Miss G and I had all sorts of fun this morning! After an early morning coffee shop date and creating our family portrait embroidery hoop, we put together a little beginning sounds sorting game that was both fun and simple.
Tag Archives: toddler tray
Developing Scissor Skills with a Cutting Tray
The last few months have been filled with transitions… Transitions for our whole family, but though they’ve been big for us, they’ve been HUGE for Gracen. First, we packed up our home in Vancouver and moved out. Then we moved in with her grandparents where we completely redid her bedroom twice and got rid of the bed she’s always had there to replace it with a different one. Then, after getting settled in nicely, we embarked on a more than 30 hour journey to the Middle East during which she slept a total of five hours. When we arrived here in Kuwait, she found herself in a new home {which was no longer a house, but an apartment} with a new room, a new bed, and the bare minimum as far as ‘stuff’ is concerned. On top of all of that, upon our arrival, she had to make the transition of switching her days and nights. And you know what? Our little lady has done phenomenally well. She’s a trooper, I tell you. She’s adjusted well, made all sorts of new {old} friends, and seems truly and genuinely happy here.
The only thing I’d say has been challenging now that all of the transitions are said and done, is the fact that we seem to have lost some of her independence somewhere along the way. Don’t get me wrong – when it comes to picking her clothes or putting on her shoes or choosing a snack, she’s still very independent. But when it comes to playing independently, something we’d worked really hard on in Vancouver, I can see we’ve back tracked quite a ways. Back home, we’d fallen into a wonderful routine that allowed me to shower and pee and do dishes without having a munchkin under my feet. She’d often choose to play independently in her room or read independently in her book nook, and it was wonderful. We’d even started letting her play outside in the {fully fenced} backyard all by herself sometimes! But here? Not so much.
Our apartment here in Kuwait is huge. Much, much bigger than our house in Vancouver was, and I guess I expected her to make use of all of the space when I had something I needed to do. Not the case. It’s okay and I know we’ll get back to where we were, but for now, if I run to the washroom to grab a tissue, pop into the laundry room to deposit a dirty cloth, or head into the kitchen to get a glass of water, I have a little shadow following right behind me. Always.
Sparkly Foam Sensory Tray
Do you ever set up an activity that you think will be a total hit and it just kind of flops? Or if it doesn’t flop, it just doesn’t take off the way you thought it would? That was the case with this sensory tray.
After a Sunday morning adventure and a good afternoon nap, we decided to hit the backyard. Brad and I wanted to get some yard work done, so I decided to set up a sensory station for Grae to explore in between searching for rocks, running around, and helping with the yard work.
I kept it very simple and filled a tray with raspberry-scented shaving foam, sprinkled glitter on top of it, and set out a warm bucket of water with a hand towel.
Grae dove in.
She definitely had fun mixing up the different colours of glitter and squishing the foam between her fingers…
And she even thought it was funny that it stuck to her hands at first, but after a while, the fact that she couldn’t properly clean the foam off of her hands and arms, even with the bucket of water and towel, started to bother her.
She decided to gather some sandbox tools and played for a while longer, but the activity never really took off the way I thought it would. In the end, there was a giant tray of semi-played with foam just left there and she was done.
If anything, this was a great way to get messy. ☺
I guess all activities can’t be a total hit, can they?
♥
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Valentine’s Slime Sensory Tray
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.
Magnet Exploration Station
Today, Miss G and I did a great big deep clean of her room. During the tidying, down came the epically successful styrofoam structures station. It was time. It had been played with every single day for nearly three weeks and was starting to become a giant mess of styrofoam dust and building junk . Luckily, I had been preparing Miss G for the change for the last few days, so everything got taken apart and tucked away without any issues.
What I wash’t prepared for however, was the fact that as soon as her toy box top was cleared off and wiped down, she said “Mama tells Grae Grae ’bout da NEW toy box prajet (project)!” Uhhhh… I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Oops. I explained to Gracen that I wasn’t sure what would replace her beloved building station, but I would think of something FUN, get it ready during her nap time, and surprise her with it when she woke up. No pressure.
Since I had about a gazillion other things I had planned to get done during my baby girl’s nap time, I knew the new station had to be something quick and easy to put together. I dug through our little living room toy box in search of inspiration, came across her bar magnet, and that was that…. A magnet station it was. I gathered up all kinds of small things from around the house – some magnetic and some not – and placed them on a tray along with the magnet. At first, I thought I’d just leave it at that, but then I decided it would be fun to add a sorting element since Miss G loves sorting/matching games so much. I remembered coming across this post on Pinterest a long while ago, and though adding ‘magnetic’ and ‘non-magnetic’ jars into the mix felt a little bit too “academic” or teach-y (we don’t really do planned learning activities yet), I decided to give them a shot. After all, they could always be removed if they were too much. I retrieved 2 mason jars, drew 2 quick sketches (one illustrating magnetic, and the other one non-magnetic), cut them out, and washi taped them onto the jars. Done!
When Gracen woke up, she asked about her new project immediately (this girl doesn’t forget a thing). I brought it in, explained that it was a magnet station, and let her jump in.
After a couple of minutes of exploration, I explained the jar drawings to her. Without hesitation, she started placing things in the appropriate jars.
She was so into it that it didn’t feel like too much at all.
Before long, she’d sorted every last item into the jars and announced, “All done! Dump ’em and do it again!” (A sure sign of success, I’d say. ☺)
♥
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Pomegranate Play
It’s no secret that I pretty much love Jackie of Happy Hooligans and all of her awesome play ideas. So last week, when she posted “Guess what we ripped into and investigated at lunch today! Yum!” along with a photo of a pomegranate on her Facebook page, the first thing that came to mind was ‘Why have I never thought of that?’ I’ve always been a huge fan of pomegranates (I still remember what a treat it was to curl up on our black leather couch as a little girl with a giant bowl, a dark towel, and half a pomegranate) and Gracen loves them too, but I’ve never thought to let her play with one before eating it… Silly me! Knowing how much fun she had with our recent pumpkin seed sorting tray (which can be done with almost any squash, by the way), I knew she’d love it.
To set up a simple pomegranate play station for her, I sliced the pomegranate in half, cut a cross about an inch deep on the flat surface of one of the halves, and popped it in a big bowl of cool water for her. (Removing the seeds of a pomegranate in water is by far the best way to do it. Keeping the fruit submerged in water seems to loosen everything up a little, plus it prevents nasty pomegranate stains from occurring. )
I also set out a little tray of “tools” which included a small bowl, a teaspoon, and a large slotted spoon.
Without any direction or modelling, I asked her, “Do you want to play?” She of course let out an immediate “YES!” and jumped right in.
Right away, she began pulling apart the peel and pulp, digging out the seeds (which are actually called ‘arils’, but who says that?) by scraping her finger along the membranes, and adding them to the small yellow bowl. (Keep in mind that she has watched me do this before.)
And before long, she requested another small bowl for the “white yucky parts”.
The other neat thing about taking apart pomegranates while they’re in water is that the seeds sink down to the bottom and the white membrane bits float to the top, making sorting the two very easy.
After she’d realized this, Grae worked on removing the white bits with her slotted spoon for quite some time, but eventually retired the spoon and went straight to using her hands.
Gracen absolutely loved this very simple sorting activity and it kept her happily engaged for about 40 to 45 minutes before it was time for dinner.
And in the end, not only did we have a very happy {and speckled} little lady, but we also had a big bowl of pomegranate seeds just waiting to be eaten up. ☺
♥
Music-Themed Toddler Tray
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. ☺)
♥