Cost: $2
Skills learned: The concept of cold, the ability to stir
Age: 12m+ (since pudding contains milk)
Rating (out of 4 stars): 4
Yesterday was our Friday messy play activity and it was so much fun! I wasn't sure how this activity would go over because first of all, it was a cold activity and our track record with cold activities are not very encouraging, and second, Izzy hasn't been enjoying his messy activities too much lately so I was really beginning to wonder if the mess was really worth it. But yesterday it was. The activity we did was to mix jello and tapioca pudding together. I started out by making the jello and letting it refrigerate for about 30 minutes to an hour before mixing in 4 of the snack pack size cups of tapioca pudding. I then let it refrigerate for another 3 or so hours. When it was time for play I added a whisk and a wooden spoon to enhance our activity and this is what it ended up looking like: I don't know how to describe the texture of this mixture but I can tell you that the more we played with it, the smoother it got and it is super fun to play with. Izzy especially loved using the wooden spoon to stir it and see what sounds were made when he would bang it against the bowl. This activity was really really messy though so I didn't get to take too many pictures before I felt the mess was endangering my camera. Here are some of the shots that I got before then: The one drawback to this play substance is that when it covered the floor it ended up being really slippery and we had a couple of falls that Izzy didn't think were too particularly fun. To avoid that problem I would suggest laying out towels to reduce both the mess and the slipperiness.
Cost: $2 Skills learned: The concept of cold, the ability to stir Age: 12m+ (since pudding contains milk) Rating (out of 4 stars): 4
0 Comments
When I first tried to explain this activity to the husband he just kind of gave me a blank stare like, "What? You really think that's going to do something?" So maybe describing this activity will be a little complicated, but I will do my best. This is an art based activity and for it you will need a few supplies. I used the following (and you can see them below):
I started by putting a piece of card stock in the bottom of the Tupperware container and then adding a little bit of paint of each color on top of the paper. I let Izzy watch me while I did this so we could talk about the different colors of paint. Once the paper and paint were added to the container, I threw in a handful of beads on top and put the lid on. The idea was for Izzy to shake the container, thus causing the beads to roll around the paper and smear the paint. It actually worked out pretty well but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of him with the container because he wanted to be independent and play on his own. We made three separate paintings (for three sets of grandparents) and I did get a picture of the end result. Not bad right? Very abstract I'd say, but much cheaper (and more sentimental) than buying them from a gallery. And hopefully the grandparents will enjoy :)
Cost: $3 for the beads (marbles may have been cheaper and probably would have worked better) Skills learned: Colors, fine motor skills Age: 9m+ (although I had more fun than he did so this may be better suited for older children) Rating (out of 4 stars): 2 When I was setting up this activity, I didn't have much hope. I mean our track record with activities where he is supposed to put one object into another object is not very good so I didn't think this activity would be much different, but it was. For the setup of this activity, all you need is an empty tissue box and some balls just small enough to fit through the opening in the top. I also got a second container to put the balls in when they weren't in the tissue box so my setup looked like this: After a quick demonstration to show Izzy that the balls could go in the tissue box, he set to work and he actually transferred all the balls from the bowl into the box. I was so proud! He spent about 10 minutes transferring the balls between the two containers and seeing the differences between the two containers. We practiced learning the different colors of the balls as well as counting them. Even though the activity didn't keep him entertained for too long I was a super proud mama that he actually grasped the concept and seemed to be having fun with it. Cost: $1.50 for the tissue box
Skills learned: Colors, counting, the concept of 'in' and 'out', fine motor skills Age: 9m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 2 So not all weeks go as planned and this was one of them. Due to nap schedules not working out we only have one more activity to share with you this week instead of two and it was kind of an activity fail at that. For our activity we played with pipe cleaners (with the ends folded over so they wouldn't be pokey) and an empty puffs container. The idea was very similar to our Colander and Straws activity in that he was supposed to put the pipe cleaners into the puffs jar. I also used different colors of pipe cleaners and sorted them into piles of 5 so we could work on colors and counting. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of our set up, but I did get these gems. Izzy didn't get the concept of putting the pipe cleaners in the jar and he wasn't too interested in them anyway. The thing he did enjoy about the activity was the empty container. He carried it around and chewed on it for about 15 minutes so I guess it wasn't a complete fail.
Cost: About $1.50 for pipe cleaners Skills learned: Fine motor skills, colors, and counting Age: 12m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 1 for the actual activity, 3 for the puffs jar :) Today's activity was one that we tried to do before when Izzy was 10 months old and back then he liked it but this time when we did it he loved it! Its post-it squares! The idea behind this activity is to put a bunch of sticky notes on a surface and let your little one pull them down. We used our sliding glass door as our surface and our setup looked something like this... Before I let Izzy have at it we talked about the different colors of squares and counted how many squares there were of each color. Then as the activity went on I would say things like, "That's a blue square. Are you going to pull the blue square down?" to reinforce the colors. We would also periodically count the remaining squares to review the counting aspect of the activity. Because we used a window as our background our pictures didn't turn out too well but I thought these were worth sharing... As a warning, if you have a baby who puts everything in their mouths some paper probably will get eaten. The first time we did this activity I made him give me the squares after he had pulled them down to reduce paper consumption. This time I just let him have at it and paper consumption was minimal. This activity was definitely a hit and he even wanted his Hello Kitty figurine to get in on the action with him... Cost: $3 for post-it notes
Skills learned: Colors, counting, fine motor skills Age: 9m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 4 Merry late Christmas to everybody! We have taken the last week off from activities to celebrate Christmas so we are just getting back in the swing of things. Before we took our Christmas vacay, we did two cold and messy sensory activities and Izzy didn't particularly enjoy either one of them. Turns out he is not a fan of cold things. So since the activities were kind of failures, I debated about whether or not to blog about them. But I decided to go ahead and feature them here for a couple of reasons: 1 - Just because Izzy didn't enjoy the activities doesn't mean your kids won't 2 - You might be able to get inspiration from these activities 3 - Not all of our activities end in sunshine and roses and I think it is good to be honest about that So the first activity we did had to deal with whipped cream. I bought a container of cool whip and decided it would be fun to put the frozen cool whip in our trusty sensory bin and let him go at it. I thought it would be fun for him to be able to play with it and watch the texture kind of change as it started to melt. At first, things started out well. However his sweet sugar bliss only lasted until his little hands got cold and then he was no longer satisfied and crawled off. In an attempt to entice him to come back, I decided to try to warm up the cool whip by microwaving it for a bit, but it just kind of turned weird and liquidy and it didn't even warm up enough to satisfy him so that was the end of our cool whip adventure. Don't worry though, I definitely ate a lot of what his little fingers didn't touch so it didn't all go to waste :) Cost: $1 Skills learned: Fine motor skills, the concept of 'cold', words like 'squishy' and 'gooey' Age: 12m+ (the cool whip we got had milk in it) Rating (out of 4 stars): 1 The second activity we did was also a messy cold activity dealing with food but this one dealt with pudding. I bought a 4 pack of tapioca pudding (I chose tapioca for the frog eye texture) and emptied out all four cups onto a cookie sheet. Izzy enjoyed squishing the pudding through his fingers for a few minutes and we got to talk about the texture of the pudding. After a few minutes I decided to add some colored ice. As a side note, we make colored ice by filling an ice cube tray with water and then adding 1 drop of food coloring to each cube (if you add more than one drop it gets too dark and overwhelming). Anyway, the idea with the colored ice was for him to push it around the tray of pudding and watch the pudding change colors as the ice melted. At first all was well and the pudding was looking quite nice. However, before long, Izzy decided the ice was too much coldness and he gave me this attitude. I was able to somewhat salvage the activity by allowing him to play with the 4 empty pudding containers. We stacked them and used them to practice counting and such. He absolutely loved chewing on the containers and carrying them around. In fact, it was his favorite part of the whole activity. Cost: $1
Skills learned: Fine motor skills, colors, counting to 4 Age: 12m+ (for the same reason as the cool whip) Rating (out of 4 stars): 1 Occasionally (as in about once a week) we do a messy sensory bin. Why? Because they are fun! And as I have mentioned before, I worry that developing a fear of messiness is going to make me a boring mom. But if mess isn't your thing, that is just fine. But this is a definite messy activity. It's called goop! Goop is made by mixing cornstarch and water. I didn't really measure when making it, so I can't give you an exact recipe, but I would recommend just starting out with a healthy amount of cornstarch and then adding water until you get the right consistency. The consistency of goop should feel solid when you squish it in your hands, but as soon as you let go it should turn into a liquid and melt right off your fingers. If you want to, you can add coloring to your goop, which we did eventually, but we started out with white goop. Izzy loves messy play but is always very cautious at first and usually starts out by poking one or two fingers into the mixture. After he has thoroughly poked it, he usually dives right in. Once that happened I feared for the safety of my camera and had to put it away to protect it from the goopiness. This unfortunately resulted in only one picture of Izzy and the goop. After he played with the goop for a minute or two (don't worry, I definitely played too) we added drops of food coloring so he could mix it in and we could talk about color. We mixed in all four colors we had so by the end, it was a weird brown color, but it was fun watching the colors get swirled around in the goop and he knew exactly where to mix it for the best effects. Goop is perfect for babies because it is completely edible although it probably doesn't taste very good. In fact, Izzy took a bite and then decided he didn't want anymore after that. This is a miracle because the kid eats everything! So I know it must not be particularly appetizing. The messiest part of this activity was the fact that Izzy tried to be a goop artist and paint my floor. I couldn't get mad though because I could tell he was being so deliberate with his artistic skills that it was just adorable. However, my floor ended up looking like this... The good news is that goop is actually very easy to clean up. After goop dries it turns powdery and you can just mop it right up so it was no biggy in the end and we had a ton of fun playing with our goop!
Cost: $1 for cornstarch Skills learned: Fine motor, colors Age: 9m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 3 I am a huge fan of color so we do a lot of colorful activities around here. Today's activity involved mixing the primary colors together to make the secondary colors. We did this by putting two different colors of paint in a single baggie as you can see here... This is the yellow and blue baggie that of course mixed to make green. The idea was to make three different baggies and tape them on to the windows for Izzy to squish, bang, and overall mix together. And I didn't need to explain this twice to him. We had fun mixing the paint in the baggies and discussing how different colors go together. It was also a good way to discuss the difference between left and right. For example, "Izzy, in this bag the yellow is on the left and the blue is on the right." Hopefully he will learn his directions better than I have. I still have to do the L trick with your hands to know which way is which and on more than one occasion Husby has told me to look to my right and I have looked to my left instead. But anyway, once the colors had been squished and thoroughly mixed, the baggies looked something like this... It was definitely much cooler than what my dark picture showcases.
Another idea I had with this activity was taking the baggies off the windows, making sure they were taped shut, and just letting Izzy handle them away from the windows. However, with his big sharp teeth and the fact that he still eats everything he can get his hands on that just wasn't going to happen. However, if you have a little one without teeth or one who doesn't chew on everything, that would be a viable and equally fun option. Cost: $1.50 for paint Skills learned: Colors, left & right Age: 6m+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 3 Yesterday our activity dealt with threading straws through the holes in a colander and guess what? Straws are the perfect size for all of those little holes! We had tried to do this activity before but it failed and was a great learning lesson for me. I learned that there is a huge difference between a strainer and a colander... straws don't fit through strainer holes, just colander holes. But I really wanted to try this with Izzy so we invested in a colander. The idea of this activity is for Izzy to keep busy trying to thread the straws through the holes as follows... This is my work that I set up while he was napping. When he woke up, he had fun pulling out all of the straws as you can witness in the pictures below. At one point he decided that he was more interested in the camera than in his colander and straws and decided he wanted a close up... It didn't take long for him to go back to his activity though.
Izzy isn't quite old enough to thread the straws through the holes, but he did enjoy taking them out. After he spent about 5 minutes pulling straws out of the holes, we spent the next ten minutes sorting the straws by color (they were the kind with the colored stripes on them) and then we counted how many straws there were of each color. Cost: $1 for the straws (unless you don't have a colander like me, then add another $5) Skills Learned: Fine motor skills, colors, sorting, and counting Age: 1y+ Rating (out of 4 stars): 3 While the focus of this blog will be on the activities Izzy will be doing now, we have been doing afternoon activities since he was 8 months old. The activities we are doing now are geared more toward 1 year olds and older, but we wanted to post some activities that could be appropriate for the younger age crowd to give some ideas to any followers who might have babies under 1. Also, while I will be posting pictures with our future activities, I don't have any to post with these ones so you will have to utilize your imagination. So without further ado (and in true countdown fashion)...
Activity #5 - Shadow Puppets! Shadow puppets are probably the easiest activity we have done together because all that is required is a dark room and a flashlight. The first time Izzy and I did this activity, daddy was there and got Izzy to giggle pretty good by making fighting shadow puppets with both of his hands. However, I am really limited on my shadow puppet skills and can only really do a bunny and a dog, but that's okay. Izzy doesn't mind. In fact, he almost likes it better when we just sit there and turn the flashlight on and off. Age: 0m+ Skills learned: Difference between light and dark, on and off Cost: Free Activity #4 - Music Day! One day we had a music day. And it kept him entertained for quite a while. First, we learned about the piano. We did this by listening to a song by the Piano Guys and then we played on the little keyboard we have here in our apartment. Next, we learned about the guitar. Since I play the guitar, I was able to show Izzy my guitar and play it for him. I also made a homemade baby guitar for him so that he could play along with mama. The last thing we did was work on our rhythm. For this portion of the activity we searched for nursery rhymes on YouTube. We both had toys that rattled (we used plastic Easter eggs filled with beans and then taped shut) and we did our best to shake them along to the music. Obviously Izzy didn't shake his exactly with the beat, but he did understand the concept of shaking his egg when I shook mine. Age: 6m+ Skills learned: Music, rhythm Cost: $1 for rubber bands Activity #3 - Pots & Pans! This was a very simple activity as well but because I felt the need to clean everything after we were done, the cleanup time did take a while. For this activity, we took out pretty much every pot and pan we had in store as well as a variety of spatulas and cooking spoons and arranged them in a nice circle on the living room floor. I then set him in the middle of the circle and he went to town exploring. We took turns banging on each of the pots and pans and listening to the different sounds they all made. We also talked about how some of the pots and pans were bigger or smaller than others. Age: 6m+ Skills learned: Differences between sounds, big and small Cost: Free Activity #2 - Ball Pit in Tub! This activity requires a bit of investment, but for us it has been worth it. The necessary ingredient is a pack of ball pit balls. We were able to find a pack of 150 balls for $15 at Target and they are one of my favorite purchases ever. Not only did we use them for this activity, but we have used them in countless other activities as well. And since they come in different colors, it is a fabulous way to learn about colors. Anywho... for the ball pit tub, we emptied out all of his ball pit balls into the tub. Pretty simple right? At first I let him just play in the tub without any water. After about 10 minutes (this activity kept him entertained forever!) I added some water to the tub and he played in the watery ball pit for another 20 minutes. He probably would have played longer except I was afraid he would turn into a prune. Age: 6m+ Skills learned: Colors Cost: $15 Activity #1 - Potato Flake Sensory Bin! This has been our favorite activity we have done to date! However, before I explain the activity, let me warn you that it has also been one of our messiest activities to date. My attitude towards messy activities is that I am probably going to be a boring and uptight mom if I don't let him get messy once in a while. But to tell you the truth, the messy activities are probably my favorite because they are funnest for me... until the cleaning up part rolls around, but cleaning is part of my job description anyway. Might as well clean up a mess I actually had fun making. Now, on to the activity. For the potato flake sensory bin, we bought a box of potato flakes and dumped them into a good size shallow and rectangular Tupperware bin. This particular Tupperware bin is a staple in a lot of our activities and cost us $1 at the dollar store. To the potato flakes, I added some measuring cups and wooden spoons pretending that he would stir and scoop the flakes (not yet, but maybe someday). We played in the dry potato flakes for a while and then added water little by little until we had moldable potato like dough. With our potato dough we had fun building (and destroying) potato mountains and whatever else mama could think of to create. And he loved it! Plus the bath that he required at the end of our activity just helped us burn more of the time we had that afternoon. Age: 6m+ Skills learned: Textures Cost: $3 for bin and potato flakes |
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
March 2015
Categories
All
|