Dinosaur Jungle

We've had a wooden box full of dirt sitting in the corner of our patio play area for months now, and every so often I look at it and think "I must do something with that...". Sometimes it's just been used for digging for bugs or the occasional mud pie, but mostly it's just sat there looking a rather shabby...until now!

I've been seeing a lots of ideas for outside small worlds on Pinterest lately (yes, I do ocassionally get lost in Pinterest land) and also wanting to find a more permanent home for Beans dinosaurs, so one sunny afternoon we turned our box of dirt into a Dinosaur Jungle! 

Together Bean and I gathered small branches from bushes and trees around the garden and pushed them into the dirt to make trees for the jungle.

Bean found a big rock, some flowers, leaves, and bugs for the dinosaurs to eat...yum! ;-)

It's turned into a peaceful little place for her to play and story tell, and has got me thinking about some more small worlds we could create outside for summer...

Happy Playing! 

Small World - Cardboard Town

This super easy small world play space was something I put together one evening because we happened to have some big offcuts of cardboard lying around and we had been doing a lot of imaginative play with Lego that week.

All I used to make it was:

• Big piece of cardboard (big enough so theres room for the child to sit comfortably in the space, but small enough that they can still reach all sides)
• Blue A4 paper
• Green Pom Poms
• Coloured pens
• Hot glue gun
• Glue stick
• Assorted houses, lego, people, cars, animals etc.

First I drew on the road with coloured pens, then I cut out a pond shape from blue paper and used a glue stick to glue it on to the centre. I drew on some Lilly pads and stepping stones leading to the road. Then I used the hot glue gun to glue together some green pom poms to make bushes and glued them to the cardboard.

I arranged the different buildings around the road as places for the people to visit, I included a fire station, Cafe, Shop, house, vegetable garden, and an enchanted forest. Last of all I gathered up various little people and vehicles from around the house, some Lego, some fisher price, as well as some plastic ducks for the pond and rabbit for the enchanted forest. 

And there you have it! A cardboard small world town. 

It's been a great addition to our lounge room play space and Bean is still playing with it two weeks on. A perfect medium to encourage story telling, imaginative play, role play, and songs (such as The Wheels On The Bus). 

Happy Playing!