Mays toddler book club was based on Incy Wincy Spider and was so much fun. I welcomed 7 tots and we began in my living room. Here we began by watching a YouTube clip of the rhyme cast on to the TV. The first activity was a spider web made from wool on our new tuff spot trays. Id added lovely red, blue, green and yellow spiders from our Orchard incy wincy game and gave the kids matching coloured bowls from our learning resources sorting set. As the oldest, Kealan and Elyse were the only ones who knew their colours but each child enjoyed navigating through the web to grab a spider and then we discussed the colour each child had. It was especially lovely to see baby Cora enjoying getting involved for the first time.
Next each child was given a bag containing a spider body and 8 peg legs. This was a fine motor skill activity with colour matching. The little ones struggled with this one but they got to take them home so hopefully they can do them again in the future.
The water spout board was lots of fun and again worked on fine motor skills and size recognition. There were 3 sizes of spouts and 3 sizes of spiders. Little Esme loved this.
We moved to the playroom for the rest of the play date for messy fun. I had set out another tuff spot tray filled with cooked spaghetti, with spiders and tongs (well what spaghetti was left after my two decided to eat a significant amount for breakfast). This was a very popular activity.
The water table was a simple activity – water, water spouts and pipes and spiders of course.
At the side of the playroom id created a story board (with help from Kealan and elyse). The board was covered with cloud wallpaper and we added a large cloud made from cotton wool, laminated copy of the rhyme, a balloon and streamer sun. I set beside it a large piece of pipe and a spider. Above the board some of the Incy Wincy work Kealan and Elyse had completed was displayed on the art wall.
The table activity involved making their own spiders using playdough, cut up pipe cleaners and googly eyes. This was brilliant and even the littlest ones made fantastic creations.
Lastly we had a little lunch and a very yummy spider cake.
Our guests went home with their peg spiders and my latest project – story stones. I made them by printing an Incy Wincy Spider Pack, cutting out the images and using modge podge to attach them to the stones. The little cotton bags were perfect and i used a stamp set to add the title. I gave them a matching copy of the rhyme from the pack which i laminated.
That evening Kealan and Elyse finished their day with a special bath.
allbirdsareowls 
Wow, this is so creative! Do you know how old the youngest children were? I’d love to try a few ideas with E but I’m worried he might be too young for most of them.
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Hi, thanks so much. Our ages were (approx) 9months, 15 months, 16 months, 23 months, 25 months, 26 months, 28 months and 40 months.
What’s age is your little one? In general I find all little ones enjoy mess I.e. Any sensory play and posting stuff in to boxes or tubes. Ribbon pulls are also great for babies.
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Thank you, he’s 11 months. I think he’ll definitely a love the spiders in spaghetti; and we’ll try the tubes too.
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