49 Creative Painting Ideas for Kids

If your kids are like mine then painting is one of their favourite activities. My girls would paint every day if we had the time. To keep things interesting I'm always changing up what type of painting we do, sometimes it's regular painting with washable paint on paper, other times we do salt painting, magic paintings, flower painting and more.

I've put together a huge list of 49 different painting ideas for kids to help you get creative with your children at home, or students in the classroom. There's ideas for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and school children. Most of them don't even require a paintbrush.

Painting is a great way to combine sensory exploration as well as creativity. Painting can also be used as a play based learning opportunity to teach children concepts such as letters, numbers, shapes, colours and colour mixing.

Ball Painting: Sensory Process Art for Kids

Ball painting is a fun interactive painting experience for toddlers, preschoolers and school children where they can create beautiful paintings without using a paintbrush, or touching the paint. 

It's a great way for children to combine movement and creativity in a sensory experience, that's essentially mess free. Follow our step by step instructions to create ball paintings with your children or class.

10 Ikea Playroom Essentials: Clever Ikea Playroom Storage Solutions and Hacks

If you want to set up a functional playroom that has lots of storage and is also aesthetically pleasing, then you can't go past Ikea. The Swedish giant are masters at storage for small spaces and famous for beautiful neutral scandi designs that will suit any decorating style. I've put together a list of clever Ikea playroom storage solutions and how to hack each one to make the playroom of your dreams.

These Ikea items are great for creating open ended Montessori style play spaces and each piece can be hacked for multiple storage or display uses. Only 3 of the 10 items are actually toys or traditional toy storage, but they all work amazingly in a playroom {or childcare centre}. You just have to think outside the box and see the play potential.

Magic Crayon Resist Sight Words Activity

My youngest daughter is in prep {the Australian equivalent of kindergarten} and is learning sight words for the first time. It's becoming increasingly obvious that she learns and retains information much better through hands on activities and play, rather than memorising flashcards or doing worksheets, so I've been coming up with some creative and fun ways to teach sight words.

Crayon resist magic paintings have always been popular with the girls so I put together this crayon resist sight word painting activity for her. It's a fun, interactive and mesmerising way to teach sight words to preschoolers and kindergarteners. Plus it adds a little magic!

4th of July Science Experiments & STEM Activities

Bring some patriotism into your summer camp program, or your homeschooling curriculum, by celebrating the 4th of July with these red, white and blue science experiments and stem activities. Combine science and Independence Day learning to introduce children to chemistry and physics with these easy 4th of July experiments.

4th of July Patriotic Magic Milk Experiment

One of our favourite science experiments is magic milk because it's so easy to set up, only requires basic pantry supplies and it has a real wow factor. We decided to do the magic milk experiment with a patriotic twist by using red, white and blue and adding some stars and sparkle. It's a simple, but fun 4th of July science experiment for kids of all ages.

Magbrix DYO: Design Your Own Fun!

If your kids love magnetic tiles as much as mine then you may have already heard of Magbrix magnetic tiles. Magbrix® are super popular because they give children the ability to take their magnetic builds to the next level by interlocking with major building brick brands. Now they're even more fun with the addition of the new Magbrix® DYO {Design Your Own} Sets which allow you to curate the perfect magnetic tile collection with the shapes you love most.

Magbrix were originally only available in small squares, however after a year of designing and perfecting behind the scenes, they're now available in all triangle shapes as well as large squares, in a combination of solid and transparent colours. There's also the new Magbrix Junior set developed to connect specifically with Duplo® bricks. I also have a special discount code for 10% off* the whole range.

29 Easy Science Experiments for Kids

Kids are naturally curious about the world around them and how things work and you can capitalise on that curiosity by doing these easy science experiments at home. There are many fun, safe, engaging and simple ways to teach science to children even from a young age.

The experiments in this post are all great for toddlers, preschoolers and school age children and provide lots of exciting and interesting ways to introduce chemistry and physics concepts and spark a love of all things science. There's experiments that explore chemical reactions, density, absorption, how to grow crystals and even glow in the dark science experiments. 

The best part is most of the science experiments can be done using basic household items you probably have in your kitchen right now. They can also be done in a classroom as part of a science unit.

Dinosaur Playdough Eggs

Do your kids love surprise eggs? I mean which kids don't really... If they also love dinosaurs then they'll love hatching playdough dinosaur eggs. There's so many fun ways to hatch dinosaur eggs, but playdough eggs are probably the easiest to make and to hatch. Plus they add a fun squishy, stretchy, sensory element.

Hatching playdough eggs is a fun sensory and fine motor activity rolled into one, plus it has the element of surprise that so many kids love. I'll show you exactly how to make playdough dinosaur eggs and how I set them up as an invitation to play. They'd also be a fun activity, or party favour idea, for a dinosaur themed kids party.

40+ Fun Dinosaur Play Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers

Dinosaurs tend to be an obsession for all kids - girls and boys - at some point in time. If you have a dino loving kid {or students} they'll love these hands-on dinosaur play ideas. I've put together a list of over 40 different fun ways to play with dinosaur figurines including hatching eggs, dinosaur sensory play, tinker trays, creating and digging for dinosaur fossils and how to create the perfect prehistoric small world.

These dinosaur activities are great for a dinosaur theme week during homeschooling or kindy, a dinosaur unit at school, or as fun activities to entertain kids at a dinosaur theme party. They're also perfect activities to foster imagination and learn more fun facts about these fascinating prehistoric creatures.