It's still a little early to start getting real pumpkins for Halloween, so we were very excited to get these polystyrene pumpkins from Baker Ross to decorate for the house.



First we decided to paint our pumpkins with some orange paint.  This was the most obvious choice and something that both of the children enjoy doing.  So Ethan and Ivy each had their own little pumpkin to paint, and they were both really focused on covering the whole pumpkin with paint.



* This is a review post, we were sent the polystyrene pumpkins from Baker Ross to use in a craft and write a post about.*

For more Halloween fun, take a look at our Pinterest board:

Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board Halloween Fun for Kids on Pinterest.

We love Halloween and we're already thinking about how to decorate the house!  We got these great Halloween Stained Glass Lantern Kits from Baker Ross and we just had to make them straight away!


We love the kits from Baker Ross for days that we just want an easy craft that doesn't need a lot of supplies, and these lanterns didn't disappoint.  All that we needed was to use our own glue, everything else was supplied for us.  We started by putting some glue around each of the four pictures on the lantern.

Then I helped Ethan to stick the sides of the lantern together and to tie a string through the top to attach the pole, and that was it, our lantern was finished!

* This is a review post, we were sent the lantern kits from Baker Ross to make and to write our opinions about.*

We love Miffy, and so we're very excited that she's getting her very own TV show on Tiny Pop starting this Friday 2nd October.  It's called Miffy's Adventures Big and Small and we can't wait to watch it on Friday evening.  We've even got a Miffy toy to giveaway (details below).


The show couldn't come at a better time, with Miffy's 60th Birthday celebrations this year (we made her a cake!) And it just looks like it's going to be fantastic!  (See the sneak peek video below.)  Miffy's Adventures Big and Small will be short episodes of just 7 minutes each, perfect for little ones to just have a nice quiet show before bedtime.  The show features Miffy and her friends going on adventures together and learning about the world around them.



If you're too excited about the show to wait, you can join in on a Twitter party on Friday afternoon at 1pm.  Just follow @Miffy_UK for more details.  There are prizes to be won and a chance to find out more about the show, I'll be taking part too, so be sure to follow me @PlayLearnToday.


And because I just want to spread some Miffy love, I get to give away this adorable Miffy Sensory Toy!  So head over to my Instagram page @playandlearneveryday and find the photo of Miffy for more details.


* This is a collaborative post, Miffy have provided me with this sensory toy to giveaway so that I could write the post.*

We love playing with cardboard boxes, they are definitely the best things at keeping the kids busy for ages!  We recently moved to a new house and were using our wardrobe boxes for a good couple of months before actually getting around to buying wardrobes.  So Ethan was very excited when he saw four massive boxes come down to the garden for him to play with, and right away he said 'let's make a rocket ship!'


It's so simple to get him started but just opening up the box for him, putting him inside and giving him some crayons and markers to start creating.  He wanted to draw controls for the rocket ship, buttons and a steering wheel so that he could drive it.  I wrote the numbers from 10 to 1 for him so that we could point at the numbers as we did a countdown.  Ivy joined in and scribbled around the rocket as well.  Ethan asked me to cut a window into the rocket so that they could see the moon.

We didn't end up with something that looked like a rocket ship to anyone else, I could have got out the silver paint and spent the whole day making the box look like a rocket, but instead they just got to play in it all day long.  We put the boxes away and Ethan continued to ask to have them out to play in every day.  It really doesn't take much to create a fun place to play and learn.

As the colder weather sets in it's time for us to deal with eczema and dry skin again.  It's also time for the third book in Aveeno's Ellie and Eddie series to come out.

This time Ellie and Eddie are handling their dry skin in the autumn when they're back at school in The Dry-ventures of Ellie and Eddie - Dry Skin Lessons.  It's a great little story showing how Ellie takes her cream to school with her, how she keeps track of when to put it on and just how many children need to use cream for their dry skin.  Ethan was really interested in it and asked lots of questions about Ellie's school in relation to his preschool.  It's definitely a good reminder for him that he's not the only one that needs to put cream on during the day to keep his skin feeling nice.

This is the third book in the series of books that Aveeno has put out to help children with dry skin to understand why they have to use their cream and how much it helps them by relating to the characters in the stories, which can all be downloaded from their website.  We've reviewed the previous two books Bye Bye Dry Skin and Happy Skin Holiday and have found them really helpful. 

* This is a review post, we were sent a copy of the book and a sample Aveeno product to try out and to write our honest review.*

Today we made our very own memory game!  We found this great DIY Memory Game set at Tiger and at first I thought that the kids were too young to be able to draw all of those matching pictures, but we found a way to make it work.


You don't need to have a set to use, you could just some heavy card or even cardboard cut into equal sized squares.  For Ivy I drew some simple shapes and let her use her markers to colour them in.  We've been learning shapes, so it was good for her to use the words to identify them but also to have the freedom to colour them however she liked.


For Ethan I explained that we wanted to have 2 cards that were exactly the same.  I only gave him 2 cards at a time and made sure that we talked about what he was going to draw and what colours he was going to use first.  It was definitely a challenge for him to draw 2 identical pictures, he kept wanting to draw different pictures on each card, but with reminders and encouragement that he would get to play the game at the end he was convinced to follow instructions.

Autumn is here and we love to decorate the house to suit the season, so we've made these cute autumn leaf wreaths today.  As a Canadian (but living in the UK) I also celebrate Thanksgiving, so these will look great for then as well.


Materials:

• shiny card
• leaf foam stickers
• scissors

If there is one thing that my kids absolutely love it's collecting things from outside.  Whenever we go on walks or even just play in the back garden they are always picking up anything and everything.  We're always looking for ways to use these treasures in our crafts and our play, but sometimes the fun is just in collecting!


I always love it when the kids come up with their own activities as well, and this was one of those days!  We had come back from preschool and Ethan had pockets full of rocks that I asked him to empty out in the garden, and on the way out he picked up an empty water bottle and asked if he could put them in there instead.

We were challenged by Actimel to do a few yoga poses before school each day to help Ethan to relax and focus to prepare him for the day ahead.  They sent us a fun goody bag full of school supplies and some Actimel for Kids (in the fun new glow in the dark bottles!) for us to have before school as well.

Ethan doing tree pose

They advised that we try to do at least three of the suggested yoga poses before school each day.  I won't lie to you, we found this very tricky!  Mornings are so hectic on preschool days, it's a struggle just to get Ethan dressed on time.  So we manage to fit in a morning Actimel, but the yoga has to wait until later in the day.

Ethan doing cow pose

I have been meaning to start doing yoga with the kids for a while now, we do it once in a while but have never started a regular practice.  I hope that this has kick started us to make it a regular part of our routine.  

Ethan doing cobra pose

Yoga is known to be a very calming and beneficial practice for children of all ages, so it's definitely something that we want to start doing as much as we possibly can to help both Ethan and Ivy to focus their attention on the things that they're learning every day.

Ethan doing giraffe pose

We also love those Actimel bottles and did a bit of bowling with them, we just couldn't resist!  I'm saving lots of them for another project as well, they're just too cute to throw away and could be fantastic for so many different crafts!


* This is a collaborative post, Actimel sent us a bag of goodies and challenged us to do some yoga poses before school every day in order to write this post.*

We love Halloween!  We start to plan at least a month in advance of what costumes the kids will have and how we'll decorate the house, and we get so into the spirit of things that we just want to play Halloween games and learn with Halloween props every day.  So I've rounded up our top ten Halloween games and activities to share with you!



We love this really easy Halloween activity using some cute pumpkin buckets, the Halloween ball toss is such a fun way to play with things that you've already got in the house for Halloween.



This Halloween match up from Happy Hooligans is so cute and I could definitely see it keeping the kids busy for ages, and even suggesting new Halloween images that you could make for them to match up.

My kids are going to absolutely love this water squirt Halloween game from Mommas Fun World.  Playing with water, counting, stacking and with a pumpkin theme, what more could they possibly want?

We love bowling games, so of course I'm very excited to try out this ghost bottle bowling game from No Time for Flashcards!  The bowling pins and the ball are Halloween themed and the kids even get to help to make the pins, I love it!

Last year we made a witches brew, Ethan absolutely loved this simple way to play outside in costume and mix up something fun!



Clearly I do love a good throwing game as I've also added Pumpkin Chuckin' from B-Inspired Mama to my list, as she geniously uses rolls of toilet paper to make the cutest little pumpkins to throw.  And this Ghost Toss from Mess for Less which uses balloons in a rather clever way and has a fantastic ghost shaped target!

We're very into Lego in our house, so I think that this Halloween Lego game from Teach Mama is right up our street.  I can't wait to get creative with our Lego building for Halloween!

If you're looking for a bit of pretend play to prepare little ones for Halloween, we loved doing this trick or treat imaginary play to get Ethan excited and ready for his first proper Halloween.



And for a bit of sensory play we're definitely going to be trying these Halloween jelly hands from Adventures of Adam.  Ethan and Ivy are going to love making a mess to get the treasures of the jelly hand, and I'll definitely be following the tips for making the jelly set better.

This post is part of a blog hop with bloggers from around the world sharing their top ten ideas for all sorts of different pumpkin and Halloween ideas!


Follow Play & Learn Everyday's board Halloween Fun for Kids on Pinterest.

Today we painted these adorable hedgehog ceramic tealight holders from Baker Ross.  We used these porcelain paints on them and they really turned out so well.



I was a little bit nervous letting Ivy use these paints so I dipped her brush for her, but she was actually really good with it and carefully painted her hedgehog with as many different colours as she could possibly use!

* This is a review post, we were sent the hedgehog tealight holders and paints from Baker Ross to use and write about.*

The Rugby World Cup starts today!  So we've been busy doing a few rugby crafts and decorating the house with rugby bunting as well as reading rugby books.  Now we're finally getting around to playing rugby and working on our rugby skills!