Take One Big Blue Bowl...

This big blue bowl has been the perfect container for loads of different messy and sensory play sessions. It kind of keeps the mess contained and baby B liked sitting in it from about 6 to 9 months and loves climbing out of it.

There are so many things in the kitchen that make brilliant exploratory play opportunities for babies and most of it is really cheap. The bowl was quite expensive but we use it as a paddling pool and ball pool too so is worth it. It's noce to add music and the buuble machine for even more sensory fun.

Easiest Art Project Ever

If your little one is ready to experiment with mark making, but you can't face 10 minutes of setting up plus 30 minutes of clearing up just for 5 minutes of fun, cheat and paint with water!

Car Survival Kit

We must have some kind of masochistic tendency because we’ve just taken our energetic, car-hating 9 month old to the Lizard on holiday. That is literally as far as you can drive before you fall off the bottom of the country. And we did it on bank holiday weekend. Knowing it was going to be utterly horrific and he would get bored and shouty before we got the bottom of our road, I put together a car survival kit. It does rely on me being the back with him so won’t work for everyone but I hope these ideas help some stressed parents have a better journey with their small person.

Easy Treasure Boxes

If you search for treasure baskets or heuristic play on Pinterest they will all be arranged in gorgeous wicker creations. I've put mine in empty laundry capsule boxes - much more practical and free!

Heuristic is just a fancy word for discovering through play. It's similar to sensory play - allowing your baby to find out about textures, colour, patterns, weight and other properties or normal, every day items. That makes it easy to put together a heuristic treasure box for your baby: a quick scout around the house and the pound shop and you'll have enough to keep them busy for hours.

Sensory Play Kit on a Budget

Our favourite class is Baby Sensory. We both really enjoy the sessions and it's also given us loads of ideas to use at home. Our sensory play box is full of ideas we have borrowed and bargains we have found in the pound shop! It's lovely watching Baby B develop different skills as he grows and it's a relief to have a go-to box of stuff for when the afternoon is dragging on and we need some entertainment.

The First Art Project

At 5 and a half months Baby B did his first art project - super cute, super easy Valentines cards. We made cards for daddy and B's best friends, and we're going to use the same idea to make Easter cards for the grandparents. They look really effective and didn't make too much mess - win!

First you need to set up. Use a large, flat plastic box. Place a piece of paper in the box so it covers the bottom and folds up the sides. Use a few blobs of Blu-tac to keep it in place. Then put a few dollops of different colour paint rounds the edges. Choose your colours depending on the theme of card you want to make. Then chuck in 3 golf balls. (I used practice balls because they were cheaper but they weren't really heavy enough and don't wipe clean so I'd use proper ones next time.)