shape hunt

This was a completely last-minute, thrown-together idea that M ended up loving.  I can't say I'm 100% surprised since sometimes I'll put a lot of effort into things he spends 5 minutes doing.  Funny how that works....

We've been trying to keep M busy in this very cold weather we've been having.  The other night I spent 20 minutes playing a game M kind of created himself that was a cross between chase and hide-and-seek.  Anyway, M took a rest the other day and woke up about an hour before dinner time.  Sometimes that can be the longest hour of the day.  We needed something novel...

I quickly cut up some paper into shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) and colored them.  During the Christmas season M loved finding our elf each morning so I thought a "scavenger hunt" of sorts would be fun for him.  I hid the shapes (we did the circles, then the squares, etc.).  He loved searching for them and collecting them as he found them.  M knows those three shape names but still occasionally mixes them up so it was a great reinforcement for IDing those shapes.  Really, you could do this with anything (shapes, letters, numbers, words, etc.)  You could even add some kind of sorting element after they're all found.

Our version ended up being quick, easy, and filled up about a half hour!

As always, some photos...

shapes-

found one-

hidden triangle-

obstacle course

M loves to run, jump, and play. Something we're working on at two and a half is following directions. Those two things made an obstacle course a pretty great morning activity on a rainy Monday. 

You could set this up any way with whatever you have around your house. It took me about 5 minutes to get it ready for M.  Our course included:

- crawl under the blanket covered table

- step over the golf clubs on blocks

- throw the frisbee into the box

- go through the tunnel

- hop on the colored circles down the hall

M loved this and did it several times. It also gave me some ideas for future activities (I loved the colored spot hopping). Another key piece was that some things were either new or a little hard for M. The frisbee part was hard but he tried again and again with a smile on his face. We will definitely do this again with different variations on the obstacles. 

cinnamon ornaments

We've needed lots to keep us busy the past few weeks because it's been cold and snowy.  While M would like nothing more than to be out in the snow all day everyday, we can't do that with baby G hanging out with us now.  So due to G's laid-back nature we've gotten to try out lots of Christmas projects from gingerbread houses to homemade gifts to these fun ideas...

I think these cinnamon ornaments are one of my favorite holiday activities because they're easy to make and always come out cute. They look baked but they're not. In fact, I made them in school one year because it's that easy. 

1/2 cup cinnamon

1/2 cup applesauce

Mix them to make a dough. Roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. I rolled it between a piece of parchment paper and a piece of Saran Wrap. Then use cookie cutters to cut shapes. 

Use a straw to poke holes for hanging then let the shapes dry for at least 24 hours. I kept them uncovered on parchment paper and flipped them halfway through. 

Once they're dry they can be decorated and strung to hang. We broke out the glitter glue and puffy paint for this...

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While we have lots of time for crafts, I have limited blog-writing time, so I'm including a few other Christmas decorations we've made at the tail end of this blog. 

First, the self-explanatory Christmas tree feet:

And a hand tree. Trace their hands, fold the paper and cut 6 or so out at a time. M loved decorating this with stickers. If I had been more on the ball I would have gotten cute ornament stickers.

Merry Christmas from me, M and G!

bird snacks

We have bird feeders in various places in our yard.  We get a lot of birds because we have woods behind our house.  M always checks out the birds in the morning at the bird feeder outside our living room window.  We have some kind of Japanese(?) tree right outside and the birds seem to love it there. M loves filling the bird feeders with his Papa.  He also enjoys yelling at the squirrels.  

I This morning we were talking about the snow storm that's coming this weekend and how the birds would have trouble finding food under the snow.  I found this activity during a middle-of-the-night playtime feeding with G and I loved it.  A lot of times when I find an idea on a blog I'll then Google it because chances are it's on twenty other blogs and might have different variations.  Most of the first versions of this that I found called for using unflavored gelatin.  Call me weird but giving birds jello seemed odd.  We used honey and bird food.  Seems more natural to me.

We started with a bowl full of birdseed that M enjoyed playing with for a few minutes before we started (sensory).  I didn't measure anything so I can't really tell you how much we used.  I'd guess we had about two cups of birdseed.  I eyeballed adding in the honey.  I was really trying to get a sticky consistency like play-doh but I think we ended up with a bit too much honey.  Then we spread it out and used a cookie cutter....

Our mixture was a little too soggy so what ended up working best for us was filling the cookie cutter instead of actually cutting a shape.  One we did that it held its shape fine.  We put them on wax paper and use a wooden skewer to make holes for string (which are difficult to see here).  

They're currently freezing in the freezer.  Either this afternoon or tomorrow morning we will string them and hang them from our Japanese tree.  Photos to come...