Pinterest Weekly Challenge: Messy Foam Play

Little Man loves the bath, a bit too much, in that we can’t get him out of it!!

He also loves painting and anything messy really.

I have to admit I don’t do enough of it. It might be the control freak in me coming out to play; the idea of the potential mess makes me nervous.

But I am going to do more with him. That’s my plan.

So for our first messy play activity, I got out two tubes of “crazy soap” foam bought from Tesco’s after hearing they had used this in crèche and Little Man loved it. This was about a year ago. And we played with it at the time and boy was it messy. But actually clean messy, as it doesn’t spill everywhere it just sticks to everything, but it is dry, so easier to clean up. And washes off clothes, etc.

So this time I was a bit more prepared. I have a plastic box I use for Sensory Play, filled with containers, lids, brushes, sticks, etc. so I put a blanket on the floor, then a large plastic box lid on the blanket, and the plastic box on top. So lots of areas to catch spills/ mess. Little Man was very good at keeping the foam in the box. I find he is very open to instructions. Good for showing them limitations.

We then proceeded to squirt the foam. It was great fun, Little Man loved it. He found it tricky enough to squirt it himself, so I helped him, or squirted it for him.

He enjoyed squashing it between his fingers, imagining he was washing his hands with it, rubbing it up his arms, mixing it around the box, putting it into the little containers.

I made a snow man, which was then squashed. I then made a big ball of “clouds” as we called them. It took a while to convince Little Man to try holding it before squishing it, when he did and rolled it around his hands he enjoyed the feeling. It feels so light and delicate. Then he squished it!

Such fun.

Then to clean up we took the box up to the bath and Little Man used the shower head to rinse it all.

What next now??? Will have to do a search on my to-do Pinterest Weekly Challenge for mess play activities.

Travelling with Tots- activities:

@ http://www.being-a-mama.blogspot.com/

We are heading on a holiday soon, and again need ideas to entertain my Little Man (LM) on aeroplane, bus, restaurants, trains, airports…

So I have been putting my thinking cap on and here are some of the things we have successfully used previously and some new suggestions we plan to try:

• Book and toy Combo:
• As I mentioned in my recent Week1 Pinterest Challenge my LM loves all things to do with the Sea- fish (Nemo, sweet lips, swordfish), penguins, hammerhead sharks, octopuses, jelly fish, crabs, etc

Week 1 Pinterest Challenge Snow Globe Aquarium

Also this trip is slightly sea themed as we plan to visit a cool aquarium and marine park.

• So we recently purchased a little penguin Dada and baba from Schleich (a brand which we adore!!)

• And while on our date on Saturday, me and my hubby passed a new charity shop, and got a great Penguin book

100 Facts about Penguins

• So we will be combining the two into a lovely gift for LM to appear at a potential disaster an opportune moment.
• Activity Books:
• Mr Men counting- I picked this up a while ago and it has been in my goodie box (anytime I see a good deal on books/ games/ toys, I buy them and pop them into the goodie box for future use) and looks like a good activity book. LM is counting everything these days, so i think he will enjoy it.
• Lacing Game: as detailed in earlier post

• Puppets:
• We got a load of tiny finger puppets from Ikea at various times, and always good for telling stories.



Ikea Puppets

• Figurines:

• We had a treasure hunt last Sunday and the “treasure” this time was a little boy, we called him Ben. Through the treasure hunt we developed a story around Ben. I also picked Ben, and his mum and dad up in sales, all €2.50, and they are goodie box occupies. So we thought we might bring his mum and dad with us and they could be waiting in the apartment.

• I-Spy Book: inspired by Pinterest Pin
• I took some photos of a mixture of LM’s toys and am planning on making a cute little I-Spy book. Still in process of doing this, post shortly.



I Spy Book from deliacreates

• CD Case game: I have yet to do this, but am planning on it- great idea!!

bkids.typepad.com

• Etch a Sketch- we bought this for €3.99 before our last trip to France and it was a success, and has been used a good bit since. Good for drawing games- Mama or Dada draw picture and LM guesses what it is. Or opposite, LM draws and we guess.
•            
• Card Games: We got 2 sets of cards- wild animals and vehicles. Both are things LM loves. They are €1.50 each and great images. So you can play traditional games of snap or memory or go fish. Or make up your own games, like make the sound of the animal or vehicle that comes up, or name the animal’s baby, lots of scope.
• Colouring: Bring a small selection of crayons (twistables would be great as no mess, no breaks) and a homemade notebook/ colouring book. I made a colouring book with images found on the net, all the cartoon type people LM knows from films/ books/ toys at the moment. Print, and bind/ staple.
• I got some great cartoon prints from http://www.coloring-book.info/coloring/
• Water Painting: found this great set- a reusable no mess paint set. The one we got was “Cars” themed, it’s great, you have a little pen that you fill up with water and use this as a marked/ paint brush. When rubbed over special paper it reveals the coloured image.
• Books (again): some of his favourites, not too many obviously, limited case room, we decided on the following:
• Katie and the Sunflowers (a recent birthday gift for Dada from LM)

Katie and the Sunflowers

• The whale and the Snail (sea theme)
• Disney book- heavy but a requirement for sleep!
• And new Apple Tree Farm Collection

I purchased a brilliant collection recently which had been put aside for this trip. Can’t wait to read it with LM, he has 2 of these books already, and about a year ago I picked up a set of figurines that we now call Poppy, Sam, Mama (Mrs. Boot) and Dada (Tom- he is really the farm hand, no dada on scene but for LM he is also called Dada- his assumption) and Dog (rusty).

Farm Set from the Early Learning Centre



Farmyard Tales

What ideas have you used to entertain your Little Ones while travelling???

Connecting with your Babas:

I found this link on Pinterest (thanks @Lindsey Bresee for pinning!) and the timing is perfect, so thank you very much Alissa  at http://creativewithkids.com/ for the great inspiration.

http://creativewithkids.com/100-ways-to-be-kind-to-your-child/

It is all about showing your children how much you care about them and enjoy spending time with them- really reconnecting with them.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Little Man is moving away from breastfeeding. Yesterday was the first time, in the evening after a long day at crèche, that before bed, when offered a feed, he said “I don’t want any”. Oh my heart strings! This is crazy for him, he was never one of those babies or toddlers who cut down to one or two feeds a day, oh no, my little man would often feed all day if you let him. And when he got mobile and a bit busy during the day, he feed slightly less during the day, but feed all night.

There were many tough nights, I probably should have wanted to stop feeding him, for my sanity, but I just loved the bond feeding offered. All could be falling down around us, chaos, stress, maybe tears, but then when LM would latch on and we’d look into each others eyes, all would be right in the world. I’d stroke his face, and sometimes he’d stroke mine, or my hair, nice and gently. And we would instantly reconnect, and the Oxytocin (the love hormone) would flow. I would feel myself melt, calming down, as would LM.

And as this amazing reconnecting/ bonding activity may be slipping away from us, as babywearing did before (see Baby Wearing Post), I am very conscious of needing to keep up that connection and touch with LM in other ways.

So this post from Alissa  at http://creativewithkids.com/ was very timely indeed and has given me lots to think about. We already do practice a lot of them, some not so often as we should.

Some of my favourites (my comments in green) (there are so many to choose from (100!) and such good ideas, so have a look) that we don’t do or need to remember to do more of!

Tell to your child:

• If I could pick any 2 year old in the whole wide world, I’d pick you. Ahhh!!

Tell them:

• A story about how their grandparents met. Want to do this one, will be nice. I have told LM a story about his Granny falling from a horse, and he loves recapping it.
• That when you’re holding hands and you give three squeezes, it’s a secret code that means, “I love you”.  This is so cute, will definitely do this, so we can have a special quite “I love you” moment when out and about.

Try:

• To get enough sleep. Stop staying up late, Remember your little man does not sleep consistently, so stop living a lie!!
• Dancing in the kitchen. We already do this and love it- see Alternative Music Therapy post

Read:

• A book of silly poems. Or read some Roald Dahl- good for funny unusual words.
• A book and then act it out. (Like “I’m going on a Bear Hunt”) We previously did a great bear hunt around the house; need to do some more of this type of play.

Listen:

• For that question that indicates your child really needs your input.
• One second longer than you think you have patience for.
• For the feelings behind your child’s words. All very Important and easy to forget to do!

Show:

• Your child how to do something instead of banning them from it. Too easy to just say NO, need to try this a lot more.
• Affection to your spouse. I really hope my LM grows up knowing that his mama and dada loved each other very much and that he can see this. Something that always stuck with me from a not great move “In the Nick of Time” with Johnny Depp (yum) was a sad scene where a child sees two people kissing passionately and comments. And it comes out some way or another (was years ago that I saw it) that she didn’t remember ever seeing her mum and dad kissing like that (the Mum had passed away). I thought this was so sad and poignant.
• That taking care of yourself is important. Cleaning teeth, face, washing hands, showers/ baths, cleaning hands before and after eating.

Trust:

• That you are the right parent for your child.
• That you are enough. True True, but easily to forget/ doubt on a bad day.

Some of my suggestions:

• Tell them about your wedding song.

I sang “Happy Together” to my bump all through my pregnancy, and we sing it as a lullaby to LM to calm him, or get him to sleep. He has known all the words off by heart since he was about 26 months, through osmosis. So he now sings it to us.

Recently he asked was he at our wedding, and we said no, he asked where he was, and we told him he was waiting up in the sky until it was time to come into my belly.

So now he gets us to dance together and sing “Happy Together” and he waits up in the “sky”. Then near the end he runs over arms open for a huge hug and joins in our dance. It is so cute, amazing how their little minds work.

• Ask them what they dreamt about, and tell them your dreams.
• Visit an art gallery with them and discuss the paintings and ask them what they think is happening, what they see. Funny book about an art gallery visit: Anthony Brown “The Shape Game”.



The Shape Game



• Show them how to give butterfly kisses- put your eyelashes up to their cheek and flutter them, and Eskimo kisses- rub noises with each other.
• Snuggle Huggle Bell- set the oven timer and when the bell goes off hug!
• Cloud watch- Lie on the ground (on a nice spring summer day) and stare up at the sky (obviously in the opposite direction to the sun!) and say what you see in the clouds. A great book for this is Eric Carle “Little Cloud”



Eic Carle Little Cloud



• Create a special handshake, for just your family.
• Give you baba a foot massage.
• Ask them what they want to be when they grow up- and act it out.

What do you do to reconnect with your little ones?

Snuggle Huggle Bell

We have been having a crazy week, many ups and downs.
I saw this on Pinterest and it hit a cord.

We are definitely going through Chaos at the moment. So maybe a big development step is underway??

I am scared, overwhelmed, over tired and nervously searching for my LM in the devious eyes and smile looking back at me. And I'm a 30 year old mama, what must my LM be feeling?? He has been sick, in an ambulance, a hospital, teething like crazy, so i need to step back and just help him and care for him.

So my Hubby had a great reconnection idea. Set the timer on the oven throughout the day, to go off every 15/20 minutes. Then when it beeps, it is the "Snuggle Huggle Bell" and LM has to turn it off himself. Then comes the big hug!!, soft hugs, quick hugs, long hugs, messing hugs, pat and rub hugs (where LM pats and rubs my back whil hugging) and running hugs (where you both take a few steps back and then run to each other arms out for a huge hug). Love it all! So does LM, he now runs to oven every time it goes off to be lifted up to turn it off and initiates the hug.

So lots of topping up of his cup, ala Playful Parenting (by Lawrence J. Cohen).
Just went off- I got 3 running hugs. Ah Bliss!

Lacing / Threading Fun

LM is due to move up to the next room in his creche shortly, and they were mentioning they would be doing more activities that involve concentration and sitting still, one mentioned was lacing.
So I thought we could do some lacing activity at home. Here is what we did- very basic, and simple, but fun and kept LM entertained for a good while preparing and lots of hours fun playingwith Lacing game after.

Note this is a good activity to make with the babas, not prepare ahead yourself.

So here is what I used:

• Laces- I got theses laces from Choice for €1.99, but they were on special 2 for 3, so really only €1.50.

Laces

• 1 small cereal box
• some coloured card
• hole punch
• lots of stickers- animals, cartoons, numbers, could also use letters
• double sided tape

So firstly I let LM get on with whatever he was doing, and I cut the cereal box at one edge and folder it over on itself so back and front were plane cardboard. Stuck together using double sided tape.

I then stuck on some coloured card to brightn things up a bit.

 

Then I got LM involved, we punched holes all along the edges of the rectangular card, as see below. I then gave him a load of sheets of stickers from our craft box, mainly old ones, he usually gets very excited about stickers for a while, but then novelty wears off and I put them asides. So many good activities you can use stickers for.

Aside this was such a good buy- 1000 stickers, we got this one and the 1000 animal stickers aswell. sheets can be taken out as individua sheets or as book.

Great buy- lots of uses

So LM, with my prompting picked out a load of stickers. the ideas of the game is to match one sticker to another using questions. So something like:

• How many legs does a Shetland Pony have? and then the lace would need to be connected between the pony and the number 4. So many possibilities.

some you can see below:

• how many hooves do the 2 baby zebras have?
• find the baby zebras Dada.
• who is Donald Duck's best friend
• how many sea horses are there?
• how many lions are there in the pride?
• how many ice cream cones are there?
• what else has lion in it's name?
• together how many feet do the crocodile and the cow?

... you get the idea, endless options.

The laces are threaded through through the top or side holes and stuck with sellotape.

 All the laces are then threaded through and the game can begin.

 I stuck an envelope on the back to store laces when not in use, and also wrote some Qs on back for ideas.

Anyone any other good activities using laces and threading, or other good ideas for teaching fine motor skills???

Alternative Music Therapy

I purchased the book Playful Parenting (by Lawrence J. Cohen) a good while ago, and have found it very helpful. It looks at discipline in a very different way. Anytime LM is out of sorts and acts up, I go back to it for inspiration.

In line with this, one idea that we thought of, with a playful approach, was to use music to help LM express his feelings and relive any frustrations or annoyance. A while ago when he was a good bit younger and I originally introduced him to Nirvana, he decided they were very “angry”. And I just remember jumping up and down around my parent’s house when no one was home with the music blaring, lucky we were in a detached house!! It was a great stress reliever during exam times or when you were just royally p*ssed off at the world. So if LM seamed very frustrated or obviously had some strong feelings about to boil over, we put on some Nirvana.

So I thought the same may apply to my LM. As he often does seem like a temperamental teenager, unable to understand the strong emotions, unable to express them, unable to control them. I get flashes of me as a teenager throwing remote controls across the room, slamming doors- oh how your past actions bite you in the bum!

So now if LM gets to that stage/ mood we put on some Nirvana and jump and dance around the family room. It helps to get out all the pent up emotion and energy.

Running around the table also does some good… usually racing, and chasing LM.

Anyone else have any strange and wonderful ways to gently discipline their little ones?

Sorting Activity

So I have been doing some pinteresting (http://www.pinterest.com/ if you haven’t tried this- do!) and have come across loads of amazing kid/toddler activities. A lot of sorting activities.

So thought I’d add one we did last week that was fun and kept LM busy for 45mins of so- which for a 2.5 year old is no mean feat.

You will need:

Cardboard tubes- we used an empty tin foil tube, an empty wrapping paper tube and an empty kitchen paper tube and a large poster tube. So 4 different diameter tubes. That’s the key with this activity, different diameter tubes.

• Toys- we used LM’s Zoo box- he has a load of animals of different sizes and brands. Also includes a zoo keeper and a family who regularly go to the zoo. But cars/ Lego/ or other small toys.



• 5 areas for sorting

So now LM just had to sort the animals by which fit where. By trying to slide them through the tubes.

Was good fun and good for discussing body parts of animals- as in reindeer's antlers won’t fit through, or donkeys ears are too long to fit, or giraffes neck is too long, so won’t fit. So obviously if the animal won’t fit in the smallest tube we try next size up and so on. And if it won’t fit in any tube, it is put in a separate area for large or tall animals.

Also good for developing fine motor skills/ dexterity*, learning animals names, body part names, animal specific body parts (hooves, paws, tail, horns, tusks, strikes, spots, snout, etc), descriptive language (small, large, tight, long, short, tall, etc), colours, and many more depending how complicated the game.

Anyone else got good sorting game ideas?

* Fine motor skills are the coordination of small muscle movements which occur e.g., in the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. In application to motor skills of hands (and fingers) the term dexterity is commonly used. When applied to the theory of human aptitude this is called manual dexterity.

Blog Link: Toddler Activity- Tactile learning

Great idea from Tutus and Turtles- will definitely be trying with my little man.

http://tutusandturtles.blogspot.com/2009/08/tactile-matching-game.html

DIY Play Kitchen

LM had been enjoying playing with the play Kitchen in his creche, and for Christmas I wanted to get him one, or make him one.

The one I loved was this wooden ikea kitchen.

But space and money said no. So I decided to try make one.

I had seen a load of amazing DIY play kitchens on various blogs and Pinterest and wanted to attempt my own.
Some amazing DIY Play Kitchens I came accross:

from my favourite http://www.younghouselove.com/



Fun itchen Ideas: the-new-home-ec Blog



As you can see some absolutely amazing ones, better than real kitchens, but again money and space (and time and skill!).

So I looked at what we had. When we moved into our new house we decided to open up the kitchen and the next room (a small 2^nd living room) into one large family room come kitchen. So that we could eat, cook, socialise while LM could play away, and down the line do homework, read, listen & play music, relax. So we lined one wall of the family room with IKEA children's STUVA units, as seen below.



  

Our Ikea STUVA units

So my plan was to use some desktop space we already had in our family/play room (rearrange toys and put kitchen where penguin is above).

So my ingredients:

IKEA SAMLA lid for box as base for hob, Small Ridged Knobs (Maplins Store), 4 normal CDs/DVDs, hot glue + hot glue gun, super glue, lid from pesto jar (any nice looking lid works- but make sure it has the safety pop feature- so makes a nice click when pressed), velcro strips.

The idea is that the jar lid is the ON/OFF button and the temperature is then controlled by the knob, which clicks at 6 points. Each CD is a different hob.

My hubby kindly drilled a hole in the plastic lid to fit the knob.

I used a hot glue gun to glue the jar lid and knob on, and super glue to glue the 4 CDs on so they look like a hob. I put a bit too much super glue on, and was a bit smudged around 2 of CDs but I'm not a pefectionist, so looks ok to me...

The control knob clicks in 6 differnt positions, so I added numbered stickers 1-6, so LM can get to know his numbers. I then added an Ikea shelf we had bought ages ago but never found a home for, a plant, a mini retro petrol pump radio, some plastic hooks to hang up utencils. Very happywith results, and LM and friends enjoying making mamas and dadas endless cups of tea, eggs and pancakes.
I also added a blown up printout of a photo of our back garden, and made a foam frame- to make it more personal for LM.

Anyone else made any interesting DIY kitchens??