Playing with Trash

What could be better than a swimming pool full of newspaper and colorful baggies?  Well a lot of things, my son thinks ;)

It took a while for him to really get into this... I had thought he would love it because of how much he liked to throw fall leaves but I was mistaken.  Still, we had our good moments, like when he realized that he could see through the bags and wanted to sing the peekaboo song.

I found the idea for this activity here.  Oh, and also only use the plastic bags if you are going to be supervising your child!  I just added them in because we don't get the paper so we had very little of it in the garage, but had tons of plastic bags that my inlaws always seem to give us.

I also made up a sensory box (in this case, I almost think its just another term for "junk...") I tossed tons of stuff in there, mostly game pieces--from Rummikub, Dominoes, Sequence, Mancala, Scrabble, plus shape beads, cotton and pompoms, clothesmpins and a couple shiny plastic ornaments for good measure.

I set it out with tons of containers, spoons, cups, etc. and let my son get to work.  He did a lot of stirring and scooping and in general, had a great time!  I am sure we will get it out again tomorrow.

He is currently into stars since we put up the tree, so we set about to do a star collage.  He has helped make these in the past but this time his helping equated to him continuously getting his hand stuck on the paper.

So I pretty much made the whole thing, but it was worth it later because he keeps picking it up and starting to dance, his signal that he wants me to sing twinkle twinkle little star.  so cute!

One final thing I did, in a fit of randomness, I decided to cut stars out of scrap paper and I taped them up all over the living room.  It took a while, but he eventually noticed them and has been having fun taking them down, looking at them, and then "pat, pat, pats" them back onto the wall (which is what we say when we make the collages).

Brown Bear Activites II

Last week's activities were such a hit!  Well, maybe it wasn't even the activities, but that he loves the Brown Bear book and he seriously played with all the little shapes and cards all week long.  They were constantly all over the house and some of them are still MIA.  So I thought I would come up with some more activities and make a Tot Book for him.

Pretty much all of the ideas shown are printables from 1+1+1=1 (except for the small red piece on the left--that just says My Name on the outside and Owen on the inside).  I had a lot of fun putting this together, and I guess I imagined I would take it out and we would sit down and look at the different parts of it together.  You know, in a civilized, adult manner.  Well, this is what happened immediately

Followed by this

And I have to admit, I was totally overwhelmed.  So I would imagine Owen was too.  Suddenly there was too much stuff.  It was everywhere.  I could hardly sort my thoughts (although I must admit that "stuff" easily overwhelms me).  So at first I gave up (haha.  typical).  I just let him do his thing.  Then I slowly rounded up the different elements and took them out of the mix and we looked at some of the different parts by themselves.

Surprisingly, he really likes the ABC sheet.  Its a fun accordian piece.  He has been carrying it all over the house.  Sometimes he wants to talk about the animals on it and sometimes he wants me to sing the song, which he tries to sing along to. I tried to take a pic of him running around with it but he moves too fast ;)

He also loves the Looking At Me mini-book and the Heads and Tails cards, although he doesn't really get that the cards are supposed to be put together, he just likes to look at the pieces and name them.

I had pulled out this shadow game knowing it would be too complicated.  Owen liked looking at the shadows and playing with the pieces, although not together ;) 

He actually came up with his own game when he saw this sorting sheet where the animals were in color, and made his own matching game.  He didn't get every one right, but he would lay down some of the cards on to the right pictures.  It was a much better game than the ones I came  up with.

So now I think I will keep most of this stuff out of sight and bring out one at a time to play with.  Mostly he just does free play with the different shapes which is fine by me, I interrupt every once in a while.  And if you didn't know (cause I didn't) there are several other related books, Panda Bear, Panda Bear what do you See? Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear? and Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What do you See?  some of them seem a bit more advanced to me, but Owen loves them just the same and we have been reading them constantly.

Tot Book!

I read about Tot Books earlier this week on Carissa's blog 1+1+1=1 and I thought it was such a great idea so I decided to give it a try!  Tot Books are like a smaller, less complicated version of a lap book, which is basically a tool for older kids to review and reinforce learning in a fun and interesting way (they usually help make the books as well.)  You can read about it more here and here. 

So I decided I wanted to make a little book focusing on the things we were talking about this week.  Here is what I came up with:

Ok. So first of all, yes, I know I need to learn to take better pictures.  Lets add that to my to-do list, shall we?  So I cut a file folder in half and then made two folds so that it would have two sides that folded inwards.  This is what the book looks like open.  It is good to make the different elements fun and interesting to look at.  I got some ideas here

The section on the right is a circle folded into fourths.  I drew objects that are circles in each segment, which totals 6 segments as you are opening it.  I also covered all of the elements of this tot book in packing tape, because Owen loves to destroy things.  That makes it difficult for this circle to stay shut, which I find frustrating.

 The middle section is a book of things that are red.  Each of the blue and green pages has a different red item on it.  This is Owen's favorite part of the book.  He loves to turn the pages.

 Finally, I made triangle number flashcards.  This is the most uninteresting part but I am sure he will grow into it ;)  Daddy has taught him to count but I don't think he really knows what the numbers mean

And there you have it, a tot book!  Owen loves it, which was the goal but I still need to figure out how to make it completely toddler proof.  Is that even possible??

Circles and Triangles (yes, again!)

Today we have done some of the activities from Tuesday, along with a few new ones that I really enjoyed. My favorite activity was rolling this shapes dice.

I got the idea here at Toddler Toddler .  I wrapped a kleenex box in paper towels like I was wrapping a present (again, I am seeing a serious materials shortage at my house...  we need paper!  And real tape!).  Since I figured it wouldn't last long, I quickly drew shapes onto the box, although once I get real paper I will probably cut the shapes out.  This all took less than five minutes and voila! Shapes dice.  We rolled the dice and then called out the shape that was on it--I only put circles and triangles on it to keep it simple.  It was really fun.  Obviously it is already falling apart due to Owen feeling like he has to claw the box to throw it, but it was a very fun activity and I know we will do it again soon!

I also downloaded this simple shapes book a few days ago called Shape Monster from Hubbard's Cupboard

I think it is designed to be for kids to put together but we don't have many shape books so I figured it would be perfect for us.  I colored the shapes and put it together and we read it a few times.  Owen seemed to like it and was especially interested in the circle and triangle pages.

The other "new" activity today was playing with the shapes sorter game.

Oh, I hate the shapes sorter, it has been the bane of my existance.. Owen doesn't understand it and all he ever wants to do is dump the pieces out all over the place so I step on them and hurt my feet... But today I tried something new, and got out just the circles and triangles thinking that maybe the more complicated shapes overwhelmed him (Whats with the star and plus sign? Whats wrong with a rectangle or oval or something?).  He got the circle right away and needed a little help with the triangle but I was very surprised that he even did that well since he hasn't been able to do it before.   I'm going to try my best not to hate this toy and to play with it some more in the future.

Finally, I know that I posted this the other day but I thought I would post the sensory bean tub again,  It is one of Owen's favorite things to do, plus we added a little singing to the activity today.  We had lots of scooping implements as well as the triangle and circle shapes, and I let him play by himself with it for awhile (which, in general, means disaster).

When I came back I remembered that we have been singing a song from storytime lately to the tune of "where is thumbkin" so I made up a very easy song for the shapes.  "where's the circle? wheres the circle? Here is is, Here it is, this is a circle, this is a circle, here it is, here it is."  yeah, I know, am a genius songwriter.  But he loved the song and I think it helped reinforce the shapes (which he mostly understands now).  We also sang about other things like "where's the bowl, spoon, etc."  I'm pretty sure I am going to incorporate this song into other activities because it worked pretty well for us.

Also, this afternoon, if we have time or inclination, I will bring out the playdough and use the shapes sorter shapes to press into the dough.  But maybe we will save that or another day, who knows?

Anyway, thats what we are up to, hope you got some ideas that you can use and please share with me anything you have been doing that you think we would enjoy!

First Look at Shapes

Nana and PopPop brought Owen's Christmas presents with them when they visited over the weekend. They were supposed to stay hidden until Christmas, but I had to play with this shapes puzzle because it seemed like such a great thing for us to work on at this stage.


We had lots of fun, but after a while I started focusing on just the circle and triangle to make it simpler. Here are some of the other things we did:

I spruced up our bean bin by dyeing rice red and blue, and also dyeing some pasta green. So many pretty colors! (Dyeing rice and pasta is easy-- put it in a plastic bag along with some rubbing alcohol and a few drops of food coloring and then squish it around to mix it. Lay it out on a paper towel to dry.) I added in wooden shapes that I got at the Target Dollar Spot yesterday (wooden lacing beads) and while scooping and pouring and making a huge mess we also played with the shapes. my newest help was laying out a leftover tablecloth underneath us for easier and quicker cleanup.


Later in the day I tried to get Owen to help me sort triangles and circles onto a paper where I had drawn a big circle and a big triangle, but he wasn't interested.


So I got out the markers to color the picture instead, but he wasn't interested in that either.


Finally I got out the muffin tin lunch and that seemed just about right. He's still got some sort of a cold so I think the rest of the day will be spent reading, snuggling and relaxing.


What do you like to do to have fun with shapes?

world's best puzzle!

Nana and PopPop came to visit this weekend and brought this Melissa and Doug Puzzle.


I almost think I love it more than Owen does; it is absolutely perfect! First, it has several of his beloved animals (giraffe, lion) but also a few he does not know yet. The pictures are very cute and interesting, the puzzle is sturdy, but the best feature of all, in my opinion, is that the pieces are very thick! They are taller than the puzzle itself, which makes it easy to take them out but also fun to play with. I've been finding the pieces all over the house the past two days, it is such a hit! Definitely have to invest in more Melissa and Doug puzzles in the future.


...oh and the disclaimer is that this is, in fact, the only puzzle we have so I have no idea if it is the best ever ;) But I still love it!

We also did a little shopping and I was finally able to pick up some stacking cups (better late then never, right?) And I have been so pleased at how much fun Owen has with them. They are definitely easier for him than the nesting blocks he has so I think I will be on the lookout for fun things we can do with them together. Hope you had a fun weekend, we were very busy with the grandparents!