ice bowl

Poor little G hasn't had much of a role on this blog yet. She's tried a lot of the infant activities M did at her age but to blog about them twice doesn't make much sense. This is a new variation on a few other things we've done (ice boats, ice painting, etc) and was great for a hot day. 

G was a bit more reserved about this than I expected. I gave her 4-5 colored ice cubes in a glass bowl of water. She batted at them, picked them up but quickly let them go, and splashed a bit. She also seemed to notice and watch the color melting off the cubes into the water. Needless to say this activity needs your undivided attention. G actually never tried putting the ice in her mouth but I was pretty shocked by that. 

On another note, I have labeled every (or close to it) blog entry with the age M or G was when we did it. You can easily search labels for a specific age if you'd like :)

water tracing

This is an activity stolen from first grade but one M likes a lot. We use our easel quite a bit and one side of it is a chalkboard.  I write letters on the chalkboard side and M traces/erases them with a foam paintbrush dipped in water.  M is pretty good at attempting a few tracings then he ends up washing the board but it's a fun activity for him with pretty simple set-up/clean-up if you have a chalkboard. 

mixology 101

I'm always looking for ideas to keep M busy while I cook dinner at night. A few nights ago I gave him two bowls of water and a medicine dropper. 20 minutes of fun. It helped that he's been fascinated with droppers since Baby G came along. 

Today we tried something similar but if added a drop of food coloring into the water and we experimented with mixing colors. 

M enjoyed seeing what colors we could make but he enjoyed squirting the dropper more. He also stirred and eventually tried pouring. 

Admittedly, it didn't last as long as it did the first time (novelty is everything with this kid) but we did have fun and only made a semi-large mess :)

ice boats

We celebrated the first day of summer today with ice boats in our kiddie pool.  This activity was a huge success with M and one that we will definitely do again.

Directions:
- Tape the short end of a flexi-straw to the bottom of a Solo cup so that the tall end stands up straight in the middle of the cup.
- Fill the cup 1/3 of the way with water and freeze (ours froze overnight).

- Once completely frozen cut the cup away from the straw.  I also read that you could loosen the ice by running warm water on the outside of the cup but I found it pretty easy to just cut the cup and slip it right off.
- Use a hole punch to make a sail for each boat.  We used construction paper.  After the fact I thought it would be cute to have had him decorate the sails but they get wet and ruined fairly quickly.

M was really excited to put them in the water and we liked sailing them back and forth and sending them down M's pool slide.  As I said, the sails were soaked within a minute or so and slumped but M didn't care and eventually just pulled them off.  The straw was great because he could use it to move the boat around without grabbing the ice every time.  

The weather wasn't overly hot today but warm enough for this activity.  That was probably in our favor because I could see these melting super fast on a very hot day.  Ours lasted maybe 10 minutes each today.  I made two and we played with one at a time because, of course, after the first melted M was asking for more.  M actually seemed to enjoy them most once they melted a bit and were smaller.  He's a big fan of throwing things (balls, rocks, etc.) into water so he had tons of fun throwing the smaller ice chunks into the water then finding them.  This was a great activity for summer and one that definitely gave me some ideas for other things to try this summer!

window blocks

M has these great foam blocks that we use all the time (we're big fans of blocks).  Today we came up with a new use for them that M had a lot of fun with.  We used water to stick them to our slider and make pictures...

We got a small bowl of water to dip the blocks in and then we stuck them to the glass.  We made a tower and then some letters.  M's favorite part was the dipping...

but he also caught on to the sticking part.  He was also a fan of splashing which is why we only used about a cup and a half of water.  However, I put paper towel under the bowl and when doing this again I would definitely use a towel (or two).  If you have anything made of that foamy material it's a great activity because the pieces just wipe off at the end.

rainbow snow

M loves the snow.  He's been outside to play it in a handful of times this year and tends to stay out as long as we'll let him, followed by screaming and crying when it's time to go in.  This morning when M saw the snow he was dying to get out into it and he wasn't too happy when the dogs went out without him.  Since I was not ready for a 9am romp in the snow we brought the snow inside to us and had some fun.

I filled a 9x13 glass casserole dish with snow.  It's great snowman snow and made snowballs very easily, which M loved.  I also got three small containers, filled the each with cold water and added a drop of food coloring to each.  I gave M a big mixing spoon and a cooking brush to "paint" with.

At first M was pretty surprised that the snow could change color.  Pretty soon he was painting and eventually dumping the water into the snow.

We used yellow, red, and blue water which worked well because it mixed into green, purple, and orange so at point we had a pretty good rainbow of colors going on...until it turned to a peach colored slush.

We made snowballs, a snowman, and built some towers that M enjoyed knocking over with the spoon. Eventually about half the snow had melted leaving a coating of water on the dish.  The snowballs that were left could easily slide and spin on the wet surface, which M really enjoyed too.  All in all it served it's purpose- pushing our journey outside back a few hours.  

water painting

I was planning to save this idea for next week but with today's warm weather I decided we'd try it. We've painted a few different ways now. M has used a paintbrush before (see our garden pets entry). Water painting was a great way to let him practice more with a paintbrush and to cool off a little in the warm weather.
We used water, a few paintbrushes, and construction paper for this activity. Basically M "painted" the construction paper with the water instead of paint.  For the first 10 minutes M was happy to stir the water with his brush.

Once he got the hang of it he had fun.  We even made some hand prints after M stuck his hand in the cup.  He made a lot of dots and splatters.

The neat thing was the construction paper held up to a lot of water.  Even when the cup was dumped on one piece.

I'll admit I failed at this project in the beginning.  We first tried this on our porch (bad idea, wet carpet) with a rather full cup of water (um, not sure what I was thinking).  Much better out on the deck with a half-full cup.  It was plenty of water until it got dumped.  However, I think the dumping just made it more fun for M.  You can do this on pavement or wood surfaces too - basically anywhere that water will show up darker.  

water bowl

This week was incredibly warm for our area so I was trying to think of some fun ways for M to cool off.  M loves water unless it comes in the form of a public pool (I have no explanation for that aversion) so I filled up our biggest bowl, added some toys, and plopped him down on a beach towel on our porch. 

There was a whole lot of splashing...

and by the end of 15 minutes, no water left in the bowl and a happy baby...

Why we loved the water bowl....

baby: lots of splashing and playing with toys

mommy: promoting fun in the water

M's age when we played: 9 months, 1 week