Looking back on my childhood, some of my favourite times were the ones when we got to play with “the real thing”. Using Dad’s real tools, playing with Mom’s real make-up, creating a store using real pantry items and real money… Those times were the extra special ones.
So today, Gracen and I set up a little tea party using some real things… Real snacks for one, and while I’m not quite ready to let her drink real tea, real water was a substitute she was perfectly happy with.
Sure, her tea pouring skills haven’t yet been perfected and most of our blanket and snacks were covered in little “tea” puddles as a result, but at the end of the day, blankets can be washed and puddles can be wiped up. What matters is that our little lady spent a special afternoon tea-ing with Mama and Sophie and got to practice all kinds of everyday skills by playing with ‘the real thing’.
Okay, so I know that we are very likely the last ever play-lovin’ people to jump aboard the water bead train, but we’ve finally done it. And they’re awesome.
The truth is, while I’ve known that they could be purchased online, I was hoping to just ‘bump’ into them one day while doing some shopping. I know this is ridiculous, but I’ve had my eyes peeled for months while at children’s stores and teaching stores, but of course I’ve had no luck finding them in those places… Am I the only person on the face of the planet that did not know what water beads were actually intended for?! Here I was, thinking that they were some sort of revolutionary sensory-based material designed especially for play, when they are actually intended for using in flower vases and readily available at florists and in the floral sections of craft and dollar stores. Duh! My bad…
That is until we were picking up a couple of lily-esque flowers for a pond sensory bin in our local dollar store the other day… Sure enough, there they were. Squishy, shiny, smooth marbles packed in small containers of water. Non-toxic and environmentally safe. Score! I may have been a little overly excited given the situation… But hey, what can I say?
We first used them during our recent messy play date and today we took them outside again in a simple water bead sensory bin. Miss G requested the water beads be in pink water, so pink water it was. We gathered up a few kitchen goodies (a slotted spoon is a must) and headed outside.
The coolest thing is that because these particular beads are clear, they’re nearly invisible when in water (especially in non-coloured water).
Then you put your hands in the bin expecting just water and discover a squishy, slippery surprise. (Of course, Gracen already knew what to expect, but apparently it still felt wonderful enough to get elbow deep in the bin.)
Catching them while in water can be a little tricky, but it’s a big part of the fun.
That’s where a slotted spoon comes in handy (especially one of this size). Grae quickly realized how much easier it made collecting her bouncy water beads and got to work filling up her tray.
Of course, what fun is a sensory bin without squishing your toes in it?
A few things to keep in mind about water beads… Firstly, though they’re non-toxic, biodegradable, and environmentally safe, they {obviously} should not be ingested. Also, from what I’ve read, they clog drains quite badly, so if you set up a water bead station in your bath tub or sink, be sure to use one of those mesh drain inserts to make sure none of them slip down into your pipes. Lastly, they will dehydrate over time if left out of water. Either store them in a sealed container with a little bit of water, or if they do dry out, simply soak them in water for 8 to 12 hours to rehydrate them.
I have a feeling there’s a lot of water bead fun in our future… Brad and I picked up several packages of the dehydrated kind while on a little date night to the Summer Night Market last week, so we’ve got a stock pile of red, purple, pink, aqua, and multicoloured ones ready to go. I’ve already got a million ways to use them floating around in my head… How fun would setting up a bubble tea station be? Or putting them into a big container of thick shaving foam? What about mixing them up with glow sticks and playing with them in the dark or creating a Halloween sensory bin filled with water beads, slime, and creepy crawlies? I feel a Pinterest visit coming on very soon… ☺
7 times out of 10, if you ask Gracen what she’d like to do, she’ll answer “Bike ride!” or “Park!” Guaranteed, the other 3 times you’ll get a very enthusiastic “Paint!” So that’s just what we did today. With G on my lap, we browsed my Toddler Activities Pinterest board looking for a fun and new painting method to try. There were many options – wellie boot painting, muffin tin painting, fizzy sidewalk painting, salad spinner painting, bubble painting, and more – but the pin she selected? This homemade puffy paint recipe.
Though we stuck to the recipe fairly closely, we used a slightly different method to make it. Here’s what we gathered to get started… Water, salt, self-raising flour, food colouring, a zip-close bag, an ice cube tray, and some paint brushes.
I of course had the help of this monkey too. (I asked her to do something funny and this was her immediate reaction… Good to have a solid go-to funny face on deck for moments just like these.)
Though you really don’t need it, we used a mason jar to hold our bag upright and open for us (a cup would work just as well) so that Grae could add ingredients without having to hold the bag open at the same time. First, she added the salt and flour to the bag.
Then we zipped it closed and she gave it a good shake.
Next, we added the water…
Zipped it closed again {making sure all of the air was out first}, and she smushed everything together until it formed a goopy paste (this was her favourite part).
Next, we cut the corner off of the bag.
With just a tiny bit of help, Grae squeezed the mixture out of the bag and into our ice cube tray.
Then she added several drops of food colouring to each compartment.
Using our paintbrushes, we stirred the colouring into the paste.
Then it was time to paint!
Although most posts about homemade puffy paint instruct you to microwave your artwork, we rarely use ours and I really didn’t want Grae sitting in front of the microwave peering in while each of her pieces ‘baked’. Instead, we popped ours into the oven for a few minutes on the lowest setting, and it seemed to work just as well (putting them in the sun to dry would probably work too and may give the paint more of an opportunity to rise also).
The result? Fully dry, yet slightly squishy paint blobs that can easily be hung or added to a art portfolio without crumbling apart.
Want to try for yourself? Here’s our recipe…
Homemade Puffy Paint
2 1/2 tablespoons of self-raising flour
2 1/2 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of water (you can add more or less depending on your desired consistency, just be sure to not make it too thin, otherwise it won’t ‘puff’ well)
food colouring
1 zip-close bag
1 muffin tin or ice cube tray
Place the flour and salt into the bag, zip closed, and shake well. Add the water, zip close, and smush around until the mixture forms a smooth paste. Cut the tip off of one corner of the bag and squeeze the paste into your muffin tin or ice cube tray. Add food colouring and blend. Create your puffy paint masterpiece making sure to lay the paint on thick. Bake your artwork in a 150 degree oven for 2 to 4 minutes.
With our sticky velcro dots attached to each side and firmly pressed down, we were ready to try them out.
We begun attaching them to one another and quickly realized that they would be 10 times more fun with velcro dots on both sides of the sticks (more dots on our list for next shopping trip!), but Grae didn’t seem to mind.
After nap time today, Grae actually came up to me and said, “Do fun ac-ti-vi-tee?” Funny little duck. Yes, baby girl, we can always do a fun ac-ti-vi-tee. In fact, that’s why I’m constantly adding to my Toddler Activities Pinterest board. For moments just like these.
I love the idea behind this simple sun bleached puzzle, but because the sun wasn’t shining all that much in our neck of the woods today (and because it takes a couple days time to create), we decided to make our own ready-in-an-instant version, sans the sun. ☺
First up, Gracen helped me collect our materials… A piece of large black card stock, a silver sharpie (a white/yellow/silver/gold crayon or pencil crayon would work too), and an assortment of flatish objects from around the house.
Next, we traced the objects onto the card stock. Grae helped with tracing a couple of the objects, but for the most part, she was very content with watching me trace and announcing the names of the objects and the shapes they left on the paper.
Here’s what our household objects puzzle looked like when we’d traced all of the objects.
Miss G got busy matching right away. I swear she lives for stuff like this. In between shape and object names, she kept repeating “Fun game. Mama (and) Grae Grae make FUN game”.
Finished! (I spy toes.)
Celebration dance in order.
Here’s a little video of her being silly on her second time through…
There’s no doubt that open-ended children’s activities, those without a finished product in mind, are some of the very best kinds. Today I set out a very simple ‘invitation’ in Grae’s room… A piece of card stock, tissue paper squares in a variety of colours, and a glue stick. No instruction, no example, just materials available for her exploration. I wasn’t sure what she’d do with them. Scrunch the paper into balls and adhere it to the paper? Run the glue stick up and down her arms and cover them in tissue as she does with stickers? Make it ‘rain’ tissue paper all over her bedroom? There were many possibilities (some of which this mama like better than others).
So what happened? Upon laying eyes on the station, she gave a little ‘ooh’ and a nod with her head, and quickly plunkered down on her belly. She was immediately drawn to the glue stick and asked if it was “pretty pretty” (chapstick) and motioned putting it on her lips (although we’ve used white glue and craft glue before, a glue stick was a first). I explained that it was glue, to which she removed the lid and started smearing it on her paper. She then carefully started adding tissue paper squares, making sure they laid flat on the page and were spread out.
The end result was a tissue paper collage of sorts, a whole lot of great fine motor practice, and a lovely little conversation about colours and squares (“Circles? Circles, no. Squares, yaaaaa.”)
Not to mention, another beautiful piece of art to add to her scrapbook. ☺
After completing bongo/shaker/güiro project this morning, Miss G and I quickly put together a drum (using a leftover Christmas tin and the same process as we did for our 3-in-1 instrument, minus the lentils/rice), and collected some of the instruments we had around the house to create this music-themed toddler tray.
Besides the homemade instruments, her xylophone, jingle bells, train whistle, rhythm sticks, egg shakers, and a couple of spoons were included.
With a playlist of her favourite songs playing from the iPod dock in her bedroom, we had a little jam session and gave each of the instruments a shot.
While this wasn’t a sensory station she stayed engaged in for long periods of time, we left it out all day, music on, and she came back to it again and again, shaking or tapping her heart out for a couple of minutes at a time.
It’ll definitely be something we leave out for the next little while too. I’m looking forward to more musical moments in the days to come… (Hopefully all of which are as passionate as the one in the last photo. ☺)
What do you get when you mix a Langley play date with a closet overhaul? Olympic-inspired painting, of course!
Haha! I’d love to say I’m joking, but sadly, I’m not…
Admittedly, I have not watched one single bit of Olympics coverage this time around. Until this morning, that is. Grae and I headed out to Langley to visit my friend Steph and her little man / Gracen’s favourite hug and kiss recipient, Tate. While we were there, Steph had the Olympics playing in the background and I remembered how much I love the Olympics (and how much I’ve been missing out on by not watching).
Fast forward to this afternoon.
Now back at home, I was attempting {for the second day in a row} to reorganize the one and only {catch all} storage closet our teeny tiny house has. I came across the pipe insulation Pinterest told me to use as a wreath form (works terribly, by the way… my advice is to splurge and spend the extra few bucks!) and was feeling badly about just turfing it when I had an idea… We could chop it up and use the pieces as stamps!
So, long story short, with the Olympics on my mind and pipe insulation in my hand, I thought it’d be fun to have Gracen paint something reminiscent of the Olympic rings. Here’s how our project took shape…
First we gathered our pipe insulation, our IKEA MALA paints (which coordinate perfectly with the Olympic ring colours), some card stock, a pair of heavy duty scissors, and a tray.
Next, I chopped up the pipe insulation into pieces approximately 3 inches long.
We gave our paints a good shake, squeezed out a dollop of each, and placed one insulation stamp on each paint blob.
Then my little lady set off to work on her olympic-inspired painting…
This is her first completed masterpiece.
They progressively got more abstract after that…
Here are her four pieces in the order she did them, starting from the top left and moving clockwise. While they certainly don’t look just like the Olympic rings, I’d say they definitely have an Olympic vibe to them, wouldn’t you?
And of course, the most important part – she had fun. Just look at that silly little face!
♥
While I know that pipe insulation isn’t something everyone just has on hand, many other household objects could be substituted… Cannelloni noodles would work. As would paper towel or toilet paper rolls… And heck, if you’re feeling crazy, you could even chop off a little bit of the end of a pool noodle. ☺
When we were on vacation, all of the old-school toys Grandma Charlotte has saved from her boys’ childhood got me thinking about favourites from my own childhood. While it’s not really a toy, one thing I LOVED growing up was the felt boards teachers would use during carpet times in elementary school. You just knew that if you sat down to listen to a story and the teacher reached for her felt board and a bag of felt pieces, it was going to be a good one.
This then got me thinking about all of the cool things Miss G and I could do with a felt board of our own. From matching games, to sorting activities, to building funny faces, and learning about shapes and colours… The options are endless really.
Now, we probably could have bought a pre-made felt board and coordinating pieces, but what fun is that?! Especially when making one of your own is so easy. The best part is that this entire project can be done over the course of a nap time if your little one sleeps for at least an hour.
We picked up this square poster frame from IKEA, grabbed a package of felt from the craft store (you can also buy it on a roll from fabric stores), and gathered up a glue gun (I later changed my mind and used Tacky Glue but I think either would work), a pencil, and some scissors.
To get started, I took the cardboard backing out of the picture frame, lined it up with the corner edges of the felt piece, and traced the other two sides onto the felt in pencil.
Next, I cut the felt square out. (Make sure you’re using really sharp scissors here. Your sanity and straight line with thank you.)
Next, because I chose to use white felt, I took the paper insert that came inside the frame, flipped it over, and glued it onto the cardboard insert to create a white backing for my felt. (You can use your glue gun or Tacky Glue here, but you could just as easily use white glue or a glue stick too.) See the difference? Much better with a little help from the insert.
Next up, I carefully gave my felt piece a quick iron. You don’t have to do this, but I found it made it much easier to mount the felt onto the cardboard when the large creases had been removed. Just be sure to use a low heat and keep your iron moving if you do this step. Then, mount your felt onto the cardboard using thin glue strips in order to avoid ripples and bumps in the felt. Also because felt does have some give and can stretch over time, it’s a good idea to glue the middle as well as the edges (I did the edges and a giant ‘x’ across the centre). Once you’ve got your felt piece placed on the glue, smooth it down from the centre outwards to ensure a good stick.
When your glue has had a chance to dry, place your cardboard backing into the frame and secure it.
Voila! Felt board complete.
With Miss G still sleeping and a little time still on my hands, I decided it would be really fun to have a game of some sort ready to go for when she woke up. I had no idea what I would make, but it needed to be something quick and easy. Thank goodness for Pinterest! I searched “felt board ideas” and got all of these great results. Scrolling through, I was immediately drawn to an ice cream cone colour matching game that I knew would be quick to cut out and super engaging for my little lady who loves matching games and announcing the colours she sees around her.
I just cut out my first cone and ice cream scoop freehand and then used the pieces as a guide for my others, but upon visiting childcareland.com later, I saw that she has a printable template available also.
I cut my circles out using a coin as a guide and glued them onto the cones using a little dot of Tacky Glue. And that was it. After a few minutes drying time, the pieces were ready to be put to use.
I love this felt board set because it can be used when talking about colours, it can be used as a matching game, it can used to learn about rainbow order, and it can be used just for fun (think 8 scoop ice cream cones!)
Here’s the finished product.
Miss G was thrilled to wake up to this little surprise and matched the scoops to the cones again and again, naming the colours as she went along.
Can’t wait to make some other pieces for her soon.
Every year as a child, my brother and I would spend a week or two at my Baba’s (which means grandmother in Ukranian) house a few hours from home. My Baba, who is probably one of the most talented, creative, do-it-all women I know, always made sure we had adventures to go on, activities to do, and projects on the go. One of the things we’d always do was paint rocks. It’s such a simple idea, but it was something I truly looked forward to each year.
So today, I got out a couple painting projects of my own and set Grae up with a little rock painting station.
First we gathered our materials… A few big rocks we found around the yard (washed and dried), some acrylic paint (kids’ washable paint works too but the designs disappear with rain), a few paint brushes, and an old towel.
Gracen thought it was pretty special that she had her very own painting station just like Mama. She’d paint a rock, then move it to the edge of the towel to dry, and then paint another. And when the tops were dry, she flipped them over and painted the bottoms.
Fresh out of rocks but still wanting to paint, I gave her a cement block we had lying around.
And after it was painted in pastels, it was time for a strawberry creamsicle break. The verdict? She loved them so much that she asked for another. My first instinct was to say, “Let’s have something different to eat now”, but then I reminded myself that all they are is plain organic yogurt and strawberries pureed. So two popsicles it was.
These are our little artist’s finished pieces.
After they were completely dry, we found special little places around the yard to tuck them in. With these little surprises hiding around the yard, maybe weeding won’t be so daunting…
Gracen loves “helping” wash dishes so much, I decided to turn it into a little afternoon activity today. While having a toddler standing on a chair beside you splashing in a sink of bubbles as you power through a load as fast as humanly possible isn’t always super convenient, this activity was easy and fun for everyone involved.
We got started by collecting some supplies we had around the house – a bin filled with warm soapy water, a dish drying rack, some plastic dishes, cups, and spoons, a nearly empty dish soap container topped up with water, some scrubber pads, steel wool, a dish brush, and a dish towel. In no time at all, we had an inviting little dishwashing station ready to go!
I asked Grae if she wanted to play, and she got going without hesitation. All dishes in the sink!
Without a doubt, squeezing the soap into the bin was her favourite part.
She scrubbed and washed each dish one at a time…
And when they met her expectations, they were added to the drying rack.
Though she was down to business for part of the activity, things got silly and wet too!
This station was a total hit and I can definitely see it becoming a regular in our play rotation. After all, what’s not to love about bubbles, water, splashing, scrubbing, and getting soaking wet on a warm day?
Gracen and I had so much fun with this little project today. It’s been flying around the web like crazy recently, (like here and here and here and here) so when we came across plain white bowls for $1 each the other day, I knew we’d be giving it a shot very soon.
All you need is some plain dinnerware, a Sharpie or two, and in our case, some tape, and a pair of scissors.
Because we chose to decorate bowls, I wanted to tape off the inside of the bowl, where the food goes. Some may say that the Sharpie is sealed in by the end of the process, but something just doesn’t seem right about putting Grae’s food on top of permanent marker. Plus, I think having just the rim decorated looks cute. Painter’s tape would have been the obvious choice here, but since I didn’t have any lying around, we made do with packaging tape and it worked just fine.
Grae got started drawing right away. I explained that we weren’t drawing in the middle of the bowl and that we were just decorating around the edge, and that’s exactly what she did (therefore the tape was pretty much unnecessary, but hey, you never know).
When I asked Gracen what I should draw on my dish, her immediate response was, “Apple!” I ran with that idea, and since she’s been so interested in colours for the past couple of months, I got started on a little colours of the rainbow theme of sorts.
Gracen drew and drew and drew and never did I have to encourage her to keep going, choose a new colour, or fill in a blank space. She was having so much fun and was so thrilled about the fact that she was using Mama’s ‘special’ markers that she had more than enough motivation for over an hour’s worth of drawing.
Of course, in that hour, she stopped to come over and admire my dish several times. She’d look with big eyes, then nod her head with a slow, enthusiastic “Yaaaaaaa…” and a sweet little smile on her face, in obvious approval. Then she’d go on to point out the colours and pictures she saw {and shared those she wanted to see in the very near future – my apple, tree, birdie, and banana were all ideas she offered}.
The finishing touch was to happily sprinkle her entire rim with dots of different colours. She’d stop a moment, glance at it sideways, then pick up another Sharpie and add more. This continued again and again until one time she took that same sideways glance, then very nonchalantly announced “All done”. And that was that.
Before we could get it in the house to cure in the oven, she wanted to put her new dish to use, so she carefully browsed through the garden for a handful of ripe strawberries and a sprig of mint.
With her snack gone in less than a minute (yes, she shoved that entire thing of mint in her mouth and chowed down on it like the rabbits at Maplewood Farm), it was time to show off our finished products.
One final touch to add – our names, the year, and for Grae, her bright green signature.
And then into the oven they went. In attempt to “bake the marker on better”, I amped up the heat to 400 and left the dishes in for 45 minutes, despite the general recommendation of baking them at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Bad idea. Although Miss G’s came out fine, my lighter colours really, really faded, some to the point of becoming nearly invisible. Learn from my mistake. The good news is that there’s an easy fix for mistakes such as mine. Just simply redraw your design and then pop it back in the oven for another 30 minutes at 300.
We let our bowls cool, gave them a good {hand} wash, and used them for dinner. I did try washing them (okay, maybe I even scrubbed a little bit), and so far, so good. The designs still look exactly as they did, and I’m hoping they stay that way for a while at least.
This was such a fun, easy, and inexpensive project and I’d highly recommend giving it a try. While Gracen (almost 23 months old) loved it, I think older kids would like it just as much. On top of it all, wouldn’t a hand decorated mug or dish make a great gift for a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or parent? (I must keep that in mind!)
If you do try this project, here are a few tips I learned along the way:
Plain dinnerware pieces can be found at thrift stores, dollar stores, and places like IKEA for next to nothing.
Before starting your drawing, wash and dry your piece very well to get rid of any oil that may cause your marker to stay put as well as it should.
Darker, vibrant colours turn out better. Yellows and pastels seem to fade and distort.
Do not attempt to bake on your design better by increasing the heat. This will just lead to a mess.
Gently hand wash your items. Do not put them in the dishwasher.
As we were playing with Gracen’s ever-growing magnet collection this morning, a little game we’ve not yet tried popped into mind… Magnet fishing!
It was a breeze to set up. We gathered up a few materials we had around the house – a bowl, magnets, scissors, embroidery floss (any string would do), a large paperclip, and a piece of drift wood from Gracen’s beach sensory bin (a twig, chop stick, or popsicle stick could easily be used instead) – and created a pond of magnet “fish” and a fishing rod.
These alphabet magnets, made by Gracen’s Auntie Roz, worked well because they were very strong but still light enough to be picked up by the paperclip. The only problem was that they were so strong that with a small bump of the bowl, they’d all cling together, making it hard to catch a “fish”. We did try her Melissa and Doug wooden alphabet magnets, but because of their weight and weaker magnets, they couldn’t be picked up by the paperclip. Ultimately, something in between the two would have been perfect (I’m thinking the plastic letter magnets may be the way to go).
WIth our fishing rod built and our pond freshly-stocked with fish, we were ready to go.
Caught one!
After she’d fished standing up for a while, she decided to try fishing while sitting down. Looping the line around the rod a couple of times made this a much more manageable task.
Caught another.
Gracen thought this activity was a lot of fun. As she pulled the magnets out of the pond, she’d remove them from the paperclip, announce their colour (older kids could do colours and letters), and add them to her caught pile (often giving herself an enthusiastic clap afterwards). She enjoyed it so much, in fact, that she insisted that it stay in her room until her Papa returned home from work so she could show him. And that’s exactly what she did.
Summer has finally arrived in the Lower Mainland and it’s getting h.o.t. (no complaining here – we love it). Being that we like to be outside for the majority of the day (and our little old house heats up like an oven), there needs to be some sort of relief so that Miss G doesn’t overheat. So, when we’re not at a pool, beach, or water park, we’re most likely in the backyard playing with water, ice, or a combination of both. Today, we gathered a few things and put together an ocean sensory bin to splash around in.
Some rocks, a handful of seashells, a few pieces of driftwood, a fistful of greens plucked from the garden, a few floating sea creatures, and a couple drops of food colouring, and you’ve got yourself a mini ocean in your backyard.
These ocean creatures are so neat. We found them for $1.25 each and they have the coolest squishy / stretchy / rubbery texture to them. They feel eerily realistic.
Gracen dove in, and thought it was pretty hilarious that I’d set the crocodile up on a piece of driftwood. She experimented with taking him off and balancing him back on again, and once she’d pretty much mastered it, she moved on to balancing the dolphin and whale atop driftwood islands of their own.
Of course, there was plenty of swimming involved too.
She was just getting started on emptying the ocean out onto the towel when we heard a clattering coming around the side of the house… Grandma Charlotte and her friend, Judy, had arrived for an afternoon visit! And with all kinds of special gifts for Miss G, no less. Needless to say, our ocean fun came to a halt. Presents to open and and Manmaws to visit take priority, obviously. As they should. ☺
Knowing that we were expecting a string of scorchers (for Vancouver, at least) here in the city, I prepped this sunny day activity a couple of days ago so it would be ready to go when the mood struck. All it took was a bunch of ice cube trays, a little food colouring, and some freezer space.
I know that some may wonder why on Earth I have so many shaped ice cube trays, and the only explanation I really have is – I’m a Kindergarten teacher. (They’re great for counting, sorting, AND making homemade soaps for Mother’s Day!) No, they’re not what we use on a regular basis. In fact, we have 8 regular ice cube trays in our freezer at this very moment. And while regular ice cubes would work just as well, I decided to pull out the fun ones to add some interest to our ice play.
With the ice cubes frozen and ready to go, I quickly gathered up a few kitchen goodies to accompany the ice. Some cups, a couple of spoons, and a spatula to mix, scoop, and stir with, and a jug, a squirt bottle, and spritzer {each filled with coloured water} to melt the ice and make “soup” with.
Gracen was pretty anxious to get her hands into this bin and didn’t hesitate to put her water reserves to good use.
Mmmmmm…. Soup!
With the soup ready to go, the tasting began. We did have to explain that she couldn’t put the small cubes right into her mouth, but she was more than happy to just lick the bigger cubes. Not as thrilled, was Papa, Grae’s official soup taste tester – yuuuummy!
Full of soup, it was time to climb in. Brrrrr! For being as cold as it was, she lasted a surprisingly long time in there.
With frozen feet, it was time to climb out, defrost those tootsies, and water the lawn a little…
And not long after, this is all we had left of our ice sensory bin…
Though this sensory bin doesn’t lend itself to repetitive use like most do, it’s easy to set up and so refreshing on a hot summer’s day that we’ll definitely be enjoying it again very soon. Bring on the heat!