Children love a bit of imaginary and fantasy play. What could be better than to make some fairy soup and wizardry potions? This is just what we did on a lovely sunny day in the garden. Here’s how to make fairy soup and wizardry potions……
Fairy soup & wizardry potions
I gave the children a bowl of water and a spoon each, then suggested they collect some of the petals fallen off the beautiful but over grown clematis we have. They excitedly ran round gathering pretty petals. They added it to the water and gave it a stir.
I thought it looked a bit boring, so I added some yellow food colouring and their faces lit up with delight! It was like magic to them. They spent ages stirring and mixing. It was wonderful how this simple thing really sparked their imagination. they made wishes over their potions. They recited some of the fairy stories and pretended it was magic to turn things into a prince, then a coach (as in cinderella) and a frog.
Next the children ran round the garden gathering other bits and pieces to add to their potion/fairy soup, leaves, grass, you name it, they added it!
They were having so much fun with their concoction I was trying to think of what else we could add. I used to be a rep for body shop at home and have some smellies stored away, I will never use, so I grabbed some eau de toilettes and gave them to spray on their potion to add some fairy fragrance. Well, they shrieked with delight! I couldn’t believe how fantastic they thought this was. They sprayed their potion and loved smelling it. The excitement was amazing! 
The children thought this was so wonderful, they spent the rest of the morning playing with this, mixing, stirring, collecting more potions, more ingredients, smelling the fragrance and spraying some more. In fact they loved it so much, they used all the bottles of fragrance up! I must say our garden that day smelt amazing! BB even threw himself into it so much, he dug out our witches hat to wear as a wizard, to be more realistic! I love the way the children throw themselves into every activity they do, use the prompt I give them to inspire the rest of their play, creativity and imagination. 
This play actually continued well into the afternoon. Then they wanted to spray other plants in the garden, but I wasn’t sure how the plants would take the chemicals in the eau de toilettes, so I gave them a plain spray bottle with just water in it to use. Well of course, you can get what happened next……yes, a great water fight! They took it in turns to run around spraying each other. They had so much fun, the laughter, the giggles, the excitement that oozed from my children that day was just magical!
This is a fantastic way to inspire children’s imaginations. It is so simple, a bowl of water, petals and food colouring, then sit back and see what happens…. fairy stories, fairy soup, potions, magic, sensory fun, water play, creativity and a whole world of imagination!
