Thursday, December 15, 2011

Bubbles

I had no idea how much fun baking soda/vinegar bubbles could be.

By the way, did you know that bubbles stick to glass. My daughter discovered this and we both found it very interesting.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Play-Dough Faces

You know those electric socket outlet covers? Just draw on some eyes, noses, and mouths with Sharpee and you've got the perfect making for some play-dough people.

Friday, December 2, 2011

What Do You Think?

It's been very snowy around here the last couple of days. Today my daughter asked if we could go to the park. I asked her a question because I was really curious what her answer was going to be. I said, "Do you think it will be snowy or grassy at the park?" She thought about it for a minute and then said, "Grassy Mommy!" I thought that was interesting. It makes sense to me. She's never seen it snowy before so why would it be snowy? She then looked outside and said, "Maybe snowy." I love to see the way her mind works.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Bloody Snowman

We made a cotton-ball snowman. The only problem was that he only glue I could find was kind of and orangey red left over from some other project. The poor guy looks like he was in a snowball battle and came out the loser. Actually, a 'snowball' battle is exactly what happened after this little project.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Window Paints


We put some tempera paint in a zip-lock bag and taped it to the window. Both kids loved it. It was a great way to practice writing letters, mixing colors, and just feeling squishy stuff without getting messy.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Shaving Cream Play

She started with her finger, but didn't like the feel. After switching to a spoon she was much happier. Silly little girl.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Orange Ice Cream

Yesterday we made ice cream in a bag. Here's the recipe:

To make ice cream in a zipper bag you will need:
  • 1 quart zipper freezer bag
  • 1 gallon zipper freezer bag
  • 1/2 cup half and half, or whole milk
  • 1Tbsp. sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • Enough ice to fill the gallon bag about 1/2 full
  • 6 Tbsp. salt --Table salt works fine for this.
  1. In the small zipper bag pour in the milk, sugar and vanilla. Seal tightly and set aside.

  2. In the large bag pour in the ice and the salt. Carefully put the smaller bag with the milk mixture inside the larger bag with the ice.

  3. Shake the whole thing for about 5 minutes then remove the smaller bag and enjoy your ice cream!

We added some food coloring to make it orange so it could go with our theme for the week. I'd say it was a success.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Orange Hunt

This week we're focusing on the color orange. What with it being fall (and my daughter's constant confusion between yellow and orange) I figured it would be a good thing to learn about. Today we went on an orange hunt around the house where we collected all the orange objects we could find a. We ended up finding quite a few!

We then counted them all and laid it out on the stairs.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

More Cars

Today we used cookie sheets, boxes, cutting boards, and baby food containers to make ramps, tunnels and bridges. After several cars went up, down, and over, it was time for all the stuffed animals to slide down the ramps. My daughter even tried, and surprisingly, the cookie sheet held her weight!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Let's Go Riding in an Automobile

We've been talking a lot about cars lately. Our favorite car book is Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle.

Yesterday, using the help of some internet clip art (some wheels, a steering wheel, and a license plate) and some string for a seat belt, we made our own car. My daughter was so pleased. She kept saying, "Look! I driving!!" If you look behind her, you'll see that my son was less than impressed.
Today I taped a piece of paper over our old license plate and gave my daughter some crayons. She didn't know what was underneath, but kept coloring. She kept saying, "ooohhhhh, so bumpy!" She was so excited when she started to see the letters come through. She was especially excited when she saw a K because that's the first letter in her name.

When she was all done, we took off the paper and she saw the license plate underneath. She got such a kick out of carry it around, and later taping it to the back of the car we made yesterday.

Milkshake

We got the CD 'Songs for Wiggleworms' from the library recently and it is one of our favorites. My daughter's favorite song is called Milkshake Song. It describes making milkshake and then the chorus says, "Milkshake milkshake, shake it up, shake it up, milkshake, milkshake, shake it all up." Finally today, we put the song into action.


A little milk, a little ice cream, and she sure shook it up!She was very pleased with the results.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Color Wonder

Have you ever tried color wonder? Markers and paints that ONLY work on specific paper. They're expensive, but I think they're great. I have no fear leaving my toddler alone with markers. Instead of buying the coloring books, I get the plain paper and then print pictures directly on the paper. I also like the cut the paper in half so that we get more bang for our buck.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Money, Money, Money

Yesterday my daughter dumped a jar of change into a laundry basket. It was fantastic entertainment. She loved the noise it made as she stirred the coins around. She loved the noise it made when she shook the basket. She loved the noise it made when she picked up all the coins and dropped them back in. She then experimented shaking the basket and watching the coins fly out the slats. She picked up the coins, put them back in, and started all over again. With clean up (she got a kick putting the coins back in the jar as well), this activity lasted about 35 minutes and in toddler time, that quite a while!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Mess-free Painting

*Please excuse the flipped up skirt.

My daughter loves to paint. I love it when projects are easy to clean up. This activity caters to both of us. I give my daughter a cup full of water and a couple of paint brushes and she paints to her hearts content on the chalk board. A few minutes later, the board is dry and she can start all over again.

Her favorite thing to paint right now is our family. She paint four different figures (There's Mommy! There's Daddy!) and then gets a kick as they start to disappear (Mommy gone! Daddy gone!).

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

We Glue! Do you?

When I saw this project on Pinterest and knew that I had to try it. It's really simple. All you need is a glue bottle, food coloring, a willing kid, and a piece of paper.

Open up the glue bottle, put it a couple of drops of your color of choice, close the lid, shake, shake, shake, and hand it over to the child (with some instructions about keeping it on the paper, of course).

This is what it looks like wet. Once it's dry, it makes a really pretty dark glossy color.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Speaking of Reading

I am loving our new reading nook. It used to be a closet. I like it much better this way.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Book Kits

One of our new favorite things is the 'book kit' at the library. You know, those plastic bags with the handle that have a book and a CD inside. My daughter loves them because she can read all by herself!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Cake

The best part of putting in birthday candles.....

is licking the frosting off your fingers!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

What Fun

Potato masher and straws. What more could an almost two-year-old want?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Nature Bowl

We love going on walks. Sometimes we go in the double stroller, sometimes in the single stroller with the little one in the front pack, sometimes in the single stroller with the bigger one walking, sometimes with the little one in the stroller and the bigger one pushing a doll stroller. Any way you slice it, we love walks. Along with walking, we love talking. We talk about the trees, the dogs, the birds, the cats, the cars, and everything else we see. Recently we've also started collecting. Pine-cones, rocks, leaves, twigs, pine needles, and all sorts of other outdoor treasures. These treasures usually end up in the stroller or in my pocket. I recently had the idea that instead of chucking them at the front door, we could collect them in a nature bowl. Now every time we go out for a walk, my daughter is on the look-out for something we can put in her bowl. When we get home, she pulls everything out, sorts them into piles, put them back, dumps them back out, and shows them to all of her stuffed animals.

Toddler Collage

My little one has been very interested in glue lately. That is what inspired these projects.

First, here she is making her own little impressionist collage. She had a great time gluing lots of different little squares on top of each other.


Second, we read The Gingerbread Man several times this week before realized we could make our own gingerbread men. These two little guys have been run, run, running as fast as they can all over our house.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Beating the Heat

To cool down from the heat nothing beats playing with ice. I've seen a lot of fun ideas out there that I would like to try, but for today, we just played with ice cubes.I couldn't help but think about A Christmas Story when the ice stuck to the metal spoon and my daughter looked up at me and said, "Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!"

Waterbox

Our sand/bean box is now a waterbox. I think that's been the favorite of the three.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Squirt-a-thon

Yesterday we went on a squirt walk. It started in our backyard where we squirted the chairs.

Then we walked over and squirted the pool.

Then we squirted every tree.

And we even squirted this big green box. It ended up being a really fun walk. My daughter loved being able to 'rain' on everything.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

More on Colors

I've read all sorts of blogs with great Montessori sorting activities. This was my first attempt.
I cut a bunch of straws in several different colors. I then got out an ice cube tray and put one color in each little cube. I thought my daughter would jump right in a start sorting. Not quite. After feeding the straw pieces to her dragon, putting them between her toes, and trying to throw them at her brother, she then decided to try putting them in the ice cube tray, but moved on quickly seeming pretty uninterested. Even though she wasn't interested in sorting, I enjoy watching her discover a new material through play.

Color Discovery

This week my daughter started learning about mixing colors. She would fill up the bowl with water and I would add a couple of drops of food coloring. She would stir it up, and I'd add another few drops. She would dump it out and we would start all over again.

By the way, don't you love her farmer's tan??

Diapers

We've been using cloth diapers for almost a year now. I have tried all sorts--prefolds, contour diapers, fitted, home-made (as seen above), and my favorite, pocket diapers. We have several Fuzzibunz diapers, but with our new addition a few months ago, I've been needed double the diapers. Fuzzibunz are great, but really expensive. After doing some research, I found sunbabydiapers.com. They have great deals ($5 a diaper!!!) and some really cute patterns. I made a purchase yesterday. The new diapers should be here in a couple of weeks. I can't wait!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Grandma's Flowers

When I saw this on the Artful Parent, I knew I wanted to make something similar. When we went to visit Grandma (who lives in another state), we collected a whole bunch of flowers from her garden. We stuck them in a big thick book and then waited. Last week we put them between some sheets of contact paper. As you can probably tell, I did most of the arranging. My little girl seemed more interested in handing me the flowers, but she did contribute a few flowers to our project. Now she likes to run over to the door and say, "Grandma's flowers."

Friday, July 1, 2011

Bean Box

Our sandbox recently turned into a bean box. I wonder what it will become next.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

A House is a House for Me Take 2

As I've mentioned before, we really like to play 'houses' at our house. Here are 2 more houses.

Couch House:

Stair House:

Moving

We recently moved a few states over (no more California sun for us). As the move was drawing near, I started to really worry about my daughter. A few months ago we moved a desk from one room to the other and it really bothered her. I thought, 'If moving a desk troubles her, how is she going to feel about moving everything in the entire house?' My first reaction was to do as much as I could during her naps and after she went to bed. I would frantically pack box after box while she was sleeping. Soon I realized I was never going to get everything done in that limited time. I started talking to her about what was happening. I wasn't sure how much she would understand, but I would tell her "We're putting it in the box so that we can take it to our new house. Our new house has stairs (she really likes stairs), and a pool." She liked putting things in boxes, as long as her toys weren't involved in the boxing process. When my husband pulled up at the house in the moving truck, she was pretty leery at first. I asked her if she wanted to touch the truck and she said, "No!!". I remembered I needed to talk to her about what was happening. I told her, "We're going to put everything in the truck so that we can take it to our new house. Remember, new house has stairs and a pool!" I took her to the cab of the truck. She loved playing in the drivers seat. After playing for a while and talking about the truck, she was very excited about it. I took her to the bed of the truck and showed her where all the stuff was going to go. After a few boxes got put in she got the concept. She started grabbing all of her own stuff and putting it in the truck. I think it really helped her to feel more secure seeing her belongings in the truck. The whole thing went down without any tears. I was really amazed what a difference talking can make. She understood so much of what was going on.

On the other end, she really liked unpacking boxes. Each day it was a little like Christmas, finding more fun things to play with. She is quickly making new friends. We've been looking at pictures and writing letters to old friends. We've made a good effort to find fun things in our new city. What I've discovered is that moving with two kids under two really wasn't as bad as I expected!!

Letters, Letters, Letters

We've been doing a lot of letter play lately. These are two of my daughter's favorite activities. Magnetic letters on a metal pan.


Playing with 'Bananagram' letters. Similar to Scrabble letters.

We've also been playing with foam letters, reading lots of alphabet books, visiting starfall.com, and going to letter story time at the library.