When I think about the environment for play in my Family Day Care service I carefully consider every aspect of it to ensure that I create a beautiful, welcoming and inspiring place for children to play. I believe that it is not only important to have a variety of toys and experiences for children, but it is also equally important to be surrounded by beautiful décor. Having an environment that looks pretty encourages children to look after and take care of it. Having a space that is clean encourages children to pick up after themselves, and having a space that is bright, colourful and introduces them to new ideas creates wonder and delight and encourages imagination.

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Something very exciting happened the other day! We welcomed these beautiful Kindness Elves into our home and our Family Day Care! Have you heard of them before? You might remember when we read their book which inspired us to paint rainbows with kindness.

The best way to keep an over enthusiastic toddler from 'helping' (otherwise known as rewashing the already clean parts or quite frankly soaking you with the hose) is to put them in charge of washing their own car!

Our awesome homemade wooden car maze has been transformed into into a car maze table simply by adding legs! I thought it was about time I added it to the blog since we have only had it like this for a year or so!!

Is it just me or do all kids seem to have a fascination with rubbish trucks at some point in their childhood?! With the help of a piece of fake grass, this awesome Green Toys recycling truck, a mini bin from our local council and a few recyclables, the kids can have a go at being the garbage truck driver and cart the recycling off to the closest recycling centre (in our case, the kitchen table).

Easter is quickly approaching and along with it comes excited kids with lots of questions and anticipation for the weekend ahead. There are so many Easter activities that could inspire you for this time but lets take a second to think about their worth in the eyes of the children. It is important that kids are involved in activities that make them curious, that make them learn through trial and error, that help to start conversations with their friends and that challenge them. Most importantly it is imperative that children choose their own ending and what that should look like. The following seven activities are the best of the best that I have found to reuse those plastic Easter eggs and get the children involved in playing and exploring.

Not too long ago I received a very special book in the post, 'The Story of The Kindness Elves'. It is a beautiful story about Sparkle and Pop, two elves who help children to spread kindness to people around them. From the minute we sat down my children were drawn into this magical story. The illustrations compliment the words perfectly and I had little fingers pointing out all the gorgeous details. From the houses in the clouds to the teddy in the attic, the colourful rainbows to the sad faces to the stars and the smiles and of course the Kindness Elves themselves. As we read the story we were able to talk about people's feeling and how it is nice to make others feel happy. My children are 1 and 3 years old and are a great age to start talking about kindness. Anna Ranson and Benjamin Byrne, the authors, have written a story that can be enjoyed by both younger and older children. While my children enjoyed the illustrations and the idea of making others happy, older children will be able to talk more deeply about experiences they have had and ideas they could do to spread acts of kindness.

Do you have a crawler in your household or daycare? Are they confident at crawling now and looking for a little challenge? This sensory runway is a great way to provide a safe environment for them to take risks and explore new possibilities with their crawling.

The best activities are the ones that take you very little time to set up. I like to think that it's because a simple set up means lots of space for the child's imagination to fill in the gaps. You give them a starting point if you like and they do all the rest. This masking tape spiral car track is one of our latest quick to set up activities. It took me less than 5 minutes - and that included thinking up the idea!

The high chair can be a great place to pop baby for times when you need to know where they are to keep them safe. I never owned a play pen (though I do see the benefits of them) and so the high chair was often the place I would put Missy when I needed to shower (in the bathroom with me) and also when I had to pack or unpack the dishwasher as she loved nothing better than pulling out all the dishes, clean or dirty, and also climbing up and sitting on the door itself!

We love playdough around here! It has very quickly become a daily staple in our house and Mr 3 is at that great stage where he is experimenting with all the different ways that it can be rolled and squished and shaped. He is also a big fan of rocks and being outside, so we threw them all together and came up with playdough and rock towers!

"How tall can we make the tower?" I challenged him.

And oh boy was that challenge accepted!