Let's play... explorers!

Today my son and I played explorers! 

We are often inspired by our books when we play, imagining we are our favorite characters: I love reading and luckily my son loves books too. This morning I decided to make a small craft with him and then use it to play, in this way we contextualize our creation and make the play even more fun! 

First I proposed him to make binoculars together: it's a very easy craft made with recycled materials, it's suitable for toddlers but can be made more complex for elder kids. 

What we used:

• two empty toilet paper rolls
• colored paper
• scissors
• ruler
• hole puncher (but you can make holes with scissors if you don't have one. But be careful!)
• glue stick and/or transparent duct tape
• duble-sided tape
• cord

What we did:

• we attached the two paper rolls using duble-sided tape

•  I drew 3cm stripes on the colored paper, choosing the colors we liked most, and I cut them

•  we glued one stripe on one end of the binoculars, using glue stick and a bit of transparent duct tape

• we glued another stripe on the other end. Then we punched two holes on the sides of the binoculars, then we cut a piece of cord long enough to fit my son's head and we tied it through the holes. 

And now... let's play explorers! I placed several animal-shaped objects around the house: you don't need them to be particularly realistic or in the same size: through children's imagination they will all become fantastic animals to discover! I used:

• manta-ray plush (that we received by Emirates on my son's first flight, it contains a pile blanket)
• Dumbo plush
• old keyrings: a cow and a dog
• little sister's rattles: an owl and a snail
• wooden shapes from a puzzle toy
• animals we made in the past days when making crafts suggested by our preschool teachers (the fish in the first picture and also two butterflies)
• a pair of socks from lil sister shaped as hippos
• the plushes they sleep with (my son's is a tiger, the sister's a giraffe)
• adhesive decorations that we have on their bedroom walls: a hedgehog, a fox, a raccoon and two owls. Obviously we couldn't move them but all the same they became new animals to discover! 

You see, you don't need dozens of plushes to play explorers, you'll find many objects that you can use around the house. And if you don't have any, you can still make them yourself: lots of new crafts! 

We like it because: 

• we used the binoculars we made together, so it's not only a craft that ends in itself, but it is contextuaòlized and becomes a source of fun! 
• we travelled with our imagination! In this days when we are always at home we miss our journeys and trips (expecially us grown-ups...) but in this way we brought the world inside our house! 
• we talked about animals: where do they live, what do their calls sound like, thus learning new things in a funny way
• we went round and round and round the house to find all the animals I placed: it's a sort of treasure hunt but also a way to move and keep active!

If this post inspired you and you want to share your result with us, visit my Facebook page www.facebook.com/RobyGiup

And now... have fun!