Happy New Tuesday!

Happy New Year!! I wish you a really wonderful year ahead with lots of time to play, laugh and enjoy time spent with your loved ones.

As today is the first day of the year and the start of our relaxing holiday, we brainstormed ideas that our family can do around the home for the month of January while enjoying the summer break. It was easy to come up with ideas but we stuck to 15 so we can have some pyjama days in between.

Brainstorming our ideas.

Making our holiday idea box. (Now that I have started my Christmas perfume)

We covered the box with coloured paper and my son decorated it.

On one side of the peg we decorated with markers and coloured paper and on the other I wrote our ideas.

We put the pegs around the holiday box and our aim is to select a peg every couple of days and complete the activity. Once done the peg goes inside the box. We did pretty simple activities that cost nothing. Can't wait to start!

Using our empty chocolate boxes for a fun holiday activity.

After consuming a lot of chocolates over Christmas, we decided to use the plastic inserts and make some chocolate playdough to play with. I love playdough because there are soo many benefits from developing fine motor skills and imaginative skills, it has no age limits. The playdough can be put in ziplock bags and kept in the fridge.

We split one quantity of playdough into three parts and varied the amount of cocoa powder in each to change the density of the colour. The smell was DELICIOUS!

The chocolate shop, with some very expensive chocolates...

The playdough recipe we use:

-2 cups of plain flour

-4 tablespoons of cream of tartar

-1 cup of salt

-2 tablespoons of cooking oil

-2 cups of boiling water

Put it all in a bowl and mix and once it has cooled down knead it! If you want to add colour, you can do it at the end, like I did or put it in at the beginning.

We make playdough every single week at school and this is one of the easiest recipes.

Happy 2013!!