Shaking Lentils

The idea for this work came from this blog. For this activity you need an empty parmesan cheese shaker, a bag of lentils, a bowl, and a funnel. Pour the lentils (as much as you like) into the shaker, then present the work to your child. I showed O how to carefully and slowly shake the lentils into the bowl. She didn't quite get the "carefully and slowly" part of it! I learned on a lesson on the importance of being prepared...I forgot to take the funnel with me when I introduced the lesson, and while I went to get it, she had a great time shaking lentils everywhere!

Win a Bum Genius Starter Kit

I saw this and thought some of you might be interested. I don't have a baby in diapers (except at night), but we loved our bum genius and plan to use them with any future children!http://blog.thenatureschild.com/2008/06/beat-heat-summer-contest.html

Color Fishing

O and I went fishing today...color fishing! Thanks to Shannon at Teaching Tiny Tots for this great idea! To make this activity you need craft foam sheets, paper clips, a pen, a wooden dowel, yarn, and sticky magnets. This activity was especially easy and quick for me to make because I was able to use the fishing pole that came with a Melissa and Doug puzzle instead of making one. I cut about 10 fish out of craft foam and drew faces on them with a sharpie. I only had 4 paper clips, so I slid the paper clips onto the fish. I planned to use blue craft foam for the water, but then I decided to use blue felt. While I was looking for the felt, I saw O's blue playsilk and realized that it would be perfect for the water! We had a lot of fun with this activity, and there are so many ways to expand on it. I plan on eventually writing letters and numbers on the fish. I think it would be fun to have O catch her name. With the number fish, we could put the numbers in order and eventually add them together. Since the fish are made out of foam, you could even put them in a bowl of water (or the bathtub) to make the game more challenging! The possiblities are endless!

O was very excited that she caught 2 fish at once. She said she caught "both!"

Unplug Your Kids: Garden

I wasn't planning on doing the unplugged challenge this week since we've just returned from vacation (Tuesday night), and I'm still trying to get back into our routine. Then I saw that the theme is garden, and that's just so easy that I couldn't pass it up. We just did our normal thing, so I guess that's really cheating :)
Checking the garden this morning. Can you believe our squash plant? That's just 1 plant!
We picked 4 squash and one cucumber this morning. There are about 6 more squash that will be ready this afternoon or in the morning, and I forgot to check the bell pepper and banana pepper plants. We'll have to go work in the garden and check on the container garden on the deck when O wakes up from her nap.

Mixing Colors and a Making a Bowling Game

To make this bowling game you need 6 water bottles filled with water and food coloring. O squeezed the coloring into the bottles, and we watch the color spread through the water. Then she shook the bottles. I showed her how to mix red and blue to make purple and red and yellow to make orange. She was a little squeeze happy with the blue, so our purple bottle is very dark. After we were satisfied with the colors of our water in each bottle, I tightly screwed each lid on (I'll glue them on later).
Then it was time to bowl! O likes to get right next to the bottles, and she drops the ball right on them.
We labeled the colors of the bottles that she knocked over. This is also a good counting activity since we counted the bottles that fell.
We were impressed with how pretty our paper towel (that we used to clean up our mess) was, so we hung it on the sliding glass door.

Panning for Gems

We took panning for gems this afternoon, and she had a great time. She chose a blue shovel ("boo" is her favorite color), and she shoveled the sand and gems into the screens. Then she (with the help of daddy and grandaddy) shook the pan to loosen and wash away the dirt. She was excited to see the beautiful gems left on the screen. Her prettiest find is an amethyst geode.

Hiking in the Mountains

We hiked to a waterfall this morning, and it wasn't a very long hike, but it felt long since I had a 26 pound toddler in my sling! My sister borrowed my Beco for her California trip, since I was sure I wouldn't need it in the sweltering heat of the Bahamas :) Thank goodness, I had the sling! O loved touching the rock walls. We talked about whether they were rough or smooth and hard or soft. She was excited about seeing her first waterfall, but her favorite part of the day was exploring a cave. I recited several lines from one of our favorite books, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, while we searched the cave for bears. What fun!

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!

We're Back!

Our 5 day vacation to the Bahamas turned into a very scary 30 minutes in a very small plane. As we were taking off from the airport, I was thinking that we were crazy to be taking our small child in this very small airplane. After about 15 minutes into our flight, I noticed that we were turning around. Shortly after that my FIL told us that the alternator was out, and we were turning around. We lost all electric power on the flight, so there was no way to tell if the landing gear was down. Elliott made about 30 calls trying to get through to someone (cell coverage isn't the best in the air) to see if they could tell us if the landing gear was down and to call the airport to let them know we were coming in for an emergency landing with no electric power. We weren't able to find out if the landing gear was down, but we were able to notify the airport that we were coming in. I wasn't terribly concerned until I realized that we were having trouble maintaining altitude. Then it was time to land. As we were coming in for a landing, we still didn't know if the landing gear was down. We were all hoping, praying, and wishing that we would touch down with the landing gear and not the belly of the plane. O was in her car seat across from me, so I just held onto her feet. I can't even describe the relief that I felt when we touched down...we made it! I think we're done with small planes. It'll just be commercial flights for us from now on!!!

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!

Painting a #1

My mom started a tradition of painting a wooden number of the girls' age with my niece last year. We realized that she had to paint a #1 with O very soon, or she'd run out of time! They painted the #1 after supper tonight. O and Guh-guh had lots of fun. O chose pink and blue and mixed them to make purple. Mixing the colors was her favorite part, of course!


She's 1!

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?

Releasing Ladybugs

We released about 400 ladybugs onto our tomato plants tonight in the hopes that they will eat all of the aphids. We are crossing our fingers that this works because our tomato plants look great, but they are COVERED in aphids. I've sprayed them with soap and water, but it doesn't really seem to help. Thanks, Guh-guh, for sharing your ladybugs!