With Boo now at school, I’m trying to plan a little activity for her to return home to each day. One that has the kids sitting down for a bit and making the most of each other’s company. It also means that coming home to something to do keeps them both busy whilst I get the dinner sorted – clever planning!
As we’ve done a couple of times now, we had fun with an activity based on a picture book we’ve been enjoying reading. My mum has loads of books for the kids at her house, and one of them is particularly apt for her, as it’s called Mabel’s Magical Garden. My mum is a keen gardener so the kids always associate Nanny with gardening, and her dog’s called Mabel – a good book for her to buy them!
The book itself is a sweet story about friendship and sharing, and of course, Mabel’s garden. I’d suggest this activity works with any book at all about gardens and flowers (and to be honest, none are even needed for this to be fun!).
Garden Designing
You’ll need:
An old gardening magazine
Scissors
Glue
Paper
Crayons
I cut up pages of the magazine, so that I had plenty of plants, flowers, grasses, pathways and ornaments for the kids to choose from (if it had just been Boo, I’d have left her to do some of the cutting, too, but I prepared this one as Little Man is lethal with scissors!). I then introduced them to the activity, inviting them to create their own dream gardens. Boo spent some time thinking about it, colouring her sky and carefully selecting her pictures and placing them thoughtfully. Little Man was just all about the glue!
Both of the kids had fun with this one, and it was one of those activities that did actually go the way that I’d hoped it would!
We’ve also had fun bringing to life Zoe and Beans Pirate Treasure and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
What do you think? And as this went well, I can now adapt it, so we’ll be designing homes next week…!
What a good idea, I feel I may be borrowing this one sometime soon! 🙂
Thank you – yes do, hope you enjoy 🙂
Such a lovely, lovely idea. Got loads of seed catalogues on the recycle pile at the moment – going to put them to good use!
Perfect for you! Enjoy 🙂
Great idea! Will be nabbing this for my daughter- she loves sticking and we are inundated with gardening magazines! She’s always flicking through them and asking me ‘which flower you like, Mummy?’ – she’s going to love this- thanks!
Perfect! Enjoy 🙂
oh what a great idea! We don’t have a garden here as we are leaving in a flat. I’ll borrow this idea. #LetKidsBeKids
It’s fun to do 🙂
What a lovely idea! Looks like they loved it, great idea to keep them entertained while you sort dinner… Though I don’t think I would be brave enough to leave Monkey unattended with the glue as we don’t have a table on viewing distance from the kitchen sadly! Xx #letkidsbekids
Hmm, not ideal then! And I also had Boo commentating on everything he did! xx
Great idea! We love activities like this and it s perfect for an after school wind down. I ll be pinning this for later. #letkidsbekids
Yes, it’s a handy thing to keep them happy and creating but not too wild and messy! Thank you.
Great idea, it helps bring a book to life, makes them think about what they like and allows creativity too.
Thanks for linking #LetKidsbeKids
They really enjoyed it, so one to do again 🙂
Like the others I think that this is a nice idea! I have magazines with plant pictures! #LetKidsBeKids
Perfect! Thanks 🙂
Oh lovely bab! And your girl looks so so so cute in her little dress! Like from home and away. I was always jel of them. I need to start doing some arty things when the boy wakes up in the afternoons. Fab xxx
You do make me laugh! But yes, she looks cute 🙂 This is an easy one to do – arty and creative but non-messy xx
Such a great Idea! Lovely. I guess it could work with other places too 🙂
Thank you for linking up with the #pinitparty
Yes, exactly – we’ll be working on plenty more! Thanks for hosting x
This is a lovely idea. Just think, this would have been how we collected ideas before pinterest :p
#letkidsbekids
Oh yes, back in the day! Thanks
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