Calming Basket

As with many parents, I am all for alternative approaches to 'discipline' when it comes to those rough days with my kids. I'm pretty sure that at times, Eden's 'misbehaviour' is due to those great big fluctuations of emotions which many toddlers/pre-schoolers (and let's face it, teenagers and adults!) experience. In which case, my Mummy role here is to teach her how to handle those emotions. One of the ways in which hubby and I are trying to do this, is by using a Calm Basket. 
When our little Princess has 'yucky feelings' (especially when she feels irritable or angry), she can get out her Calm Basket. Inside we have put her Calm Jar (read on, and I'll tell you all about it!), a special colouring in book with special crayons and stickers, a less-messy kid-friendly version of a Zen garden in a wooden box along with some odds and sods, and some natural items like shells, feathers, gumnuts, etc. 

Nature Collages

We're loving the beautiful Autumnal weather around here! Where we live, there are lots of Oaks, Maples and Elm trees shedding their glorious golden leaves and we can't help but bring some home.
On a recent picnic with my girls to a local park...

... Miss Eden collected various bits and pieces: leaves, of course, but also clovers, flowers, tree bark, gumnuts and twigs. What to do with them? We made a collage!

Shell Treasure Box for Babies

Inspired by big sister Eden's recent play time with shells (see here), I put the biggest shells in our collection into a sturdy shoebox and set my little Ava baby up in front of it. She was so excited, lots of foot wiggling and hand waving!
Naturally, the shells went straight into the mouth for some dribbly fun...

Nature Printing

Now that we're experiencing a welcome return to sunshiney days, thank you Spring!, I have been going for walks with my kids just about every day again. Sometimes, Eden just wants to run around, sometimes, she sits in the stroller, and sometimes we take a plastic bag with us and go nature-collecting. She picks up leaves, grass, bark, pebbles, gumnuts, flowers, anything she thinks is interesting, and puts it in her bag.

When we get home, she puts her 'collection' into one or two of my glass vases and it sits on the hall table as a display. Other times, we lay it out on a table in the playroom which acts as the 'Nature Table'. Yesterday, we used her haul to create some nature art.

I laid out some newspaper to protect the table, and cut some old sponges in half, dampened them, put them in meat trays and squirted some paint onto each sponge.

She simply pressed the leaves/sticks/gumnuts into the paint and pressed them onto the paper to create prints. She had a ball!

I had planned for her to paste the leaves onto a cereal box when she'd finished painting with them but we ran out of time.

If you wanted to, you could also get your littlie to arrange leaves or pressed flowers on a sheet of waxed paper (glossy side up). Then put another sheet of waxed paper on top (glossy side down) and iron together with a moderately warm iron. You end up with a semi-translucent sheet with the leaves and flowers showing through. A lovely idea for wrapping paper.

**Also, try adding a squirt of detergent into the paint (makes it easier to clean up afterwards), and you could always let your kids experiment with pebbles, sticks, etc, too. Thanks to Kate G. for this handy tip! :D