Animal matching

Mini Me sat down one morning to play with our Noah's Ark animals (we love these toys and they have been by far one of the most popular toys at our house for three years).  Not far from him were some opened books, courtesy of Little Lady earlier in the morning.  


A idea struck me and we started on it immediately: matching the toy animal to the animal photo in the book.  


It would prove a bit of a challenge since there were some photos that did not have equivalent toys, and vice versa. 

Mini Me started off great.  We found a second book with good animal pictures and used both books together. 

While he worked, I noticed our barn toy nearby, full of Farmer Nick's barn animals.  I located a page in a book with farm animal photos and we got to work on that, too.  

It's going well!  This was a game Mini Me could do 100% on his own, which we were both proud of.  

Then, he got very stressed out because there were no photos to match to Noah and Farmer Nick.  We spent a good amount of time searching our bookshelf for a book with a photo of Noah and one with a photo of a farmer.  

Finally, everyone is matched up!

Uh oh, the toddler tornado lovely young lady who will admire our hard work  is awake!

Luckily, she felt like neatly putting every animal in the silo.  Thanks for picking up our game, Little Lady!  I bet she will be able to try this game in the near future.

In the bag: initial sound activity

Necessity is the mother of invention, right?  One morning while trying to put away a counter full of groceries with children underfoot, I grabbed a small paper sack and told Mini Me he was going on a treasure hunt.  I knew Little Lady would follow him around but I didn't really know what treasure they were to find...

Holding a b-b-bag in my hand, I was suddenly inspired.  I told Mini Me he had to find four things to put in the bag that started with the /b/ sound.  

His eyes lit up.  He looked around the kitchen.  He immediately wanted to add "bread" and "blueberries" to his bag.  

Sometimes I am baffled at out adept he is at outsmarting me.  

After much praise from me for finding two perfect examples of /b/ words, I sent him off around the house.  

First he wanted to put a b-b-boat into the bag.  It would not fit. 

B-b-books fit much better (even though he grabbed a magazine, we went with it.  Look at the title: B-b-Babybug!)

Yes, I did neglect the groceries in question while I took photos of our fun activity but I really did turn him loose.  All of the groceries were neatly tucked away when he came to me with this:  

book

ball

black boulder (from a building set)

blue block

He got double points for some of those!  Hugs and high-fives all around, and then I neatly tucked this idea in my b-b-brain for another time... we have 25 more letters to go!

Toddler color pail: red

My friend Melissa at Two Steps Behind Six Little Hands was the inspiration behind our toddler color pails.  

My pail is not red but we'll make do with what we've got, and see?  I wrote "red" on it for this color cycle!  The pail is filled with - you got it - red things!  I tried to get a variety of shapes, textures, and sizes.  

Our RED pail: 

foam bath letters

silk flowers

a crocheted flower

toy links

a hockey puck

a block

a lobster bath scoop

an apple rattle

a lid with Little Lady's photo on it

a circle, rectangle, and triangle cut from felt

a chenille stem taped together into a circle

a hair bow

a squishy, squeaky block

the safe half of a pizza cutter

My purpose behind the color pails is to help with color recognition.  We play with the items in the pail as with any toy, but when I play with Little Lady and her color pail, I make it a point to narrate what is happening and include the color: "Look at this red letter H!"  "Ooo... that red squeaky block is noisy!"  "Can we stack three red things in a tower?"  "Is that red hair bow your favorite?"  "Let's put the red circle on your knee."  We pull it off the shelf and play whenever Little Lady (or Mini Me) feels like it. 

She enjoys simply sitting and examining each item.  Not to anyone's surprise, she most enjoys putting everything in her mouth to test it out.  Our foam letters are acquiring bite marks.  Mini Me, of his own volition, has a blast sitting with her and telling her about each thing.  He tries to get her to hold them, stack them, and put them in and out of the pail.  Also not to anyone's surprise, he enjoys the color pail as much as she does. 

Dumping is her favorite thing to do.  It is rare that she take each item out one-by-one; she must first dump, then examine.

Carrying the pail around purse-style is fun, too.

Our red color pail sure got a lot of action!

Letter L - a year of ABCs

Read about how it all started - A year of ABCs.


Art - Make ladybugs out of egg carton cups.


Music - We sang and danced to Here We Go Loopty Loo.



Science - Taste a lemon.

Spanish - Limón (lemon). 

Movement - Play leap frog!


 

Cloth napkins: a sort-of tutorial

I spent a very long time thinking about making cloth napkins.  I like the idea of not cramming so many paper napkins in the trash and saving a bit of money is a bonus, too.  I spent most of the summer contemplating; I wasn't sure if I would like cloth napkins, nor did I have the time to make them (although the kind I made are not complicated).  Finally at the beginning of August I had time to put my curiosity to the test.  

I had a lot of material in a very long strip left over from the backing of the queen sized bed quilt I made my parents for their 30th anniversary.  It is 100% cotton and I'm not even sure if it's the best kind of material for cloth napkins, but it's what I had.

I cut the material into 12 inch x 12 inch squares which makes the finished napkins 11 inches square.  Typically cloth napkins are about 16 inches square but my material scraps were not that wide so 11 inches is what we've got here.  

I wanted to do this as quickly as possible and not mess with pins so before I pressed the edges over I soaked them with water from the iron (later I just got out a squirt bottle and the process went even faster).  I doubt this is a great way to sew, but it saved time.

I folded over the edges about 1/4 inch and pressed them down.  Then, I folded them over again 1/4 inch and pressed.  This hid the raw edge and gave the napkin a nicer look.  

I did basic square corners.  Once I had pressed all four sides, I was ready to sew.  

I do not have any sewing photos because it is difficult enough to find time to sit and sew and stopping to take pictures takes too much time.  ;)  I used some different colored thread and found a fancy-looking stitch on the machine to sew with.  It was just straight stitching along the edges and this stitch has a crooked look to it which meant that I didn't have to make my stitch perfectly straight and that meant I could go a little faster.

Here are the finished products.  I have six of these with two each of blue, green, and peach thread.  They aren't the prettiest things ever but that wasn't my goal.

I also made four turquoise napkins out of some different scrap fabric.  This is cotton broadcloth.  It's a little thicker and it looks nicer over all.

 

After about a month of using them, I really, really like these napkins.  They are wrinkly (I don't iron them) but they are actually better napkins than the super cheap-o paper napkins I used to buy.  And don't worry, if you come to visit our house I still have paper napkins on hand for when these cloth are dirty.  I think I need to make another set!

Making a nature collage

Not long ago, the kids and I took a discovery walk and Mini Me gathered a bag full of interesting things he saw along the way.  

We had green and brown leaves, a stick, some rocks, flowers, grass, and tree bark.

I wanted a way to keep all those interesting outdoor things inside so we made a contact paper collage.  We used clear contact paper, scissors, and masking tape (to hold the contact paper down while we added the things from outside). 

I folded the contact paper over to make it double-layered and easier to press together at the end.  Mini Me wanted his collage in the shape of a triangle so we drew a triangle on the back of the contact paper.  He really wanted to cut it out and gave an awesome effort hacking through two layers of contact paper with his little scissors.  

I placed the contact paper sticky side up, and secured the corners to the floor with masking tape.  Mini Me then added all of his outdoor treasures.  

After he had added all his treasures - even the rocks - I folded over the other half of the triangle so that the sticky sides of the contact paper were together.  We pressed around all the edges and in between all the items to seal it.  (This photo simply will not upload correctly, so gently turn your head to see it the right way).

 We hung it on the window to admire it.  Mini Me slung his arm around my neck and we began to reminisce about where we found each item in the collage (mind you, we had gone on the walk about an hour earlier).  His favorite things were the rocks, he said, and I said mine were the yellow flowers.  We also talked in depth about tree bark.

Mini Me decided that he wanted to hang his triangle nature collage by his workbench so he could look at it while he worked.  So, that is where it hangs.  How beautiful it would be if we did another one with the brightly colored fall leaves! 

  

Sensory finger puppets

Updated August 2012: These great sensory finger puppets are now available for purchase in my Etsy shop! Enjoy these adorable and fun puppets without going to the trouble to  buy the supplies and make them yourself. Click here to see the listing.

Shhh.... don't tell Little Lady but I finished some of her Christmas gifts already!  


She loves finger puppets like the monkey and alligator set I made earlier this year.  She carries them around all the time and holds out her sweet little finger for us to put a puppet on.  


With that love in mind, I set out to make some sensory finger puppets for her.  


Here is the jungle set: 

It includes a monkey with a bumpy (burlap) nose, a lion with a fuzzy (yarn) mane, a bright bird with a silky (satin from my bridesmaid's dresses!) breast, an elephant with a rough (vinyl) trunk, and a giraffe with fuzzy (chenille stem) horns.  (Are they called horns, after all?)




Here is the barn animal set:

It includes a horse with a lovely mane (craft hair), a pig with a round snout (button), a cow with many spots (heavy vinyl), a rooster with a silly beak (craft foam), and a sheep with soft wool (fluffy, white fabric). 

 

I know Little Lady will really love these. 

Toddler discovery bottle: a first attempt

My friend, Melissa, over at Two Steps Behind Six Little Hands always has awesome ideas for open-ended play.  After reading her blog about some discovery bottles she made, I wanted to try my own.  A discovery bottle is a bottle filled with a variety of interesting things (ribbon, baubles, buttons, small toys, etc) and then filled with rice, sand, water, corn syrup, etc.  The child can then investigate and discover things with the bottle by turning, swishing, shaking, and manipulating it.  

I used some pieces of yarn, ribbon, chenille stems bent into shapes, a googly eye, a jingle bell, a flower button, a bead, and some of our colored pasta. 

I put it all in a small bottle and filled it with water, leaving about an inch empty at the top.  I put hot glue around lip of the bottle and screwed the top on. 

Pretty!

Actually, I'm not that thrilled with my first attempt.  I put too many things in a bottle too small (the size is great for Little Lady's hands, though).  The smaller snips of yarn came apart, which is fine, but all those small yellow threads seem to clog up the bottle.  And, duh, the food coloring on the colored pasta soaked off into the water leaving the water a grayish color and the colored pasta a freakish, ghostly white.  


I'll do better on my next try.  In the meantime, Little Lady thinks it's interesting.  At first she was pretty mad that she couldn't get the top off and proceeded to give me her mad rhino face, hand me the bottle, and walk off.  Later, however, she sat down with a dancin' ring close by and played with the bottle.  It is currently our changing table toy. 

My cry for help: If you have any tips about making awesome discovery bottles, I'd love to hear them!

Letter K - a year of ABCs

Read about how it all started - A year of ABCs.


Art - Make a king's crown out of paper.


Music - Kookaburra Song



Science - Learn about kangaroos by looking at photos, playing with our kangaroo toys, and hopping like a kangaroo.


Math - Sort keys into large and small, then press the keys into Play Doh.


Movement - Kick the ball!


 

Cloth diapering at our house: how?

Also check out Cloth diapering at our house: why? and Cloth diapering at our house: what? 

Using our BumGenius 4.0 with snaps is easy:


We start with the diapers all stuffed and ready in baskets on the changing table.  We usually stuff the green ones as night diapers and those are on the left.  

We change the diaper just like a disposable... there are no funny pins or covers to mess with.  Even my husband's fat fingers have no problem with the snaps.  I immediately pull the stuffer out of the liner so it's ready to toss in the diaper pail and then launder.

I put the dirty diaper on the stand next to the changing table while I re-dress Little Lady.  Also there are our wipes (disposable) and a small bottle of olive oil.  We can't use diaper rash creams with our cloth diapers so if she gets a little red in the diaper area, it is safe and effective to use a few squirts of olive oil to ease the redness.  We haven't really had a major diaper rash to speak of with either child.  

Once Little Lady is dressed, I set her down to play and take the diaper to the diaper pail in the bathroom.  Note that our diaper pail is not wet - it's a dry bag. 

If the diaper has poo, I use our diaper sprayer to spray it off, then it goes into the pail.  I never, ever dunk or actually touch poo.  I do always wash my hands after the diaper change.  Doesn't everyone? 

Every two days (we could go every three now, actually), I pull the bag out of the pail and take it to the washing machine.  I turn the bag inside out into the machine and all the diapers fall in.  Then I toss the bag in, too.  I never touch the wet diapers.  We have a nice system:  At 6:00ish on diaper washing night, the diapers go for their first wash. 

After Little Lady is in bed, they do their second wash.  By the time I'm ready for bed, I put the stuffers in the dryer and hang the outer shells on a drying rack to air-dry over night. 

In the morning, I grab the stuffers from the dryer and pull the outer shells from the drying rack.  At some point in the morning I stuff them all and put them in the baskets on the changing table, ready for diaper changes.  It takes me 11 minutes to stuff them.  When I first started it took 20 minutes!

And that is our cloth diaper routine.  It sounds complicated here, but it's not.  We have "routined" it so much into our lives that even my husband, on diaper nights, will take the diaper bag downstairs after supper without being asked.  It's just a part of our lives.  


Easy for us.  Cheap for us.  We love our cloth!