Princess puzzles

Subtitle for this post, "Dear Disney, please don't sue me."

Disclaimer for this post: I receive no monetary compensation in any way from these.

That should cover me, right?

Here's a newsflash that is not news to anyone. Ellie loves princesses.

Loves.

Princesses.

I could write a whole blog on how this is utterly baffling to me, as I am not exactly a girly-girl. But Disney's brilliant marketing minds are, well, brilliant, and long before Ellie had seen any movies, she loved those princesses.

So, in an effort to capitalize on that, I made some puzzles for her. My main goal with this, other than just being a fun activity, was letter recognition, especially matching upper- and lower-case letters. I found a jigsaw template online and made one puzzle per princess. Each has her picture, name, upper-case initial and lower-case initial. I printed them out on cardstock and spent maybe 10-15 minutes cutting them out.

Examining the pieces

I was pleasantly surprised by how effective this was. She naturally started sorting by letter, not color -- I know this because the doubles ended up together, like M for Mulan and Merida. We talked about looking at the names to match the upper case letter, which she did naturally with letters she's more familiar with (mostly related to our family -- E, S, M, B). I showed her lower-case for ones she didn't know and couldn't guess (s, c and m are easy to figure out because they're just miniature versions). She used the color-coding to determine which of the doubles matched with which puzzle.

A side benefit is that these puzzles don't "click" together like heavy cardboard or wooden ones, so she really has to use careful fine motor skills to get the pieces to line up.

Of course Elsa was her favorite because it has the same letter as Ellie, is in "aqua," and is FROM FROZEN OMG.

So proud of her work.

She's returned to these a number of times. It is a great thing for her to work on independently. 

Here's the file (free of course) if you want to print them out yourself.

Busy boxes

I did these in a couple hours as an option for Ellie when I'm nursing Sam in a couple months. She is GREAT at playing by herself -- as long as I'm talking to her and paying attention (we're in "Watch me!" phase). So I am trying to get as many independent activities ready for her now! 

I bought six Sterlite snap containers from Target for $16 total ($8 for a set of three, one of which includes a divider bin). Each is themed:

Lacing
Thick ribbon, thin ribbon, pipe cleaners, wooden beads (disks, spools, spheres and colored blocks), pasta, pool noodle slices, buttons, pony beads

Cutting

Scissors, sandpaper, plastic mesh, ribbon, straws, pipe cleaners, rubber bands

Gluing

Glue stick, glitter glue, tissue paper, googly eyes, poms, feathers, gems, paper (stored under the green sorter)

Sewing

Plastic placemat with big holes, embroidery frame, plastic mesh, buttons, wooden spools, yarn, learning needles

Stamping

Melissa and Doug baby animals set, handmade stamps (wooden "handles" with foam stickers), paper

Clay

Play-Dough, clay tools, colored wooden rods, PVC rollers, scissors (not shown)

I hope this is an indication of the future...Ellie played with the lacing box by herself while I put together the other five!

I Spy bottles

I decided to make a bunch of I Spy bottles as gifts for some friends who are pregnant. They're really simple, but entertain kids from birth through at least age 3.

The bottles each have:

• Smiley face bead
• Glass bead
• Paper clip
• Letter block bead
• Sparkly butterfly, dragonfly or ladybug
• Baseball or soccer ball bead
• Duck bead
• Mini clothespin
• Wooden spool
• Die

Then they're filled with rice. Hours of fun, especially in the car or at a restaurant when we're waiting!

Busy bag swap

So my good friend Shayna beat me to the punch on this one :-)

Anyone who is on Pinterest and has a child has probably seen pins about busy bags. I became kinda obsessed with the concept -- creative and fun activities, easily transportable, reusable...yes please! But, anyone who has seen these also knows that putting together a lot of them is pretty unrealistic financially and time-wise.

Solution: busy bag swap! We hosted our first one last week. Eleven of us attended, so we each made 10 of the same bag (plus one for our own kid), then swapped, so we took home 10 different activities.

I'm introducing them to Ellie slowly over the next few weeks, but I'll post a sneak peek. Here are the 10 busy bags we ended up with.

I Spy bottle. This is the one Ellie has already played with, and both of us love it. I love that she can play with it in the car and there aren't little pieces that go everywhere. Ellie loves shaking it, crinkling the bottle and, as you can see, unraveling the yarn. She also loves pointing to the pictures of the duck and frog. So far, I don't think she realizes that there are those same things inside the bottle.

Felt pizza. Shayna spent somewhere around a billion hours cutting out felt pizza pieces. This one is super fun (I totally played with it for this picture). It came with a pizza box, cardboard tray, crust, sauce, cheese, peppers, sausage, pepperoni, olives and mushrooms. I love all the options with this one -- counting, patterning, following directions (placing "orders"), and just fun creativity. Shayna made a menu for her 5-year-old, who's reading, so this is one that a huge range of ages can enjoy.

Magnetic pom-poms. Another one that probably took forever. Magnetic strips hot glued to the back of pom poms = awesomeness. On a cookie sheet or fridge, these can be used with printables (this gumball color matching one was included; there are a ton of others online) or open-ended play. This is another one that I think will last a long time. I think this will be Ellie's next one I introduce -- for the kitchen when I'm making dinner.

Popsicle sticks color-coded to make shapes. I'm going to add Velcro dots so there are more ways she can play with it.

Color matching. Paint chips on a ring that can be used to identify colors in nature or around the house. 

Pipe cleaner color matching. First of all, how cute is this mod podged puffs container? This has colored rings around holes in the lid and pipe cleaners that match. Ellie will DEFINITELY love this now, and we'll start doing colors later.

Pom-pom stuff it in. These are tea boxes (coffee boxes?) with a hole in the lid for pom poms. Another one that will keep Ellie busy for awhile because of the in-and-out game.

Felt shape snake. This includes a button sewn onto a ribbon with a felt piece on the other end, and lots of felt shapes with slits that can go over the button. I think Ellie will like this if she can figure it out.

This was mine -- a marble maze. This is a little fabric pocket with a marble sewn in, and a maze pattern sewn into it. There's two different patterns.

Lacing cards from foam. There were six of these I think, in different shapes. I think the duck will be Ellie's favorite once she can manage the fine motor skills necessary to actually do it.