Getting crafty
BISCUIT DECORATING
Buy some plain digestives and a pack of icing pens, or sprinkles and go crazy!
TINFOIL
Works great for making family crowns, magic football boots, bracelets, or robot gloves. You can also use it in a Theraplay game of Foil Prints by putting a piece of foil on top of a hand, foot, knee or elbow and carefully molding the foil to make a ‘print’ of the child’s body part. It can be fun to ask another adult to guess which part of the child it is in a ‘how much do you know me?’ quiz!
CREATE CALM JARS
Using a sealed plastic jar filled with glitter, water, and a few squeezes of clear glue. Laminate an image to be securely taped inside, shake it, and watch the image appear as the whizzy glitter pieces begin to settle. The Colour Monster works well for this with his mixed up colours.
MEMORY BOX
Starting a memory box early in the family time sessions and adding to it can be important for the child. The box can be decorated with hand/footprints, stickers, or cut out magazine images. Don’t forget to make some labels so items stay linked to their memories.
BLOW FOOTY
Make your own football pitch together and use a ping pong ball or pompom and straws to complete the game! Use a box to contain it the pitch, and straw triangle plus fruit net bags for goals.
PIPE CLEANER PEOPLE
All you need is a few wool scraps (different colours/textures), wooden beads and pipe cleaners, and you can make all sorts of funky little people. Cut a third off the pipe cleaner and put to one side. Bend over the remaining pipe cleaner in half and thread through the big bead leaving a loop of 1-2cm. In the loop add some pieces of wool for hair, and pull the bead up tight. Underneath the bead wrap the third of pipe cleaner across the main ‘body’ to make ‘arms’, twist the body to make a ‘torso’ (add smaller beads if you want?) then open the legs and bend in knees and feet.