{Rubbed Leaf Hedgehogs}

These cute little hedgehogs brightened up our dreary fall afternoon last weekend!

Rubbed Leaf Hedgehogs

Creativity for Preschoolers

Sweet Pea loves collecting leaves, sticks, rocks, anything from nature that she finds on our walks. As a result, we had a large pile of leaves that she had collected and pressed and was looking for something to use them for.

After seeing these leaf turkeys and these leaf hedgehogs, we decided to make our own versions of hedgehogs with them. Sweet Pea is in the Hedgehog class at preschool, and our dog's name is Hedgehog (in Hungarian), so hedgehogs were the perfect subject for our crafty Sunday together!

We got out some paper and drew some snouts - just a rounded, slightly curved triangle with a circular nose on the end. 

Then we put leaves under the papers and rubbed them gently with the side of a crayon (we love these ergonomic crayons from Boya). 

Aren't they sweet? I think our little Hedgehog approves!

Looking for more leaf-y activities? How about these?

Natural Leaf Garland

Fall Leaf Wreath for Kids to Make

Simple Fall Nature Art

{Cool Dinosaur Small World Play}

Cool Dinosaur Small World Play

with Play Dough and Nature Items

This dinosaur small world play scene was a big hit at Sweet Pea's dinosaur birthday party! The kids had so much fun playing with it, and it was really easy to set up in about 10-15 minutes with just a little preparation ahead of time. All I used was some no-cook homemade play dough and nature items collected from the garden!

A few days before her party, I made several batches of no-cook homemade play dough in 'earthy' colours - shades of blue, brown, grey and green. To make the brown I first tried mixing red and green food colouring, but it made more of a greyish colour (which I used as 'rock' in our dinosaur world.) Then I found it worked much better to make brown if I just added some cocoa powder instead - and it smelled divine, too! In total, to fill our whole sensory play table [affiliate link], I made 5 batches of this no-cook homemade play dough recipe. I stored it in resealable plastic bags to keep it soft and fresh.

I flattened the play dough down in sections to make different landforms - blue for a lake, grey/beige for sand/rocks, brown for mud/earth, and green for grass/forest.

Then I went out to the garden and collected some bits and pieces of nature - clippings from some bushes, bits of grass, twigs, rocks, wood chips, and some flowers. I brought them in and placed them around the dinosaur world - bush/tree clippings, grasses and flowers in the grass/forest area, wood chips and twigs around the brown parts, and rocks to section off areas.

I used some brown play dough to form a volcano shape and rose buds and petals to make the red lava. Then I hid our Playmobil dinosaur set and all the dinosaur toys [affiliate links] I could find in amongst it all.

Doesn't it look fun?

If you have a little dinosaur lover, too, you might also like our Decorated Dinosaur Eggs and our Rainbow Dinosaur Dig!

Follow Mama Pea Pod's board Dinosaur Fun on Pinterest.

{Simple Canada Flag Nature Craft - Maple Rubbing}

Canada Flag Nature Craft for Kids:

Maple Tree Rubbing

For Canadians feeling patriotic or for non-Canadians learning about Canada, here's a fun nature craft to get your creative kids outdoors.

We made this Canada flag craft last summer for Canada Day, but it would be great to do anytime! All you need is some paper, a red crayon or coloured pencil, and a maple tree!

Lay your paper in landscape format and using a maple leaf, mark out thirds with vertical lines down the paper. Make a leaf rubbing in the centre of the paper (notice that nice Canadian spelling of 'centre' ;-p ) by laying the paper on top of the leaf and gently rubbing the crayon at a sideways angle over the paper where the leaf is underneath.

Then, lay the paper on the trunk of the maple tree and make bark rubbings over the outside thirds of the paper to fill in those sections completely.

Enjoy the time outdoors and perhaps take the opportunity to also check out some other types of barks and leaves and make comparisons.

{DIY Natural Leaf Garland}

Last week we made this beautiful natural leaf garland during mother-daughter crafts time. I just adore it! This would make a lovely autumn/fall or Thanksgiving decoration, laid across a table, or draped around the room as we have done. I had thought it might dry out and crumble after a few days, but it's still beautiful and perfect after a week. *Update: It's now March and it's still beautiful and perfect, despite hanging in our living room in direct traffic!

{Fall Leaf Wreath for Kids to Make}

Princess Pea made this sweet fall leaf wreath 

to decorate our front door this autumn season.

All you need is a disposable plastic plate 

{Simple Fall Nature Art}

Today Sweet Pea and I had fun creating some simple autumn nature art.

{Fruit and Vegetable Sensory Guessing Game for Vocabulary Development}

FRUIT AND VEGETABLE GUESSING GAME

For Sensory Learning and Vocabulary Development

A fun and educational sensory game for toddlers and preschoolers! 

Play this simple Fruit and Vegetable Guessing Game to help young children learn to use their senses and logical reasoning to deduce what's hidden behind their backs, while developing their vocabulary at the same time ....

{Pumpkin Fairy World}

We started carving our pumpkin the other day and created this cozy fairy garden out of it, inspired by this pumpkin diorama.

First we cut the top - the girls were delighted by the sight of all the stringy, seedy insides!

It took some convincing, but I finally managed to get the girls involved in scooping out the insides (granted, they were a bit cold inside since the pumpkin had been sitting outdoors). Princess Pea isn't really a fan of slime, so she used a spoon and bowed out at the first possible escape window, but once Sweet Pea got started, she really enjoyed the sensory experience and helped me sort through the goop to collect all the seeds for roasting.

I cut a huge 'door' in the front (which fits back on), and we gathered bits and pieces from the garden and house to create this comfy spot for a fairy to sit and reflect.

We had found this 'fairy chair' piece of wood in the forest a couple of weeks ago and brought it home for our outdoor fairy garden. We added a few sprigs of lavender, some bark chips, and painted pebbles and snail shells from around the garden. Then we added a fake flower, a plastic salamander, a small wooden apple, a felted owl, and, of course, a fairy.

I think it's really sweet, and the girls are quite taken by it! We have it set up on the upstairs balcony, facing in towards the window so it can be seen from indoors as well as played with outdoors under the cover of the balcony roof.

I think it's not how we'll use it on Halloween night, as we'll need light in it, but it's a fun way to use it for now. When Halloween comes, I'll fit the door back on, and either carve a face in the other side, or perhaps drill some holes to make a lovely luminary like the one Taming the Goblin made.

What did you do with your pumpkin this year?

You might also like to see our 'mummykin' pumpkin from last year, or see more pumpkin ideas here. And there are lots more seasonal ideas on my Halloween and Fall pin board.

{Outdoor Play Party: Awesome Nature}

Hi folks, I know I haven't been around much lately, but we're back at school now and things are crazy and hectic. Between my full-time teaching job, additional department head responsibilities and homeschooling Princess Pea for Kindergarten on the side, I'm not sure when I'll be able to pop in next, so I'm putting blogging on hold for a bit. So I'm very sad to announce that this will be my last Outdoor Play Party for a while. However, the party will continue over at my cohosts' blogs (and watch for a new cohost next edition, too!). I encourage you to follow all of their blogs so that you can keep up to date with when new editions of the Outdoor Play Party are posted. I do hope that you will all still participate. I think that by sharing in this forum here, we are all doing our part to promote the importance of outdoor play for kids - too often overlooked in our busy, highly-scheduled society these days!

So, before I go, I leave you with some pictures from a recent hike we took. We had a lovely vacation in Croatia, including visiting the Plitvicke lakes area for a couple of days. We were so impressed that Princess Pea hiked a full 4 hours on her own, without a complaint! 

And what a beautiful place for a hike! 

Our route

And you gotta love hiking in Europe - in addition to the incredible and varied natural scenery, at the end there's always ice cream and beer waiting! ;-)

{Outdoor Play Party: Lying in the Grass}

You know those moments you get sometimes as a parent, when your child does something that makes  you feel so proud your heart could burst? Well, I must tell you that when my 2 year old spontaneously went out recently and lay down by herself on the grass, just laid there, simply enjoying the feel of it, I had one of those moments! My daughter was just purely enjoying nature - the feel of it, the sound of it, the smell of it - enjoying it with all her senses! I can't tell you how happy it made me to see that - my little girl appreciating the natural world, without any prompting or toys or activities to entice her. Just the soft, green grass calling to her made her run out there and lay her whole body down on it to experience it.

Pinky Cat got to go out and enjoy it, too.

Otherwise, she was all alone, just peacefully taking in the world around her.


What else can you do while lying in the grass?

See what kinds of bugs or other life you can find hidden in the grass.
Mark off a small patch no bigger than the size of your palm and use a magnifying glass to try to count the blades of grass in that patch. Can you count them?
See if you can find other types of plants hidden among the grass - can you find daisies? Dandelions? Clovers?
Search for 4-leafed clover leaves.
Feel the grass on your skin and try to describe it - is it soft? Spiky? Dry? Damp?
Lay on the grass and watch the clouds go by - can you see any shapes in them?

The last Outdoor Play Party included 41 ideas for playing outdoors. Many of them also involved exploring the natural world. Below are a few of my favourite nature exploration posts that were linked up. If you were one of them, go ahead and grab yourself a 'featured' button from the sidebar.

Rainy Day Mum shared her post about going on a bug hunt in their garden.

Play, Create, Explore explained how to capture and preserve a spider web perfectly on paper.

At Pre-School Play, the children used mud and found nature items to create some International Mud Day artwork.

And the Children's Art Group used items from nature to create these nature prints in clay.

For further details about this linky party, see here.