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...

simple birdfeeder

Yesterday we tried an idea I found in a parenting magazine (can't remember which one) while I was waiting at my OB's office.  The article was summer activity ideas for different age groups.  This was actually in the 3-5 year old column but M enjoyed it and was excited to put it outside for the birds yesterday.  M needed a lot of help with it but a child a little older than him could do it on their own.

It's pretty simple and fairly quick and easy.  You need a pipe cleaner (we used two) and Cheerios (which are always in our house).  You have to string the Cheerios onto the pipe cleaner then fasten it into a loop to hang it.  M put on a lot of Cheerios so we made our loop then attached a second pipe cleaner to hang it from.  It's fantastic for fine motor skills and I was actually surprised with how well M could get those Cheerios on if I held the pipe cleaner very still for him.  His only problem was wanting to put 5 or 6 on at once but we able to say that each Cheerio needed to "take it's turn" which another thing we need a lot of reminders for so it worked out.  There really isn't much more to it than that.  Here are a few pictures....

Finished product- we added the extra pipe cleaner through the little loop at the top to attach it to our deck:

garden pets

This morning M and I decorated some rocks we had found while on vacation.  The plan is to put them in our garden as decorations.  They came out pretty cute:

This idea had started as making shell creatures, an idea from a magazine, but we didn't find many shells and M is more of a rock collector.  

So we combined the shells with a paper weight activity from the Kid's Garden activity cards that M got for his birthday and ended up with garden pets.  

This was our first attempt at any activity using real paint.  We've tried yogurt painting and ice cube painting but never real paint.  M is now almost 14 months old.  He did well with it but needed really close supervision.  I wouldn't do it with him if I had more than one child to watch or if I couldn't be right there unless I expected him to either eat the paint or paint my kitchen chair/floor/table.  We set up with newspaper taped to the table and M in just a diaper.  Paint on a paper plate.

M has never used a paint brush but has had some practice with forks/spoons/his toothbrush.  I was actually surprised at how fast he caught on to what he was supposed to do.  After I showed him once he understood how to get paint on the brush and then put it on the rock.  He also painted the newspaper.

He actually got more paint on them than I expected and they came out pretty colorful.  I never know what to expect from him with structured activities like this since he's a toddler.  I always leave it up to him as to how much we do and how long it lasts.  We probably only painted for about 5 minutes today but he seemed to enjoy it and "get" it while we were painting.  It might seem like 5 minutes of painting may not be worth the prep/clean up time but he was exposed to painting/art/colors for those 5 minutes, enjoyed it, and exceeded what I had expected him to accomplish so I see it as a positive experience for him.  

The paint we used was leftover from The Very Hungry Caterpillar pots from M's first birthday.  It's non-toxic, washable Crayola paint from Staples.  With an older child I might use something more durable, especially for something that will be left outdoors, but non-toxic and washable are musts for us right now.  This paint comes right off:

After the paint dried I sprayed the rocks with a sealant since they'll be staying outside then we used tacky glue to attach the eyes.  I sprayed them one more time with the sealant after the eyes were on.  They dried fairly quickly in the sun.  

We'll have a few more posts to share this week.  I have a mom project from Pinterest that I just bought materials for this morning that will be up later this week.

*Edited to include a view of the garden....

treasure hunt

Our blog has been on the slow side lately because two weeks ago we moved into our new house.  We've been doing a lot of unpacking and rediscovering the toys I had put in boxes weeks ago (I didn't put them all in boxes weeks ago but for the ones I did it's been like Christmas in July for M).  We haven't done too many "out of the box" activities because we've been so busy.

This afternoon M and I went outside to play and kind of inadvertently began a treasure hunt in the backyard.  M loves all things small and since we've been spending more time outdoors this summer he's discovered rocks.  He finds one or two and carries them around in his hands.  He did this today and I decided to grab his bucket and take him on a treasure hunt.  After about the third "treasure" we found he seemed to get the hang of it.  He was surprisingly very picky about the things he put in his bucket.  Here's how it went....

- I would spot something.

- I would say, "look M, a treasure!" and point it out.

- M would pick it up, inspect it carefully, and either put it in his bucket or throw it back on the ground in disgust (i.e. this is definitely not a treasure).

Some things that made the treasure bucket: at least 4 rocks, a three-leaf clover, a twig, a few flowers, an acorn, a weed

Some things that did not make the cut: a dandelion, a piece of mulch, a handful of grass M pulled up

As I said, after the first few things I found he really got into it and liked filling up the bucket.  Of course, we had to stop our walk a few times to dump out the bucket, inspect everything again, and put each thing back in.  

One of the things I liked watching M do was balance while walking and holding the bucket.  Tricky...

Overall, a good little unexpected activity.  I'm sure it's something we'll do again many times but it was fun to see him enjoy it at this stage.