Skills learned: Counting, fine and gross motor skills, the concepts of 'cold' and 'slippery', animal sounds,
Age: 12m+
Rating (out of 4 stars): 3
Since the weather has been so hot lately, we decided to cool off today with some iceberg animals. What these are are just plastic toy animals (or any small toy you want to use) frozen into ice cubes. I picked farm animals because Izzy loves them and just put the smaller ones from the pack into a regular ice cube tray, poured some water over the top of them, and put them in the freezer over night. Then we were ready to play. There are a lot of things you can do with these at play time. We counted the ice cubes, talked about the animals inside the cubes and what sounds they make, practiced putting them in the container and taking them back out again, and of course Izzy tried to eat them. We played with them for about 10 minutes and then decided to have lunch. After we had lunch we returned to the cubes only to find that they had melted enough that when you threw them at the floor they would shatter and the animals would pop out. This added a fun new dimension to the game and we spent another 5-10 minutes throwing ice cubes around the kitchen. Cost: $3
Skills learned: Counting, fine and gross motor skills, the concepts of 'cold' and 'slippery', animal sounds, Age: 12m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 3
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This evening while daddy was at the temple, Izzy and I decided to try out our creative sides with some edible bath paint. It needed to be edible because although Izzy doesn't put everything in his mouth anymore, I still can't fully trust him not to put something in there just because I tell him not to. We searched pinterest to find some ideas for edible bath paint and found some good ones like plain or vanilla yogurt or whipped cream, but we decided to go with some good old fashioned vanilla pudding. I bought a big package of the instant variety at our local WalMart and whipped it up while Izzy was napping. I poured it into the individual holes of a muffin pan and added some food coloring to make it pretty. It ended up looking like this: For play time, I got Izzy all suited up in a swim diaper (because crazy things can happen if he plays naked in the tub for too long), added some paintbrushes to the pudding and just let him have at it. I showed him how to use the paintbrushes to color the sides of the tub and he figured out how to use his fingers to get the same effect. And yes, he ate his fair share of the paint so it's a good thing we went with an edible version. He painted for a little while but got super frustrated when he tried to stand up only to find that the tub was incredibly slippery which he didn't like in the least. However, my tub was very pretty and colorful by that point so it was okay. Clean up was incredibly easy as I just turned on the shower and rinsed off both Izzy and the tub at the same time and the pudding washed right off. Cost: $1
Skills learned: Creativity, colors, fine motor skills Age: 12m+ (because of the milk required for the pudding) Rating (out of 4 stars): 2 Although we have given up our daily activities, as part of our summer bucket list we have a few activities planned that would have qualified as one of our old daily activities. The first one of these activities we did today and it was a toddler car wash. For this activity, we got a bin of water and added a drop or two of dish soap to make it nice and sudsy. Then we added some rags and got his toy cars involved. We set it all up in the bath tub so that the water could be contained. The purpose of the activity was largely as an imaginative play exercise to wash his toy cars. Although he has gotten very good at scrubbing things when you give him a rag, he wasn't too interested in his scrubbing his cars. Instead, he found it much more fun to put all of his cars in the bin and then take them all out at once. In the end, he played happily for about 15 minutes and we ended up with some clean toy cars and a semi-clean baby. Cost: Free
Skills learned: Imaginative play, cleaning skills Age: 18m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 3 Our first activity of the week was a clothespin poke. For this activity, I took an old egg carton and cut out the bottoms of each egg home place (whatever you want to call it). When this is done, the holes are the perfect size for poking clothespins through. We tried poking them through with the carton upside down and then with it open and right side up. Izzy preferred to just play with the egg carton itself, but since this activity needs to last us a while, I couldn't let him do that for too long. For durability reasons, I would definitely try to get a cardboard egg carton rather than the Walmart styrofoam ones. Cost: $2 Skills learned: Fine motor skills, counting Age: 15m+ The second activity was pouring buttons. We initially thought about using pompoms, but since they were in Izzy's room and he was asleep while I was setting up these activities, we just used the buttons from our toddler sorting tray last week. For this activity, you just need two cups and some small items such as pompoms or craft buttons that your little one can pour from one cup to another. Or Izzy also liked pouring out the buttons and then just picking them up and putting them back in the cups by hand. Cost: $2 Skills learned: Fine motor skills, pouring, colors, counting Age: 18m+ Our last activity of the week had to do with noise makers which was supposed to focus on music and rhythm. We recycled materials we already had on hand. First we used an old pill bottle with some pennies in it to make a shaker. Then we took some corrugated cardboard and rubbed a spoon across the surface to make a cool sound. The last thing we did was take an old formula can and use our spoon to make it into a little drum. He caught on to all of these different inventions right away and enjoyed making his own little baby music. Cost: Free
Skills learned: Rhythm, music Age: 9m+ So as I mentioned in my last post, we moved about 2 weeks ago to a brand new to us apartment. In anxious anticipation of our move, I have spent the last several months sifting through pinterest for ideas and inspiration on how I wanted to decorate Izzy's room in our new place. I was never a big fan of his room in our old apartment so I knew I wanted to change things up and I decided that I wanted to make it more of a big boy room that would be fun for him to play in. Although this doesn't have anything to do with 'afternoon activity fun', it does have to do with Izzy so just bear with me as I share some pictures and details of his room makeover with you. The first thing I knew I wanted was a designated reading corner. We are going to pass along his old bookshelf to his little sister when she gets here so there was definitely room for something fun. After a lot of deliberation, I decided on using spice racks from Ikea. Each spice rack can hold about 5-6 books so he definitely has room if I decide to get him more books in the future (which is pretty much inevitable). In addition to the shelves, I also threw in a chair we found out by a dumpster and some wooden letters to say 'read' that I decided to paint green. Another thing I knew I wanted was some good play storage that would encourage Izzy to play with his toys. Prior to this, we had just thrown all of his toys into a big plastic bin that he would have to sift through in order to find the toy he wanted. Our new solution is much cuter in my opinion and easier for him to get to the toy he wants. Izzy loves playing with magnets, so the last thing I had my heart set on was a giant magnet board with some cool new magnets. We got a giant oil drip pan from Walmart and turned it on its side. We then got some cool magnets from Amazon and bought storage pockets from Ikea to store them in. Just like that, he has a wall dedicated to magnets. A few other things we got were some new sheets and some fun printables to go over his bed. When we put it all together it looks something like this (the magnet board is behind the door so it doesn't show up in these pictures). Shopping List:
Toy Storage $30 from Walmart Printables $1.92 from Etsy Dino Sheets $33 from Walmart Spice Racks $4 each from Ikea Wooden Letters $4 each from Michaels Magnet Board $12 from Walmart (in store only) Magnet Storage $4 from Ikea Magnets $13 from Amazon Okay so first off, I have to apologize. The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy! All of us have had some health issues (Izzy and I with stomach bugs and husby with a probable concussion) and then on top of it all we moved to a bigger apartment to accommodate our little girl who will be joining us (and the blog) at the end of August. So with all of that going on, I never had time to post the details on the activities we did last month. And since Izzy and I have a bucket list to keep us plenty busy this summer, my blogging time might be even less so I am just going to post the details of our activities as we go along. So without further ado, our first three activities of June are: 1 - Toddler sorting tray 2 - Brag book 3 - Clothespin posting For toddler sorting tray you will need an ice cube tray and some random objects to put in the individual cubes of the tray (we used some big craft buttons we used for our buttons in a puffs container activity we did last month). The idea is to have the same number of items as cubes in the tray and have your little one put one item in each cube. Izzy had fun putting buttons in the tray, but never filled the whole thing up by himself. As he played, we talked about the different colors of the buttons and counted the buttons as he put them in the cubes. Cost: You could make this as expensive or inexpensive as you want but for us it was $2 Skills learned: Fine motor skills, colors, counting Age: 15m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 1 For the brag book all you need is a cheap photo album and some pictures. You can use whatever pictures you want to, but we chose pictures of close family members (mommy, daddy, and grandparents) along with pictures of the cute Izzy himself so that he can learn to recognize those oh so important people in his life. He had fun looking through the pictures and pointing at the faces for me to name off to him. Cost: $1 Skills learned: Language, facial recognition Age: All ages Rating (out of 4 stars): 2 For our last activity, clothespin posting, you just need a clean and empty milk jug along with some clothespins. The object of the game is to drop the clothespins through the opening in the top of the jug. It is just the right size to fit the clothespins through and as an added bonus, when all the clothespins are in the jug, it makes a fun sound when you shake it. Izzy got a huge smile on his face every time he shook the jug and heard its beautiful AKA loud noise. We also counted the clothespins as Izzy dropped them in the jug to work on his counting abilities. Cost: $2
Skills learned: Fine motor skills, counting Age: 15m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 2 |
AuthorHi! My name is Cassity and I am the mom to a little 2 year old boy named Izzy and a baby girl named Sydney. I am lucky enough to get to be a stay-at-home mom to them and we have fun thinking of new activities to do together in the afternoons. We created this blog as an opportunity to share those activities with you. Archives
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