Icy Blizzard Car Rescue

3 / 7 / 194 / 15 / 19

YOU GUYS… It’s March 6th and currently? It’s snowing. SNOWING!! I can’t even. And so, when you don’t have the power to change the weather, you may as well enjoy it, right? Except for that it’s cold and miserable…. So we brought the blizzard inside. {Just enough to fill a small bin – my kind of blizzard. Hah!} Mixed Sam’s very favourite thing (vehicles, obviously) and created an icy blizzard car rescue that he absolutely loved.

Here’s how I did it…

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First of all, I picked out a few Hot Wheels / Matchbox vehicles from Sam’s collection and placed them into a small bin with just a couple of centimetres of water and two drops of aqua liquid watercolours (one of my very favourite art supplies – they’re super vibrant and super washable). Then I popped the bin into the freezer, arranged the vehicles as I wanted them, and let it all freeze over night.

When it was time to play, I sprinkled some snow on top in order to add to the whole blizzard feel, but if you don’t have snow you could certainly skip this step.

Next up, I set out a few ‘tools’ to assist in the rescue…

toy tow truck and snow plow for added imaginary play possibilities
some jars of warm water coloured with liquid food colouring (you could use liquid watercolours to ensure washability) paired with our bulk pipettes and our Learning Resources zig-zag dropper to help melt the ice
a little wooden hammer for breaking / chipping away at the ice
some coloured salt (just regular table salt and a couple of drops of liquid food colouring shaken in a reusable bag until uniform in colour), also for melting ice

Here’s the finished play invitation!

NOW… I just purchased this FLISAT table from Ikea {even though we really didn’t need it} and although I’m already so, so in love with it, you certainly do not need a fancy sensory table to set this, or any other sensory play invitation, up. A smaller bin inside a larger bin would work perfectly, as would a blizzard bin with a tray of tools next to it.

When I told Sam that the vehicles were stuck in an icy blizzard and needed to be rescued, he was thrilled.

I briefly ran through the tools with him and he was off!

I feel like ice rescue activities like this one {and this frozen ocean animal rescue and this frozen ocean mermaid excavation} are great for helping kiddos develop grit, patience, and perseverance because they take a good amount of time and effort.

While Sam immediately went for the warm water and salt, he soon moved onto trying the wooden hammer.

What I didn’t anticipate is that he would create his own warm salt water mixture in hopes of that being the winning solution… Clever little nugget!

It took some time {and maybe a tiny bit of assistance from Sister – she just can’t help herself!}, but he eventually got a truck loose.

Of course Miss Chloe was right in on the action as she always is.

One thing I should mention is that the combination of cold and salt can sometimes bother little ones’ hands. Miss G’s never minded – even after ages of play – but after dunking his hands in water and then into the salt, Sam told me that his hands felt ‘hot’. A couple of things you can do to if your little one seems to have sensitive hands: a) let them play with gloves on or b) have a bowl of clean, warm water and a small towel nearby.

Of course as time passes, the vehicles become easier to rescue…

And then it gets REALLY exciting!

This will definitely be done again in our house.

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Muddy Monster Truck Derby Sensory Bin

1 / 22 / 191 / 22 / 19

Okay, so before you see this awesome muddy monster truck derby sensory bin and think it’s all fun and games over here all day every day, here’s what you need to know… This morning Sam came along for the school run in undies, a t-shirt, and a sweater. In minus four degree {celsius} weather. No pants. No socks. No boots. And no jacket. Let alone a toque or mittens. Thank goodness we do the whole car blanket thing and he at least had that once in, but you guys – this morning was a doooozy. We got home, I moped a bit, he continued to shout and whine and throw things, and I made a cup of coffee and gulped the whole thing back in bed with the door closed. Then we hugged it out, agreed to start our morning over, cleaned up, and put this sensory bin full of mud and monster trucks together.

Thank fricken goodness sensory play and calm music have the power to turn a day around.

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Here’s what we used to put this taste-safe, scented, amazing-feeling sensory bin together…

one of our go-to Sterilite sensory bins (any shallow bin will work)
cornstarch from our play cupboard (when it comes to cooking with it, I always use an organic version)
cocoa powder
a couple of small toy monster trucks

and later on, these Green Toys cars too.

If you haven’t guessed yet, our ‘mud’ for our monster truck derby sensory play is CHOCOLATE oobleck!!

We didn’t even bother mixing this up in a separate bowl! Sam just dumped the cornstarch and cocoa powder straight into our bin…

Then whisked it up…

And mixed with a wooden spoon as I gradually added water.

You can play with the amounts of each ingredient to create thicker or thinner oobleck, but here’s our recipe…

CHOCOLATEY OOBLECK

2 cups of cornstarch
1/2 cup of cocoa
2 cups of water

Whisk the cornstarch and cocoa together well. Add the water and stir with a wooden spoon {or better yet – your hands!} until the oobleck has a uniform in texture.

I gave the chocolate oobleck one last mix before Sam very enthusiastically popped his monster trucks in.

{It goes without saying that Chloe was in on the fun in approximately 2 minutes flat. Seriously – this kitty of ours loves sensory play just as much as Grae and Sam do!}

It obviously depends on the size of your bin, but our layer of oobleck was thin enough to leave very visible monster truck tracks and Sam noticed right away.

He also realized how insanely neat oobleck is to touch and hold and squish.

As for the mess? With activities like this one, I just remind him to keep his hands in or over the bin. The truth is that the oobleck mud dries up on surfaces and is a cinch to wipe up, but I still don’t want it all over the kitchen obviously.

Part way through his play Sam asked for something for the monster trucks to drive over, so that’s when I offered him a few little Green Toys cars. We lined them up just like you’d see at a monster truck show and after getting a thorough drizzling of mud, the monster trucks began driving and jumping over them.

Although this addition was initiated by Sam, starting simple and adding things in here and there during play is one of my go-to methods for extending play activities.

Also his request? ‘A tool and a bucket’, plus later on, a ramp which I chopped from an almond milk carton. This was during a full one-hour play session and though I have a feeling that it would have lasted significantly longer, we had to put it on pause for nap time. With the promise that he could continue later on in the afternoon, of course.

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Easy Paper Tunnels for Little Car Lovers

7 / 9 / 18

Sometimes the very simplest things turn out to be the biggest hits, don’t they? Take these insanely easy paper tunnels for example… A totally random idea, thrown together on the spot, and yet Sam just loves them.

Do all little car lovers have a ‘thing’? I once nannied a little car lover who was obsessed with speed bumps. Like LOVED speed bumps. And Sam’s thing? Tunnels.

I don’t know what it is about them exactly, but he just freaking looovvvves tunnels. He’s constantly searching them out for his toy cars and will basically transform anything he can into a tunnel. Even if it’s your leg – hope you didn’t plan on moving any time soon {hah!}

So this afternoon when he woke from a nap talking about a tunnel for his purple concrete mixer, this little paper tunnel idea popped into my mind and it couldn’t be easier.

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Basically you need two things – washi tape and card stock {I love this stuff from Ikea – it’s super sturdy and the colours are gorgeous}. Oh, and a hard surface of some sort. All I did was cut some of the card stock in half and kept some whole, then folded little tabs on each side, and washi taped them to our coffee table to form little rainbow tunnels.

Easiest thing EVER.

He collected up a bunch of different cars and trucks, placed them in the middle of the table, and then drove them around and through the paper tunnels one-by-one.

One thing I really love about this activity besides it being so easy is that while the paper tunnels are fairly crash proof, the fact that they’re just paper taped down onto a table encourages Sam to practice slow, controlled, gentle movements – something that doesn’t always come naturally to him.

These remain on our coffee table currently and probably will for a while, but when we’re done with them, we’ll just take them off and tuck them away until next time, probably reusing the same paper tunnels several times over.

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Mini Racer Wall Ramps

5 / 21 / 185 / 22 / 18

This boy and his cars. He just loves them. Throw in a ramp and he’s pleased as punch, so imagine how thrilled he was about these mini racer wall ramps we put up on our landing today! {SOO thrilled.}

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It’s incredibly easy, but here’s what we used to create our mini racer wall ramps:

several mini racers (anyone else remember these from their childhood?)
several cardboard tubes (we repurposed most of ours from our car ramp sensory bin)
a roll of painter’s tape (though we used this decorative Scotch masking tape)
a pair of scissors

Now because most all of our paper rolls were the ones we used for our car ramp sensory bin, we didn’t have to cut ours in half lengthwise, but if you do have to do that part, it does take a little bit of effort… Sharp, longer scissors are key in my opinion. With your paper tubes cut, it’s as easy as running a long piece of tape down one edge and sticking it to the wall at an angle.

There’s really no right or wrong way to do this… You can have the ramps work together or separately – up to you. I decided to start at the top and got Sam to stand near the wall to judge how high we could go with the first ramp. I thought it would be fun to make the ramps work together if possible, so with each addition, I got him to send one of his mini racers down and then positioned the next ramp so it would catch the car once it launched off the first.

Once we had all of the previously cut ramps up, I asked Sam what he’d like to do with our one new paper roll – cut it and make two new ramps or keep it as is and make one tunnel and he was absolutely certain that one tunnel was the way to go, so we hung it as is.

And then we were off!

He’d simply place a mini racer, wheels down, at the top of the tunnel or one of the ramps and then watch it go.

The transition from one ramp to the next didn’t always work out perfectly, but he didn’t mind one bit. If a car got stuck sideways or wheels up, he’d go help it and then step back to continue watching it race down.

Part way through we added a basket to catch the cars that were flying off of the last ramp and crashing into our window, which added a fun element.

I don’t know how long this will stay up on our wall for, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

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Car and Truck Colour Sorting

2 / 22 / 182 / 26 / 18

Oh my goodness… This boy and his cars and trucks. He’s nothing short of obsessed. The other thing he’s been really into for months? Colours. Smack the two together and you’ve got a car and truck colour sorting activity that’s incredibly easy to pull off, but super engaging for little car and truck lovers like Sam.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

coloured construction paper {CAN}
sticky tape
small cars and trucks in various colours

Set up couldn’t be easier… Basically choose a surface {we went with our coffee table, but a floor would be great too} and loosely tape sheets of construction paper in various colours down to it. These will serve as your colour categories or ‘parking spots’ or ‘garages’ if your little one is as obsessed as mine is.

Now this activity was actually inspired by something I saw Sam doing in the playroom a few days earlier {he was colour matching his cars and our SPRI balance pods {CAN} while carefully placing the cars atop the pods} so I knew I probably wouldn’t have to give him much guidance… I simply set out a little basket filled with his cars and asked if he wanted to park them in their spots and with that, he got started. My favourite thing was watching him with this little aqua car… He went back and forth between green and blue several times before deciding just to hang onto it – hah!

After that it was smooth sailing though… He’d often tell me the name of the car and then its colour as he was placing it in its spot.

{aqua car makes a reappearance}

At the beginning, he’d announce the colour of the truck or car and then simply place it down on the coordinating piece of construction paper…

But before long he was ‘vrrooooooming’ his cars across the coffee table and slamming on the brakes when they’d reached the parking spot.

Doesn’t this look like a total blast?

I’m guessing Sam thinks so because we’ve already played it again TWICE!

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Car Ramp Sensory Bin

2 / 6 / 182 / 6 / 18

Oh, how this little boy of ours loves cars, trucks, tractors, and all things that go. Help him set up some sort of ramp and he’ll send vehicle after vehicle after vehicle down that hill. It’s his jam.

One day a little while back while Grae, Sam, and I were down in the playroom, this idea sort of randomly sprung to mind. Brad had tucked a bunch of empty wrapping rolls in our play closet earlier in the week and Sam was enjoying his trucks but was frustrated that the ramp he’d set up wouldn’t stay in place. While I briefly thought about trying to help him tape his giant ramp in place, I remembered our stash of paper rolls just waiting to be used for something fun, and that’s when this little car ramp sensory bin was created!

Now thinking back, I’m pretty sure that this idea was inspired by The Imagination Tree’s awesome cardboard tube racing activity… I remember seeing her beautifully painted tracks and colourful images a long time ago… I probably just didn’t realize what a little car enthusiast I’d have on my hands one day in the future!

Our ramps certainly aren’t as pretty as hers and maybe one day we’ll paint an entire set of paper roll roadways {how fun would that be?}, but these certainly did the job and setting everything up was incredibly quick and easy.

Because this little set up was completely impromptu, I didn’t take photos of the set up process like I usually do, but I think it’s pretty self explanatory.

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All you need is a pair of scissors, some cardboard tubes, painter’s tape {CAN}, and a big, shallow bin {CAN}. {Any big, shallow bin will do, but this huge under the bed bin is one of my absolute favourites for any kind of sensory or small world activity.}

All you have to do is cut the tubes in half lengthwise, trim them down to whichever size you like, and then use painter’s tape to secure one end to the edge of the bin and the other to the base of the bin.

Add a bunch of little vehicles and it’s time to play!

The beauty of having your ramps contained in a big bin? The cars zip down quickly, but stay within reach! A bin of this size also means that there’s more than enough room for several kiddos to play at once, and Miss G actually did play alongside Sam for quite a while.

While we’ve tucked our bin away for now, I’ve saved the paper tube ramps to use again next time and I’m certain it won’t be long before Sam requests this activity again.

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