Toy Bath

Activity completed December 2015.

Bathtime is one of Tripp's favorite things to do (barring a two-week stretch a couple of months ago where he was terrified of baths). When he suggested one of his toys needed a bath, I gathered up a Tupperware container, a little bit of bubble bath and headed outside. Lots of good clean fun!

Rocket Birdhouse

Activity completed November 2015.

We spotted this wooden rocket birdhouse at Michael's and I knew it would be a lot of fun to paint. Tripp loves rockets and space shuttles. He likes to watch space shuttle launches on YouTube and has a toy space shuttle he pretends to blast off all the time. Naturally, then, he fell in love with this rocket.

First, I painted the rocket white. After it dried he chose some colors of acrylic paint (blue, yellow, and green) and painted it. (He wanted me to paint a "puppy" on one side, which you can sort of see in the picture, but I was able to convince him to paint the rest himself.) We also went over it with glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint and Mod Podge.

The addition of a hook and chain meant we could hang it outside. He loves it and likes to look around for birds to invite into the birdhouse. So far, none have claimed it but I imagine someone will by spring!

Button Forest

Activity completed November 2015.

I think it's so much fun when one simple activity combines so much learning and play at the same time. This Fall Button Quiet Bin from Hands On As We Grow definitely fit that bill. With a shoebox, pipe cleaners and buttons (that's it!) we were able to talk about shapes, colors, textures, and numbers. Plus it's an awesome use of those developing fine motor skills. Tripp enjoyed practicing threading the buttons on each tree. He liked finding particular shapes in the box and also matching the colors of the buttons to the trees.

Glittery Turkey Thanksgiving Craft

Project completed November 2015. 

This turkey jar was a fun Thanksgiving project. I got the idea from I Love to Create, which calls them "Gobble Gobble Globes." However, I switched up the order of the steps, because to me pouring the water in at the very end would risk getting the decorations wet! Here's the order we did it in with our supplies... these would be very cute place settings if you wanted to make a bunch of them!

Supplies:

• Empty, clean baby food jar
• Scrapbook or construction paper in various fall colors
• White glue or glue dots
• Gold glitter
• Water
• Googly eyes

Steps:

1. Fill the baby food jar with a generous amount of glitter and water.
2. Holding the baby food jar upside down, attach the googly eyes and a triangle of yellow or orange paper to the jar with glue.
3. Trace your child's hand on paper and cut it out. Use this template to trace and cut out multiple copies of their hand shape (we used 4).
4. Once the glue for the eyes and beak has dried, use glue to attach the "feathers," fanned out, to the back of the jar. Allow to dry.

Colored Rice Craft

Activity completed September 6, 2015.

This was a simple addition to our fun with colored rice. It couldn't be easier - all you need is:

• Colored rice
• Cardstock
• Clear-drying glue

We each made designs with the glue on our paper. I went for a heart shape while Tripp experimented with how the glue flowed and how hard he needed to squeeze. Then we added handfuls of the rice onto the paper. A few minutes later I shook the loose rice from each paper and we had our colorful designs!

Exploring Colored Rice

Activity completed on September 15, 2015.

Tuesdays are the day Tripp and I get to spend entirely together. Usually we go to the library in the mornings, he naps, and then we have fun with an activity in the afternoon - anything from going to the park if the weather is nice to a craft or just free play. Tuesdays are great and I really cherish them, because all too soon he'll be in school and we won't have this free time together.

I thought having some fun with colored rice would be a nice way to spend one of our Tuesday afternoons. In the morning, before we went to the library, I followed these directions from Paging Fun Mums and by the time he was finished with his nap and lunch it was dry and ready to be played with.

While I was making the rice I let him choose the colors. We ended up with blue, green, yellow, red and a very dark purple.

We donned our winter hats, as you do, and got to playing. I had cups and bowls out to experiment with moving the rice. He got right into it.

 

 

Fall Leaves Garland Craft

Activity completed November 2015.

I first spotted the idea for this fall leaves craft on Raising Arizona Kids. It was a perfect fit for a Tuesday afternoon at home since we always buy Viva paper towels and we had plenty of pipettes and food coloring on hand.

The idea is simple: draw or trace leaves on paper towels with Sharpie, then use the droppers to drop colored water onto the towels. When they're dry, cut them out and string them up for a pretty seasonal garland.

One thing I enjoyed in contrast with the original blogger's leaves was the colors on each leaf. Ours turned out with lots of colors on each leaf and it looks so pretty, particularly in person. Tripp likes any craft where he gets to use those pipettes!