Odds & Ends

Here are a few activities that I thought may be of interest to others. They didn't really warrant an entire post by themselves, but I didn't want them to slip through the cracks either!

Tyler has been quite into tracing feet and hands, so I decided that we could put large sheets of paper together to trace his entire body. He was game!

He found his outlined body quite interesting

Ty was sick and pretty unfocused so he didn't really feel like trying to make any sort of face, but that was of course fine. I just let him go.

We then hung it on the wall and he added to it over the course of several days. He also wanted us to trace him again and again standing up, as you can probably see!

This is just one of those moments you walk into that make you smile and feel glad that you let your child use materials freely. His play dough press wasn't put away after earlier play, and when doing salt writing, so he decided to see what would happen if he filled it with salt and tried to "press" it. I watched him for a good while.  

We've been using all sorts of blocks with our animals to create play scenes.

Since Tyler has been so into numbers, I was curious to see if he wanted to learn to write them by tracing. I wrote them lightly on a piece of paper then tucked it into a sheet protector so that he could use markers over and over again while trying. He liked it, but didn't always follow the lines and just thought it was neat to marker on a different surface. I'm not sure he's ready for this activity, but it may be a nice way to save paper for drawing at times as we can simply wipe and start again! We used regular, washable markers and it worked fine.

I put letters 1-9 on Tyler's magnetic board to see what he would do. He enjoyed sequencing them as I figured. Anything to do with numbers is sure to delight him right now!

We've used elbow macaroni to practice pouring between small glasses.

This has been one of Tyler's favorite activities the last couple weeks. I really thought it was a random activity that may last a day or two if that as it seems like a "younger" activity! His work is to put popsicle sticks into the jar, dump them out into the old play dough cup, and pick up any sticks that miss. He does this at the table while listening to his favorite versions of "The Twelve Days on Christmas" on our laptop (yup, still!), which is useful only as a CD player at this point. It shows the old Windows Media Player visualizations as it plays, which our mildly-sensory-quirky, highly visual Tyler likes to look at on occasion to self-regulate. We also switch out puzzles and shape sorters for him to do as he listens.

I've noticed Tyler looking out the windows at the birds and squirrels a lot lately as our weather has warmed. A neighbor has also put plenty of bird seed in his feeders which attracts quite a nature show for us to relax with.

We tried Hopscotch with Ty for the first time seeing that we've had great weather! I knew he'd be into it as it involves numbers and jumping! He loved jumping forwards and backwards in sequence and calling out each number as he hopped.

Montessori kids have to be the only ones who get down and trace their hopscotch numbers with fingers!

I showed him how to throw a rock and see what number it would land on, for future skipping, but he didn't want to throw it too far. I think he was afraid it would go outside of the board and that was apparently not acceptable to him!

I taught him how to jump to keep his feet on different numbers. He doesn't fully have the movement down, and he liked to get creative as well, putting his feet at a diagonal, say with one foot on four and the other one five.

After his tracing session a few days before, he decided to try to trace all of the numbers as well. He did well with ten!

Four Fun Ways to Recycle Paper Bags

A few weeks ago I started on a bit of a mission to recycle all of the paper bags we've acquired from Whole Foods. While we found several ways, I have been lazy about writing the post. Thanks to finding the Tinkerlab blog and her Paper Bag Creative Challenge, I have been motivated to get it done!  

The first way was a classic: Paper Bag Vests! I remember asking for paper bags at the grocery store for weeks so that the children I taught in preschool could each make a vest years ago. I turned our bags inside out as they had a lot of writing on the outside, then cut spacious holes for his head and arms. I let him try it on before we decorated so he could understand what we were doing. Ty simply decorated his vets with markers and crayons as I knew he wouldn't have the patience to let glued pieces or glitter dry before putting it on, but you could get much more fancy!

 He was pretty happy with himself! He took his vest on and off many times, which eventually required taping as it ripped in places, but he didn't seem to mind.

The second way was simply using our bags as paper. Since it was so large when cut it open and lay out, I taped it to the wall for vertical work. I provided marker and crayons and let him go! I was surprised to see him tracing the creases in the bag. I don't recall ever seeing him trace something before.

The next way also includes using a paper bag as paper. One evening Tyler got quite into practicing cutting strips of my old scrapbooking scrap paper. We typically glue the pieces rather than throwing them away, but not only did I need a big surface area for him with so many pieces, but something thicker than the large paper we have as he tends to rip right through with the glue. Paper bag it was!

The paper bag had no trouble handling all of the glue he spread on!

We all have enjoyed the final result. This art hangs over his play kitchen and I notice him looking at it several times a day. We will certainly be using paper bags for gluing more often!

The final use for our paper bags isn't a brand new idea for us, but I had to take some photos and show you since I was creating the post. We like to take empty boxes, containers and Tyler's play fruit and set it up somewhere in the house. He pretends to go shopping, putting all of the items he wants (he wants everything) in his bag.

We then carry it to his kitchen and put it away and/or start some "cooking"!

If you're looking for more ideas for paper bag recycling or to wish to share your own, be sure to check out Tinkerlab! There's also a list of the upcoming challenges. Fun!

Also linking-up with The Imagination Tree

Catching-up on the "other stuff".

It's been far too long since I've done a large post...since the end of November actually! As I've moved towards one subject posts, there are some things that slip through the cracks that I still wish to remember and document here on Blogger. Perhaps some of you may be interested in or inspired by pieces of these random moments!

We tried coin sorting with pennies, nickles and dimes. While he likes playing with the coins, Ty wasn't all that interested in sorting.

Ty received this Stacking Shapes Pegboard by Learning Resources last Christmas and has never been interested in in. I've rotated it in and out several times this year and tried many different shelves and places with no luck. Putting it on this table somehow made it more interesting to him!  

I had these puzzles in a pile on the floor, ready to bag and sell on Craigslist the night before...and forgot to put them out of reach. Ty found them the next and the pieces were everywhere! It proved to be a nice little challenge for him to find where all of the pieces went during clean up!

Ty received a late birthday/early Christmas present from a relative: Melissa and Doug play dough toys! They really increased his interest in playing with play dough! I loved how so many of the pieces are wooden too.

This is just a peek at some of our pretend play. While I've shown the basket of pretend items for play with his stuffed animals, this is what we're using with his figurines. This play follows a familiar night- time routine. A bowl with dry pasta and a pumpkin for the animals to eat, a small glass for them to drink from, a basket and an old sock that works as a bath and bath mitt, then a small dish towel for a blanket to send them to bed.

Ty decided to tong everything he could find one night. Bean bags, animals, jingle bells...anything. I helped him with his tonging fever by searching around and providing him with more items.

We used paint markers to "decorate" a Christmas tree

We visited a Children's Art Museum. Using the light projector was his absolute favorite part! Oh how I wish we had something like this at home!

This was a neat toy at the Museum. Reminded me of the bead toys I made for him back in the spring.

The Museum had two light tables! This one was fun for both of us to draw on this with wipe board markers. The other had magnetic translucent shapes which Ty wasn't interested in, but I like playing with it for a bit! 

We've been playing with shadows on sunny afternoons...

I made another open and close basket for Ty, using a couple of the same items from the last basket and couple with more difficulty. This has been out for about a month now and it's still one of his favorite activities ! He loves finding the little treasures hiding inside and remembering what in each before opening. I put colored wooden cubes inside the pill container in a blue/purple pattern.

While at the Museum, Ty's block stacking interest came back to life. Daddy helped steady this one a bit and I had to pick him up, but I love the shot.

I had recently rotated his unit and alphabet blocks back in and after his museum experience, he excitedly got to work again for about two weeks. He's over it again now, preferring The Pink Tower. His new record with both unit and alphabet blocks is 16. He makes it look easy! Pretty sure he'll be out-stacking me in the near future. 

I demonstrated building a pyramid to see what he'd do. This was often his interpretation.

Heeeheee, this one is for fun...classic "toddler discovers a brand new box of tissues" moment...

We made Christmas cards to send to the grandparents

Along with some salt dough ornaments we baked, painted and covered with glitter.

He experimented with new brushes and sponges

Then figured out that all of the colors mixed together to make his favorite color, black! He was quite excited! He then added lots of orange and discovered it turned brown.

We haven't done a lot of pouring work lately, so I gave him decorative wood chips and two measuring glasses with handles. He's done well and from the first try, he picks up any spilled chips and returns them to the cup.

Digging into his sticker box has become a favorite recently. Great fine motor work!

It seems like many of his stickers come in pairs, which is nice for matching when he's done!

After seeing Ty so disappointed about a somehow wet sandbox (and it being too cold to take his mittens off anyhow), I decided to bring the sand inside. We had birdseed in the table before, but he had grown bored with it of anyhow.

It's been a lot of fun so far and not as messy as I imagined! The sand is taking forever to dry out, but it's great for sand molds and castles.

Mid-November, Tyler grew tall enough to reach the pedals on the trike I bought him for his birthday in August. A few weeks later he was riding like a pro! The last three days he's gone all the way around the block (7/10th of a mile), apparently motivated by the Sesame Street music blaring from his new SweetPea3 mp3 player hooked around the handlebars. We timed him today at 35 mins! Watch out Lance Armstrong...

Ty has also become quite the pro at somersaults. At times he tries to do them off of the living room furniture, or on the hardwood floors. We re-direct to the floor bed!

He's now moving on to wanting us to help him do handstands. If we're not available, he's figured out he can back up and use the ottoman to do a semi-stand. Nothing stopping this kid!