It was mine and Ashton’s turn to do an adventure video for this week and as I was thinking about what to do, I couldn’t stop thinking of painting. I hesitated at first, thinking how it might scare more parents from doing a painting activity than it would inspire them! As everyone well knows, painting with children (especially babies) is never a clean project. And as you will see after watching our adventure video . . . we made a mess!

Which brought me to ask the question afterwards “Was that worth the mess?” and I have to say, I 100% think it was  . . . So today I want to blog my case and try and convince those out there who shy away from doing painting projects with their kids, to at least give it a try.

During our ‘Tempo Painting’ activity, Ashton and I ran into countless learning moments which totally justified the mess at the end. . . we got to physically experience different speeds of fast and slow. . . we sang “The wheels on the bus” and did the actions in the paint as we sang. . .  we explored different shapes. . .  we mixed colours and talked about the new colours as they evolved. . .  we got to feel the texture and talk about how it felt on our hands. . . and, oh the fun when we got in the shower! We got to watch the water change colour all around us, another fantastic talking point!

Those are just a few of the wonderful learning moments we encountered and would have missed if I hadn’t been daring enough to take the plunge and get messy for half an hour! (Let me mention that we did go in prepared! We wore our painting clothes, we had a tarpaulin down and a cloth to wipe off excess paint afterwards! – If you prepare well, its not as scary and the more you do it… the better you will both get at it!)

Ashton and mummy get creative with TEMPO PAINTING! Go on do it! You know you want to!!! ;o)

After a lovely holiday away in Surfers Paradise with my family I am back into Polkadots action . . . well, I’m trying to  anyway! I am of the firm belief that you need at least two days to recover and get back into routine after a holiday,  especially when a child is involved. Unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping, catching up on e-mails, you name it… there are a million things to do and in amoungst it all, trying to entertain your child so that he knows he is still the centre of the your world!

All of this sparked my BLOG thoughts for today. . .  because as I was going about my business, trying to get life back in order, Ashton’s baby chatter calls for attention were getting louder and louder. It was at this point I reaslised how quickly our babies and children get caught up in our crazy adult lives. They have no choice but to go with the flow . . . of course we can’t stop doing everything and just play with our children 24/7 – BUT! we can stop every now and then to give them pockets of quality time. And if we really think smart we can work our role as teacher to our children in with our role of ‘whatever else’. You could take a 15 minute walk (exercise) with your child and stop to smell the flowers. While preparing afternoon tea, talk with your child about the seeds you discovered inside an apple. While reading a bed time story stop half way through the story and ask them to make up a new ending using their imagination. Make the every day ordinary adult crazy daily life moments… extraordinary. You just need to take a few seconds to think “How can I make this moment a teaching moment?”

We are meant to be teaching our children about our world, preparing them to take on the world and enjoy it. Kids are all about having  fun, so if you can find ways to teach your child in ordinary day to day tasks, your crazy day will become a lot more FUN!

Ashton explores the flowers

Hey Everyone. Hope you all enjoyed this weeks Polkadots Adventure Activity. If you haven’t seen it yet check out my girls Caydence, Camryn and I on our Nature Obstacle Course on the Polkadots Adventure page.

So lately the girls and I have been feeling rather ADVENTUROUS! Doing obstacle courses has become apart of our daily routine and over time they have begun to evolve. We started doing mini imaginary obstacle courses in the lounge in front of the TV while listening to The Polkadots ” Jump, Shuffle, Jump” song. The girls soon mastered the indoor course and decided it was time to venture outdoors. Wed round up broken tree branches, wooden logs, buckets and chairs and lay them out in a sequence. Then we would run through our backyard obstacles, singing out favourite Polkadots song…

” Jump up and down, up, up and down, foward and back foward and back” The girls would sing as they jumped over the broken tree branch.
“Can you balance on a log, count 1, 2, 3″ they would sing as they crossed their wooden plank.
“Can you climb the highest tree, look what you can see.” They would sing as they imagined their bucket was a giant tree. And . . . “Crawl through a tunnel, shuffle, shuffle” They would sing as they imagined the deck chair was a tiny tunnel.
The girls would race through our imaginary finish line as if they were the winners of an Olympic Race, throwing their hands in the air, laughing and giggling, their confidence growing and growing each time they took up the obstacle challenge.

So now we’ve mastered the indoor imaginary obstacles, we’ve conquered the outdoor “Jump, Shuffle, Jump” obstacles and as you would have seen on the adventure clip we’ve had lots of fun exploring our Nature obstacle course. Caydence and Camryn have definitely become quite familiar with all of these challenges and are now coming up with their own new, exciting and more challenging courses that are literally reaching new heights, and quite possibly starting to enter into the EXTREME category of toddler obstacle courses.

Sarah and Camryn had a great time on their obstacle course