Make & Do

Wubbzy Ball / Humpfs Floppy Thing

This is another simple painting activity for toddlers. It gives them the opportunity to experiment with the paint brush by making lines and spots. They also have the opportunity to do a bit of colour mixing.

You will need paper plates, large paintbrush, a bowl for the paint, blue & white paints and protection for the table, the child, you, your walls, chairs and anything else remotely within reach !

• First the paper plate needs to be painted blue. This gives the child the opportunity to try and control the brush by painting lines across the plate until it is covered
• Whilst the plate is drying add some white paint to the bowl and let the child mix the paint together until they get light blue.
• Then they add the spots to the 'ball' using either their fingers or the brush.

This activity can also be used for Humpf fans. In one of the episodes his ball is punctured and ends up as "a floppy thing".

Paper Plate Birdy Bird Craft

Another simple but effective craft that allows toddlers freedom with paints. If your two year old, like mine, just wants to cover everything with paint, and doesn't really care what, then this is the craft for them. You will need one and a half plates to make one birdy bird.

1. Mix up one colour pastel paint (white with either a little red, blue or green in it).
2. Give your child a paintbrush and several paper plates on plenty of newspaper and let them get on with it
3. Leave the paper plates to dry whilst bathing your toddler.
4. During the next three days whilst you are still waiting for the paint to dry (well maybe not but my little girl goes rather overboard!) start to prepare the cut out shapes -
   You will need to cut out the following from coloured card, craft foam or construction paper.
   White circles with a black dot in the middle for the eyes, orange triangles for the beaks and black sticks for the legs
   
5. When the plates eventually dry, you will need to select a whole plate for the body and another plate to use for the tail and the wing.
6. Take the second plate and cut it in half, cut it in half again and reserve a quarter segment for the tail. Cut the other quarter segment in half again and reserve one piece for the wing. You should have similar shaped pieces to the ones shown below -
   .
7. We used double sided sticky tape (it's less messy than glue and dries quicker) to stick the tail, wing, eye, legs and beak onto the birdy bird.