Mama Pea Pod

{Outdoor Play Linky - Our Week Outdoors: June 10-16}

Join our Outdoor Play blog hop below and link up your own Outdoor Play activities!

Our Week Outdoors:

A daytrip to the Vienna Zoo (did you know that it was the world's first zoo?)

Learning new perspectives

Overcoming our fear of costumes

Running through tunnels

Pointing out the animals to each other

Getting a better look

Learning about the properties of metal (it gets very hot in the sun! Ouch!)

Sharing an ice-cream (strawberry, of course!)

Stretching ourselves with new physical challenges

Testing our sense of direction

Using our imaginations

Developing problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination

Strengthening our muscles

Developing our senses

In the Garden

More mud play!

And more!

Finding poppies in the garden

Developing balance and gross motor skills

And being Princess Pea!

Now for our Outdoor Play blog hop!

Thanks to everyone who participated last week! Again, there were lots of wonderful contributions! My favourite this week was this outdoor chalkboard from Jen of Kitchen Counter Chronicles! I want one so bad!

Now, over to you....

How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Here’s just a few guidelines for sharing.

> Any kind of children's outdoor play is welcome. If it happened outside, then please link it up!

> Please do not share any competitions, promotions, or posts that are not related to Outdoor Play.

> Please remember to link back to this post and help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play!

> Each week we will feature an activity from the previous week. By contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished.

Thanks for sharing.

Go ahead - grab my button!

Linking to:

It's Playtime

High Paw For Toddlers
For The Kids Friday

{Wordless Wednesday: New Biped}

You don't mind if it's Wordless Thursday this week do you?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

{Guest Post - Bird Feeder}

A guest post for you today from Michelle of Michelle's Charm World - but I'll let her introduce herself to you ...

Hello everyone!! I'm Michelle of Michelle's Charm World, a blog of fun and creative crafts for kids. I have 3 kids ages 6, 5 and 3 and I love to create with them and help them explore the world around us! My joy in life is having their eyes light up with understanding when they learn how something works. I am honored to be here on Mama Pea Pod as your guest poster and hope that you enjoy the craft we will be working on today!

Make Your Own Bird Feeder

It's garage sale day and we have been out here since the wee hours of the morning! We've been prepping and staging and having a blast, but after so many hours, the kids get bored, even with their lemonade stand thriving! I decided since we were outside, it was the perfect time to do another bird feeder. We had made our previous one out of a recycled lid and wanted to try something different this time around. I went through my trusty recycle bins and found just what I needed! A strawberry container, that is plastic. This was deeper than the lid and allowed us to put in a different variety of seed than what we had in the other feeder. Please forgive my photos and messy table as we are working in the garage with my cellphone, so that we can man the sale too!

Let's gather our supplies! I used Scissors, Tape, Rope (Use twine, string anything you can find!) and our container! Everything I found in our garage, how cool is that!? A craft project that we can do outside, while not having to go in at all!!

Now let's get some holes put in 2 opposite sides (I think it would hold better if you put holes and string through all 4 sides, but with running the garage sale, I was constantly stepping away from the craft table and I didn't want them to have to wait too long. This part is too hard and too sharp for little hands, you could definitely do it with a hole punch to make it easier!

Next, it's time to tape up the holes on the bottom. I turned it upside down and just put one layer all the way around. This is a great job for the little ones if someone holds it steady and the other goes with the tape. You don't have to cover the entire length of the holes, since this allows for water to drain if it rains too much! (We're not making a bird bath here!!) You are all set now!! It's time to put your feed or whatever you would like to put in here!

Since our other feeders all hold seed, we wanted to try a different type of thing and went with peanut butter covered apples and then sprinkled seed over the top. We left the youngest one with this job and gave him a jar of peanut butter and a plastic spoon to work with, he did his best as you can see above!

Time to hang them up! We put them in the basket just as the little guy did them and hung it up for him to see! It was just about nap time for him, so as soon as he went down, the older ones then swooped in to finish them up and get the apples really coated and sprinkled with seed! I wish I had taken a final photo, but of course we got swamped and the big kids wanted lunch and all was forgotten! haha! It did look really great and was so much fun to do.

Thanks for letting me visit with you all and I hope you enjoyed this simple craft!

Thanks so much to Michelle for guest posting! Be sure to check out her blog, as she has tons of fun and creative ideas to share! You can also find her on Twitter @MichellesCharmW or Facebook
MichellesCharmWorld.

{Breakfast-time Sensory Play}

We all know that sensory play is great for little ones. And there are loads of fabulous sensory play ideas out there in the blogosphere that involve all sorts of mediums for creating sensory activities for your child.

Ours is a bit simpler. Perfect for when you don't have sensory materials on hand, don't have a container available to hold them, or just days when you can't be bothered and need a fast, easy play idea. Or for every day. Like we do it :-)

Every day Sweet Pea creates her own sensory play experience - with her breakfast cereal! She eats quite sensibly until she's had enough, then she plunges her hands in there, scoops, squishes, smears, tastes, wipes, and gets it all over her hands, arms, face, neck, and hair. (I stop short of letting her throw it.)

Yes, it's a lot of clean-up every morning. Yes, mornings are busy enough already. Yes, sometimes I do have to just put her straight into the bath before we take Princess Pea to preschool. Yes, we are often late for preschool! And yes, we usually do get there and then notice in the different light that she's still got some of it crusted on her ears and eyelids.