Scooping Pom poms

I decided to change things up today. We haven’t done a sensory bin for quite a while. I found my inspiration from Buggy and Buddy. It is such a simple activity to set up which is why I loved it right from the start.

I had a bowl of pompoms, two cup measurers, an ice cube tray, and four silicon baking cups.

As soon as Chloe saw it, she sat down to play with it.

She preferred the silicon liners to the ice cube tray. This activity lasted for a solid 45 minutes. I couldn’t believe something so simple could entertain her for so long.

Chloe decided to pack the pompoms in to the cup measurer and dump it out. She labeled it a cupcake and the play turned into pretend cooking and eating. A child’s imagination is a wonderful thing!

I left this activity out, and she went back to it and played for another half hour.

This was a very successful quiet, easy, and fun activity!

Summer activities Pt. 2

Not too long ago, I wrote about some of the activities we had been doing with our daughter. You can find that post here.

There are a lot more activities to add to the list.

1) going for walks

There are so many different things to talk about or look at during walks. It’s easy to make a game connecting to learning at home. Chloe likes to look at airplanes that fly over us and inspect every rock… Our walks take a while..

2) local festivities

Recently, our community had a children’s fair with a petting zoo. This was a hit with Chloe. And the best part was that it was free!

For Canada day, there was a reptile area set up. Chloe loves snakes. She was so excited for this and kept asking to see the snakes. She talked about it the next day too. I’m not particularly fond of snakes…!

3) rainy day exploration

Playing outside isn’t only for sunny days. Kids love going outside when it is raining. Some need an umbrella though. Like mine.
The world looks a little different when it’s raining and toddlers are eager to explore!

4) going to the lake

Even if the weather isn’t perfect, like when we went to the lake, it can still be fun. Kira and Chloe played away until they were too cold to play any longer. We also packed a picnic lunch, but Chloe barely are. There was too much fun to be had.

5) watering plants

Chloe loves her watering can. She also likes to help her dad water the garden. Any chance she has to help water, she’s there! I could probably get her to water the entire back yard.

6) ice cream and Popsicles

Because it isn’t summer without ice cream and Popsicles. And those things are even more enjoyable when shared with a friend. Cheers!

As the summer goes on, I will continue to post activities for toddlers.

What kind of things do you like to do during the summer?

Sensory bin

Chloe really seems to be into the sensory bins I’ve been making. I made another trip to the dollar store and got some more glass stones and some little animal figurines. I decided to make a sensory bin with the glass stones, little frogs, a little lizard, some seashells and some rocks. My inspiration was from my small potatoes , yet again. If you haven’t checked out their website, you really should. So many great things there!

This bin was kind of supposed to represent earth. There were green and blue stones as the land and water, although they were all mixed up. I figured it didn’t really matter because Chloe is too young to really pretend with the bins I make for her. She enjoys playing with the stones and rocks, transferring them into other buckets and bowls that she digs out of the cupboard.
When I made this bin, I had my friend Shannon over with her daughter, Kira. Kira is 9 days younger than Chloe.

The girls both took out pieces from the bin and played with them. They seemed to enjoy it for a while.

22 months old is a bit young to know how to share. So there were some complications there. Both Shannon and I sat with the girls, trying to keep the peace.

Overall, they seemed to have fun. Chloe played for a long time, transferring the pieces from one container to another. Kira liked the novelty of the new items and did some transferring of pieces to a bowl as well.

Bins are a fun activity to do with young children. I like to keep novelty items that Chloe hasn’t played with much or has even seen at all. It seems to keep her interested longer, and it makes the bin seem special.

Colour Hunt

In the past month and a bit, we have done a lot of discussion with Chloe about colours. When we are out in the truck, we talk about the colours of vehicles that we see. We talk about the colours of things in the books we read, the crayons we colour with and the blocks we build with. She is starting to get fairly accurate with a few colours now. Others, we still have a ways to go.

I saw an idea on Pinterest for a alphabet museum from a parent website and I really wanted to try it. Chloe is too young for that activity, but I figured I could use the same idea for colours. A colour museum.

I decided that each time we went on a colour hunt, we would focus on one specific colour and it would be the colour of the day.

We started with blue since that is the one that Chloe knows best. I placed a few blue items around the main level of our house. There were a few items like the glass stones or the little frog that Chloe has never played with before, so I knew she would notice them right away.

Once I explained and showed her what we were doing, she got excited to look around. She was especially excited about the new pieces she would get to play with.

With her crayons, I pointed to them and asked Chloe if there were any blue crayons. She grabbed two blue ones and put them into our blue box right away.

We found the items I had placed, plus we found some small toys that were blue as well. Then I let Chloe investigate the items she collected.

Among the items we collected, there was a strip of blue paper. I decided to keep the activity going by finding blue stickers and making a “blue book”.

Chloe loves stickers so she was really excited about this. I had her look at a page of stickers and point to the blue ones. Then I’d peel them off and let her stick them wherever on the paper.

As I was putting the stickers away, I noticed some balloons at the back of my cupboard, and one happened to be blue. I blew it up for Chloe and she played with it for a while and then included a bunch of the other blue items.

My plan is to set out some new items to collect tomorrow that are blue. I figure I’ll spend 2-3 days on each colour. Should be lots of fun!
I still need to find a good place to display the “museum” though…

Spring bin

Alright. Now for some actual ideas from Pinterest.
Recently, I decided I needed to do more activities at home with my daughter. I had all of these sensory bins, bottles and crafts in my Learning at Home board. So, I went through my pins and wrote down the ideas on individual pieces of construction paper.

The activities I still needed items for, I put aside. The rest I put in a small jar. The concept being that each day my daughter could pick, at random, one activity (or more) to do. The other ideas I would keep out until I acquired all necessary pieces.

Last week, I decided to shop for some Easter grass since it would be in the clearance section. I found bags for $0.50 each at target. It was plastic grass, but not staticky. So, I bought 3 bags in 3 different colours.
When I got home, I made a spring bin inspired by small potatoes

I added a few more small stuffed bunnies to the bin afterwards.
My daughter is a bit young to play with this in the same way as they did on small potatoes, but she did enjoy opening the plastic Easter eggs, and digging through the grass. We had it out for a couple days for her to play with.

Check out my other pins on my Learning at Home board