Having Fun on the Road

Since our Bahamas vacation didn't work out, we decided to try again with a long weekend in the mountains with Elliott's parents. We were on the road for about 6 hours, and we stayed busy!
I was SO glad that I brought O's sewing block, so she could sew "ike mama." I'm making her a needlepoint "paper doll" that I bought for $1.50 on the clearance rack at WM. I'll post about it if I ever finish it :)
O loved playing with playdoh. She and dada made playdoh spaghetti.
O had the most fun playing the copycat game with dada. He spontaneously started copying everything she did, and she LOVED it. This went on for quite a while, and she kept asking for "more, more" whenever he stopped copying her.

Toddler Activity Bags in Action

We weren't on the plane long enough for me to get out the toddler activity bags, but O enjoyed drawing on her magnetic board for a few minutes. She was so tired that she closed her eyes, but she kept on drawing! She didn't like it when the plane dipped, so she held her daddy's hand for a while.

We were lucky that we had a lounge to hang out in, while we waited at the aiport for a couple of hours while waiting for Uncle William to come pick us up. We did a few activities while we waited.
O wasn't too impressed with the color sorting bears activity. She did it perfectly at first, but then she started pouring all the bears together. She was ready to put the bears back, and try something new.

She was very impressed with the "niney" Potato Head. She was especially excited when she saw that Mrs. Potato Head has "tap-tap" shoes!
O had fun dancing with Mrs. Potato Head!

Thanks for all of the input!

Thanks for all of the input on the toddler activity bags! I forgot to mention that I'm taking a small baking pan for O to use as a tray which will help contain the playdoh. I've decided to leave the finger puppets, magnets, sorting wacky mac, and noodle necklace at home. Tonight when I was gathering more stickers to put in the collage bag, Elliott told me that I didn't need to worry about taking anything to entertain O because he would entertain her. Hmmmm. Evidently, he doesn't read the blog!

Mommomto2pumpkins- I'd LOVE to hear more about your 37 activity bags! I would love to make more for O, and I'm always looking for new ideas :)

Thanks again, ladies!

A Pocketbook Full of Fun!

In addition to the activity bags, I also filled an old pocketbook with fun items for O to explore during our trip. The pocketbook has lots of zippered pockets, and I put at least one item in each pockets. The items are: 2 playsilks, a compact with a mirror, a tiny Winnie the Pooh, a calculator, another small mirror, a waistband key thing (Elliott has his work key on one of these, and O loves to play with it when he gets home from work each day), a small flashlight, a harmonica, 2 velcro bracelelts, silly putty, and a small brush. O is really proud of her "bockbeckbook!" She puts the strap on her shoulder and walks arounds saying "ike mama," which is pretty funny since I can't stand to carry a pocketbook!

Toddler Activity Bags

After reading Megret's post about Preschool Activity Bags, I started thinking about making toddler activity bags. Since we are going to the Bahamas on Friday in a small, 6 person plane I decided that I better go ahead and make a few bags to take with us. I got a little carried away! Once I started thinking of ideas, I just couldn't stop :) Here are the ones I've made so far:

Photo magnets
finger puppets
Sorting wacky macaroni

Putting miniature babies or smooth stones into individual boxes. This activity teaches 1-to-1 correspondence, and I think O will LOVE it since she loves babies and all things "niney."
Collage bag- glue stick, foam paper, note cards, stickers, paper punches, strips of construction paper
Stringing noodles to make a necklace. I added a pipe cleaner "needle" to the end of the shoe string to make it easier for O to use.
Mini containers of playdoh and a few playdoh tools
Miniature Mrs. Potato Head. O is going to be so excited to see a "niney" Potato Head!

Mini, reversible felt board
The other side of the felt board
Color sorting with bears
Open and close activity bag.
Puzzle activity bag. These puzzles came from a cutting book for children. I laminated the pictures then cut them out to make puzzles.
The last bag is not pictured. It contains a box of washable crayons (I don't want her coloring the plane walls!), notecards, and sticky notes.

Here's the hard part...which ones do I take with us on our trip? Clearly, 13 is too many. The flight lasts anywhere from 3 hours to 4 and a half hours depending on who I ask, and O will probably sleep at least an hour or two. I'm also taking books to read and snacks to eat. 5 or 6 activity bags shoud be more than enough. I just can't decide which ones. What do you think? Which bags do you think your child would enjoy?

O's Dollhouse

O is finally showing an interest in this dollhouse! I bought the dollhouse, lots of furniture, the dollhouse family, and a wooden doll car all for 30 dollars from a 2nd hand store before Christmas. I was super excited and decided to give it to O and her cousin to share at G & G's house. Marg has loved it for a while, but O is just starting to show an interest in playing with it. She was excited that Niney fit in the bunk bed!

Animal Flip Book

I downloaded this animal flip book from this site, and it was very easy to make and it turned out great! I printed the pictures onto photo paper, cut them out, punched the holes with a hole puncher, laminated the pages, cut them out again, punched the holes again (its surprisingly difficult to punch holes through laminating paper, so I'm glad that I'd already punch the holes through the pages!), and used book rings to bind it together. I think O is going to love matching the animals in this book on our plane ride this weekend :)

Playing the Keyboard

Guh-guh and Grandpa bought O and her cousin this keyboard for Christmas for them to play at G & G's house. O LOVES to play the keyboard, but her favorite thing to do is to set it to play music while she dances around the den. Guh-guh loves to teach O new dance moves, and they have lots of fun!

Playing with Playdoh

O loves to play with playdoh at G & G's house, and today it occured to me that I should put the playdoh and tools on a cookie sheet to help her keep everything together. I can't believe it took me so long to think of that! She really enjoyed herself :)

Balancing on Bricks

O had fun balancing on G & G's brick border this afternoon. She calls it a "balance beam." I'm planning on setting up a balancing board in our front yard when we get home (we'll be at G & G's until Wednesday. Then we're heading to the Bahamas on Friday.) O is also a trend setter with her crocs aka "docs." Her 4 year old cousin likes to wear 2 different colored crocs now, too. My sister is not thrilled about it, but I think they look cute!

Brown

Today was brown day! O loved being a kangaroo :)

Pipe Cleaner Letter Cards

My friend, Jennifer, had the great idea to make letters from pipe cleaners and glue them to flashcards. I'd made letters from pipe cleaners before, but I'd never thought of gluing them to notecards. This was a super easy and fast project. I ran out of red pipe cleaners before I finished making the alphabet. I plan on using these letters in conjunction with O's phonics bags. Thanks, Jennifer, for sharing this great idea!

Color Sorting

Thanks to the One Little, Two Little blog for posting the link to this great color sorting game! We started with blue, red, and yellow, and I think I'll add in orange next time. O was a little skeptical at 1st, but she had fun once she started. She didn't want to participate when I called the activity "color sorting," but she was ready to work when I changed my wording and said it was "color matching." The girl loves to match :)

Baking with Sand

O had a great time baking mini sand cakes and pies this morning on the beach :) Her grandmother gave her some old baking tins that belonged to Elliott's grandmother. We are going to have a lot of fun playing with these, and maybe we'll bake something we can actually eat one day!

Purple

I think purple is my favorite! The hat and bubbles were last minute additions to our purple photo shoot, and they made the picture. O loved blowing bubbles, and I just love the hat! It was my favorite hat when I was around 7 years old, and there is a picture of me wearing this hat hanging on my wall in my bedroom at Guh-guh and Grandpa's house (remember that picture, Anne?)

Unplug Your Kids: Sticky

The unplugged theme this week is sticky, so I decided that we would finally make a tissue and contact paper collage (I've been planning to do this for a while!). My sister thought I was strange when I gathered all of the tissue paper from her daughter's bday presents and brought it home with me, but I had a plan :)
O tried to cut the tissue paper first, but she quickly decided that it was easier and more fun to tear the paper.
I taped a piece of contact paper (sticky side up) to a placemat, and she placed the tissue paper on the contact paper.
After she finished, I put a 2nd piece of contact paper on top of her work.
We hung the finished project on the sliding glass door. O was VERY proud!

Black

My little cat was not thrilled about taking pictures this afternoon. She was excited about being a cat until she got the costume on. She was ready to take it off quickly, and I don't blame her because its HOT!

White

We had to really hunt around the house to find things for our white picture. The monkey was mine when I was little and was stuffed in a bag in the top of O's closet. The dress is a 6/9 months sized dress. I can't believe how well it fit her, and she was VERY excited to wear the bonnet :)

Unloading the Dishwasher

I had no idea that unloading and reloading the dishwasher could be so much fun! This is O's new favorite way to "elp mama." She loves sorting the forks and spoons into the right compartments. After she finished unloading them, she quickly started reloading the dishwasher with clean utensils. She was having a great time, and she was dancing to the Beatles the whole time :)

Doing the slide back to the drawer. My girl loves to dance!

Red

We had our red photo shoot today. Only a few colors to go!