The Magic Crayon
Here are our fun, educational and hands on activities inspired by the brilliant children’s picture book The Magic Crayon by Amy Sparkes .
Nature Wands
These nature magic wands are easy and fun to make. It also a great activity for developing motor skills! First we headed outside to collect a stick and some other natural bits that we could add to it. Then we used the cotton from our March subscription box and got wrapping. A little help was needed to get started but then they both could take over. M wanted to create a pattern with the different coloured threads and F created her own technique where she twisted the stick whilst holding the thread still!
Magic potion
This is the perfect activity to do outside. Unfortunately, we suffered some storm damage and it isn’t safe to go outside into our garden. So we covered the floor with an old shower curtain and had lots of fun brewing our magic potion inside. Here are our top tips for why messy play is so beneficial and how to make it stress-free for you. Click here.
We sent lots of magical ingredients so we have saved some to repeat this activity in our mud kitchen when we can.
Magic Characters
Our children absolutely love this book and the characters within it. My son chose to recreate Chloe, the main character and the Wolf on his scratch art paper. This activity enabled us to really look at the language that the author uses to describe the characters and how the illustrator drew the characters.
The conversations about character development were so rich and this enabled him to create his story (see below) with some wonderful characters he invented himself.
Story Writing
My eldest has long enjoyed writing stories but recently had been put off by the clerical side of things (the handwriting and spelling!). So this activity was a great way to create a story together but without having to worry about aspects. We first used the dice to help us decide characters and setting of the story. However sometimes the girls decided to ignore the dices choice as they then suddenly had a strong idea of what character they wanted in the story. Of course they could then choose the one they wanted! Both their stories were very different with F’s story far more based on her real life with a little magic thrown in. Whereas M’s story was pure fantasy! I enjoyed sitting with a cup of tea prompting them through the steps of creating their story. After they had completed their story maps they used them to retell their stories and it was great to see how confident they were retelling them and how proud they were of their creations!
Measuring and Pouring
This maths activity is lots of fun and can be adapted to your child’s ability easily. Initially for measuring children need to understand the idea of full and empty, then compare capacity before accurately learning to measure capacity. This activity followed on from our potion making which was a huge hit with our children. I set out different sized containers, and measuring jugs in addition to the ingredients from the potion making. Then it was up to them to create their potions and measure out different volumes. With F, I asked her to decide to pour her potion into several different containers and then compare which had the most/least in. M I asked to use the measuring jug to measure accurately different given amounts which could then be given to different imaginary characters to solve their problems. My two loved this activity and they continued to play with it.
Phonics DIce
This is an incredibly simple but fun phonics activity that helps with initial sounds and letter recognition. This phonics activity can also be easily adapted to suit the sounds that your child is learning. Choose 6 sounds that your child has been practicing and write these on the dice. Throw the dice and then whichever sound it lands on your child then needs to find an object in the house that starts with that sound. Depending on which sounds your child is learning it might need to be an object that has the sound anywhere in it’s name.
illustrating the story
We’ve done this activity a few times now - once using the magic crayon we send with this box and the second time with the watercolour paints we send with our Creativity box. Click here for more information.
The illustrations are stunning and have really ignited my son’s creativity and imagination. He loves to recreate scenes from the story and then act them out. This is not only wonderful for building a rich vocabulary but also develops his storytelling skills.
