Buttons

 I keep an old Ball jar of my grandmother's buttons that I received after she passed away on the windowsill in our living room.  I use them for crafts and activities Tootsie is working on but I really like to just look through them from time to time.  Some are rather ugly like the brass looking nautical themed buttons.  Others are romantic and antique looking and you can definitely tell those from the 60's and 70's.  Of course there are your run of the mill extra buttons and a ton of small white ones littering the bottom of the jar.  I've looked at them so many times I know them by heart and it makes me happy to see one on a project that I have given to Tootsie or one of my nieces or nephews.  I was secretly thrilled when Tootsie wanted to dump them out one day and explore.  We got a tray, dumped and I let her take the lead.

After sifting through them for awhile, she started picking out those that match. 

 By the time we were done an hour later my Tupperware cupboard had been raided and lots of sorting had been accomplished!

  

We did this activity a few more times over the next couple of days.  It was a good lesson in sorting, counting and comparing and contrasting but mostly, I loved sharing my grandmother's buttons with my daughter!

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Easter Fun!

Yes, I realize that Easter was like a month ago but we did some fun activities and I had some photos I wanted to share!

One of Tootsie's favorite things we did was painting bubble wrap and making a print on an egg shape.

They really turned out pretty!

When we finished painting, Tootsie wanted to use some Easter Eggs that were on the table to cover all the bubbles.

She got a little upset when she realized that there weren't enough eggs to cover all the bubbles!

We spent Easter at my parents house where Tootsie was able to play with her cousins.  We tried to spend as much time outside as possible and even took the painting outside!

I think Aunt Lindsey and I liked the painting as much as the kids!

Our way cool finished product using cars, beads, sponges, little people and sand toys.

Tootsie and Big S had a snack picnic and a rest outside in the yard.  Unfortunately, Big S wasn't feeling all that great for most of the weekend.

Tootsie and Little S brought the water play outside too!  

The kids made Easter Bunny headbands using stickers, construction paper and pipe cleaners

Big S modeling his headband!

Thanks Big and Little S for a fun Easter weekend!

Busy Bags

For quite awhile now I have been trying to gather things for Tootsie to do whenever we take longer car rides.  I came across several ideas on Pinterest dubbed "busy bags" and have been stockpiling them to grab on the go.  They came in handy on the drive to grandma's for Easter.  Tootsie is an active girl and really doesn't like long car rides so I packed quite a few items.  Here's a look at those that we took.

A sticky tray!  I taped contact paper sticky side out on a tray and gave Tootsie stray, tubes and foam shapes to create with.  The idea for the sticky board came from Teach Preschool.

Felt cupcakes.  I found the pattern for these at Planet of the Apels.  There are also lots of great busy bag ideas here!

Tootsie gets really frustrated in the car if the things she is working with slide all over so I decided to make her cookie sheet that she usually works on into a felt board when needed.  I glued magnetic strips to the back of a piece of felt that was cut to fit the tray.  I tried using the sticky magnets but the stick wasn't strong enough so when I pulled the felt off, it left the magnets.  Glue works pretty well but I would still be gentle with it.

Connecting egg halves to match the picture.  I wouldn't do this in the car again.  The pieces fell all over and Tootsie got really frustrated!

Lacing dyed pasta.

I blogged about this project here.  Tootsie clips the pins to the correct color.

I laminated several shapes and gave Tootsie magnetic gems and pom poms and wipe off markers to decorated them.

Writer's bag.  I filled this bag with markers, pencils and a few specialty writing items.  Then I added small note pads, different shapes of paper and stickers.

I keep all the items in plastic bags and store them in a resusable shopping bag.  We only use these things on car rides so they stay interesting to Tootsie.  You can also see in the lower left of the photo the alphabet, number and shape Tot Time Notebook I printed from 1+1+1=1.  This one is a favorite that she uses a lot!

We also always take a bag of books and her DVD player.  Sometimes these things are a success and sometimes she burns through them all or doesn't want any of them.  As much as it isn't my favorite thing to do, if the car ride is really long I sit in the back seat with her.

Hope you find something here that helps make your car rides enjoyable for everyone! 

Kate

Letters Of My Name!

I've been wanting to share for awhile all the activities we have been doing to help Tootsie learn the letters in her name.  We were trying a letter of the week type of theme but I found that we were spending A LOT longer than a week on a letter and Tootsie really wasn't that interested.  When it comes to the letters of her name, my name or her dad's name she is very excited so I decided to instead focus on them.  I have a few ideas still to try out but here is what we've done so far.

The letters of her name written on index cards for her to hang with clothespins.

I trimmed some foam sticky letters to make lower case ones.  She "wrote" her name in marker above.

I taped colored hand prints with the letters of her name on them to our wall.  She "high fives" a letter or color as I call it out.  Underneath, we used water colors (food coloring and water) to paint coffee filter flowers.  Tootsie added the circle centers to spell her name.

I wrote the letters of her name on small stones and Tootsie puts them in order.  We tried just lining them up on a small square of paper first but they slid around a lot so then we pressed them in play dough.  It works much better!

Check out Read. Set. Read! for so more great name exploration ideas!

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March Madness!

Things have been a little crazy around here lately!  Mid March brought us some of the best weather I have ever experienced in Northern Michigan!  It got so warm that we drug out the wadding pool for a couple of days and Tootsie ran around the yard in her bathing suit!  Unfortunately, it didn't last.  It snowed all morning on Friday.  I don't know if it has been the change in weather driving us inside more or what but we have all been a little crabby with each other!  Tot School has been hit or miss but I have been trying to record the fun times and the activities that go well.  Here's a look at some of the things we have been doing.

Graphing M & Ms.  I've mentioned before that Tootsie loves any activity involving food - especially M & Ms!  We did this several times and she really enjoyed it.  We counted each row and discussed more, less and equal.  

I found this really cool puzzle recently at Goodwill.  The train cars are made up of three pieces each - wheels, top of the car and an inset with the number that corresponds to the number of creatures riding in each car.  So there's small motor work, color recognition, counting and number recognition all in one puzzle!  It's called the Numberland Express Puzzle and can be found at Amazon by following the link.

I can't remember the blog this idea can from but we really liked it.  I cut words out of magazines containing the letters "B" and "A," glued them on card stock and laminated.  "A" words are on the back.  I laid out the upper and lower case felt letters that I made and gave Tootsie a magnifying glass to locate the letters in each word.  While she liked searching for the target letters, she really liked identifying the letters in her name, my name and her dad's name better!

If you haven't visited Little Hands Big Work you totally should!  She has some great ideas, including this color wheel.  I used a computer generated pie chart to make the color wheel and then colored clothespins to match.  The back side has just as many wedges with star stickers to count.  The reverse of the clothespins contains numbers.  I haven't introduced the number side yet.

I made Tootsie some large pattern blocks out of felt and we spent a morning playing around with them. First I called a shape and she would jump to it.  Then I had her place different body parts on a shape.  We tried colors too and then I showed her how to make a rectangle out of two squares and a and a diamond out of two triangles.

We made sidewalk paint out of cornstarch, water and food coloring and headed outside on one of our warmer days.  

After painting the sidewalk for awhile, we painted each other's feet and made foot prints!  As a side note, sidewalk paint does not wash off your body on the first try :)

This is an awesome idea from Teach Preschool!  Tootsie had fun with it and it's been a big hit in my preschool classroom.  I covered one side of our easel with contact paper, sticky side out.  We have used colored strips of paper, foam shapes and straws to decorate the board.  

I made a few shapes for Tootsie to see what she would do with them.  She filled a few in with corresponding colored foam shapes and others she just matched strips of paper to.

I will be posting again soon about a few other projects we have worked on so check back soon!


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Sensory Bins

Tootsie really loves sensory play - water, beans, sand - anything she can pour and scoop.  I've tried several different things recently but we always come back to the simple.  I've noticed that she will not play with a bin that is too busy.  Her winter bin was just too overwhelming.  I collected lots of blue and white items including pom poms, flat glass marbles, pipe cleaners, beads, table scatter, a couple of containers and tongs as well as a few other items.  She didn't use it much.  The Valentine's bin had white beans and an assortment of Valentine themed items.  She removed a lot of things and gathered items from her kitchen to use instead.  So for now, we'll skip the toys and figurines and stick to the pouring and scooping.  Here are a few of the bins we've used lately.

Dried Peas

Dried peas, a few Saint Patrick's Day coins, tongs, funnel, measuring spoon, pitcher and a few different shaped bottles.  The round one is a special Coke bottle salvaged from a family gathering.

Princess and the Pea!  Dancing dress and fancy shoes required!

Chocolatey Mess

This was an experiment in throwing things together based on Cloud Dough.  I guess you could call it chocolate sand/dough.  

We mixed flour, cocoa powder, a little salt, a lot of oil thanks to Tootsie's heavy pouring hand and sprinkles.

Dishes from her kitchen were quickly brought in. 

Not too long after that the dough migrated to her kitchen so she could cook it.

Worked ok until Tootsie took the sink out, filled the dishwasher and spread it around the stove.  This was a really messy project but luckily it swept up easily.  By the end of the second day, I had snuck a lot of it into the trash.  It was getting tracked everywhere!  We will definitely do this again because Tootsie loved it but I will wait until it's warmer and we can take it outside.

White Beans

After Valentine's Day, I removed the themed items and added some I Spy items (see here or a little more info) to white beans.  

Tootsie also liked using her dishes - were these ever a great investment!  She cooked the bean and then we filled up lots of the dishes, added some felt food and had a party.  It was a make up party as I had just had some friends over for an Arbonne party, in which she got to participate.

I loved the Barbie shoe drinks!