How to make an eggcellent pirate treasure box toy

 With Pirate Day coming up soon in Hastings our minds have been on Pirate themed activities this week.  I noticed that Tesco's have started selling craft kits to turn items saved from the recycling box into toys so I decided to do what I do when I see ready meals - pinch the idea but make it from scratch myself.  The kits do look cool and would make nice gifts - perhaps something to do at a grandparent's house if they have long ago cleared away all the paint and glue from when they raised you - but since we're regular junk modellers we have stacks of crafty bits put by already.

Today we decided to make egg box treasure chests.  All we used were two cardboard egg boxes - ours were already brown so we didn't need to paint them (If all you have are plastic ones, then you can either mix poster paint half and half with PVA (white) glue to make it stick to the plastic, or use brown tissue paper with a half and half water and PVA glue mix to make paper mache to cover the box).

Next we glued strips of thin yellow card to the lid of the box to look like metal bands.  The boys coloured in the fastening of the box

 with a black felt tip pen to make it look like a lock and drew lines on the lid to show the wooden planks the chest would be made from.

The final stage was to make some treasure - you can be really imaginative here with making bead necklaces, foil rings, plastic gem stones etc...  We went with the simpler option of scrunching aluminium foil into coin shapes.

Toby has also coloured his on the inside with wax crayons, then used the treasure chest to store the crayons, the aluminium 'coins' and a Thomas the Tank Engine train.

If you're looking for a super quick 10 minute filler activity that takes almost no time to set up or pack away and doesn't cause a lot of mess, this is ideal.  It's not the most impressively realistic treasure box you will ever see, but the kids don't seem to care about that and have been 'burying' their treasure in the sofa cushions and under the raspberry bushes in the garden all afternoon.

Glitter bottles - quick, home made sensory toy

 Glitter bottles are very easy and inexpensive to make and make a great sensory toy.  They are especially suited for small children but can be used as a relaxation toy for any age group.  For example if you have an older child with additional needs, or a teenager who is feeling stressed, giving them one of these to play with while you're chatting to them helps to calm the mind and give the hands something to do.  You'll probably have seen them before at organised playgroups as they're a really popular DIY toy for pre-schoolers.

You will need a small, clean plastic drinks bottle, vegetable oil, water, glitter, food colouring, sticky tape and I also recommend some super glue to make everything really secure.

Half fill your drinks bottle with vegetable oil, then add a few drops of food colouring, half a teaspoon of glitter and then top most of the way up with water.  I add a little superglue to the inside of the lid and screw it down well.  Then you need to tape the lid all around to make sure the kids don't get the lid off.

Apart from the super glue, everything is safe for over threes to help with, but use your common sense in letting smaller children help since this project has some small part such as the bottle lid to watch them carefully with.

You can add in any other small waterproof items you have, such as sequins and buttons for added interest.  You may have seen similar instructions of how to make these which describe them as being like a lava lamp.  I've never found ours turn out like lava lamps, more like crazy snow globes.  They are very satisfying to play with as the contents swirl peacefully round in random cascades and whirls.

This is also a nice science exploration of the different properties of oil and water, such as density and mixing.  Children will gain more from it and play with it longer if you sit with them and help them build their descriptive vocabulary by you describing yourself what you can see and asking them descriptive questions, for example  "I think that looks like a rain storm on a mountain when you swirl it around, what do you think it looks like?", "what happens if you turn it upside down/ shake it hard, shake it slowly...".

Safety bit: there are small parts, so closely supervise children when making and playing with this.  Check regularly for damage and discard if it's looking too raggedy.  They will try to pull it apart and if you haven't got it quite right they may succeed in getting the top off, which isn't good news as the contains will stain carpets etc...plus they'll likely try to drink it, so I really mean it when I say close supervision needed. If you're using superglue, make sure you keep kids clear and use it in a well ventilated room.