Change the medium

If your kids always want to help with the dog food and this is what happens...

Change the medium!

Great play. Lots of fun. Doesn't feel so gross or wasteful!

SO glad it's nice enough out for OUTSIDE sensory bins! I've been wanting them to be able to do this for so long but have been unwilling to deal with the mess I was sure would result!

In and Out

Easy, simple, fun!
Pom Pom balls and a grape tomato container.

Need to Make Dinner?

Need to occupy a kid or two?

Grab a strainer and some pipe cleaners and see what kind of crazy creations they can make!

This only entertained Jaden for about 5 minutes - but I think on another day he could be interested for longer.

Since that was a bit hard for Alivia's dexterity I gave her a bowl with a bunch of plastic cookie cutters - and a strainer - since her brother had one that was what she really wanted!
Just as a side note - you have to be willing to have things ALL OVER your kitchen floor for this to be an acceptable activity. But, sometimes you just have to choose - clean floor or dinner made!?!?!

Bertie the Bus

We received this GREAT magazine second-hand from a friend. http://www.redan.com/ThomasandFriends.htm. It has lots of great activities for learning letters and numbers. Some activities are a little harder than Jaden can really do on his own at 3 but, because it is Thomas, he is SUPER interested. I talked him through several of the pages and I was really impressed with all that he COULD do!

The magazine also comes with activities and crafts that you can make. And, the second my little guy saw the idea for making a Bertie the Bus he COULD NOT get it out of his head. This morning, while waiting for the cousins to arrive for the weekend, I could tell he was impatient. I asked him to think of 2 things that he would REALLY LOVE to do today while we waited and we could pick one of them. He could only think of one.....MAKE BERTIE THE BUS!!!!!

So, I scrounged my stash for an appropriate sized box and got out the red paint.
I thought he was going to get tired before painting the whole thing but he did a great job of sticking with it. I guess because it was Bertie!!! We made a few modifications and ended up, not with a piggy/Bertie bank like the magazine suggested - but with a Bertie whose door can open and close to put Little People in!
He's been driving it all over the house since the second I deemed it dry enough!
What a fun craft! (even if I was hesitant at first). Sometimes I just have to get over the "mess" and "work" and just have FUN!!!!

Drumming with Daddy

Enough said.

Can I Paint?

Lately, Jaden has been making the easiest requests. It makes me happy to see him noticing game/project/play materials around the house and deciding that is what he would like to do.

Last night he wanted to paint. So, I whipped up a little freehand drawing of a Christmas Tree and a Snowman on some construction paper, and away he went!

Then, he wanted Daddy to help - which was fun because Daddy is usually at work when we are doing such projects!

And, now adorning the refrigerator.......

Stuck

Jaden LOVES to climb on the couch....well, ANYTHING really....

But, his bopping cushions get stored back there. Recently he climbed around enough to work a hole between the two of them and now, every once in awhile - he'll get

STUCK!

Thanksgiving Sequencing Game

I had made this game last year for a road trip but the pieces just were thrown all over the floor.

This year, it had a bit more appeal.

Jaden wanted to match the objects by placing them on top of the demo strip. However, the magnets I got for the backs don't seem to be strong enough to go through TWO layers of cardstock with lamination. So.....I convinced him to line them up underneath. I also have a set with cornucopias and pie.

Hopefully they'll get some action this week! It's been awhile since we've played refrigerator games!

Fun with Beans

Some days you just need a really simple and REALLY fast to organize activity.

This day Jaden was super interested in scooping things with his diggers and Muck (his new best friend - depending on the day).

So, I grabbed a cupful of dried beans, a cookie sheet, and a few small bowls.
He sure had fun scooping, moving, and dumping those "rocks!"

Straw Sorting - Gone Wild

My sister in law and I found a book of great ideas of activities for preschoolers and we made up some project bags for our kids. I have yet to TOTALLY LOVE them, so maybe I'll post a review after we get through some more of them. Really, Jaden is too young for many of them still. I few more critical thinking skills and some letter knowledge and he'll be on a roll with them I'm sure.

Anyway....

In one of the bags we placed 100 straws and 50 paper clips - supposedly to build towers with. I'm not a preschooler - and I can't figure out how to do that yet. BUT, Jaden LOVES playing with the straws!

I decided to turn it into a sorting activity by color (see how I put one of each colored straw in each cup?)

Of course, that wasn't as fun. And, even moving them in and out of the cups wasn't NEARLY as fun as....
...throwing them all over the floor and pretending they are "logs" his "machines" have to build things with!

Hey, quite a mess - but for just being straws, they can keep him entertained for upwards of 30 minutes at times!

Not too bad if I say so myself!

The Evolution of the Sandbox tent

Leave it to Daddy to figure out a way to play in the sandbox even when the sun is hot!

The first attempt was a hit.

The second attempt has made the sandbox a new favorite play place again.

Of course, we have to remember to take it down if it might get too windy (which sometimes means heading outside at 1am if we hear it flapping around!)

But, now that days are cooler, we can play in the sandbox even when the sun is out and strong!

Yea for sandbox fun!

Can of Worms

I got this idea from this wonderful blog

Pulling "worms" out of a can with tweezers.

It was kind of tough with the tweezers and WAY too easy with the fingers. So, despite high hopes, this activity lasted about 5 minutes. But, it cost about TWO CENTS (if that) so it doesn't really matter.

I think I would try this with a younger child (18-24 months) and forget the tweezers. It all depends on your child's development AND their willingness to follow rules like "ONLY with the tweezers!"

What you Need:

- an empty plastic container with lid

- a scissors or something to cut holes in the top

- pieces of yarn with knots tied in the top

- a tweezers

Pretend Car Wash

Since Jaden LOVES cars AND playing with water and bubbles I knew this activity would be a HIT when I saw it here.

We set up a pretend car wash with stations for the cars to

- get "dirty"

- be washed and scrubbed with soap

- rinsed with clean water

- dried off

It didn't turn out exactly that way in the end - but he did have fun!

Getting the cars "dirty"

Beginning to scrub them

Dipping them and scrubbing them in the soapy waterrinsing and using the rag
continuing to scrub - even in the drying position

What you need:

- some foam vehicle shapes. I cut mine out of foam sheets by making an imprint with some truck shaped cookie cutters I had.

- washable markers for getting the trucks "dirty"

- a few bowls/tubs for soapy water and rinsing water

- a few items to clean with. We used an old toothbrush, a scrubber and a washcloth

- a few towels for spills. I put one down on the table and a few down on the floor.

While I thought this activity would last for a LONG time, it only held interest less than 10 minutes. But, we played with the shapes again at bathtime and we have them for another day!

"Snowball" Transfer

I had been saving egg cartons for quite some time. Finally, one day I got an idea for a new transferring activity.

Items needed:

• - - Bowl
• - Cotton balls
• - Easy to operate tweezers – or as I used a bamboo toast tongs
• - Empty egg carton

Transfer cotton balls (snowballs to Jaden) from bowl to egg carton holes using only the tongs.

He LOVED it!

Traveling with a Two Year Old - Part Two

When we were getting ready to for the St. Louis trip I knew traveling was going to be a different ballgame with Jaden now that he’s two.  He has his own airplane seat, he likes to do more things on his own, one toy doesn’t entertain him for a long period of time, my back can’t lug around enough books to just entertain him with reading…etc.

I had several ideas for some quiet books – like many of us probably had to take to church when we were little.  I saw TONS of cute ideas that gave me inspiration.  However, since all of them involved a LOT of sewing AND I had very limited time, I decided to go another route.

So, here is a view of my NO SEW quiet book.

The base for all of the pages are file folders cut in half.  I tried to keep the themes 4 pages (front, 2 middle, back) so that I could take out sections and replace them later.  All base pieces were glued onto the file folders with rubber cement and then laminated over.  All moveable pieces were cut out, laminated, and cut out again.  All moveable pieces and the place the “go” for storing or placement have sticky backed Velcro attached.  All the pages are stored in a 3-ring binder.  (It’ll make more sense as you see it).

This page has the word to “Jesus Loves Me” on it along with the pieces for the puzzle on the opposite page.

Here is the puzzle as you put it together.  I used sticky backed Velcro strips cut into small pieces for all of the pieces in this book.  I figured it would help Jaden get things in the right place AND keep from having pieces flying all over the airplane.  This puzzle was a little too hard for Jaden right now but, he did keep trying.

The next pages were dedicated to Noah’s Ark.  This was one of Jaden’s favorite pages.  He likes to name the animals and match them up

To fill in the back page of that section I put a coloring page of Noah’s Ark.  I just printed the coloring sheet, glued it to the file folder.  If you use crayons you can wipe it off with a Kleenex.  Jaden prefers markers to crayons now so he wasn’t too into these pages.  I experimented with markers but washable markers just stayed wet and rubbed right off on our hands and I didn’t trust non washable markers on planes and in other people’s houses.  I suppose dry erase markers would work but, I haven’t seen those washable either and, I didn’t have any to test with.

The next section is a traffic theme.

Stoplight

Matching up the cars.  This one was a little tricky because some of the cars are too close in color.  We worked on identifying if the lines matched up and if there was a front and a back of each car.  There is a removable Ziploc attached with velcro to the right hand page that holds all the pieces.

This section had an extra middle page because I had a great idea.  I drew a little road and several of our favorite places, the mission, the store, the park, our street…  Jaden didn’t really get the idea of playing in this “town” with his toy car.  I guess that kind of pretend hasn’t set in yet.

Last in the traffic section was a coloring sheet with Cars characters

The right pages starts a “love” section.  The words to “Jesus Loves the Little Children are printed with spaces to put blocks of each color that appears in the song.  It also holds the puzzle pieces for the following page – Heart matching

Then I was running out of ideas and time so I just lumped the pages together.  So much for being able to take activities out easily.  Oh well.  This is a counting and number recognition game.  You count the cherries on the cupcakes and match it up to the corresponding number.  At the time we took the trip, Jaden didn’t really recognize numbers yet so, he was a little lost.  He tried to match the cupcakes by color.  (Sometimes the cupcake with cherries has the same color frosting as the one with the correct number but not always).

The cherry topped cupcakes were stored in a library card “oven”

Next was helping the bear get dressed.  Jaden liked this page but there were a few too many things for him to get the clothes back in the basket very easily.  He also doesn’t quite have the concept of matching clothes yet.  But, he still had fun.

And then a matching shapes page.  This one was his FAVORITE.  I cut out shapes from all different colors and stored them in the Ziploc on the right.

 The shapes are traced on library card pockets.  The pockets have Velcro on the back so you can take them off and even use this as a floor game or you can later change them out to sort by colors instead.

Just insert the shapes in the matching pockets.

And to finish it off, a Thomas the train coloring page.  I also found that the coloring pages were difficult because of all of the Velcro pieces behind them in the book.  They were kind of lumpy.

All in all, this project was a LOT of work but occupied Jaden for one entire plane ride and several other odds and ends of time throughout the trip.  We’ll occasionally take it to church or on other travels (we have several trips coming up again this spring/summer).  A useful tool, adapatable, and VERY fun!

Other Easter Activities

Making Easter Cards.

Jaden colored some Easter cards to send to some special people.  Here is what we did.

I printed egg outlines on some white paper and he set to work coloring them.

Here is the finished product (I had to help a bit by drawing some snowmen around the edges)

Hmmm…silly me didn’t take a picture of the finished product!

Well, I cut out the eggs and glued them onto a cardstock backing that was about ½ inch wider than the colored egg.  Then I wrote  a note from Jaden to the person in permanent marker and mailed them.  Hmmm…need to remember to take pictures of the FINISHED product!  Grrr!  Well, they were really cute!

We also played with plastic Easter eggs.  I started Jaden sorting the eggs by color in egg cartons.

He had fun with that for a short while but then, mommy started making dinner.  He wanted to put his Easter eggs in the skillet and cook too.  NOT such a great idea.  So, I got out a bowl and a pot and some spoons and he spent a good half an hour “cooking” his Easter eggs.