TP Necklace

Look: Today I cut up a few cardboard toilet paper holders into rings. Then I got a big pretty piece of ribbon. C took her time putting one ring on at a time. At first she found it sort of hard, so I held the ribbon for her. After watching me do this, she wanted to do it herself. So she held the ribbon with one hand and put the ring on top, then grabbed the ribbon and pulled it through. She has been wearing the necklace for most of the day.

Learn: Lacing is a good skill to work on. I wasn't sure how to try it with her until I saw this craft in my library book. Because the rings were big she was successful, which is a great way to introduce a new skill. I'll definitely use this idea for a toddler playdate, but maybe color or decorate first.

Love: The necklace turned out great and will go into our dress up cabinet. I love watching C's skills grow right in front of me. Its neat to see her little mind work!

Sticker Fun

Look: We are always getting stickers in the mail from charities. Sometimes they are return address stickers or different stickers for envelopes. So today we used some of them up on a bit of a craft. I handed them one by one to C. She had to ask for them each time saying..more stickers please. I usually got either more stickers or more please, but it was worth a try. She enjoyed sticking and resticking them and was very proud of her final product.

Learn: In just the course of the few minutes it took to do this she learned that once the stickers were really down she could get them back up. At first she asked, but then she caught on. She also put one on each hand (learned that at Gymboree from stamp time) and put one on her jammies.

Love: I love this was a free craft. Usually I just recycle those stickers with the rest of the junk mail, but this time we got good use out of them. We get tons, so no need to save yours for us. It was fun!

Valentines

Look: We've spent about 6 of our special times making our own valentines. C is going to sned them to our family and her usual playdate buddies. She had a big part coloring the pieces, playing with stamps and loving the circle cut out machine. When we put them together she took teeny, tiny hearts and stuck them to the tape strips.

Learn: Some of the activities that are the most fun are the ones that incorporate one of my hobbies. I knew this would take a few days, but I learned to get her coloring whenever I could..especially a big project like V-day! Also a big thing I learned is that my scrapbooking stuff is invaluable for making prizes. I gave C a circle I cut from the newspaper and she acted like it was a trophy for most of the day.

Love: She was so proud of each step. She took interest in everything from the shapes and colors to the stickiness of the tape. I love how observant she is. Hope the recipients love their cards!

Crafts

We're going to working on crafts. I'm going to make a list of all the types of things I'd like to do with C and eventually G. Some of them are ideas from books, the internet, others from teaching and the rest from all over. I won't get to all of them, but it will be nice to go back and get ideas when I'm all out. Like I said this is my brainstorming page.
Crafts
Scrapbook pages
Making Cards
Sticker fun
Finger painting
placemats
roll necklaces
formula can piggy banks
paper bag clothing
surprise picture book
dot painting
painting w/toothpicks
Making Puzzles
Bottle magic
basket weave
Mud paints
Rainbow Crayons
Puppets
bubble wrap prints
Iron crayons
pasta jewlery
Play dough
sponge painting

Trying Something New

We've had a really busy few weeks. Two sick babies and some cold weather added to the mayhem. We've done lots of special things, but I wasn't blogging very much. So I thought I'd give myself a new purpose for the new year. Every week (or two weeks) I'll focus on a different type of play, give all my ideas for play, then post about what we did with it. I'm going to be using the blog to collect my ideas and share my memories.
Thanx

Just for fun

Love this shirt!

You can see in this picture that Gavin is smiling under his binky. Here are a few pictures of the kids that are just fun!

After Naptime

Look: C and G both took 2 hour naps today. It was a slice of heaven. I heard G wake up first, went in changed his diaper and then we heard C. When I went in she said "in, in, in" and pointed at her mattress. There were tons of binkies there and I thought she was trying to tell me something about them. But then she pointed to G, said "in" and then pointed into her crib. I got the point. The two of them played so nicely while sitting in C's crib. First they took turns hugging the bears, then C kept trying to put G's binky in his mouth. Then they laid down on her new pillow. I didn't do a thing for this activity, I just watched!

Learn: C is so good with babies. I feel so fortune to have such an awesome daughter and son. Although I still keep a close watch when they are playing together, it feels so good that I know they genuinely like one another.

Love: I loved watching the interaction. Gavin watches Chelsea with such a great amount of admiration.

camping

Look: We made G's play mat into a tent by covering 3 sides with baby blankets. Then we practiced putting stuffed animals in and out of the tent (we're working on those two words). When G got in we played peek a boo with him. Then C and G got in which was a perfect photo op. We've decided to leave the tent up for a bit!

Learn: Camping in the future will be a blast with the kids if today was any indication. Kids naturally love being in tiny little places. This would be a great spot to lay down and have story time too.

Love: Right now C and G are at perfect ages for some fun play. I love that we had our children about 14 months apart.

Necklace

Look: Today C, G and I played with linkers.

They are the little things that help you attatch toys to pretty much anything. I thought it would be a good fine motor activity for C and a great teether ring for G. I collected them all and put them in a box. We had fun counting them, sorting them, chewing on them..he he. And then we made a necklace. C felt like Mr. T with her necklace and wore it all day.

Learn: My daughter loves necklaces. I should already know this because the other day she wanted to wear one because she saw I had one on...too bad they just aren't safe enough for tots to wear.

Love: I love that she asked to see the mirror 3 times just to check herself out!

MTM

Look: Rice, Cauliflower, Raisins, Cheerios, Chicken and Veggies.

Those of us who combine food know this as stirfry!

Traveling Zoo

Look: We went to a little traveling zoo and carnival over the weekend. They had llamas, horses, goats, snakes, elephants, camels, birds, and tons of other interesting creatures. They also had little rides. I went on a tiny train and a giant slide with C. G got a ride from Daddy in his backpack.

Learn: C is getting to be the age where little rides are fun. She liked seeing the animals a lot. Her favorite thing was watching the bigger kids feed the goats.

Love: Chris picked this activity for us and I feel so lucky to have such an involved hubby! It was fun!

All the toys are mine

Look: When C takes a nap, its a rare opportunity for G to take over all the toys. He usually spends most of the play time getting toys handed to him and taken away from him. So when nap time hits I put buckets in front of him and let him pick. He gets as many toys as he can fit in his chubby little hands.

Learn: G is starting to understand the idea if he does something there is a reaction. He was shaking a block and it would make a sound, when he'd stop so would the noise. He got the hang of it and smiled a bit like he understood.

Love: Its so nice to sit and play with G. He loves just about everything, so its not hard to find something that will please him. I like our alone time so I can figure out just what things are his favorite. Today it was a teether butterfly...he literally shook when he'd see it!

Muffin Tin Monday

Look: Pumpkin Muffin, Tofutti Pizza, Butter Beans, Tomato w/ tofutti, celery w/ tofutti and raisins
Learn: My daughter does not like vegetables, she licked the tofutti off and out of the veggies. She inhaled the pizza and raisins, played with the muffin and finally ate it and thought the beans were a toy of some sort.
Love: I just love making a variety of food for C when she only eats about a quarter of it...(yes I'm being sarcastic).

Toys R us

Look: Because we got so many new toys for Xmas, we played

toy stroe today. First C put on her hat, got her purse and we pretended to drive using her Elmo steering wheel. When we got to the store (aka our family room) C purused the aisles and was very deliberate about what she put in her cart. Then we pretended to scan everything with a noise maker, I gave her a total on the magna doodle and she paid me in high fives. After bagging the items she put them back in the cart. When G and Daddy came down, C gave her brother a toy without paying for it. But I let her shoplifting slide. We had fun, but C didn't want to put the toys back to start over. She prefered shopping until everything was mostly gone, which meant she had tons of bags. Lets hope she isn't like that as a teenager.

Learn: I learned that my family room can become just about anything and that with prompting C can get very into it. I also saw how much she loves little G man!

Love: Pretend is so fun, the child is really just emulating what they see you do, so its like looking in a mirror a bit.

Popcorn

Look: I got a really neat popcorn popper for Xmas. So this Sunday it was time to try it out. I loaded in the kernels...then C and I waited. After just a few minutes the popping started and beautiful white popcorn started bubbling over into the bowl. I was really excited, but you should have seen C, she screamed and pointed and yelled pop. She loved eating it and asked her Daddy for bowl after bowl full.

Learn: I actually watched the lightbulb go off in my daughters head. I had been talking about the popcorn, she has a song about popcorn, she has seen it in a book...but until it started coming out, she was clueless. Then BLAMMO "popcorn". It was thrilling to watch.

Love: I love my new popcorn machine and that I can make milk free (meaning butter free) popcorn for my kids anytime I want!