Simple Mud Kitchen

3 / 8 / 133 / 11 / 13

After this morning’s mud soup fun down at the beach, I decided it would be fun to set up a little mud kitchen for Miss G to play with in the backyard. Now I don’t know if you too have seen the beautiful and elaborate mud kitchens that often pass through my Pinterest feed, but ours was nothing like those. A few items from the kitchen, some dirt from the garden, and a water source all squished onto a second hand plastic table and Miss G was pleased as punch. After all, playing with mud is supposed to be simple, right?

Gracen poured water, added greens, and gently stirred hot soup. She scooped soil, packed it down, and added pebble sprinkles to dirt cupcakes. She tended to gooey mud pancakes, flipping them every now and again.

And lucky for me, I was the chosen taste tester.

♥

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Impromptu Drum Circle

2 / 17 / 139 / 1 / 13

Today as I was organizing the mess of mason jars in our hallway catchall closet, my curious Miss G spied some old wine gift tubes in the bottom. Naturally, she yanked them out and began drumming on them.

Before long, we’d yanked out all kinds of pots, containers, and bowls out and created an impromptu drum circle for the budding musician in our family.

Maracas, rhythm sticks, wooden spoons, a xylophone, and background music were added in along the way too.

Perhaps not the most neighbour-friendly activity if you live in a small apartment or have basement tenants below you (ours weren’t home), but great fun for a rainy day.

Here’s our little musician jamming out…

♥

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Foamy Bathtub Paint

2 / 16 / 131 / 19 / 14

I’ve had this very easy bath activity on my list of to dos for a long while now, but I just never seem to come across shaving foam that doesn’t smell like a bottle of men’s cologne (is it just me or does putting your little lady to bed reeking like a can of Barbesol feel weird?)

But on our latest trip to the States, I came across this one… A shaving cream that smells like raspberries. While I’d prefer it to be all-natural and unscented if possible, beggars can’t be choosers, so I picked up a couple of bottles.

Tonight before bath time I gathered the shaving foam, some food colouring, a muffin tin, and a few paintbrushes, and we had foamy bathtub paint in no time!

To make the foamy paint I squeezed a few drops of food colouring into each muffin cup, filled them up with cream, and stirred them up using the paintbrushes. In hindsight, I should have put the cream in first and the food colouring on top as it would probably have been easier to mix, but it still turned out just fine.

In addition to making the paints, I squeezed a couple of drops of pink food colouring into the bath water… Miss G thought it was all pretty special.

The first order of duty was smelling them…

And then she dove right in. She did use the brushes too, but squishing the foam through her little fingers was too much fun not to try.

After all of the paints had been used up and the bath water was a deep shade of purple, we used our removable shower head to simply rinse the foam down the drain. While the clean up was very easy, the more vibrant colours did tint our white grout in a couple of places, so that’s something to be aware of. At the same time, we’ve stained our grout {a little bit} before and it’s just faded with time and eventually disappeared, so I’m not too worried about it. Especially because it’s all in the name of fun, right?

♥

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Valentine’s Slime Sensory Tray

2 / 5 / 131 / 24 / 14

After putting together our ‘Will you be my Valen-slime?’ favours this afternoon, Miss G and I got out a few things and put together a really simple Valentine-themed slime sensory tray.

Slime is just one of those things that never gets old. Miss G’s spent quite a lot of time playing with it in the past, but was every bit as thrilled to play with it again today.

Her favourite part of today’s set up was definitely the heart-shaped cookie cutters. She’d imprint a bunch of hearts, watch them slowly melt away, and then loudly exclaim, “MAMA! THEY DISAPPEARED!!” before making more.

My favourite part was that because this batch turned out just a tad firmer than our last, there was zero mess. It didn’t stick to her hands, it didn’t goop up the bowls and kitchen utensils, and it didn’t cling to her clothes. (A seemingly messy activity sans the mess = win!)

We left this out for most of the afternoon and evening, and Miss G came back to it again and again before it finally had to be sealed up just before dinner. But before that happened, she wanted a guarantee that her tray and container of slime would be left out and ready for her to enjoy first thing the next morning.

♥

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Animal Sink Bath

1 / 26 / 131 / 29 / 13

Since returning home from a long vacation 2 weeks ago, playing independently has been a lot more difficult for Grae. Instead of playing on her own, she wants to be right beside Mama {if not right on top of me} all. of. the. time. When I explain that I need a little bit of personal space to get something done or encourage her to play, she responds with, “But Mama is the best…” or “But I just want to watch what you’re doing” or “But I LOOOOVE you!” Oy. It’s not easy.

The one time she seems to be happy to play on her own right now is while I make dinner (thank goodness for that). She often does puzzles, reads, or plays dress up, but tonight she set up one of her long time favourite games… A sink bath for her animal friends. She pulls up a stool, collects her sea creatures (sometimes it’s a baby or rubber ducks), and grabs a wash cloth while I fill up the sink with warm water, get out a squirt bottle or a sponge, and retrieve some soap or a little chunk of FUN. Together we add a drop or two of food colouring to the water, and that’s it. She plays and splashes and washes her animals in there for a good long time, and by the time she’s done, I usually have dinner on the table.

A sink full of water… Who knew? Works like magic every time.

♥

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Mini Treasure Hunt

1 / 21 / 139 / 12 / 13

Recently, Gracen has become borderline obsessed with all things searching-based. She loves a good game of hide-and-seek, she adores playing ‘I Spy’, and there’s nothing better than a ‘Where’s Waldo?’ book. So this afternoon, after a busy morning filled with a morning walk, a first attempt at skating, and an impromptu hair cut, we decided to pull together a low-key searching activity indoors.

First, we rounded up some coins (aka treasure) and gave them a good scrub in hot soapy water {because money grosses me out}. (Of course you could always use something different as treasure…plastic gems, tiny toys, play money, etc.)

After drying off the coins, we spread them out on a plastic serving tray…

And hid the treasure with the coloured rice we made months ago (plain rice, sand, flour, dry pasta, beans, and cornmeal would all be good alternatives).

Voila – treasure hidden.

Next, we gathered a few treasure finding tools.

We laid our tray down on a towel for easier clean up, retrieved one of Miss G’s piggy banks for treasure collection, and the search began.

Searching…

Found something… Jackpot!

Clink! Into the piggy bank (cue Miss G’s ‘money, money, moneeeeey’ song and dance).

Grae had so much fun with this little game that I’m certain it will sit out in our living room for the next few days being enjoyed by our little search-obsessed girl time and time again.

♥

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Letter Writing Station

1 / 5 / 131 / 9 / 13

Miss G was so spoiled at Christmas that we’re still slowly pulling out new treasures, removing the packaging, and playing with them for the first time. Early this morning, she went down to her room {here at Grandma Charlotte and Poppop’s house}, retrieved her little wooden Melissa & Doug mailbox, and asked me to play “mail” with her. We exchanged the reusable postcards for the mailbox, taking turns being the sender and the recipient, for a full hour before we decided to turn the game into a little station that can easily stick around a few days.

In addition to the mailbox, we collected a few different envelopes, some paper (both lined and coloured), a notepad, some pens and pencils, and some stick on labels.

Miss G got busy writing letters, stuffing envelopes, and adhering labels right away.

Once a letter was done, she’d either pop it in the mailbox, deliver it straight to the recipient, or place it in the ‘to mail’ pile…

So far, she’s absolutely been loving writing letters and drawing pictures for all of those she loves…

Even Bella’s received mail. ☺

♥

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