Educational arts and crafts for the summer from Baker Ross

The summer holidays are fast approaching, and along with them several weeks that need to be filled with fun activities for the children. I do love spending time at home with the children, but I know that I need to be organised and plan activities in advance, and it's always good to have something on hand for those "I'm bored!" moments. I received a lovely box of crafty bits from Baker Ross to help keep the children entertained, and we had a lot of fun crafting.

I really love the pack of Weather Foam Stickers and I can think of loads of ways to use them. There are pleny of different designs in a variety of sizes, representing all types of weather. I helped Mia to make a weather dial which is similar to one that Harry has in his classroom at school. She loves running over to it every morning to set it to the correct weather for the day, and changing it throughout the day as necessary.

One of the things that I love about the Baker Ross craft kits is that they are brilliant for play dates. It's great to have a simple, reasonably non messy activity on hand when friends are visiting, and we had a lot of fun decorating these Music Shaker Kits. They are a simple cardboard tube filled with beads that you can decorate with paint, pens, stickers and so on, with a fun finished product.

We also had a lot of fun with some Solar System Scratch Art decorations. We've received similar kits in the past and with 12 in a pack they are great for entertaining a larger group of children. Each design comes with a stick to scratch off the black layer and reveal the colours underneath. They are fab for all ages, younger children are happy to scratch away until most of the black is gone, older children can scratch out more complex designs.

Also in the box were some Fruit and Vegetable Card Shapes which Mia in particular loved. There are ten different designs in the pack, all simple fruits and vegetables that she could identify straight away. I realised that as well as having fun decorating them we could turn them into a display poster for her room, with the names to help her as she begins to learn to read.

We started by painting the shapes with poster paints. The fruit shaped card does have a slightly shiny surface so the paint didn't cover that well, and with hindsight acrylic paint would have been better. It didn't matter though as I was intending to decorate them on top of the paint. We used all sorts of different collage materials - pom poms, sequins, pipe cleaners, feathers, fabric petals and so on, and we were really pleased with our finished poster, it's so bright and cheerful!

Finally we received some great painting supplies which are going to be a big help as we do a lot of painting in this house! A nice big Super Value Spash Mat which I am saving until our current one has fallen apart and some brilliant Painting Water Pots. These are great because you can fill them with paint or water and if they are tipped over the liquid doesn't spill out.

I was also impressed with the Paint Pot Tray which could also be used to hold glue or small decorations like sequins or pom poms. The individual pots fit nicely into a larger tray to keep them together, or you could share them out amongst a group. Previously I've just used old margarine tub lids for holding paint, which is fine for when they are little but as they get older and take more pride in their painting they want the colours to be kept separate. Here Mia is busy painting her shoebox which she needs to decorate and fill with personal bits and pieces ready for when she starts school in September, eek!

I received these products as a member of the Baker Ross Bloggers Network.