Rainy day paddling pool play and art space

We were stuck in day one when the weather was too nasty even for us to wrap up and brave. I was craving the sunny days and happy playtime we'd been enjoying in the summer when inspiration hit me.

A lovely friend had picked up a paddling pool for me in a sale for £1.50, i do love a bargain. We have one outside already so i hadn't had much use for it but now i knew just the thing to do with it.


A solemn faced Ninky in the pool





I blew it up and lay down a nice soft blue blanket as the 'Water'. We had made a boat recently at a local art gallery while looking at some lovely painting of boats they had on display at the time, so i fetched that out to sail.

I had a little beach hut tin so i added that as well and if i could have laid my hands on our shell collect i would have but i had put them somewhere 'safe' and as this was a last minute activity i didn't have time to look for them.

A beach ball was added and we did some 'swimming' and 'splashing'!

Ninky's cars obviously had to come for a swim you understand.

After all that fun a certain little boy was very tired

Bless. please excuse the clothing choice, we were having a pj day.

After a nap we came back downstairs and it occurred to me what a great place the paddling pool would be to paint in, contained and easy to clean. So......we got out some paints and some ear buds or q-tips depending on where your from and set to work. Ninky loved painting with something new, to the extent that he felt the need to paint his feet!

I also fancied doing some marble painting and thought niall would like it so i got the marbles and a tray out too. He loved the marble painting even more and kept getting fits of giggles when he marbles careered off the tray, which obviously was fine as we were in the paddling pool! I added a little condensed milk to the paint mix to make it a bit shiny.

You may be able to see on that last photo where Ninky has rolled the marble down his leg just because. We spent a good couple of hours in all playing in the paddling pool and it has become a favourite of ninky's. I think we are due another marble painting session soon as looking back over these photos reminded me how on task he had stayed.