Colorful Bubble Eruptions

Here is the part 2 of Wyler Week, Hope you enjoy!!

Carolyn says:
I've seen different versions of this on Pinterest and Facebook.  I just threw it together from memory.

I took a 9x9 inch baking dish and covered the bottom of the pan with baking soda.  I then filled a glass with vinegar and food coloring (first time I did this I did two different colors)

 I used 2 syringes (that came with our baby Tylenol) I wish I had eye droppers, then this would be something Wyler could do on his own, but he doesn't quite have the finger strength to fill a syringe easily yet.  I filled a syringe with the yellow vinegar, passed it to him, and we watch the foaming bubbles as he shot it into the vinegar. 

 While he emptied one syringe I would fill the other, as he was too excited to wait for me to fill only one, he didn't want to pause the bubble action at all. 

  After we had emptied the vinegar into the pan he stirred it up with the syringes to get the last of the vinegar and baking soda to react.  He would have kept at this activity longer, but he ran out of the baking soda. 

  Next time I'll use a larger pan, and hopefully have the eye droppers for him to use.  And the syringes are going to make an appearance in the bath so he can practice filling them, and strengthening his fingers.

Toy Matching Game

So you may or may not remember Erik's cousin Wyler that we met a while back through this post. Well, this week is going to be Wyler Week, and I'll be featuring a couple of activities that his mom Carolyn put together for him. These are things I've been wanting to try with Erik and just haven't gotten around to doing, so I'm super excited to see someone enjoying them. 

Here's what Carolyn had to say:

This was inspired by some matching activities that other moms set up for their kids on a Montessori Facebook group I'm in.

I gathered up a handful of toys and traced them on a sheet of computer paper, then went over the lines in permanent ink so they would be easily visible.  I called Wyler in to check it out, and showed him how all they toys had a matching outline.  He caught on pretty quickly and had everything nicely matched.  He pulled everything off and did it again.  Only his hammer got turned around.  It was backwards according to the outline. 

He started to rotate it in different directions, but didn't realize he needed to flip it.  After a couple tries I flipped it for him, though he probably would have figured it out pretty quick. 

 I have it set up on a tray (cookie sheet) on a book shelf so he can go back to it when he wants.

Piggy Bank Play

I want to welcome my first ever guest poster, Carolyn. She blogs over at Carolyn's Cozy Corner and Cookies 'n' Cows. Carolyn's little guy Wyler is just a few weeks younger than Erik, so they are often doing and learning the same things at the same time. When she sent me this idea for an activity to do with Erik I invited her to share her experience with Wyler. Here's what she had to say:

I wanted to share something I discovered with Wyler that Erik might enjoy. From reading your Playing to Learn blog this would work on fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. I was putting spare change in Wyler's piggy bank and he came over to see what I was doing. So I emptied out all the change (thanks to Grandma Darla there was about $2 in dimes and a small (really small) hand full of random change I have added.) He picked up a coin and tried to put it in the slot. The coin didn't fit with the way the slot in the bank was oriented, so I turned the bank and after that he was hooked. (If I had left the bank where it was he would have had problem solving skills as he tried to figure out how to get that coin in.)

 Once all the coins were in he picked it up, and shook it. Nothing came out! He handed it to me so I could take the coins back out, and once they were dumped he put them right back in. This happened anther time or two. He wanted to keep playing, but I had a few other things I needed to do, and couldn't supervise this activity all day long.

I think this sounds like a great activity. As you know, I'm a big fan of taking things you've already got around the house and turning them into a playing/learning activity. I can't wait to try this one out with Erik!