Playhouse

This was my work of creativity yesterday, I made the girls a playhouse outside. It is on the warmer south side side of our building, which is where we play in the wintertime, and is completely constructed out of materials that we had or things we found in nature.

This is the shell of it, wire mesh for the roof, connected to the railing on one side and some T-posts I drove into the ground on the other side. They were putting in new carpet on the upstairs walkways of our building and the workers gave us the carpet scraps they were about to toss in the dumpster. Josie wanted me to take a picture of her 'sleeping' on the carpet inside the frame of the playhouse:

Then we went for a walk and filled our wagon with willow branches we found on the ground. When we got home the girls helped me weave these through the mesh frame of the roof to complete the roof:

Then the dolls and tea set were brought outside, along with chairs, little pots and pans and other 'house' things, and playing commenced. Needless to say, they liked it!

Today I wanted to make walls for the house. Anybody have any good ideas of how? We just used fabric scraps and blankets we had, but that won't last long. It kept them shaded and cool while they played today, though. The blue panel in the middle is the door. That, at least, can stay. Behind the other material are a few widely spaced pieces of wood/poles, the beginnings of a wall.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you that I constructed a counter for their house, a 'craft counter' as Anna promptly named it. Since it is at little girl standing height it is definitely a counter, not a table that you could sit at. Once that was finished they promptly brought out their crayons, scissors and paper and started crafting in their little house. I showed them how they could hand their scissors from a stick in the roof so Ruthie couldn't get them and we found a bucket they could put their crayons in and hang from the roof in the same way, out of Ruthie's reach. You can see all of that in some of the following pictures. Their pictures we also hung from some sticks on the roof, so now their house is decorated.

Then we went inside and made some playdough. The girls were enthralled that we could actually make playdough! Anna kept laughing and dancing a little jig in her excitement as they helped me measure ingredients and stir the concoction, saying "That's so silly! Mommy's making playdough! That's so silly!" I loved her enthusiasm and excitement. They were also excited that this would be edible playdough, they could try it if they wanted, although I warned them it wouldn't taste very good because it was really salty.

When it was ready, we took the playdough out to the playhouse:

They had a lot of fun with their rolling pins, cookie cutters, pots and pans, slatted spatulas and other kitchen utensils as they made food for their house.

Poor Ruthie. She just wanted to destroy what the girls were making. So she and I hung out on the stoop where she could participate a little bit, see everything the girls were making, but couldn't quite reach it through the railing. I did give her her own piece of playdough to play with and squish around in her hands. She liked that. After one little bite I let her have she didn't want to eat it anymore but was so intrigued by it that she kept licking it.

When she started to get antsy and frustrated that she couldn't get to where the girls were at I took her down on the grass and gave her a pot of water to play with.

What kid can stay away from a pot of water? Not Anna and Josie!

They decided they were done playing with their playdough and it was time to wash all the utensils and the counter with water.

Then Anna ran inside, grabbed her hat, dipped it in the water and started running around all over the place laughing with her wet hat dripping water all over her face.

And Josie followed suite:

Lots of fun, inspired by a playhouse the girls go from one activity to the next. I loved that they had a playhouse to play in that was outside and I didn't care that water was going everywhere.

I'm sure there are many more posts to come of fun we will have in this playhouse. But any ideas for the walls?