Why I Invested in a Grimms Large Stepped Pyramid

  “Blocks are blocks.” I said this just recently on Instagram but if you haven’t seen that yet, there it is. There are and will be many options in the market from cheap sets to the pricey ones. Believe me when I honestly say, any blocks is better than none. Having blocks in your toolkit […]

How to Encourage Independent Play With Toddlers

Parents all want children who can play independently because we just need 10 minutes to drink our coffee hot, do the chores, prepare dinner etc. But did you know that there are lots of benefits for children to engage in independent play too? These include the space for creativity to flourish, the ability to self-direct […]

Top 10 Must Have Open-Ended Toys in Our House

Following on from the previous blog post where I talked about the “No 1 toy in our house“, I’m finally putting together a post for open-ended toys to answer one of the most popular questions I get asked about play and that is “What are your favourite/best/must-have toys for kids/babies/toddlers/preschoolers?“ Now before I go ahead […]

The No. 1 Toy in Our House: 10 Ways My Kids Play With Magnetic Tiles

One of the most common messages I get on my Instagram account is “What are the favourites/most-played with/must-have toys in your house?” Well today I’m casting the spotlight on our ‘Most Played With Toy’ and sitting WAY at the top of this leader-board are our Magnetic Tiles.   A Bit of Background We’ve had the […]

Play Teaches Skills That Aren’t Just Academic

Days like today, I’m so glad I always take heaps of photos of my children’s play. Tuesdays are hard days for me as the hubs work the afternoon-late night shift so basically I do the entire crazy witching hour before dinner time on my own, then dinner, bath and bedtime routine for both kids, with […]

Currently On Our Playshelf (Jun 2018)

Thought I’d share what’s currently on our playshelf since it’s been awhile that I’ve done one and we’ve changed things up a bit since our last one (click here to see all our previous setups). I rotate the items on our shelf more often than these shelfie posts I do and the reason why I […]

Knowing The Child, Knowing Their Interests

I walked into the girls’ room this morning while they were playing and saw these connector manipulatives strewn across the entire floor. They were not playing with them and were engaged in something else. One rule I try to enforce in our household is if they’re done playing with an activity, it needs to be […]

Same Invitation, Different Learning Processes and Outcomes

So yesterday post afternoon naps for both girls, we were out in our yard playing for the whole afternoon til just before dinner. Miss 2 asked to do some painting so I simply set up an easy primary colours painting invitation for her on a paper plate so I could keep my eye on bubs […]

Creative Mum, Creative Kids

A few days ago, I set up a toddler art invitation for my 2yo, an invitation to create fireworks using cut up recycled toilet rolls (see it here). Well at the end of the session, there was still quite a lot of paint left and not wanting to waste them, I decided to get my […]

Would You Consider This Art?

Would You Consider This Art? We spent nearly two hours out in the yard yesterday evening. What started off as painting the yard with a paintbrush dipped in water, became wet chalk drawing on the pavement, became scavenging the yard for rocks and leaves and dried flowers, became sorting and arranging the natural materials onto […]