Marble Transferring Activity

I introduced this transferring activity to E(2) last week, and she was immediately successful when picking up the marbles with the spoon and then dropping them into the bottle. (I was very surprised that it was so easy for her). However, when I started videoing the activity, she had a VERY hard time picking up a marble with the spoon. It was almost painful to watch, and I wanted to jump in and do it for her. I had to bite my tongue, and I was just waiting for her to ask for help, so that I could jump in and help her...Here's the video.


After she spent so much time chasing the marbles around the bowl with the spoon, I realized that I needed to put something in the bowl to hold the marbles. I put a small square of tissue in the bowl, and it worked perfectly.

This is a great activity for developing persistence when presented with a difficult task (obviously!). She's also developing hand/eye coordination, fine motor control, concentration, the ability to transfer from left to right (which will eventually help with reading), and the ability to cross her midline. So many things are going on during this very simple task.


The idea for this activity came from this blog via Pinterest.

Words from Boxes

A few months ago when I was sorting our recycling, I noticed all words on the various boxes (cereal boxes, etc.). It seemed a shame to recycle all those words when we could be reading them. So, I started cutting out all the words and put them together in a box.

O(5) was VERY excited about the words. We've had fun making silly sentences with them, but we really need more verbs. I plan to keep adding to our word collection, and I think we're going to have lots of fun with this activity for a while!

Our Starry Night Jar

After seeing glitter jars all over Pinterest for the past few weeks, I decided to make one of our own. (Most of the jars are called "time-out jars" or "calm down jars") I knew I didn't want ours to be a time-out jar because I didn't want any punitive connotations, so when O requested blue food coloring and blue glitter, I decided that we'd call it our "Starry Night Jar" (since we love Van Gogh's Starry Night painting).

To make the jar, we filled it with warm water. We added blue glitter and blue glitter glue. The glue creates a swirling effect when you shake the jar, and I added a little extra clear glue (school glue, but it's clear,not white) to make it swirl a little longer. I didn't measure anything...just eyeballed it.

Once when E(2) was extremely tired and fussy, I sat with her on the kitchen floor and grabbed the jar and shook it. We both stared at it and talked about how the glitter (stars) was slowly drifting to the bottom. I was happily amazed when she immediately calmed down and stared at the jar for a minute or so. I'm planning to put together a peace basket, and this will be an important component of it.

Playing with Putty

E(2) went on a treasure hunt for pennies and a marble in our therapy putty during "P" week! She had fun, but the putty is pretty firm, so it wasn't easy. O(5) was SO excited when she saw the putty because this has always been one of her favorite activities!

Color Mixing Water Balloon Bath

The girls had a great time taking a bath with water balloons this week!

First, I put a few drops of yellow food coloring in 2 yellow balloons and filled them with water. I put a few drops of blue food coloring into 2 blue balloons and filled them with water.

The girls had fun playing with the water balloons in the bath!

Then they popped the blue water balloons and loved their blue bath water!

Next, they popped the yellow balloons to make green water!

What a fun color mixing activity! Thanks to Amber B. for this great idea!

Turkey Felt Board

Sorry for the week of no posts! I had several posts saved in draft and set to post each day while we were out of town, but, obviously, that didn't work! We are back from a wonderful week in the Bahamas! It was great, but we are glad to be home!

The girls have had fun playing with the turkey felt board (that I made a couple of years ago). They look at the pictures and copy the designs, and they create their own designs.

Polishing Pennies

Polishing pennies was another perfect "P" activity for "P" week! We haven't polished pennies since O(5) was E's age (2), so it was time! O and I enjoyed looking at the pictures of her polishing the pennies before we began this activity.

First, E poured a half cup of white vinegar into a bowl. Then, she poured in 1 tablespoon of salt. She and O took turns stirring the mixture, and then they dropped in the pennies.

We made the mistake of leaving the pennies and other coins in the vinegar and salt solution for too long, and they turned green! Oops!

Mirror Polishing Work

Since O(5) LOVES the polishing works at school, I decided to set a few of them up at home for her and E(2) to do. E LOVES this work! She polished the mirror at least 15 times in a row when I first introduced the work to her!
First, spray the mirror with water.

Then, dry it with a little cloth. (we used tiny flannel wipes leftover from the girls' diaper days)

She also really loves to spray herself in the face with the water!

A Review of Icosoku Jr.

I am excited to review our first item for the Timberdoodle Blogger Review Team! I LOVE browsing the Timberdoodle catalog and website, so I'm thrilled to be a part of their review team.

Our first item that we are reviewing is the Icosoku Jr. I've been reading about the Icosoku for more than a year, but I didn't think O(5) was ready for it. So, I was very excited to see the Icosoku Jr come AND even more excited that Timberdoodle sent us one to review!

I put the Icosoku Jr. in a basket with the triangle pieces off, so that it is ready at all times :) To play the Icosoku Jr. you randomly place the number buttons on the ball, and then match the dotted tiles to the buttons. This is harder than it looks, but it's lots of fun!

O calls herself a "mathematician," so she was initially thrilled with the Icosoku. I explained what to do, but then I left her alone to finish the puzzle. She was easily frustrated with me not right there to help her. Since then we've played with the Icosoku Jr. together many, many times, and now she says she "LOVES it!"

Now that she has gained confidence in herself, she enjoys it more and plays it more independently.

This is a great travel puzzle (game, toy,...whatever you want to call it), and I'm looking forward to taking it with us on our upcoming vacation.

While E(2) is much too young to understand the number concepts on the Icosoku Jr., she really enjoys snapping the number buttons and tiles into place. I watch her VERY closely because it wouldn't surprise me if she decided to put a number button in her mouth.


This is a great fine motor excercise for both girls, and they are fine tuning their concentration skills and their ability to pay attention to details as well. O also is working on her addition and logic skills. So many things are going on when completing this puzzle... You can watch a video demonstrating the Icosoku here.

Timberdoodle sent the Icosoku Jr. to review at no cost to me. I was not paid for this review, and the opinions expressed are my own.