wanting to recreate exactly what he had seen in the picture, blue and pink hearts and he absolutely loved it.PhotoGrid_1454595105486

I experimented to see what other shapes I could get from a toilet roll, obviously circle, square and a sort of odd bow shape and again he enjoyed printing the shapes.PhotoGrid_1454595213694

Then, imaginative little monkey that he is he decided that the bow shape looked a bit like monster eyes… and the heart a bit like a smily mouth, so together we created some monsters. Most of this came from him and I just made the odd suggestion here and there…the hair was mine though hehe.PhotoGrid_1454595321678

As with any painting though it soon descended into chaos with mixing of all the paint,and Monkey making gorgeous comments like “I’m good at making brown” and “That looks like indigo.”PhotoGrid_1454595380440

Then the inevitable “Let’s do hand painting!”PhotoGrid_1454595469484

He had so much fun I can’t exactly mind. Lovehow happy he is squishing paint in his hands! I also love his imagination.”Look it’s a bird now with wings!” What a cutie.20160126_100003

I do love crafting and painting with him at this age as he is so imaginative and full of fun it’s just lovely.

#ToddlerApprovedTuesday

Educational TV for Toddlers

Guidelines recommend that children under 2 watch no TV at all and toddlers watch no more than 2 hours of TV a day, but how realistic is this really? I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with a bit of telly. I’m not about to dump Monkey in front of the TV all day every day, and to be honest he is so full of energy he would get bored with it anyway. We get out and about a lot, read books, do crafts and all sorts of things, but there are times of the day when the TV is very useful as it keeps him entertained while I get on with some other things. This is especially true since Little Miss arrived!

Am I wrong though? Am I neglecting my child or being a bad mum because he watches a few hours of TV spread throughout the day? In an article I read a while ago, Dr Trina Hinckley said TV viewing can be ‘harmful to children’s physical and mental health’ speaking specifically about children under 4. She said that although parents think that TV programmes help children with learning language etc, that this is not true according to research.
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