Showing posts with label gems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gems. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Simple Small Worlds: Butterfly World

You can read about our other Simple Small Worlds here:

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I knew I wanted to make a second small world based off of our Insect TOOBcreatures, and since we love butterflies (and raise them every year!), what better world to make than Butterfly World?



Our Michaels store is constantly running specials on their faux flowers, so I waited until these brightly colored gerber daisies were two for $1 and bought several in purple, white, yellow, and pink.  S loves having different sensory materials in her worlds, so I settled on using some fresh green grass and adding a little pond.  And of course we used our Dollar Tree gems, because, well, we almost always use our Dollar Tree gems.  :)

At first, I cut the stems of the flowers to the height I wanted.  But then I saw S bending the stems and realized that because they had wire inside and I could bend them to the correct height!  Thank goodness for S!  So I bent the remaining flowers and stabilized them with tape throughout the world.  I left an opening in the center for the butterfly's pond.


 A quick trip to the backyard with a grocery bag yielded the grass necessary and we added a few drops of blue liquid watercolors to make the pond especially blue (you could instead use blue food coloring).  S required gems both in the pond and randomly scattered throughout the world.  It was then ready to be populated by our guests - a few creatures from our Safari Ltd Insect TOOB and one rogue Monarch (from a really cool Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly set we used to learn about Raising Butterflies).


S immediately set to work storytelling, as is always the case with our small world set ups.  The butterflies in Butterfly World lived on the flowers and needed to make beds because they were sleepy.  They also needed to bathe in the pond (there's a lot of sleeping and bathing that goes on in our small worlds - they are for sure recurring themes).


The butterflies would fly down into the grass, gather wingfuls of it, and transfer them to the flowers.


They also loved including a gem or two in each of their beds.  To decorate, of course.


Blue butterfly was pretty serious about constructing her bed/nest.  I was so impressed with how much these flowers held - there were 2-3 gems and a giant pile of grass on most of them, and there was no bending or falling!


Blue butterfly really has a serious bed happening there.  I bet that fluffy grass is extra cozy.


S had so much fun with the grass - and after not too long, little X woke up from his nap.


And he also loved the grass!


Luckily he was content to sit with his own giant pile of grass for dumping and just observe all the nest/house building that was going on.


Once the butterflies were all content and sleeping soundly, S moved on to making houses for the "little buggy guys" that were in the world, lest they feel left out.


For more butterfly fun, check out our posts on Raising Butterflies and Making Your Own Butterfly Wings!


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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Simple Small Worlds: Frog World

You can read about our other simple small worlds here:
I love small world imaginative play, and so does S.  Sometimes I feel like I see small worlds on Pinterest that are amazing, but so intricate that they feel a bit overwhelming.  Especially with an infant to also care for, I like to throw together simpler small worlds, using similar "ingredients", so hopefully they feel less daunting.


For this world we used the plastic underbed storage container.   You can also use one of the Step2 sensory tables I mentioned in my Basic Sensory Supplies post.  I filled it with tap water, added some lily pads that I cut out of foam sheets (from Michaels or the Dollar Store), and added some glass beads (from the Dollar Store), and added some plastic frogs.  I think the two most important elements are the floating foam pieces and the water, so you could always create a world with floating shapes and whatever plastic toys you have on hand.


Here she's telling her story of the frogs in a quiet voice.  It's so cute to listen to her narrate.  Apparently there was a big storm that came and was washing all the poor frogs off their lily pads!


So long as you are closely supervising, most things you do in small worlds can be baby friendly.  I don't know that I would set something like this up for X if he were my only child, but if there are younger siblings, you could always have them "join" in.  :)


X loves being able to play with "big kid" stuff.  I swear he can tell when it's something not normally for babies!  


And who doesn't love a cute little frog, right?




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Please always supervise your infant/child at play.  Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended.