What Will You Dream of Tonight?

This month’s friendship themed activities are inspired by the beautiful picture book ‘What Will You Dream of Tonight?’ written by Frances Stickley. These activities are designed to help you and your child to understand more about our dreams and that anything is possible

Clay stars

This activity was very easy to set up, the end results filled my children our children with pride and was a lovely way to spend a lazy Sunday morning.

We’d been out the day before to collect different natural treasures; twigs, pinecones and conkers and I added some star anise, cinnamon and cloves into our natural treasure bowl. The cloves in particular were great for adding little holes into the stars to let the light shine through.

The great thing about this activity was that it allowed my son to experiment with the different patterns in the clay and if he didn’t like a pattern he simply roll up the clay and started again.

Dream Catcher

This dream catcher activity used the clay stars we had made earlier in the week. After a few days our clay stars had dried out and were ready to add to our dream catcher. We went outside and collected a few natural bits to add to our dream catchers. We chose some lavender that had finished flowering and eucalyptus leaves too. Wrapping the wool around the hoop took some practice but each time it slipped off it was easy enough for the girls to give it another go. Whilst we created the dream catchers together we talked about the purpose of a dream catcher and any “good” or “bad” dreams that they might have had. This then led to talking about what we can do if we have a dream we don’t like. The girls were very excited to hang their finished dream catchers up.

Dream book

This was a great activity to get us all talking. The girls were really excited to get their own books. F was initially a little worried that as she was unable to “write” that she wouldn’t be able to do anything in her book. So we talked about the idea that most of the books that we read it is the pictures that we also enjoy and help us tell the story so she could use pictures to help her retell her dreams. Both started their books with positive dreams that they had had recently. We talked about the significance of what had happened in the dreams and if there were any elements of their dreams that they would like to come true or thought were possible. I look forward to continuing to add to the dream books with the girls and for them to look back at dreams they have had in the past.

dream dust

This was a great activity to enjoy all together. I simply sprinkled the Dream Dust on a tray and added little bowls with water in and put out Calpol syringes, a pipette and spoons and we were ready.

We spent a little bit of time, hypnotising what may happen when we added water to the Dream Dust but our children were so keen to start their experiment that we had to just let them experiment.

It was very interesting to watch how they all set about this experiment. Our eldest added a lot of water quickly, whereas the two youngest ones, were much more reserved and added a little water, watched and listened and then added more. They used some incredible words to describe what they could see and hear and we have Dream Dust left, so we can repeat this again.

Playdough stars

Using playdough and coloured chickpeas from previous boxes and the star cookie cutter from this box, we made our own sensory stars. Really simple and quick and easy to set up.

cookie stars

Really simple baking activity using the star cookie cutter we sent with this month’s box. I always use this recipe from Nigella Lawson but just added a tablespoon for cocoa powder - never fails.

Fizzing Stars

For this fun alternative to mark making we used some of the leftover dream dust from our November activity box. I poured the leftover dream dust into the middle of the star cookie cutter on a tray. F was then in charge of adding the water. We watched it fizz up together and tried to see if we could get it to fizz up over the top of the cookie cutter. I added a paint brush and once we removed the cookie cutter F used the paint brush to mark make in the liquid. It was particularly exciting that when F swished the paint brush through the liquid occasionally it would then start fizzing again. A great pressure free way to practice marking!"