Monster Ice Sensory Soup

Halloween-themed sensory fun! Just add some food coloring to water in an ice cube tray and float some googly eyes on the top. Pop them in the freezer. Once frozen, add to some clear water! You could use this as color mixing discovery play as well - use red water and blue ice, for example. Since we did multi-colored ice, our water turned brown.

Beatrix enjoyed whisking the soup, which caused the ice to melt fairly quickly.

She also practiced using her tongs to fish out eyeballs.

Happy Halloween! 

Sticker Pumpkin Activity

Beatrix loves to play with stickers and this is a new and fun way to do just that!

All you need is a pumpkin and some stickers! We used some adorable Halloween stickers we got at a Halloween party we recently attended. Beatrix especially likes that she can peel the stickers up and reposition them over and over.

We have done this activity three or four times now. It is a great project for her to do while I am preparing a meal. She does occasionally need a little help peeling up the stickers, but if I lift the corners of a few of them at a time she is good on her own for a little while.

When she is done, it makes a cute little centerpiece for our table! (And then it is right there ready to go for when she wants to add some more stickers!)

Flower Arranging | A Toddler Activity

April showers bring May flowers!

My mom gave me the idea for this activity and Beatrix is really enjoying it! I bought a few bunches of fake flowers, rescued a few "vases" from the recycling and - voila! Hours of springtime fun!

Please excuse the jammies :)

Working hard!

Beatrix's beautiful bouquet!

Boys and girks alike would enjoy this activity. We have mixed it up by counting the flowers as they go in the vase, sorting the different flowers into different vases, and just using our imaginations!

Flowering Tree Q-tip Bundle Paint Stamping

Wow, life has been crazy since I last posted. Hopefully I will get back in the swing of things in these next few weeks!

Today Beatrix and I did a painting project!

Isn't it cute? She really did a great job!

I drew a quick tree with a brown crayon (you could cut one out of brown construction paper for added dimension, that would be really cute!)

To make the stamp, take a small handful of q-tips and tape them in a little bundle. I chose pink, green, and white paint. I was going to mix the white with the pink and the green to make them lighter, but I forgot to leave out a q-tip for mixing and Beatrix was getting antsy to start. It got all mixed up anyway!

We started with the tree upside down so she would be more likely to paint the branches. She really got into filling all the white spaces with paint!

So proud of her work! I did direct her just a little bit, I suggested she use green at the bottom like grass and rotated the paper to help her find empty spaces to paint so she didn't have to drag her arms through the fresh paint. But ultimately she was the artist!

The finished product! This would be a great Mother's Day gift for grandma's or an easy project for dad to do with the kids for their mom! I also think it would be fun to do one for each season as they come. This would make a really pretty fall tree with oranges and yellows, don't you think?

I hope I will get back in the habit of posting more often - I have a few fun Spring ideas up my sleeve!

Messy Monday: Paintbrush Experiment

Beatrix was so interested in the paint last week that I decided we should play with paint again, this time trying out some different materials for applying the paint to the paper.

I bent a pipe cleaner into a triangle stamp, pinched a pom with a clothespin, grabbed a feather, a Q-tip, and a foam brush, and some paper. I like using cardstock, because it holds up under the paint better.

I poured some finger paint on to a paper plate for our palette. (pro-tip: use just a few colors that will look okay mixed together to avoid the muddy color look.) I got a damp cloth ready for cleaning up at the end and I zipped Bea into her jammies-turned-paint-smock.

Beatrix really seemed to enjoy using the pom the best, and she also liked the triangle stamp. I painted along with Bea and found the feather was really interesting to paint with. 

You don't need fancy supplies to explore art, just see what is hiding around your house and at the bottom of your craft/junk drawer. Older children may enjoy doing the gathering of items themselves. For the younger ones, keep it to just a few options and offer them one at a time, as to not overwhelm them. Remember, this type of art is more about the process than the end result. I keep all of these paintings of Bea's for future use as gifts/cards.

What other household items would be fun to paint with? 

Q-Tip Drop

Every time I go to the bathroom Beatrix pulls all the Q-tips out of the box in the cupboard. I decided to harness her interest and turn it into a fine-motor-skill-honing activity!

This has been such a hit and it couldn't have been easier to throw together.

Supplies:

• Cardboard (I used a cereal box)
• Mason Jar with lid
• Q-tips
• Scissors
• Utility knife
• Writing utensil (optional)

I think it is pretty self-explanatory. I traced around the outer edge of the ring part of the lid and cut out the circle. I trimmed it a little to the inside so the lid would screw on. I used a utility knife to cut a hole in the center (ish) and decorated it with some arrows pointing to the hole. I think you could potentially use a hole punch, if it was big enough. screw the lid on the jar and voila! 

I love the look of pride on her face when she gets one in! It is just difficult enough to keep her occupied for minutes on end without being so hard it frustrates her. She has asked me to take the lid off a few times - the little smarty figured out that it would be so much easier to get them in the jar that way. Work smarter not harder! She was so pleased that she was allowed to play with some Q-tips and has actually left the ones in the cupboard pretty well alone. Now instead of them being all over my bathroom, they are all over my living room, haha.

Messy Monday: Valentine's Day Sensory Rice

Why did I wait so long to try dying rice for sensory play? This was seriously one of the easiest activities I have put together. As a bonus, unless the rice gets wet or really dirty, it can be used over and over again!

All it took was some rice - I used extra long grain white rice. I bought way more than I needed for some DIY handwarmers we gave as gifts at Christmas this year, so this is just what I had on hand. You could really use whatever rice you like. I probably dyed 3 cups of rice red and 2 cups blue. I wanted a nice layer in my glass baking dish.

Just scoop the desired amount into a gallon zippy bag, add a small amount of food coloring and a splash of water, and mix up by squeezing/shaking the bag. (It took about 20 seconds to incorporate the coloring throughout the rice. I used gel food coloring and it really didn't take much at all. I used way too much with both the red and the blue.) Then I spread it out on a sheet tray to dry overnight.

This morning I carefully scooped it into the baking dish, making a heart shape in the middle!

I laid a tablecloth out on the floor for easy clean-up and gathered a few scooping/transferring/pouring utensils for us to use!

My little one-socked girl went right for the spoons!

Feeling the rice with her hands.

Bea discovered the rice falling into the glass measuring cup made a really pretty sound. She watched the rice fall out of her hand and listened to it hitting the cup for quite some time.

Really getting into it now :)

Quite proud of the mess she made!

It looks quite lovely mixed together. I love bright blue with red or pink! It is also worth noting that this will not stain hands or clothing, provided the rice is dry!

I gathered up all the rice, using the tablecloth to pour all the spilt rice into the baking dish. I put all the rice in a zippy bag and stowed it in the back of my refrigerator to be played with another day. :)

Messy Monday: Seashell Washing

Hello! We are getting back in the swing of things after the holidays (still) and I finally got together our first "Messy Monday" activity of the year: Seashell Washing!

If you are a little leery of messy play, this is the activity for you! I love water for "messy" play, because it is cheap, easy, and doesn't usually require a lot of prep work.

Growing up, we always had a "Beach Day" sometime in January. We would turn up the heat, wear our swim suits and do our schoolwork on pool floaties in the living room while listening to the Beach Boys and eating popsicles. That was my inspiration for our activity!

I placed some shells in the bottom of a shallow tub (any bowl or bucket would work fine) and added water. I used warm water, since it is winter and a bit chilly. I set out our trusty kiddie pool with some towels around it, just in case of splashes. I set the tub with the water and shells in the pool with a couple of washcloths and waited for Beatrix to take interest. She was very curious and crawled right over. (Note: it is important to me to create activities for her and "invite" her to participate, not force her to.) I stripped her down to just her t-shirt and plopped her in.

I grabbed a washcloth and started "washing" some shells to give her an idea of what to do and encouraged her to try it as well. She did for a little bit, then moved on to her ideas of how to play with this scenario.

She enjoyed watching water drip off of the washcloth and drip on to her leg.

She loved stirring the shells up and making the water splash out!

She looks soo tired in this picture. She was fighting naps and bedtime yesterday and I don't think she slept very well. Thankfully she wasn't grumpy, just really mellow. After lunch she kept laying on the floor and cuddling Cupcake.

She played with this for about 45 minutes and she appeared to be having a grand time!

This activity could really be done with any water-safe item: rocks, toy animal figurines, even fruits and veggies! I also think it would be fun to use soap to make bubbles - toy dishes washing perhaps? It would be great to do outside in the summer for some cooling-off play. 

Now if only I could get her to wash the dirty dishes in my sink... ;)