Animal sounds

This is my first post from my iPhone. We'll see how it goes...

After we visited Davis Farmland M went through a cow phase. He moo'ed for a week and would wave to the cow on our milk delivery box in the driveway. This week he moved on from cows to sheep. He bahs instead of moos and likes finding sheep in his animal books. There are signs the sheep phase is almost ready to be replaced with a duck phase so this morning we made the most of sheep while we still like them.
This morning we made a sheep. I cut pieces out of black and white construction paper. The body looked like the cutout of a puffy white cloud. I covered it with a glue stick and showed M how to stick on cotton balls.

We had to stop to play with the cotton balls (he had never seen them before).  He did well sticking them on.  With the exception of the initial cotton ball that I put on, he put them all on.  Then I added the legs and head.  We added some googly eyes that we have been saving for a project we're going to try in a few weeks when we get home from our beach vacation.  He's not the fuzziest sheep but we like him.  

We hung him up and M likes pointing to him and bahing.  Maybe we've prolonged the sheep phase for a few days.

homemade play dough

This morning M and I made a batch of homemade play dough.  I hadn't made homemade play dough since I was little but I think it came out pretty well.  There are a few different recipes for it but the one we used was:
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of water
Mix the salt and flour then add water and knead to form the dough.  We probably ended up using an additional 1/8 cup of water to get the consistency we wanted.  I split the dough in half and added 1 drop of blue and green food coloring.  I did the mixing but I think this is something M will really enjoy doing at 2 or 3.
M's favorite toys are baseballs, footballs, beach balls, rubber balls, etc. so I formed a blue and green ball for him to start with and he jumped right in.  We flattened them out like pancakes and rolled out the dough like snakes.  I attempted to make a few animals and we practiced our animal sounds (currently he has sheep, cow, and monkey down).  One of his favorite things was picking up the little dough balls (marble size) I was making and squishing them between his thumb and finger.  We also tried some cookie cutters:

M liked pushing the cookie cutters into the dough.  Our favorites were the stars:

M's table and chairs are near his play kitchen so we also used some of the kitchen toys with the play dough (his idea).  He liked stabbing the dough with the fork.  He also liked putting a bunch in a bowl and stirring it.  I showed him how to cut with the play knife.  This is M stirring:

If I remember correctly the homemade play dough doesn't last that long before it hardens up.  I wrapped ours in saran wrap when we were finished to try to preserve it but it's so easy to make that it doesn't really matter.  I also put out a white tray to play with the play dough on because I wasn't sure what it would do to M's wood table.  At a few points we were rolling the play dough right on the table and it did nothing.  The homemade variety seems less greasy than the store-bought kind.  I had thought about trying play dough with M before and decided not to because I thought he might be too young (currently 13 months) but he really enjoyed it and did a lot with it.  I also loved that he thought to use the kitchen toys all on his own (I should have thought of that!).  

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.  

ice cube painting

Today M and I tried painting with ice cubes.  It was a great activity for this week since the weather has been so hot.

To make the "paints" I mixed water with food coloring and then froze it in an ice cube tray.  Putting sticks into the cubes keeps the mess down (less on hands) and makes it easier to paint with the cubes because you don't need to hold them.  Popsicle sticks would be good.  I didn't have any so I broke wooden skewers in half and used those.

M loved this activity.  He had no problem holding onto the sticks and had good control over the cubes. He didn't want to stop and I had to pry them out of the hands when they had melted too much. 

When we do this again I'd do it outside in the shade.  Although with a younger toddler like M the high chair was great for containing the mess.  I'd also keep some of the cubes in the freezer and take them out as the others melted.  On a hot day they melt quick!

M's age when we played: 12 months, 1 week

sensory bottles

This is something I've wanted to try with M for a few weeks.  I was thinking of waiting until we moved because a lot of our art stuff is packed but today I gave it a try anyway.  If you Google "sensory bottles" you'll find lots of different ideas for different ways to make these.  You need empty bottles, some food coloring, and some fun stuff to put inside of them.  M loves shaking bottles or cups (or anything that makes sound) so this was a fun activity for him.  He also enjoys anything that rolls and you can bet he figured out that these roll pretty quickly.  We made three today.

This one was the first one we did and it's my favorite.  It's water, oil, glitter, and some green beads.  I started with only yellow food coloring and then decided to add some blue to turn it green.  The oil is yellow and the water is green which gives it a really cool look when M shakes it or turns it upside down.  I didn't fill any of our bottles to the top because M likes to make noise and full bottles are a lot quieter than ones with a little space left over.

This one is water, dish soap, red food coloring, and the rest of the beads we had.  The more you shake it the more suds it makes.  M loves it.

For the last one we did purple water with a bunch of Tubettini macaroni.  This one requires a little extra oomph to get the macaroni really moving.  It's nice because it makes M work a little harder than the others.

If your child is like mine you'll want to give the caps a little extra reinforcement.  I used packing tape but any stronger tape would work:

As I said, there are a ton of possibilities for these.  I opted to fill all of them with liquid because M already has some containers with dry macaroni, beans, etc. that are used as noisemakers.  But an empty bottle with some beans or something similar would be a fun one as well.  I also came across some quieter options like a bottle filled with colored feathers or those little soft pom pom balls.  I think we'll definitely end up making more of these in the future.  It will be fun when M can participate in filling them and coming up with ideas for what to put inside.  

M's age when we played: 12 months

Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party

M turned one on Sunday and his party had the theme of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I made a bunch of decorations, most of which I found online through Google searches or Pinterest.  I thought I'd put them all here for people like me who wish they could have found everything in one spot.  I'll also link to the original source, if there is one.

My favorite decoration was the giant tissue paper caterpillar we hung over the dessert table.  I think it was M's favorite too- he'd point to it while he ate his breakfast every morning as it hung in our kitchen before we moved it to Nonni's house for the party.  This was the most intricate of all of the decorations but after making one or two balls you get the hang of it.  I started with the head but I'd recommend starting with one of the green ones, because I think they got better as I went.  The original tissue paper caterpillar is here and the instructions for making the balls are here.  I love how fun he is and would totally hang this in my classroom down the road...even though there will probably be fun-sucking fire rules against it.

Another of my favorites were these flower pots for the utensils.  We traced quarters for the caterpillar circles then painted them.  I almost wrote "Happy Birthday M" on them but I decided against it since I figured I'd end up either using them at school or putting flowers in them.  M's Nonni gets the credit for this idea.

We didn't do goody bags but gave the kids who came bubbles instead.  These bubbles are from the dollar store (they blow great bubbles too).  We took the labels off and made our own.

The next caterpillar was made of construction paper circles and had different photos of M on each circle.  The original decoration is here.  We made ours crawl around the doorframe.

These were construction paper circles linked with ribbon.  They hung a little funny by themselves so I used double sided tape to keep them straight.  I'm thinking if you used a stronger material than construction paper they might hang better.

This sign was for the front of M's high chair...obviously try to position so that antenna doesn't get ripped off, oops.

I found my cake idea here.  It's a sheet cake on the bottom and the caterpillar is a bundt cake cut into pieces.  That was the trickiest part.  I cut it into thirds but had to do some filling of spaces with frosting. I'm still not sure exactly how you're supposed to cut the bundt cake but I was really happy with how it came out.  Dots and eyes are M&Ms.  Feet are Hershey kisses cut in half.

 M also had a "smash cake" - two 8-inch round cakes cut smaller (maybe 4 inches?).  Here are the before and after shots:

And these were our invitations.  Made with Photoshop....

sticker hands

A quick little problem solving activity for M this morning....removing stickers from the backs of his hands.  He loved the bright star stickers and didn't mind having them on his hands but (of course) wanted them off so he could play with them.  The first one took him a few minutes to figure out.  He knew he had to pinch it but kept missing the edge.

Once he got the first one off the second one was easy.  And once he unstuck the second one, he stuck it back on (it's still there).

Quick and easy if you have stickers at home.  Good for pincer grasp and fine motor development.

M's age when we played: 11 months, 3 weeks