Vegan burrowing Bunny Cupcakes activity for Easter

There's always plenty of food involved in Easter.  The kids love the Easter egg hunt in the garden and then there are the hundreds of hot cross buns consumed (one of Anthony's favourite snacks that are thankfully available all year round).  This year we're re-inventing our burrowing bunny cupcakes that help with their spatial reasoning, motor skills development as a vegan treat with Oreos to boot. 

Kids easy Chinese Spring Rolls for the Chinese New Year

There's always time for a bit of baking in our home.  Jane absolutely loves baking cakes, cookies and brownies (and then the eating of).  Her latest gift ask was a vegan baking cookbook!  But it's great for our boys too helping them develop their skills in areas they often struggle. 

Helping our autistic kids get ready for Christmas

Christmas brings with it many changes.  Despite being a very exciting time of year the upheaval and appearances around the home can cause some stress.  We prepare our autistic and neurotypical kids get ready by writing Christmas cards, making timetables and preparing the home all before this happens.

Celebrate the Paralympic Games - a medal craft

Helping kids understand or engage with sports events can sometimes be a challenge whether they have autism or not.  This year the kids got right behind the Olympic Games and we are excited to see the Paralympics kick off.  There's been a bit of controversy about some of the promotion of the Paralympics Games and the tag lines on some adverts saying it's 'Rude not to stare'.   

Celebrating our trip to the beach with a coral reef motor skills and learning craft

Although the beach can be a challenge for us - it can also be great.  Quieter beaches are better and these can often be rocky.  This year we had a summer staycation and spent some of the summer up at my parents place on the North Coast of Scotland, stomping around the coastline, finding creatures in the rock pools and spotting creatures out at sea.   We weren't sure if we would make it there this year but managed to see them for a week as the lockdown rules relaxed.   

Making scrapbooks

While lockdown has meant many days at home, it's looking like we may be here for a lot of the summer too.  Sometimes a fun activity like scrapbooking can be a great way to build motor skills and planning skills along with recalling and using your imagination.  All stuff my kids could use the practice with.

Making lanterns for ChineseNewYear

We did this great activity at a Skylarks play sessions making lanterns for Chinese New Year. This is a great motor skills development activity for kids at any stage looking develop them.  It works on cutting and bilateral motor skills with gluing and sticking.

Make a Pearl of Wisdom for the New Year 2019

Too many messages can be confusing for many kids.  Especially ones like some of mine with autism and ADHD, or just when they are younger, like Jane, thinking of many things can be challenging. We tried this fun kids craft, highlighting a 'pearl of wisdom' or a special thing for the kids to remember for 2019, a bit like a New Years resolution for kids. 

Paper plate rock pool holiday activity

Although the beach can be a challenge for us - it can also be great.  Quieter beaches are better and these can often be rocky.  So we use what we have and have spent many summers up at my parents place on the North Coast of Scotland, stomping around the rocks finding creatures in the shallow waters.   All the kids have fun and to either prepare or to revisit this, we had fun making our own 'rock pool' with this fun motor skills learning craft activity.

Kids Dragon's Fire Breath craft activity for ChineseNewYear

Jane did this great activity making her own 'dragon fire breadth' for Chinese New Year. This is a super motor skills development activity for kids at any stage looking develop them.  It works on fine and bilateral motor skills with drawing, gluing and sticking.  Then kids use their imagination to be dragons.

'Stop Here Santa' Christmas Wreath Kids Craft

Make sure the man in red stops at your place and keep the kids busy with this fun and easy craft that helps motor skills development too.

Autumn-to-Winter Tree motor-skills kids craft activity

This is a lovely activity we've updated that develops motor skills and promotes understanding of what's happening in nature around now.

Five reasons to get baking with the kids this Christmas

Ask anybody what the benefits of baking with the kids are and they’ll tell you that’s obvious, you get to eat lots of delicious cakes at the end of it. True, that is one of the great benefits of baking with your children, but that’s only the end result. There’s so much that they can learn along the way and it’ll actually improve their skills and learning in a lot of different ways that you may not have considered. And Christmas is a great time to start and take advantage of more than just yummy outcomes.

Sensory help with face paint stamps

You know how some kids come home from school and the evidence of their hand printing is half way up their sleeves?  And then there's the kids that will don't do stuff that involves not getting wet or painty?  Yep - I have both of those.  Both my boys are autistic and them and their neuro-typical sister have very different sensory systems that means some activities can be very challenging.

Easter Rabbit Toast activity recipe & printable

Make an Easter breakfast or lunch even more fun and get your kids practising their language and motor skills with this recipe activity and printable to make an Easter Rabbit in your toast.  This recipe activity contains egg.

Gruffalo's Child Mini Pancakes

The Gruffalo has been very big in our house since last year.   Jane even got the Gruffalo Crumble and other recipes cookbook for Christmas.  Here is a recipe for Gruffalo's Child Mini Pancakes that we've adapted from some of the ideas in the book. It uses raspberries as the Gruffalo's Child's pink prickles, icing sugar as snow and mint leaves as some of the deep dark wood.