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!

September sensory bin

Ellie is 21 months old

I really, really like this bin. So does Ellie. And I had the most obvious revelation, which is to do the bin outside. I know. Obvious. 

It contains: oatmeal, a basket (a great find in Target's dollar bin), four big apples (Dollar Tree), fake leaves (Dollar Tree), apple-cinnamon scented candles (Dollar Tree), acorns (from our backyard), red and green pom poms (Dollar Tree), a big scoop (already purchased), big measuring cup (already purchased), big tweezers (already purchased), and two of the silicone bowls.

I had a few activities in mind for this bin: using tweezers to sort the pom poms into the silicone bowls, scooping and pouring practice, and talking about apples and acorns.

Here's how Ellie used the bin:

"No leaves."

Hilarious.

Also hilarious.

Sort of scooping?

She plays with this bin for 30 minutes at a time, regularly, more or less by herself. AKA, I don't really care what she does with it!

Caterpillar and butterfly week at tot time

It's caterpillar and butterfly week at tot time! Let's dive right in...

Contact paper butterflies
I found this on (wait for it...) Pinterest! It's a piece of black construction paper, folded in half, with a butterfly cut out, then the middle cut out. I used some of the extra paper to cut antennae. Then I put contact paper behind it and trimmed around the butterfly shape. The kids had tissue paper, ribbon and construction paper pieces to decorate their butterflies.

Caterpillar color matching
Each kid got a caterpillar and a strip of star stickers, plus the letters of their name. Ellie didn't want to do it during tot time, but she loved working on it later. I liked watching her match the colors, and then sometimes choose to put them on the "right" circle and sometimes not. Poor little red circle didn't get any stickers! This was also great fine motor practice for her.

Dyed water coffee filter butterflies
Who could have a butterfly week without coffee filter butterflies?

Very Hungry Caterpillar snack
While we read VHC, the kids got to eat along with the main character -- they each had one slice of apple, two slices of pear, three slices of plum, four strawberries, five pieces of orange, a slice of swiss cheese, a lollipop and a leaf of basil. They LOVED it and it was so much fun!

July/August sensory bin

Ellie is 19/20 months old

Did you see what I did there? Just totally ignored the fact I didn't change my sensory bin at all in May or June. Moving right along...

July and August's theme (yeah, summer was busy...) was garden/backyard. 

It contains: mixed brown and green lentils, two small terracotta pots, a rock from our California trip, a pinwheel (from a set of three from the Dollar Tree), a wooden birdhouse from Michael's, a red cardinal (from a Christmas basket that fell apart), three felt butterflies (from Michael's clearance), three pinecones (from our yard), a bear claw (from Chik-Fil-A), and a rake and shovel (from Dollar Tree).

The first time Ellie was introduced to the bin, she was mostly concerned about getting the bird in the house.

Eventually, she got around to exploring other things. She loved the "atterbyes" (butterflies), how the rake felt on her legs, trying to blow the pinwheel and scooping (then scattering) the lentils in the pots.

By the end of the two months playing with this bin, she was still enamored with getting the bird in the house, she had gotten much better at raking and scooping, and I was SICK of lentils. Seriously. Those things stick to your feet, to the carpet, to everything. 

Toddler fractions

Confession: Ryan laughed at me when I made this. Probably because Ellie was something like 4 months old. But hey, I'm a planner!

I honestly didn't think she'd use it at all until much, much down the road, but she LOVES her circles! She collects the pieces, sorts them by color, counts each stack, and then asks me to stack them. We talk about what whole, half, third and fourth mean. She loves this activity and seriously does it with me nearly every day we play downstairs.

It was also ridiculously simple -- I just cut four circles out of thin craft foam, then eyeballed halves, thirds and fourths, and labeled them appropriately. I demonstrated once how the circle worked, and she has just run with it.

Fridge menu

I'm not really a baby-flashcard person. Or Baby Einstein. Or any of those things that promise to teach my 20 month old to read. I think that's kind of silly.

But I am a big fan of saturating our environment in printed text. This project is one of those things.

This hangs on our fridge and goes with us to the grocery store. Ellie can grab it to choose a snack, we can talk about what ingredients are going into a meal, or she can find things while we're shopping.

Here are the files if anyone wants to use them. The photos are all Creative Commons licensed from Flickr. Just print, cut, hole punch, laminate if you want. Add a nifty little binder ring and you're all set!

Triple pizza lunch

Ellie LOVES cooking. LOVES. She asks to get in her "tower" all the time and help me cook. She'll pour, stir and taste test as long as I'll let her.

We made a triple pizza lunch to give her a chance to really get her hands dirty in the kitchen.

First up was a bagel pizza:

She did a great job spreading sauce! (I forgot to get a picture of her sprinkling cheese because I was trying to keep her from shoving handfuls in her mouth)

Next up was veggie pizza. Daddy helped her spread the cream cheese. Love the tongue!

Adding carrots...

And cucumbers.

For dessert, we had peanut butter cookies with honey, ricotta and berries.

She sampled a berry. See my hand trying to tell her what to do with it?

DELICIOUS!