Designs by The House of Isabella

Today Isabella spent the day conjuring up new fashions with her Harumika set. She had such a lovely time and whipped up so many amazing outfits so quickly (these are just a few). Although I'm not usually a big fan of fashion dolls and activities for kids the ease with which kids can use this system is very empowering as they really need no help at all from an adult. You can also use whatever fabric and trim you have around the house so it's a very open-ended activity.

We also made some very simple puppets this weekend as Henry wanted to act out the story of the 'Three Billy Goats Gruff'. Again we went for simple and quick as I really wanted to capture the kids enthusiasm for the project. So often when I have gone to the trouble of getting the 'right' supplies out and an area set up to make things the moment has passed and they are onto something else.

We each drew our own puppets and coloured them in (or stuck on cotton wool for the goats) then cut them out and stuck them onto bamboo skewers. The bridge was from our Thomas the Tank Engine set, the river was made from two pieces of blue paper we had in the paper box and the field the goats were trying to get to was a green shoe box lid. The kids improvised the script based on the traditional story (who's that trit-trotting over my bridge?) and I sat back and enjoyed the show as the 'audience'. They had such a great time and I finally learnt the lesson the folks at Playschool have always known - it's about the ideas and enthusiasm, not the designer craft supplies.