Summer Reading Fun: Truck Stop

 The first week of our Summer Reading Playgroup I based our activities around a transportation theme. I used Sharli's favorite book, Truck Stop by Anne Rockwell, as my inspiration. Really though, these activities would work with any book about things that go.

 I didn't get many pictures this week because I was too busy wrangling kids, but I'll post link to the websites I got my ideas from and you can go there to see more pictures and get more detailed instructions.

We started out by making play dough cars, using this fun idea.
Next I covered my table with a roll of white wrapping paper from the dollar store and let the kids paint with cars and trucks. We haven't done this since Erik was little, so it was fun to give it another shot. The kids loved it.

 For our sensory play, we had a toy car wash. I had our kiddie pool, half filled with water, waiting out on the back porch. We took the paint covered kids and cars outside and let them splash in the water until everyone and everything had all the paint washed off. I even tossed in some toothbrushes (also from the dollar store) for anyone who wanted to really scrub their cars.

The kids had so much fun splashing in the water, and then eating some "truck tires" that we never did get around to doing the Gross Motor game I had planned. Here's a link to the idea in case you want to give it a try. Or you could let the kids make steering wheels out of paper plates and let them "drive" all over the house or yard.

Here are a few more books that fit this theme that we've really enjoyed, click the image to learn more about each book:

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Baby Water Play

Once Maren learned to crawl, she insisted on being right by me at all times. Most of the time this isn't a problem, but sometimes (like when cooking dinner) I need a little bit of space. I needed a way to keep her busy while I worked, and this was perfect. 

 I laid a towel out on the kitchen floor, near enough that I could keep an eye on things but far enough away to give me room to work. I put a small amount of water in a 9x13 pan, just enough to cover the bottom. Set that on the towel along with a few simple utensils (measuring spoons and cups, perhaps) and you're all set. Maren happily splashed away, and any mess was caught by the towel.

When she was done playing I would empty any leftover water and set the pan and utensils out of the way. The towel got hung up to dry so it would be ready for more water fun next time I needed a few minutes of peace. It was so nice to cook or do dishes without a crying baby clinging to my legs!

Water Painting

 Okay guys, I am so woefully behind in recording all our fun. These pictures will celebrate their first birthday next month and here they are just barely making it on to the blog. Oh well, better late than never, right?

 What do you do when you have three bored kids on a hot summer day, and no A/C? Anything involving water, right? My mom and my nephew Darrow were staying with us for a few days, and we needed to beat the heat, so we headed outside. We started small, with bowls of water and paintbrushes. The kids loved it! They painted the porch, the front door, the house, each other, etc...

 Our front porch gets some nice shade in the afternoons, and add in a light breeze and it becomes much more comfortable than the house. We all love to be outside, and this day was no exception.

 Of course, as always happens around water at our house, it was only a matter of time before the hose was running, clothing magically disappeared, and everyone was soaked from head to toe. It's just water though, so no big deal!

If this activity doesn't top the list of low-prep, no clean-up actvities than it's pretty darn close to it. Give it a try!

Cleaning Coins

 This simple activity was another one that we got out of our Preschoolers Busy Book. It has so many fun ideas! You can also find instructions here.
 I needed to get some stuff done around the house and needed to keep the kids busy. I dumped a large handful of coins in a pan with some soapy water, handed each kid an old toothbrush, and there you go!

 When I had finished up the stuff I was working on we broke out the vinegar and salt to really put a shine on some of the coins. This was a fun way to work on fine motor skills, and the kids love anything that has to do with water and/or bubbles. If you're worried about messes, you can place a towel under the pan of water to make cleanup quick and easy.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Super Suds Water Play

We spend a lot of time outside playing in the water, so I'm always looking for something new to keep it interesting. This activity was a great way to mix things up.

All I had to do to prep was put some water and a large squirt of dish soap in my blender and turn it on to make as many suds as I could get. I poured the water and bubbles into a couple of containers and carried them outside for the kids, along with some of our toy kitchen utensils.

This kept the kids busy for a long time, and whenever the bubbles started to run out I just had to flip the blender back on for a few seconds and whip up a few more. Pretty soon one of the kids ran inside and came back with the basket of animal toys, and they spent a long time washing all the animals.

Maren though was not real impressed with it all. She spent the entire time napping in the sun while they played.

By the way, this all happened in January. Thus the mostly dead grass and the swaddled baby. But, we do live in NM, so it's not too cold to enjoy water play outside even this time of year. 

Because this is Erik we're talking about, it was just a matter of time before he was all the way in the water, with Sharli following right behind.

 Good thing it's just soap and water, right?

Summer Reading Fun: The Rainbow Fish

For the third week of our library's Summer Reading Program we focused on the book "The Rainbow Fish", by Marcus Pfister. I have loved this story since I was little, reading it at my grandma's house.

We started with brightly colored play dough (the same stuff we used last week, I just kneaded in more food coloring) and I added in some large googly eyes and some fun gem stones I found at the dollar store.

As this was the week leading up to Father's Day, we decided to use our craft time to make some cute fishy Father's Day cards. They turned out really cute!

The snack was easy, I just bought some gold fish crackers for the kids to eat because everyone loves those, right? Did you know you can buy sparkly pink ones?

Our sensory activity was a big hit. I filled a small kiddie pool with water, and added some plastic sea creatures, some glass gems, and lots of scooping/pouring toys. I had planned to pick up some sea shells from the dollar store to toss in too, but they were all sold out. The kids loved this! Even the big kids joined in when they came outside for snack time.

To finish off our fishy fun, we adapted our gross motor activity from last week to fit this week's theme. It worked great! I used some clip art images I found on Google and made Ocean Motion game cards to work with our large color dice. It was really fun to watch the kids trying to move like the different sea creatures.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Exploring Density (Sink or Float)

For our letter D science activity I followed the lead of this post and we did an exploration of Density. This was super easy to set up, and kept both kids entertained for a long time. 

Let's gather our supplies:

A selection of toys and other objects, some that will sink and some that will float

A large container to fill with water

A piece of paper that says "sink" and on that says "float"

 We took this activity outside because I wanted to be able to turn the kids loose to have fun without any worries about messes. We could have also done this in the bathtub and it would have worked great. 

The first thing we did was talk about what it means to sink or float. Then we took all the toys out of our bin while hypothesizing on how each one would behave in the water.

 Erik was thrilled to turn on the hose and fill up our tub. Sharli wasn't too sure what was going on yet, but we were outside so it must mean something good!

 Then we tested each item and placed it on the paper that described what it had done. Sharli just splashed around and had fun.

 After we'd tested all our objects, I just turned the kids loose with the water and sat back and watched. Water free-play is one of our favorite activities. Almost no prep, and SO much fun!

 There is so much to be learned from just exploring with water. Fine motor skills such as scooping and pouring, spatial awareness when deciding if water from one container will fit in another, hand-eye coordination, sensory awareness, social skills like cooperation (when you've got more than one child involved), language development as you discuss things like cold or wet.

 Since this day, Erik asks often if we can play with density again (he actually uses the word density, it really stuck with him). He also loves to test all his bath toys to see if they'll sink or float. This was a hit in a major way!

Make it Rain!

So I have a confession. Or two. This activity actually happened on accident, it wasn't really something I had planned. Also, these pictures are from the first time we did this, almost a year ago now. Somehow I never got a post up about this, so you finally get to see it. 

One day it was really cold in our apartment and Erik was bored and driving me nuts. So I stuck him in a nice warm bubble bath and gave him some of my kitchen stuff to play with. It turned out that the colander plus the bubbles were the perfect way to teach about what happens when it rains. Every time Erik scooped up the bubbly water in his colander it made a rainstorm, which he was thrilled about! He had been interested in the rain we'd had recently and I'd tried to explain where it came from, but I just don't think he was getting it. 

 As he sat in the bath that day we talked about how the clouds in the sky fill up with water until they are so dark and heavy they can't hold it anymore. When he would submerge his colander the bubbles would float up on the water and look puffier. Also something about the lighting made the bubbles look grayish when there was water underneath them, so they even looked like dark(ish) rain clouds. Then, when his colander full of bubbles had all the water it could hold, he would lift it up and watch his "clouds" deflate and whiten as the "rain" poured out the bottom. It was SO perfect!

This was such a simple and fun way to learn about the science of rain!

Water Bead Sensory Bin

So I know you've all seen these all over pinterest and the internet in general. These water beads are super popular right now as a sensory material, and I can totally understand why. They're fascinating little buggers, even for adults! I had never given them a try, but I've seen them around for a long time now and have wanted to play around with them.
A while back I decided that it would be fun to hit the dollar store every once in a while and just wander through to see what I can find. I think last time I spent about $10 and got enough fun stuff to keep us busy for a while. One of the things I found was a box of water beads, and for a dollar I was willing to give them a try. They are such bright pretty colors and look like candy, so Erik and I had a nice little talk about how we CANNOT eat these, and for the most part he did really well with that. I think the only time he moved to put them in his mouth was to get a reaction out of me, not because he actually wanted to eat them. We talked about how small they were, and tried to squeeze them to see if they were hard or soft. Then we added in the water and waited for them to grow. And waited. And waited.

 We went and played for a while, but kept coming back to check the progress of our water beads and to talk about how they were changing and growing. Erik has been interested in colors lately, so we talked a lot about the different colors we were seeing. After several hours they'd finished growing and we spent a long time just playing in the tub of beads. Erik loved it!

 When he seemed to be losing interest, I added in a few cups and scoops and we got to practice scooping and pouring. He was really enjoying discovering this new material, even his toes had to get involved...

This was  a great, inexpensive way to keep my busy boy out of trouble and engaged in something. If you want cheap, easy, low-mess fun than water beads are for you. I loved all the opportunities they gave us to develop language as we had a natural conversation about what we were seeing and feeling. They were beautiful and interesting and a whole lot of fun!

Squeeze Bottle Fun

This is another one of those "busy" activities I mentioned a while back. This one has been a huge hit though, and Erik begs to do it more than any of the others.
This one doesn't come from some college class, or great pin off of Pinterest. This idea was born as I was wandering through the store and noticed these ketchup/mustard bottles on sale for less than a dollar. I've actually been wanting some of these for a couple of other activities, but when I saw them in the store that day I knew right away what their primary use (at least for now) would be.

If you want something simple to prepare and engaging for your toddler, this should do the trick. All I do is fill up both bottles with water and turn Erik loose outside. He gets to enjoy spraying water all over while also building those hand muscles. 

 Once the bottles is more empty than full, it gets harder to aim and squirt at the same time, so I trade him for a new bottle. When the next one is getting low I combine the two together and he's ready to go for a few more minutes without my having to go back inside to refill bottles at the sink.

 Erik would keep spraying things for as long as I'm willing to keep refilling his bottles. This particular day he started trying to spray each individual pebble in front of our apartment. If he'd had an unlimited supply of water (aka a less lazy mom) he could've been occupied for a VERY long time.

Building a child's hand muscles is very important since they will need strong hands/fingers to be able to write some day. The more fun you can make this muscle building the more effective it will be. 

Bored? Blow a Bowl of Bubbles!

Erik was acting bored today, so I opened up my box of activity stuff and let him pick what he wanted to do. He pulled out the water colors, and though we've only done them about twice now (and not with huge success) he seemed pretty excited to give them a go. True to my expectations he lost interest after about a minute and a half, but I already had him in his high chair and a mess started, so I wasn't about to give up that easily. I decided to pull out a few straws and try blow painting. Don't know what that is? Here's a sample...

You drip a drop of really watery paint onto your paper and blow it around with your straw. It's really fun to see what shapes emerge. Erik liked the idea of it, but seemed unable to grasp the concept of blowing through the straw (funny, since he's done it before in his drinks occasionally). He just wouldn't seal his lips around the straw, so most of the air was just coming out of his mouth, not through the straw. Unfortunately, the paint needed a fair amount of air pressure to move around, so it just wasn't working out. Time for plan C. I thought for a minute about what we could do to practice blowing through a straw, and then a light bulb came  on in my head. 

 I put a drop of dish soap in a small bowl of water and we went to town. I first explained that we DO NOT drink through the straw, only blow. Then I showed Erik what happens when you blow into the water. He was pretty impressed (I don't think I've mentioned that he's somewhat obsessed with bubbles right now).

He jumped right in and started blowing too. I don't think he ever tried to drink the water, he just loved the bubbles. 

 It didn't take long before he was up to his elbows in bubbles...

 ...in fact, he ended up enjoying this whole thing the most when I'd let him put both his hands in the bowl and then I'd blow bubbles around them.

 With both hands busy buried in bubbles, he had to get creative with a way to pop them all. He decided his nose worked well for the job.

This kept Erik busy for nearly 10 minutes, which is almost a record for this kid. He had SO much fun!

*If you're wondering why I have this post labeled as one for "language development", I'll explain. Blowing through the straw helps build up those mouth muscles that a child needs to have to speak clearly. He has to be in control of every part of his mouth to get the blowing motion just right.