(And even then it often doesn’t work out how you might have planned!)

With Immy now at kindy 5 days a fortnight she has been spending much less of her at home time outdoors (though it probably also doesn’t help that it is so hot here at the moment), so I decided to try setting up an outdoor art invitation to entice her outdoors.

Alongside Immy’s easel I set up three small jars of paint, a sponge with paint and a variety of natural objects that we had recently collected together, thinking that she might like to experiment with painting and printmaking with something other than a paintbrush.

And that is exactly how she started off.  Picking up one object at a time and dipping it into the paint or onto the sponge before pressing it or smearing it onto the paper. Unfortunately, many of our objects made quite small, seemingly unsatisfying imprints and were quickly discarded.

While there were a few interesting moments spend discussing why a shell left a series of dots as an imprint and a reasonable amount of time spent experimenting with the feather as a brush, overall I felt that Immy wasn’t overly fussed with the whole experience.

And then she started dabbing paint onto a new page with the sticks.  All of a sudden she had a whole new burst of energy and before long there was paint flying every which way as dabbing gave way to tapping and then flicking!

Not exactly what I had envisioned in my head for this experience but I let her go with it.  Before I knew it, there was paint on her face and paint up her arm and a smile on her face.

A good reminder to me that kids art really is about the process… and even then it often doesn’t work out how you might have planned!

I wonder if Jackson Pollock‘s mother ever felt this way?

Have you recently observed your child take an idea in a whole new direction than you had ever imagined?

Related Posts

• Managing Art With Children of Different Ages
• Kids Art: Conversations About Drawing
• Kids Art: Working on Canvas
• Kids Art: BIG Murals

Be sure to read to the end of this post for the chance to win with Mor-Stor.

I am not quite sure how it happened but somehow Immy has managed to accumulate a huge collection of soft toys.  She loves them…all of them!  No one favourite cuddly friend here!!!  Her bedtime snuggly friend changes regularly and soft toys also feature every day in her imaginary play.

Despite my best endeavours to limit the collection (including a recent sneaky cull of those less regularly used – I still don’t understand how I got away with it!), if I had to hazard a guess I would say that Immy has over 40 soft toys.  And soft toys take up a lot of room when it comes to storage.  So when I heard about the Mor-Stor large Cooper Canvas Storage Tub my first thought was soft toys   At 48cm wide and 43 cm high, the tub easily fit over 30 soft toys of various sizes. It’s huge!

Mor-Stor’s Cooper range of canvas tubs are made of nylon canvas and the soft, fabric sides make them easy for even young children to push down to reach what’s inside – no fear of the sharp corners or heavy lids that you would find in traditional style wooden toy boxes. New to the range, the Cooper Mini Tubs (available in sets of 2) are also generously sized. Our wooden building blocks were busting out of their old basket but fit easily into one of the minis. The other is now home to various baby doll clothes, bottles, rattles, even a dolly potty! I am a big believer in sorting toys into sets of similar items and the mini Cooper tubs are a good size for blocks, figurines, train sets, Barbie doll collections or home corner food and crockery. And they fit perfectly in the shelves of our Expedit.

Two lucky Australian Childhood 101 readers have the chance to win with Mor-Stor. We have one large Babushka printed tub with a set of matching pink and purple mini tubs and one large Heliplanes printed tub with a set of matching navy and olive mini tubs to be won.

To enter, visit Mor-Stor and check out the range of Cooper tubs and then leave a comment on this post telling me which set of Cooper tubs you would prefer to win and how you would use them. Entries close 6pm AEDST, Tuesday, 28th February 2012.

P.S. Be sure to also like the Mor-Stor Facebook page to stay in touch with news of their great sales and promotions.

The fine print:
1. The competition ends at 6pm AEDST, Tuesday, 28th February 2012.
2. To enter you must leave a comment on this blog post sharing which Mor-Stor Cooper tub products you would find most useful in your home and how they would come in handy.
3. Entry is open to Australian residents only.
4. Entry is limited to one comment per household/IP address.
5. Please register a routinely checked email address in the email field of your entry.
6. The winners will be notified via email within 7 days of the competition closing.
7. Should the winner fail to make contact via return email within 72 hours of notification a new winner may be selected.
8. The winners’ contact details will be passed onto Mor-Stor and the prizes organised directly by them.

In a large mixing bowl combine…

A whole cup of CURIOSITY
(I am a child, I am naturally curious)

A dash or three of RELEVANCE
(I learn best when what I am learning is meaningful to my own experiences in the physical world)

A pint of INTEREST
(I am most motivated to learn when I am engaged and interested in the topic at hand)

A good dose of VARIETY
(I like to learn things in lots of different ways)

A smidgen of PURPOSE
(I like you to know that I can be helpful)

A heaped tablespoon of PROBLEM SOLVING
(to really get me thinking)

A litre of ACTIVE, HANDS ON DOING
(it is through active interaction with objects, places and people that I acquire knowledge)

And more than pinch of PLAYFUL FUN.

Stir together with…

TIME
(to explore, experience, grow and mature)

An INTERESTED ADULT
(to guide, pose challenges and push my thinking further)

And FRIENDS to learn alongside
(sharing with others helps to reinforce my own learning)

…and you have a RECIPE FOR LEARNING!

A peek inside a reader’s play space…

We set up our son’s playroom in the basement. When designing the space, my priority was that everything in it be easy for me to move or breakdown by myself so that he’ll always have room to play sports inside. The winters are mean here!

I’m not big on stacked bins on the floor. I like wall shelves and hanging things from the ceiling to keep things visible and off the floor.

The most important elements in his room are the huge studio mirrors we installed at kiddie-height. He loves to watch himself dance, act, sing, bounce on the trampoline, etc.

We love having a dedicated space for him to play, learn, and decorate for all the holidays.

Wow! What a fabulous play space, you just have to check out the rest of this room over here at The Mommies Made Me Do It. The Chief is one lucky little boy

Do you have a family or kids play space in your home that you love (indoors or outdoors)? Submit your play space here and you too could be featured on Childhood 101.

Be sure to visit the previous Our Play Space posts for more playful inspiration!

Catch up on our journey so far;

• Our Pregnancy Journey: Week 27, Week 26, Week 25, Week 24, Week 23, Week 22, Week 21, Weeks 18-20
• Our pregnancy announcement

A true sign that I am well and truly pregnant was the spontaneous urge to spring clean at 10pm that occurred earlier this week. All of a sudden the clutter was driving me crazy and I just wanted it gone!  (I literally was telling Dad 101 to ‘Throw it in the bin,” every time the poor man asked me where I wanted something put!)

I am sure that we don’t have any more stuff than any other family but all of a sudden it was driving me crazy. And one of the things that is making me craziest of all is the paper clutter!  I feel like I am drowning under the weight of one hundred stacks of paper.  We seem to have piles of paper everywhere – bills to be paid, bills that have been paid, receipts and papers to keep for tax, work stuff of mine, work stuff of his, artworks of the small girl’s, random papers with recipes scribbled on them, lists, birthday cards, magazines, brochures, store catalogues, paint chip cards – all of which have a purpose but they are simply driving me insane.

I know I need a system for sorting the paper mountains but I am at a bit of a loss as to what to do.  So I need your help, how do you control the paper clutter? How do you decide what to keep? Where do you store it? How often do you file it?  And what gets filed under R for ‘rubbish’? What system works for you?

This post is by regular contributor, Cath Oehlman of SquiggleMum.

“Mum, we are playing a game called Chilly-Chally and you should reeeeallly blog about this because it’s a great game and we made it up ALL by ourselves!”  I laughed, partly because the game was ridiculous, and partly because my five and three year old kids are now dictating what I blog about!

After days of torrential downpours and flash flooding in Brisbane, the rain finally eased and I was able to shoo the kids into the backyard for some much needed outdoor play.  Being mid summer, it was hot and incredibly steamy, but the kids still needed gumboots on because the ground was completely sodden!

They discovered this empty garden-cart had filled to the brim with water, and it proved to be more enticing than the swings, the sandpit or anything else in the backyard (I often find children are drawn to water play like moths to a flame). At first their play was tentative. They both stood beside the cart, putting their hands into the water and letting it run through their fingers.  Then they found containers from their dirt kitchen, filled them up and poured them all over themselves.

Mr 3 took things one step further by deciding it would be better to climb INTO the garden cart to fill his container.  The water level was higher than that of his gumboots however, so he found himself sloshing around as he walked!  This quickly evolved into a full blown game of Chilly-Chally.

How To Play Chilly-Chally:

1. Climb into the cart to fill up your container.
2. Stand on one side of the bridge with your water.
3. Wait for your partner to come to the other side of the bridge.
4. Count to three, then throw water onto your partner while shouting “Chilly-Chally!”
5. Repeat.

Truthfully, I almost put a stop to this silly play several times.  I almost said, “Don’t play in that water please kids.”  I almost said, “Stop throwing water you two.”  I almost said, “What are you doing?! Your gumboots are meant to keep water out!”

Almost. But instead, I asked myself a few sensible questions.  Are they safe?  Yes.  Are they enjoying their play?  Yes.  Are they working well together?  Yes.  Are they learning anything? Yes.  Are they making memories?  Yes.

So I resisted the urge to intervene, and simply watched their antics.  I was rewarded by overhearing sentences which demonstrated learning through play such as:

• “How did this water get in my boots?!”
• “The water in the bucket is going down, down, down now.”
• “Let’s throw the water up higher.”
• “You have to stand a bit closer or the water won’t get me.”
• “Before we were really hot, and now we’re really chilly.”

Don’t you remember playing silly games as a child?  As adults we watch a game like Chilly-Chally and want to stop it because it just seems like messy nonsense.  It probably IS messy nonsense, but when did that become such a terrible thing?  Mess is just mess.  So what if my kids got wet and got water in their gumboots?!  And nonsense is just nonsense.  So what if they made up a ridiculous title for a game that seemingly had no purpose, no rules and no winner?!   They had a wonderful time together learning through play.

Please don’t take your kids outside for a game of Chilly-Chally this week.  That is not the point of this post!  I just want to encourage you to take a moment to think twice before interfering in your children’s play, and not to underestimate the value of messy nonsense.

Loving these hands on science ideas from Playopedia!

Learning while playing, it’s the way it should be…

Push me, pulley you!	Storm in a Saucer
Lego Science! Float or Sink	Fizz! Bubble! Pop!
Making Moon Craters	Create an Optical Illusion
5 Sensory Tubs for Bubs	Chasing Shadows

Check out the latest updates at Playopedia today! There’s new ideas every week for bubs, toddlers, preschoolers and big kids!

Or submit your playful blog post to the collection here.