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! 

Where we were...

[Versione italiana qui: https://robygiup.blogspot.com/2020/03/dove-eravamo-rimasti.html ] 

How long since I wrote on this blog!

It was November 2017, when I was still at home in maternity leave for our baby boy. Few weeks later I went back to work, that's why I didn't have time to write on this blog,: being a commuter with long time between home and work I had very little energies left for our baby at the end of the day and still less time, so I didn't have any left for my passion for sewing. 

Then I got pregnant again and our baby girl was born in a hot July night in 2019. Now we are a family of four, and life is really animated! Our boy is nearly three years old, he's growing and learning so many things, and we're amazed and amused by his imagination and his reasonings. Sometimes he digs his heels to affirm his ideas, it's a phase of growth and I know it's important for him and it won't last forever, but sometimes it requires so much patience... Our girl has always been a little angel at day, even if sometimes she keeps us awake at night... Now she's crawling and goes all over the house, often following her brother which she adores, and sometimes he also enjoys playing with her! They're so cute when they play together! 

And now? In this troublesome time I'm still at home, using my last months of maternity leave to look after our children while my husband works from home, and I have to find always new ways of entertain the boy and keep him away from his father's laptop "Papà can I watch you working?" "Papà can I touch?" "Papà can I write?" "Papà what happens if I press this button" ... you know what I mean... 

As a child I loved making crafts, I remember a book "100 e 100 lavoretti per bambini" ("100 and 100 crafts for kids") that I loved and often used to make new crafts or to dream over those for "big" kids which I was still not allowed to do, like the ones with oven or flatiron. So now I really enjoy creating new crafts for my child, even if I have to adapt my ideas to his abilities: when we make crafts with kids it's important that the activities are adequate to their abilities to avoid the risk of loosing their enthusiasm! 

Since many moms are now spending a lot of time with their children I thought it can be useful to share my crafts here on the blog with simple tutorials, and maybe also share some of our favourite books for children and for parents. 

See you soon!