Bananas and Knives

Some of the simplest activities involve food. It takes only a minute, or less, to put something in front of a child wanting to ‘help’ and you’re free for a few minutes at least, and if you’re really lucky you’ll get a whole half an hour to yourself.

Our favourite for a long time was a banana and a butter knife. He really enjoyed honing a skill he saw us doing daily. It works with anything soft enough to provide easy cutting for little hands. An over ripe kiwi provides lots of fun even without a knife. Tomatoes are great fun for exploring fingers.

Yes, there will be a little mess, but nothing a damp cloth can’t sort out in less than 10 seconds. You can wash clothes, utensils and hands easily too. Your child will probably eat most of the fresh healthy food so it won‘t go to waste. All in all a very worthwhile activity for your child to play and learn.

And sometimes he can't wait even to take the skin off!

Quick Finger Puppets

I got this idea from Red Ted Art, a place jam packed full of wonderfully creative ideas for little children.

Cardboard finger puppets
Material: small piece of cardboard, tape, pen

1. Find a piece of card and cut it into a long thin strip, about 5cm long. Anything will do, we used the sides of an egg carton, but any packaging box would work.
2. Draw a face on the strip. We had a happy face and a sad face, but any face which suit’s the current phase would increase the fun: dinosaur, animal, Dr. Seuss etc
3. Tape the strip onto a finger. Using a different inger each time would work the muscles in all fingers, but some would be hard work for little ones.
4. Play. You could role play, tickle, fight, chase, chat, dance…