Kids Coop - Needle felted Easter eggs

 
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Its time for Kids Coop. Please link up your kids activity posts and check out what others have been up to this week. Don't forget to leave comments if you like what you see. This week I'm linking  the following:

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(Goblin is 41 months)

I've seen some great ideas for felt Easter eggs including the wonderful creations at The Magic Onions and some cute wet and needle felt creations at The Tiny Funnel which I discovered thanks to MollyMoo. But if you are feeling a little lazy and pressed for time I have a great way to make beautiful eggs that takes less than half an hour. 

 Basically you cheat. Instead of creating the whole egg out of felt you use a Polystyene Egg as the core.  Then you can rapidly felt colours and shapes onto it - I just bought a Multi needle Pen Style Needle Felting Tool to speed things along even more. 

I hung my finished eggs on my Spring nature tree.

And now to the linky

I'm sharing this with

Knitting Nancy Skipping rope

 (Goblin is 36 months)

A while ago I bought a knitting nancy. I decided to use it to make a skipping rope for Goblin. I think he is probably a bit young to use it as a proper skipping rope but Hublet and I can swing it back and forth and he can try and jump over it. Having one made of wool will be gentler on his legs if he doesn't jump high enough.

 Knitting nancies are pretty easy to use. There are several different ways to knit with them. I use a really basic method. Drop the yarn down the middle then bring it up and round one peg, across the middle and round the one next to it in a clockwise direction. And so on around all the pegs - my knitting nancy has 8 pegs but I used it for the rope as a 4 peg nancy so I wrapped the yarn around two pegs at a time.

 Once you get back to the first peg you go round a second time so that all the pegs have two wraps of yarn. Then with a crochet hook take the bottom wrap and pull it over the top wrap and drop it into the centre of the nancy (yank the loose yarn that is hanging out the bottom of the nancy to tighten the loop you just dropped into the centre).

And its as simple as that. You just keep going. I used half a ball of wool making my skipping rope. It didn't take long at all.

 I've labeled this post as a 'mummy craft' because my three year old wouldn't be able to do this. But a slightly older child would. Knitting nancies are only one step on from finger knitting and can be mastered quite easily.

I'm sharing this with

Wool Play

(Goblin is 29 months)

Goblin has been ill since Friday, and to make it worse, so have we. All three of us have had the most horrendous cold. We all had temperatures around 40C (104F) and nasty coughs. I rattled when I breathed and fell asleep involuntarily in the middle of the day - which is somewhat problematic when you are supposed to be looking after a toddler. Fortunately Hublet managed to stay awake shivering on the sofa with Goblin, while he watched all 4 series of "Something Special" (Mr Tumble DVDs) on loop. Most of the time Goblin was feeling as rough as we were, so didn't need to be entertained. But there were moments when the Calpol kicked in and he got a little bit of energy. That is when I needed something that he could do to basically entertain himself. 

WOOL

I brought down a bundle of big and small balls of wool for Goblin to play with. I wrapped one of his cars in some wool. 

This intrigued him and he brought me his bus and asked me to do the same with that. He spent ages playing with the wrapped up bus, and with the other random bits of wool. He got himself very tangled up but seemed to enjoy the challenge of having to untangle himself. Although he did have to come and seek help on occasion. (One note of caution: on a couple of occasions Goblin wrapped the wool around his neck. He was fine but it did make me realise that this activity should always be done under supervision). 

After our family trip to the doctor, Goblin used the wool as a pretend stethoscope and listened to Hublet's chest. This is so cool. I read in Lawrence Cohen's book "Playful Parenting", that it is good for kids to play out experiences like trips to the Doctor. It can help them understand the experience and regain some power if they felt scared by the experience (For example Cohen says that if the Doctor gives them a jab and it hurts, the child can feel empowered by playing the Doctor who gives the injection rather than the child who receives it).

I don't think Goblin was scared by his visit to the Doctors, but the stethoscope obviously made an impression because he enjoyed playing this game for ages.

Hurray for wool.

I'm sharing this with

Mummy's hat

(Goblin is 24 Months)

I found some amazing yarn on ebay from the shop Alternative*artisan*UK. It's recycled sari silk yarn -  the colours are totally amazing. I bought the golden colour but it also comes in red, green, turquoise and more. I wasn't sure how it would be to work with so I only bought one 100g skein.  
I didn't really know what to do with it so I just knitted a rectangle on 12mm needles using 30 stitches across. And look what it turned into. 

It feels really nice to wear.