May Play Ideas for Toddlers & Preschoolers {+ Free Play Calendar}

I'm putting together monthly play activity schedules to make it easy for you to create a month of fun for your kids at home or in the classroom, every month of the year. The May activity calendar focuses on flowers, Mother's Day, butterfly and bug themed ideas for toddlers, preschoolers and school kids. There's also a sneaky Stars Wars craft for May the 4th. The activities include a mix of art and craft, sensory, science and play ideas as well as books to read aloud during the month.

Each activity is explained in detail below, including how you can extend or adjust the activity based on your child's age. You can also download our free interactive May activity calendar pdf with links to instructions for every activity to save for future reference.

DIY Recycled Bird Feeders To Make With Kids

This huge list of DIY bird feeders will give you lots of inspiration to use different recyclables and materials you probably have at home already to create homemade bird feeders with your kids. Making a homemade bird feeder with kids is a great DIY recycled craft activity as well as a way to encourage children to learn more about nature and the native birds in your area. 

April Play Activity Ideas for Toddlers & Preschoolers + Free Play Calendar PDF

I'm putting together monthly play activity schedules to make it easy for you to create a month of fun for your kids at home or in the classroom, every month of the year. The April activity calendar focuses on egg, flower Earth Day and bird themed ideas for toddlers, preschoolers and school kids. The activities include a mix of art and craft, sensory, science and play ideas as well as books to read aloud during the month.

Each activity is explained in detail below, including how you can extend or adjust the activity based on your child's age. You can also download our free interactive April activity calendar pdf with links to instructions for every activity to save for future reference.

Painting With Flowers

Did you know you can paint with flowers? 

If you're looking for a fun spring or summer process art activity, or nature play idea for playgroup or kindy, then painting with flowers ticks all the boxes. It's a great way for children to investigate and learn about flowers while also immersing themselves in a sensory learning experience.

Slow Down: Bring Calm to a Busy World with 50 Nature Stories + 15 Nature Activities

One of the biggest lessons 2020 has taught us, if not forced us to learn, is to slow down. Take note of the world around us and pay more attention to nature. Realise the little moments are the big moments and the seemingly insignificant moments are the most important. If ever there was a children's book that perfectly encapsulates this message, it's this one, Slow Down by Rachel Williams.

Slow Down: Bring Calm To A Busy World With 50 Nature Stories

BUY HERE: Amazon | Amazon AU | The Creative Toy Shop

Slow down is not your typical children's picture book. Filled to the brim with many, many beautiful stories and gorgeous illustrations, Slow Down is more like a nature encyclopedia for both children and adults alike. Instead of one single story, it includes 50 different nature stories, explaining how at any given moment there are many different significant events happening in nature all around us. The stories include a duck teaching her ducklings to swim, an ocean wave forms, crests and breaks, a tadpole becomes a frog, a snake sheds it's skin, water lilies open on a pond, plus 45 other tales about how the weather, animals and plants survive and interact on a daily basis.

All around us, nature is turning, growing…and working. Every day, hour by hour, magical transformations happen right in front of you. But it's not always easy to see them… Slow Down implores us all to take stock of life and how we spend our time, in order to slow down and really appreciate everything that is going on all around us every single day. To pay more attention to nature and realise the seemingly insignificant moments are the most important and what may appear to be small to us, is actually a really big deal.

How to make a DIY Recycled Bird Feeder

Want to attract more birds to your garden? Don't worry you don't need to go and buy a fancy bird house or bird bath, you can attract them with something as simple as a toilet paper roll or a milk bottle. You can make an easy DIY bird feeder from recyclables with an empty milk bottle and a few items from around the house by following the steps below.

We've been spending so much time at home lately and the girls have become really interested in the wildlife that visits our yard. They love watching the birds, bees, dragonflies, ladybirds and butterflies that visit our garden. A few weeks ago we made our own DIY butterfly feeder to attract more butterflies and they've been so excited checking it all the time, so we decided to make our own DIY bird feeder from things we had around the house too.

How to make a DIY Butterfly Feeder

My girls are obsessed with butterflies, they get so excited when one comes into our yard. They much prefer butterfly watching to bird watching. Unfortunately we have quite a small backyard and no plants so most of the butterflies that come in our yard are simply passing through looking for flowers.

To try and encourage more butterflies into our yard and to get them to stay for longer I decided to make our own butterfly feeder. Butterflies are attracted to bright flowers and nectar so I did a bit of research and then came up with a simple butterfly feeder using items from around the house. Making the butterfly feeder with the girls was a fun activity within itself and since then it's provided hours of entertainment and excitement as they check it for butterflies.