Aquarium sensory bin

We started with a simple bin of aquarium gravel and a LOT of scoops and containers -- including plastic, metal, glass and ceramic. This kept Ellie busy for about two weeks with nothing else in the bin. She loved filling the two glass jars -- we even talked about transparent, translucent and opaque, and she's used the words on other things since then! She also liked making a "shaker" with the lidded box, and of course just scooping, dumping and transferring. 

Later, I added more supplies for a second phase:

This included fish (Oriental Trading Company), "sea urchin" spiky balls (don't remember where I got these), shells (from our wedding six years ago!!), and sea glass beads (Hobby Lobby).

She loved the additions and switched to a lot of role play with the fish. She also liked matching the colors of the balls with the fish. 

Spring sensory bin

Easter grass (Hobby Lobby on sale), pinwheels (already purchased from Dollar Tree), two sizes of carrot ornaments (Dollar Tree), mini colored eggs (Dollar Tree), metal tin (already purchased from Hobby Lobby), silicone pinch cups (already purchased from Hobby Lobby), tongs (already purchased from Hobby Lobby)

She found chopsticks and used them to push the Easter grass away from the eggs and carrots

Sorting the eggs into the tin

Snow sensory bin

I'm in major catch-up mode, so forgive the lack of explanation!

This was just Insta-Snow. A little water and some of this powder, and all of us (Mommy, Daddy AND Ellie) were totally entertained. We brought in a couple scoops and containers eventually, but really, the "snow" itself kept us busy for a long time!

Color mixing

Ellie is 24/25 months old

Ellie has become very interested in painting, colors and color mixing. It started with a water activity she did with Ryan one day:

We started incorporating that idea into painting. We did one for purple, orange and green. The setup was similar for each one -- two colors of tempera paint on a paper plate, a piece of paper for her to experiment with, and color-coordinated tools (either one of the primary colors or secondary color we were making). 

Purple -- red and blue paint, with a blue loofah and red roller. Ignore the yellow sponge -- that was from painting Christmas ornaments, which is how this whole thing started. 

Orange -- yellow and red paint, with a red scraper and a slice of an orange, flower-shaped pool noodle.

Green -- yellow and blue paint, with a blue scraper, yellow and blue paintbrush and blue and green scrubber. She spent most of this time painting her arm. I can't entirely blame her, as these didn't mix into a very pretty color of green.

Here are the final products -- orange, green and purple. 

Winter tot school activities

Well, I am way behind. I guess that's what happens during Christmas, right?? Here's a quick list of recent tot school activities in the last month:

Coffee filter trees, combined with pine needle printing for the background: These turned out wonderfully, and let the kids experience a number of textures, techniques and creativity.

Felt tree decorating: My aunt made this for Ellie last year, and the kiddos loved decorating the tree (and telling me what shapes to cut with the extra felt). It was great fun, plus good shape and color practice.

Ice cream cone tree decorating: Ice cream cones, frosting (they got to smoosh in the food coloring themselves) and sprinkles -- they were in heaven!

Look at that crazy hair!!

Salt dough ornaments with nature stamping: We gave each of the kids a cup, bundled them up and sent them outside to collect nature things to make prints in their ornaments. They picked all kinds of neat things, like pine needles, pinecones, rocks, leaves, etc. We added whole wheat flour, which gave them a really neat texture. I didn't get any pictures of the finished product, but here's one of them hard at work!

Cotton ball snowflakes: Ours didn't turn out exactly like snowflakes, because we let the kids do their own glue. But it was good fine motor practice, and we were surprised by how much the kids liked this one. 

Candy cane tissue paper collage: I printed out a candy cane picture for each kid, then gave them red and white tissue paper to glue onto the correct color. The older kids seemed to get it and like it for awhile, but needed more one-on-one help than we had adults for. Ellie enjoyed it on her own later.

Candy cane letter name hunt: I printed out each child's name in a candy cane font, then printed a duplicate set that I cut apart. I hid the letters around our living room, and we helped them match the letters. Two of the oldest really liked this, but again, it took a lot of adult interaction to help them do this one. 

Fluffy stuff: Keeping with the theme of this day, the older three liked it, the younger ones did not.

Red and white beanbag toss: Taking an idea from a library story time by us, I made six red and six white beanbags out of children's socks. Just fill them with rice or beans and tie a knot. They held up wonderfully and the kids sorted them into a red or white basket. This was a great game that Ellie has asked to repeat multiple times since tot school that week.

Christmas picture fishing: I made "fishing rods" out of a dowel rod, string and a heavy-duty magnet. Then I printed out a bunch of pictures of Christmasy things, and attached a paper clip to each. I put all the pictures in a hula hoop and let the kids fish. This one held their attention for a LONG time. We'll probably repeat it with different pictures later. 

WHEW! That's a lot of catch up...

Montessori-inspired sandpaper alphabet cards

Ellie has started paying a lot of attention to letters. She wants us to write down various words all the time, and gets really excited when she sees letters on signs or in her environment.

She also really enjoys sensory-based play. I wanted to combine these things and get her a set of the Montessori sandpaper letters. But geez they're expensive.

I actually, ON MY OWN (that means NO Pinterest!) came up with two different ways to do these letters.

#1: SANDPAPER AND PAINT CHIPS
Total cost: $1
Total effort: 5/10

I bought a pack of cheap sandpaper at the Dollar Tree ($1). I used my Cricut to cut out upper and lowercase letters (this is why it was so easy). I will say -- this did not work super well. The first page went really well, but then the sand started sticking to the mat and it didn't cut as well. So in hindsight, I would use an old mat so I could throw it away, and I would cut the hardest-to-cut by hand letters first. I ended up having to do G/g, J/j, O/o, T/t and V/v by hand.

Then I picked up 52 paint swatches (I'm so sorry, Lowe's) -- 21 dark blue (for lowercase consonants), 21 light blue (for uppercase consonants), 5 dark red (for lowercase vowels) and 5 light red (for uppercase vowels).

I used a layer of mod podge to glue the sandpaper on. I decided not to do another layer over the top so that the sandpaper would be bumpier. Trim off the paint name and they're done!

#2: STICKERS AND WOODEN SQUARES
Total cost: $9 (using Hobby Lobby sales and 40% coupon)
Total effort: 1/10

I bought a pack of raised glittery stickers, so they'd have some texture, 26 wooden tiles (for uppercase), and 26 round tiles (for lowercase).

Then I stuck them together (do I really need a tutorial for this one?)

However, I did run into a snag. Did you notice the stickers are missing a few letters? Yeah, weirdly, this set didn't include capitals of about 6 letters and a lowercase "q". See how I faked it?

Tot time: oat dough monsters, toast painting, watercolor letter plates

Tot school this week was crazy good. Pinterest, well played. Here are the activities I (read: Pinterest) contributed this week:

Oat dough monsters
The recipe calls for 1 c. oats, 2-3 c. flour, and 1 c. water. I ended up using a little less flour and a little more water. This made enough for five fist-sized monsters.

The kids had cut-up straws, cut-up pipe cleaners, googly eyes, pony beads and gems to decorate their monsters with.

This week, we had two almost-2-year-olds, two 2-year-olds and a bonus 5-year-old who was out of school. All five kids loved it. It was neat to see how differently they played and responded to the materials. None of the little kids really wanted to "shape" the dough, but enjoyed poking it full of things!

Toast painting

We all agreed, this is our new go-to when we need to keep kids busy in the kitchen. It was ridiculous how much they all loved this activity. And when we were done, we toasted the bread up and made a snack!

We gave them each one slice of wheat bread and a paintbrush, and they shared six containers filled with milk and food coloring. 

They were especially excited to discover the "paint" was milk!

Watercolor letter plates

I taped off each kid's first initial in painter's tape on a basic (non-coated) paper plate. Then they got to watercolor over them. When they were done, the tape was peeled off to reveal their initial. 

We tried combining this with white crayon relief, but I think they couldn't get enough crayon on the plate, so it didn't really work. The painting part was fun though!