Underground Cave Tuff Spot

Since getting our Cosy Direct Tuff Spot Stand we have been desperate to make a den. As today’s letter in our Tuff Spot A-Z Challenge is U we had the perfect excuse to make a U is for Underground Cave Tuff Spot.

I have a confession though. I am hopeless at making dens. The material never stays in place and Adam only has to look at my creation before it falls down. I had no idea how I was going to make an underground Tuff Spot! I first attempted to reuse the painted cardboard box from our Space Fort. I figured that as the box was already black I could stand it up against the Tuff Spot stand and attach lots of sellotape. Unfortunately the box wasn’t the right size and I didn’t have enough sections for each side.

So I opted to use a duvet cover. We don’t own any brown sheets to represent the soil so I used a green sheet to represent the grass. I realised that if I folded the duvet cover in half it fitted around most of the Tuff Spot Stand. I had three sections left which were uncovered. I used two pillow cases to cover two of the sections and one would be the entrance. I only had to use four pieces of sellotape to attach the two pillowcases in place. Placing the Tuff Spot on top would hold everything in place.

I have fond memories of caves from when I travelled around New Zealand. I loved seeing the glow worms at Waitomo. I wanted to add this element to Adam’s underground cave. On the base of the Tuff Spot I sellotaped our Christmas lights. This process didn’t take long and the effect was wonderful.

With the Tuff Spot in place I added our daisy DIY Tuff Spot mat to represent the ground above our cave.

To give Adam a sensory activity to do in his underground cave I created some pretend soil. This was made from recycling the rice crispies from our Noisy Rice Krispies Tuff Spot and the painted brown rice from our Insect Tuff Spot. I added the two ingredients to our blender and it produced a sand texture. In the sand I hid a variety of insects, arachnids and other creatures.

In the Underground Cave I left a variety of fine motor skills equipment. Our latest purchase was another great find from PoundLand which included three items.

I poured the home made soil into our large Really Useful Box 33 Litre (affiliate link) and placed our green Ikea box on top.

Adam had a wonderful time exploring his Underground Cave. He was fascinated by the lights and loved hunting for the different creatures. Our Tuff Spot Stand den was also used for a cosy book area later on that evening. The duvet stayed in place the whole time. I impressed myself!

Equipment:

* Tuff Spot Tray (affiliate link)

* Cosy Direct Tuff Spot Stand – read our review here

* King Size Duvet and two pillow cases

* Christmas tree lights

* Play soil made from blended coloured rice and rice krispies

* Really Useful Box 33 Litre and Ikea box

* Fine motor skills tools

Tuff Spot A-Z Blog Hop:

Gail, an Adventures of Adam reader, is joining us today for our Tuff Spot A-Z Blog Hop. She has written a fantastic guest post – U is for Underfoot Tuff Spot.

Other Tuff Spot activities beginning with U:

U is for:

Underground, Umbrellas, Ultra Violet, Underpants (Aliens Love…)

To find out more about our Tuff Spot A-Z Challenge click here.