Box Car

Sometimes I find myself asking, "Why do I even bother to buy toys?" If your child has ever spent more time playing with the box the toy came in than the toy itself, you probably know what I'm talking about. This is especially true with large boxes, like the ones you get when Amazon combines several items in one shipment. Baby Bear loves these big boxes because he can climb and hide in them. The other day, he also started to pretend one such box was a race car. So, we worked together to make it a race car! I grabbed some paper plates from the pantry (used more for crafts than for eating on around here) and some brass fasteners, and we made a race car! All I did was poke some holes for the fasteners, and then he helped me attach four plates for tires and one for a steering wheel. Baby Bear thought it was brilliant that he could actually turn the wheel and tires on his car! Later, I also handed him a pack of markers, and we sat down together to decorate the car. Now, he has his own personal, custom designed race car sitting in the living room.

Driving along in my automobile... my toys beside me at the wheel.

Shapes Unit

Baby Bear knows a lot of shapes for his age, and he enjoys sharing his knowledge every chance he gets. Something about recognizing shapes, both drawn and in the real world, gets him excited. So, we spent about a week and a half doing shapes activities to reinforce his old knowledge and expand it with a couple of new shapes, which he now loves to point out as well. Aside from playing "I Spy" with shapes out in the backyard (which is hard to capture in a picture) these were Baby Bear's favorite activities from our time studying shapes.

I drew some shapes on a piece of construction paper in crayon, and Baby Bear helped me make water colors for some crayon resist art. All we did was mix a little tempura paint with a little water for the water colors.

Baby Bear's favorite activity, and the one he was most proud of, was the shapes collage he made using foam stickers. We already had the stars, ovals, and circles leftover from a couple of store-bought sticker packs. I made the rest of the shapes by cutting them out of sticky-back foam sheets.

As seen on many linkups around Valentine's Day, Baby Bear and I did some heart stamping using an empty toilet paper roll creased in one place to look like a heart.

Baby Bear and I also made up a shapes game while outside playing with sidewalk chalk. We drew a large shapes wheel and hopped around it like we were playing hopscotch as we called out the shapes we landed on. There weren't actually any rules to the game... we just played!

Homemade Light Box

A few months ago, I read about this homemade light box on The Imagination Tree, and I was smitten. I have wanted a light box for Baby Bear for soooo long, but they are very expensive. I thought he would like one, but I wasn't sure, so I couldn't justify the cost. Papa Bear and I were able to throw this box together using supplies we already had on hand, though!

Materials:

• storage box with a clear or see-through lid and/or bottom
• white Christmas lights
• transparent or translucent, colorful manipulatives (for example, I used some of my old overhead projector teaching materials like counters, coins, and geometric shapes)

Steps:

1. Put the Christmas lights in the storage box.
2. Set the box clear-side-up. For us, this meant turning the box upside down.
3. Plug in the lights if they're not battery operated.
4. Play with the manipulatives on the box! That's it!

As it turned out, Baby Bear thought the light box was OK, but not great. He plays with it a little here and there, but I am so glad I did not invest in a store-bought box! As for me, I thought it was fantastic. :)

Easter Egg Dying Tips

In a couple of days, Baby Bear and I will be dyeing eggs for Easter. If your weather is anything like ours, it will probably be a little too cold to comfortably dye the eggs outside. I've got a tip to help you with indoor cleanup! Or, maybe you don't like how overpriced those egg decorating kits are in many stores. You probably have everything you need to dye them already on hand! These are my favorite Easter egg dyeing tips, and I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

• To make your own egg dye, pour a little white vinegar in some plastic cups, one for each color you plan on using. Shorter cups with wide openings work best. Add 1-3 drops of your choice food coloring to each cup. Use spoons to lower the eggs into the dye and scoop them back out. Use empty egg cartons for drying.
• If you get a little dye on a hard surface like a countertop, and it won't wipe off completely, use a little hairspray. Spray the spots with hairspray, wipe them off, and then use a damp cloth to get rid of the stickiness from the spray.
• Use supplies like crayons, glue, glitter, markers, sequins, stamps, tempura paint, tape, and stickers to decorate the eggs. The crayons will resist the dye to make pictures. This is especially cool with white crayons because it's like writing an invisible note on the eggs. Draw a picture with glue and then add glitter, or sprinkle a little glitter while the eggs are still damp for sparkly eggs. Add stickers or tape to the eggs before dyeing them, then remove the tape or stickers once they are dry (tape resist art). If you want, redye the eggs after removing the tape or stickers to get a layered, multi-color effect.
• I haven't found a quick, simple fix for dye on hands, but frequent scrubbing and washing will get it off. The sooner you wash your hands, the shorter the time the dye remains.

Happy Easter!

Colors Unit, Part 2

After about a week and a half of working on one color per day, Baby Bear and I spent a few days reviewing the colors we had talked about and seeing what we would get if we mixed them. These were a few of Baby Bear's activities from these days:

 1.

After making a batch of no-cook playdough, I divided it into the 3 (almost) primary colors blue, yellow, and pink. Baby Bear, Papa Bear, and I worked together to mix those colors to make the secondary colors of purple, green, and orange.

Then Baby bear enjoyed mixing them all together. For awhile, we made some pretty cool tie-dye shapes with cookie cutters. Eventually, we got brown playdough, which Baby Bear also thought was cool.

2.

Using Baby Bear's play mat, we sorted the play cooking utensils and foods from his play kitchen.

3.

Since we had a special colored meal to go with each of our color days, we had a special rainbow muffin tin meal, too.

4.

This was by far Baby Bear's favorite activity, and he still asks to do this almost daily. Like with the playdough, I made the 3 primary colors using water and food coloring.

I gave Baby Bear 2 primary colors at a time along with an empty container and a dropper. He used the dropper to transfer a little of each of the 2 primary colors into the empty container to make a new, secondary color.

Once he finished making all the secondary colors, I let him mix all the colors however he wanted to see what they made. Of course, we ended with black. He loved seeing what new colors he could create!

Green Eggs and Ham

If you've spent much time on my blog, you've probably noticed my affinity for all things Dr. Seuss. Even Baby Bear's nursery has a Dr. Seuss theme. You can imagine my joy, then, when my son started requesting I read the book Green Eggs and Ham to him over and over again. :) So, I decided to focus on this book for Theodore Seuss Geisel's birthday this year. While we didn't go hog wild with the theme, we did have some fun.

On day one, we read the book and made green eggs and ham with construction paper. I cut out the pieces, and Baby Bear helped me glue the pieces for the eggs together. To make this a little more fun, we decorated the yolks with green glitter glue. The next day, once our pieces were dry, I took this matching idea from The Homeschool Den and put a slightly different spin on it. On the original post, the kids had to match lower case to lower case plates and upper case to upper case plates. For our matching game, I put the upper case and lower case letters together onto one plate so Baby Bear would associate two images belonging to each letter. To keep the game from being overwhelming, I only used the letters of Baby Bear's name. On the third day of reading Green Eggs and Ham, we made green scrambled eggs. Baby Bear thought this was very cool! I had intended on this being our last activity for the book, but this afternoon Baby Bear requested orange eggs for lunch after telling me for the umteenth time about getting to eat green eggs yesterday. We may need to continue eating strangely colored foods for a few more days as an extension activity to follow Baby Bear's peaked interest.

Colors Unit, Part 1

Baby Bear takes pride in knowing his colors. Even though he already knew many, I decided to do a colors unit with him because he found them so fun an fascinating. During this unit we were able to add a few new colors to his repertoire and to extend his color knowledge from recognition to association.

Each day we focused on one color in particular. I introduced each color of the day when I helped Baby Bear dress by handing him a shirt that corresponded to our focus.

We started the unit by reviewing colors he already knew by making fun, tactile collages.

I also made a special meal each night to match the color of the day. For the most part, I was able to avoid using a ton of food coloring, but this wasn't always possible (or practical). For example, one night we had blue pancakes and blueberries with blue milk.

Shortly before we began this unit, Baby Bear started learning how to use safety scissors. One of his favorite activities was practicing cutting a piece of colored paper.

Every day, we also read a book to go with our color. Baby Bear's favorites were Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, and Little Blue Truck Leads the Way by Alice Schertle.

Bowling for Soap

Not to be mistaken for the band called Bowling for Soup. ;)

I am one proud (and amused) mama bear at just how creative my Baby Bear can be sometimes. For example, after returning from a shopping trip, Baby Bear dug through the grocery bags looking for anything I might have bought for him. To my surprise, he got pulled out the package of bars of soap, got very excited, and started exclaiming, "Blocks! Blocks! Play with blocks!" No matter how many times or ways I tried to explain that they were bars of soap, not blocks, he insisted he needed to play with them. I finally opened the package, intending on showing him exactly what I meant. Instead, he showed me exactly what he meant when he grabbed the bars and started stacking them like blocks.

Our family spent all evening playing with bars of soap!!! First, we built with them as Baby Bear had wanted. Papa Bear had fun finding new architectural designs. Baby Bear enjoyed knocking every new structure down. Then, we set them up like bowling pins, rolled a ball at them, and bowled for soap. This was a huge hit with Baby Bear! Remind me why we parents buy our kids toys again?!

 So, if you're facing yet another rainy, cold day and need a fun new activity to turn to, try bowling for soap! It's good, clean fun! (Wocka wocka!)

Snowman Ice Cream

As winter storms finish moving through part of the country, I thought I would share a snowman ice cream activity my Baby Bear loved. The ice cream recipe is my own, but the snowman idea is from Pinterest. To make the ice cream, I threw two frozen bananas (peel before freezing), some milk, a few ice cubes, and a little sugar into the blender. All of this was to taste. While trying to get yours to just the right consistency and taste, remember this: more milk makes the ice cream thinner but easier to blend, more ice makes it a little thicker but chunkier, more sugar make it sweeter but less healthy, and more banana makes it thicker. You could also try using coconut milk instead of regular milk for a tropical flavor. Once the ice cream was done and dished out, I quickly added a marshmallow for the head, mini chocolate chips for the face and buttons, and a cherry for the hat (Baby Bear doesn't like maraschino cherries, so his just got a small splotch of red frosting). This ice cream melts a little quicker than the store-bought stuff, so don't get too picky over the decorations! ;) Finally, enjoy!

Marshmallow Snowmen

This past week in my hometown it has snowed regularly and schools have been cancelled due to very low temperatures. First of all, let me just say I am thankful I no longer deal with such a harsh winter. Second of all, when it is too cold to go outside to play in the snow, you can still do some fun snow-themed activities indoors. Or, if you live somewhere that's hardly seen a winter this year, like me, you can pretend there is snow outside and make a not-so-cold snowman out of marshmallows.

For each snowman, Baby Bear and I used 3 large white marshmallows, two ice cream cone marshmallows (mini-marshmallows would have been fine too, but this is what we had on hand), black decorating gel, Ding Dongs cut into quarters, and toothpicks to hold the marshmallows together (pretzel sticks would have been much better so the whole thing was edible, but again, this is what we had on hand).

Baby Bear helped add the arms and draw some of the faces/buttons.

He LOVED his marshmallow snowmen!

Under Construction

My blog will be under construction for at least a week as I try to reload all the pictures lost in a Picasa picture mishap. It appears that this will have to be done one blog post at a time, and as I have over 200 posts, most of which are missing pictures, this could take a while. Thank you for your patience! :)

Light Cave

This afternoon while Baby Bear was napping, I was looking through friends' photos on Facebook, and I came across this little gem! C, from my mom's group, posted this picture of her daughter L about to crawl through a light tunnel she and her son made while L was napping. It's just a big box with an opening on each side (forming a tunnel), lots of holes poked through, and some lights poking through the holes from the outside in. It was too cute to pass up asking her to share. I think I know what I'm doing with Baby Bear this weekend! Thank you, C!

Gingerbread Cookies

One of my family's holiday traditions growing up was making and decorating gingerbread houses. My sisters and I would make them for our teachers, and then we would each have one of our own for at home. It was a LOT of work for my mom, but she came through and made them year after year after year until we began leaving home as adults. Call me chicken, but I wasn't quite ready to venture into gingerbread house making with my 2-year-old. I'm pretty sure he would start acting out The Three Little Pigs story and play the part of the Big Bad Wolf if we made one. I did, however, think it would be fun to make some gingerbread boys and girls with my son to go along with our copy of The Gingerbread Man. So, that's what we did! I used my mom's gingerbread recipe, and Baby Bear and I had a blast making (and eating!) them.

This is my mom's recipe along with a few of my own tips. (I used half of this and got about 3 dozen gingerbread boys and girls. This makes one small house as well as a few people.):
1C oleo softened
1C sugar
2 eggs
1C molasses
6C flour
1T ground ginger
3t baking soda
2t cinnamon

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and molasses. Mix in ginger, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gradually add flour. Chill for at least one hour (I highly recommend overnight). Roll on a floured surface, and dust both your rolling pin and your hands in flour. Lightly dust your baking pan with flour to prevent sticking. When making a house, use a pan that will not warp in the oven. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes (this is for the people, larger house pieces may take a little longer).

The gingerbread boys and girls Baby Bear and I made. He helped me make the dough the night before. The next morning, we rolled out the dough and had fun with the cookie cutters.

We used some leftover red frosting and mini chocolate chips to decorate the cookies because it was what we had on hand. It worked, and Baby Bear had fun.

Spend Time With Your Loved Ones

Close your browser. Turn off your monitor. For today, whatever day this may be for you, step away from your computer and go spend precious time with your children. Go make memories. Play their favorite games, make a snack together, color pictures, pretend, sing, make up games, push them on the swings. Ask them what they want to do, and then go do it. And then, when you're done, don't forget to hug them and tell them you love them.

Coffee Filter Angel

I wanted to do a craft with Baby Bear that had a little more to do with the real Christmas story than Santa, reindeer, and elves. I had an idea to use coffee filters to make angels, but I needed some inspiration to help get me started. After doing an image search online to see how other people have used coffee filters to make angels, I was ready.

Materials: coffee filters, scissors, yarn/ribbon, cotton balls, yellow (or gold) chenille stems. I grabbed a couple of markers too in case Baby Bear wanted to draw faces on the angels, but we ended up not using them. I made one to try it out while Baby Bear was sleeping and to show him what we were going to make.

I used two coffee filters per angel. Baby Bear placed a cotton ball in the middle of one filter and wrapped it up to look like a ghost. Then, I placed a second filter under the cotton ball to add a layer. This parts wasn't necessary, but I thought it looked nice. I secured these together by tying a ribbon around the angel's neck,, bow in front.

After forming the chenille stems into halos on sticks, I stuck the stick end through the string on the back of the angel. For some angels, I folded a third coffee filter into wings and used the chenille stem to secure them in back by wrapping it around the middle of the wings. For other angels, I used wide ribbons instead but secured them the same way with the end of the chenille stem in back.

Finally, I tied a loop of ribbon around the top of the halo in the back so we could hand our angels from the tree. Honestly, Baby Bear couldn't help with these as much as with most crafts we do together. He helped wrap the cotton balls and he picked out all the ribbon colors, and he was content with that. His favorite part was hanging them on the Christmas tree.

Craft Clay Ornaments

Last year for Christmas, Baby Bear and I made a handprint ornament using store-bought air dry clay. Then for Easter, we tried making salt dough ornaments. This year, we tried another homemade clay recipe that I found on the busybeecrafts.com site that uses baking soda, corn starch, and water. The store-bought clay was probably the sturdiest of the three we've tried, but I had all the ingredients for this recipe on hand already, and Baby Bear had a lot of fun for two nights in a row (one to make the dough and cut out the shapes, and the other to paint them when they were dry). I'd use this recipe again, mostly out of convenience.

Cutting out Christmas shapes. Tip: don't forget to poke a hole at the top of each ornament before the clay dries.

Baby Bear only had the patients to cut out seven ornaments, so we added a little water to the remaining dough and played with slime.

This is what the ornaments looked like once they were dry. The star broke, so we ended up with six.

Painting the ornaments the next night

Our painted ornaments

Paper Plate Elf

This year, our family joined the Elf on the Shelf tradition. Baby Bear named our elf Harry (Papa Bear and I were throwing out random names and that's the one he really liked). I wish I could say that behavior has improved since Harry joined our home, but up until today he's had no effect. Baby Bear doesn't get the whole spy-on-you-and-report-back-to-Santa thing. In Baby Bear's mind, Santa brings presents to other good girls and boys, but his presents come from the store, so all he needs is for Mama Bear to take him to the store. Everything he wants is there anyway, right? I'm telling you, he's the king of loopholes... he gets that from Papa Bear. ;) Anyway, yesterday Harry made a quick trip to visit Santa at the North Pole while Baby Bear was napping. He told Santa that Baby Bear was being a very good boy that day, so Santa sent him back with a new Veggie Tales movie to give Baby Bear as an early Christmas present. That's why Baby Bear's behavior suddenly improved today. He speaks the language of bribery.

To go along with our new elf tradition, Baby Bear and I made a paper plate elf. I know it is more common to make paper plate Santas, but we wanted to do something a little different. I drew on a face and cut out pieces for the hat (Baby Bear got to pick the color), ears, and shirt collar. Then, Baby Bear helped me color the plate and ears. I gave him the hat to decorate, which he chose to do in green glitter glue spots. Next, I glued the hat to the plate so Baby Bear could add some cotton balls for the brim and the puff ball at the end. Finally, I glued on the ears and collar. Baby Bear had a lot of fun gluing on the cotton balls, so we may end up making a Santa too. Or, perhaps we'll come up with another less-crafted character.

Pine Cone Ornaments

As I've said before, when you have a toddler, do not underestimate the classic crafts you used to do when you were a kid because they are still new and exciting for your little one. For me, introducing Baby Bear to some of my childhood crafts included making pine cone Christmas tree ornaments. I do not remember if I made these at school or with my mom, but I do remember hanging them on the tree when I was very young.

Pine cone ornaments are simple, but they can be very messy. We made ours in the bathroom so we would have a smooth, hard, easy-to-clean surface to work on as well as a bathtub nearby for washing up Baby Bear when we were done. To set up, I laid out three paper plates. I poured glue on the first plate, and I poured glitter of different colors on the other two plates. We also used pine cones Baby Bear collected from the yard during one of our outdoor play times (yes, we've entered the collecting stage). To start, I showed Baby Bear how to roll a pine cone in the glue and then roll it again in the glitter. As he worked on his pine cones, I showed him how to make sure there was glue all over the pine cone so that he could get more glitter. This went well for a while, and then Baby Bear decided that pouring and mixing the glitter would be fun. The multicolored glitter looked pretty on the pine cones, but it made quite a mess. We had to stop when all he wanted to do was mix the glitter... and then the glue!... together. Still, the handful of pine cones we completed were fun, and they are now hanging from our Christmas tree.

Well, Blogger/Google is giving me problems with my pictures again. It looks like I'll have to reload many of them over the next few days, so if a post is missing pictures, please be patient with me. I'm fixing them as I see them. Thanks!

Glitter Sensory Bottle

'Tis the season for goodies and sweets! If you're one of the people making those goodies around the holidays, there's a good chance you have a bottle of Karo syrup in your cupboard. You can use that syrup to make an awesome sensory bottle for your little one!

For our sensory bottle, I cleaned out an empty Gatorade bottle and added 1/2 water, 1/2 Karo syrup, and a couple tablespoons of glitter. I also hot glued the lid to reduce choking hazard. Voila! A new sensory bottle! Now, you may be thinking, "Couldn't I just do this with oil and water instead of syrup and water?" Yes, you could, and we have, but it doesn't work as well. With an oil and water bottle (aka lava lamp sensory bottle), you either have to add a few drops of glycerine to slow the movement down or keep turning it over and over again to keep the glitter moving. Baby Bear didn't have much interest in our lava lamp sensory bottle. With the syrup and water bottle, the glitter keeps moving for several minutes on its own, and Baby Bear loves it. When I told a friend of mine about this bottle, she asked about adding holiday shapes confetti. I think that would work, too, though I haven't tried it myself. It's possible the confetti would require a little more Karo syrup rather than equal parts syrup and water because confetti is heavier than glitter. Either way, this sensory bottle is mesmerizing! And, it's got all the glitz of the holidays!