Summer is on it’s way and I know some of your will be breaking up very soon for the summer vacation so I’ve put together some fantastic fun summer activities for Toddlers to enjoy and keep those hot long days fun. So here goes our Summer Activities for Toddler round-up.

Summer play for Toddlers

Keep cool with some Instant Pudding and Ice sensory play this summer

Pirate Party Small World Play get the water table set up and start the pirate play off keeping cool as the waves hit the sides as you go

When it gets too hot outside move inside for some Ocean Small World Play and for those little ones that put everything in their mouth it’s edible as well.

Spending time by the pool this summer then grab some pool noodles and have some Pool Noddle Play withGrowing a Jeweled Rose

Water Sensory Bin from The Iowa’s Farmer Wife on Toddler Approved where even the youngest toddlers can join in and keep cool.

Summer crafts for Toddlers

Summer means butterflies and butterflies mean caterpillars so get craft with some Caterpillar Making

Shell Imprints in Salt Dough from The Imagination Tree are the perfect thing to do with all of those beach finds that you bring home.

Get crafty with the symbol that makes the summer fun with this Sandpaper Summer Sun from No Time for Flash Cards

20 Classic Crafts for Summer from Red Ted Art with some of these perfect for your little toddlers to enjoy with you as well.

You can’t beat some Sidewalk Painting from The Educators’ Spin On It

Summer evenings mean one thing some fireflies and Toddler Approved creates some fantastic Crayon Relief Fireflies

Summer learning for Toddlers

Summer doesn’t mean that reading has to stop so why not host your own Picture book Picnic

Making Ice Cream Soup is the perfect things to do this summer – especially if like J your child doesn’t like cold ice-cream

Only one thing to do go Bug Hunting and discover what lives in your back yard

Discover what lives below the waves with Shrimp Netting at the beach

Make your summer reading transpotable then create an Outdoor literacy Sack with Connecting Family and Seoul on Toddler Approved

This is one of my all time favourite activities Hunting for Sharks Teeth from The Educators’ Spin on it we know some great beaches to go and take the kids to for some guaranteed finds.

Summer Recipes for Toddlers

4th of July is so close now you can almost smell the fireworks in the air these Patriotic Cupcakes are perfect to make with your toddlers to celebrate.

Shake your own Ice Cream making in a Bag from Cheerios and Lattes what a fantastic way to make some summer treats and keep cool at the same time.

Summer means 1 thing ice pops and these Fruity Strawberry Banana Creamsicles from Mama Pea Pod look delicious.

Don’t forget that you can sign up for our 5 week long FREE Virtual Book Club Summer Camp starting on the 24th June and suitable for Toddlers up.

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One of the first artists that many children are exposed to are children’s book illustrators – by far my favourite illustrator/artists is Eric Carle so when J posed the questions “How does he make his pictures?” we decided to explore Eric Carle as an artists as opposed to an Author.

Our first stop of was looking at the pictures and working out what makes his work stand out – J decided it was the colours used and the way it looked it was different to the illustrations by Alex Scheffler in the Gruffalo. We looked at the books that we had in our collection and noticed that Eric Carle’s illustrations were similar to the illustrations on It’s Mine by Leo Lionni in that they are both made of bits (collages) but something about Eric Carle’s were different.

With a prompt we looked at the colours – J is very into tones and shades of a colour at the moment pointing out how he’s got a light green or a dark green t-shirt on and how bright blue the sky is so when looking at the colours he started to notice that there wasn’t just light green or dark green like the cover of Mine Mine Mine instead it was a mix of colours in each part of the collages.

I have had bookmarked for a long time The Official Eric Carle site and the document on how Eric Carle creates his art as well as the slide show showing his process and J, T and I watched the slide show and talked about how the paper that he used in the collages is made and then how he goes about creating the illustrations for the books.

Working with Toddlers and Preschoolers I knew that following the process exactly wasn’t going to be possible – tissue paper is too fine for them to work with easily especially when wet so with some modifications we went about creating some Eric Carle inspired art.

What you need to create some Eric Carle inspired Art work

Plain Paper
Poster (ready-mixed) paints
Water
Paint Brushes
Pencil
Scissors
Glue

How to create some Eric Carle inspired Art Work

We started of by mixing up some very watered down paint – T and I squeezed some paint into our paint pots and added water and then mixed and mixed until we had dilute paint to use. We then set about painting the paper – she’s just 2 and loves painting but doesn’t have the patience to wait for colours to dry to apply more so we simplified the process by applying 1 coat of paint and adding in some different colours and blending them in as well – this way we got an effect of having more than one shade of colour and also could see the brush strokes in the art work.

Once dry we then set about creating our collage pieces – as summer is on the way we decided that a sunflower would make a good piece of art work and we could draw and trace pieces to make the collage easily. So with a bowl J drew around the outside to create the centre of the sunflower.

To form the leaves J and T drew on the paper leaf shapes which we could then cut out and our petals we traced around their hands and cut them out. J has been working on cutting skills and he used the scissors to cut out the stems. Once all pieces were assembled then J and T set about gluing the pieces in place on their paper.

With everything in place the Sunflowers inspired by Eric Carle’s process of making the illustrations for his books and for others were left to dry and tomorrow we will add them to our art wall.

We’ve been exploring other artists check out some of them below

Mondrian Inspired Stained glass windows

Monet’s Water Lillies

Exploring Michelangelo

Pop Art

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We are a music loving household – the CD player always has a children’s music CD in it or the radio is on. Musical instruments can be found around the house and both J and T will burst into spontaneous song at various points during the day. So seeing DIY Music Ideas and some ways for Tots to play and learn about music were a great idea for us to feature on Rainy Day Mum this week.

Red Ted Art – shared with us on Tuesday Tots last week how to make a guitar. I love the simplicity of it but also how authentic it is as well. Pop over and find out how to do it and make your own with the kids as well.

My Nearest and Dearest go all DIY with an Outdoor Music Station – with Summer approaching this is something that I really want to do in our garden I’ve started collecting bits and bobs to make it since spotting it.

We made our own DIY Dancing Bells back last summer – they still come out regularly and as T and J get better at moving in time with the music and have moved past the bounce up and down dancing they are great fun for our music sessions to get us moving as well as making music.

It’s fun to do some exploring of the science behind music – even with tots it’s possible – they don’t have to understand the complex science behind it however they can experiment to see if conditions will change what happens to the sound and make suggestions based on their own experience and knowledge. Over on Science Sparks Life at the Zoo guest posts about Acoustic Science – Reflection and Absorption of Sound.

Over on Life at the Zoo the exploration of the Science of music continues with some DIY music instruments and looking at the vibrations that make the sound.

If you have liked these ideas then check out our Science of Music post and our X is for Xylophones post from The Back To Basics Series.

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Welcome back to another week of Tuesday Tots your one stop shop for play, crafts, learning and family fun for the under 5′s. Co-hosted each week by myself

Growing a Jeweled Rose

Learn with Play at home

and

In Lieu of Preschool

If you are linking up Tuesday Tots please check out the guidelines, you are also welcome to come and link up any old posts as well as I love discovering what you were up to when your tots were even younger.

Each week I feature posts in separate post – watch out for it to see if you have been featured and also pin the ideas that I feature to our Tuesday Tots pinterest board.

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Announcing the first annual Backyard Barbecue Bloghop!

Our Barbecue was cleaned off over last weekend (and promptly discovered that bits hadn’t faired well over the winter so need replacing before it’s functional) our deck was washed and prepared for summer time play and entertaining outside and I got sorting out the kids toys and bits and bobs that had been put away for the Autumn and Winter making them easily accessible to come out as soon as the rain stops and the sun comes out.

With so many fun summer activities I jumped at the chance to co-host the First Annual Backyard Barbecue bloghop celebrating all of the wonderful recipes, activities, and crafts that summertime brings! With our summer of family fun quicked off last week with the announcement of The Virtual Book Club for Kids Summer Camp we’ve got lots of other ideas planned and eager to share with you.

I’ve been pinning all winter long the fun Summer Ideas to inspire me and the kids as well as you to our Summer Bucket List board

Please link up below all of your family-friendly summertime ideas below.  The linky will be open through July 13, so be sure to come back later in the summer to share more of your great summertime posts!

The Backyard Barbecue Bloghop is brought to you by:

All Done Monkey

Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes

Mud Hut Mama

With our wonderful co-hosts:

The Squishable Baby

Creative World of Varya

Kid World Citizen

Something 2 Offer

Local Fun for Kids

Rainy Day Mum

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I’m so excited to announce this and just can’t keep quiet any longer Kristina from Toddler Approved, Kim from The Educators’ Spin On It and myself have been working behind the scenes on bringing you a 5 week Virtual Book Club Summer Camp.

With all the parts of the Virtual Book Club for Kids that we host each month, activities, crafts, recipes and fun for kids 2 to 8 with 5 themes we’re going to share books and activities that bring them alive from our archives and new original content as well as other fantastic ideas from our favourite bloggers that bring books alive through their participation in the Virtual Book Club for Kids each month.

Each week starting on Monday 24th June we will be sharing original content on our sites as well as providing you with an activity planner for the weeks theme and a complete supply list for that week which will be your basic supplies.

We would love for you to come and join us to receive the activity planner and our posts as well as special Virtual Book Club Summer Camp news all you need to do is sign up below to get it all straight to your inbox

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing more information about the summer camp so stay tuned for more information.

We’re looking for SPONSORS!  Brands may contact us regarding sponsorship opportunities at info(at)rainydaymum(dot)co(dot)uk. 

I would love to know if you will be joining us – please leave a comment to let us know and we look forward to you joining us bringing books alive on our Virtual Book Club Summer Camp

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I rave and rave to everyone I know about Zulily and their fabulous kids clothes – how they are different and not your run of the mill high street clothes so when Zulily asked whether T would like to review an outfit we agreed (jumped at the chance).

Now I’m normally drawn to the pretty dresses and imagine her in them – but in reality that’s not really T at all – she spends her time running around and climbing, digging in the dirt and gardening with me so with that in mind an outfit was put together for her to explore in this summer.

First of was the Timberland boots – they are ideal for her and she loves them – her “Walking boots” are just like mine which is an added bonus and perfect for her – unlike in her wellies which we’re her previous favourite shoe she can climb in these without slipping – so you can see why they are her favourite.

The Hello Kitty cropped leggings are her “Pretty legs” – although Hello Kitty is new to us she loves that they have bows on them and sparkles – yes she can be a little big girlie occasionally. T is tall and slim so leggings work better for her than trousers as the waist stays up (we have to have adjustable waist trousers and skirts otherwise they are at her ankles the whole time!).

With so much outdoor activities the Water proof coat in her favourite colour “Purple” – well actually the only colour name she knows and everything is purple – is a hit. It’s really water proof (I’ve just brought the puddle trousers trousers to go with it for Autumn and really wet days and the same combination for J) and light weight and will fold down into a small package to go into our back pack when going on trips to the park, or zoo.

Now I browse Zulily daily and many of T’s outfits that you see her playing in come from Zulily and some of our toys including this fantastic rug that we used in our floor safari play.

We received the clothes to review but all opinions are T and my own opinions and words

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