marble spider web painting/ gears

Shells in the sand:)



Its been busy here the last few days with my mum visiting from the Middle East... crafting has been laid aside for lazy beach days, a visit to the gallery and family bonding :) It always takes my gang a little while to get used to having her here again ( not so much jumeirah anymore now that shes older) but once the connection is there again, she walks around the house whilst the sound of "Ma! MA!" rings out constantly.

My little mermaid girl

Amahli still crazy about tricks

Kite gazing


Yesterday we had a "home" day so I got out some things for my little two to do with Ma. After the surprising (read shocking) visit from our Red Back Spider friend last week, Jared has been keen to find some more. ( I am not so much keen really...) So I got out some black paper and the marbles to make a marble spider web picture.




He enjoyed tilting the marbles back and forth, racing them down the tray to crazh at each end. Hes big on sound effects in art at the moment so this was perfect for that too :)






Amahli was happier if she could use her hands to bounce the marbles in the tray, she didnt like that this wasnt as tactile as she normally does. She rolled the marbles by hand in the end, until she found a paintbrush and continued her greatest love, Body Art :) I printed her hands as well which she loved.











In the afternoon, I got out something we havent seen in a while but has always been a favourite of Jumeirahs: Gears. I bought this set a million years ago, pre kids, whilst I was a preschool teacher. It was something that they all loved and gave them a great opportunity to work together, and to practise problem solving in a fun way.

Jared, Amahli, Ma and myself spent quite a while trying to get the gears to fit together so that each gear was touching another one which makes them spin together. Jared was pretty particular about what sizes came next and Amahli loved watching the spinning colours... think we need a bigger set :)






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( the set is called Quercetti gears and can be found in lots of educationally stores. I found some here at educational experience but they are also on ebay)

Now, time to get back to those travelling toys!! Should be two up this week :)